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

212 THE WAR YEARS (1917-19)
trade fall away and a growing sense of isolation fill the Nation. In the
decades after, interest in the metric system was revived periodically but the
tide of congressional and public sentiment remained against conversion.
"THE LEGACY LEFT TO US"
On this side of the Atlantic it seemed that the war ended as
as it began. Newspaper accounts of the fighting in France all through
October 1918 indicated no weakness in the German armies anywhere. After
the first week of the Meuse-Argonne battle, AEF advances were measured in
meters as, under simultaneous pressure from the French and British to the
west and north, the German armies gave ground slowly. Military intel-
ligence reported that they were probably withdrawing to their prepared
Meuse-Antwerp line, where they would hold through the winter.
Pershing's plans for a renewal of his offensive in the spring of 1919,
with victory that summer, were summarily shelved upon the sudden political
collapse of Germany in early November. Here at home, industry, finally
coming into full-scale production after a year's preparation, awoke to find
the war over. Production lines stopped, contracts were canceled, and all war
emergency measures suddenly came to an end.
On November 20, 9 days after the armistice, Secretary of Commerce
Redfield wrote Stratton asking him what activities of the Bureau would
be discontinued as military and naval operations ceased, and what reduc-
tion in force might be expected as a result. Neither discontinuance nor re-
duction was contemplated, Stratton replied. On the contrary, as a result of
the wartime experience, he expected greater demands than ever to be made
on the Bureau by the military services, both for specifications and increased
standardization of their purchases and for the development of new devices
and materials. "One of the great lessons taught by the war," said Stratton,
"is the need for engineering and scientific work in connection with our
defenses." Such research must never again be left until we were at war.
Furthermore, the development of substitute materials and the rise of new
industries called for expanded Bureau assistance: "There was never a time
when the need for industrial research was greater than the present." And
he asked Secretary Redfield for help in persuading Congress to lend assistance
both to the military and civil departments of the Government and to industry
for this research.136
Dr. Burgess, concerned with the fact that War Department funds for
research automatically terminated within 6 months of the end of hostilities,
proposed further action by the Director:
Letter, Redfield to SWS, Nov. 20, 1918, and reply, Nov. 30 (NBS Box 2, AG).