Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

210 . THE WAR YEARS (1917-19)
establishing the Bureau and it participated in the hearings in the House and
Senate. On one occasion, early in 1902, Dr. Stratton spoke before a con-
gressional committee for over an hour on behalf of a metric bill then under
consideration.127
Altogether, nine measures relating to the metric system or to. some
other "decimal" system were introduced in Congress in the first decade of
the century, but even with the strong support of such international lumi-
naries as Lord Kelvin and Alexander Graham Bell, none could be enacted.'28
Although Dr. Stratton participated in every metric 'hearing in that decade
and the next, he did not always support the measures proposed. Some he
felt were not well drawn, some were too drastic. He. was aware of the diffi-
culties of any sudden or complete conversion of systems and once declared
that the Bureau "never advised or favored the introduction of any bill
making the metric system compulsory for all purposes." It was the Bureau's
position that it was "desirable to work toward a decimal and international
system of weights and measures * * * [and] gradually extend the metric
system into common work." 129
The qualification was ignored by critics of the Bureau, who saw any
effort on behalf of the metric system as. a threat to all domestic tranquility.
It was indictment enough that "the Bureau of Standards under the admin-
istration of Dr. Stratton has been the seat, of propaganda for many
years. The doctor himself is known as a hobbyist, not to say lobbyist, for
the metric system."
Upon the entry of the United States into the war, committing our
armies in France to the metric system, hope rose that metric legislation might
finally be passed. War fervor and the AEF requirement were believed to
have weakened the resolve of many former objectors. New industries, like
munitions and aeronautics, and older ones, like the electrical industry, were
working with the metric system in supplying the Allies and other nations
Hearings on H.R. 2054 8 * * before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Meas-
ures, Feb. 6—Mar. '6, 1902, PP. 151—165 (L/C: QC91.U48).
128 Kelvin's testimony appeared in supplementary hearings before the Committee on
Coinage, Weights, and Measures, Aug. 24, 1902 (L/C: QC91.U481); Bell's appears in
his article, "Our heterogeneous system of weights and measures," National Geographic,
17,158 (1906).
129 Letter, SWS to editor, American Industries, Aug. 10, 1920 (NBS Box 20, MS). Dr.
Burgess reaffirmed this position on the metric system in NBS Annual Report 1923,
pp. 25—27. Stratton was confident, as he told Congress, that American industry would
sooner or later "have to come to it" because of foreign trade. He "always felt that the
request {for general use] should come from the public [and not be initiated in Congressi,
and that the public should be educated more into the system before it was introduced."
Hearings * * * 1921 (Jan. 2, 1920), p. 1594.
Letter, Samuel Russell to Secretary of Commerce Hoover, Apr. 8, 1921 (NBS Box 20,
MS). Hoover replied (Apr. 23, 1921) that he was "inclined to favor the metric system
as the only possible substitute for our present system."