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

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HERBERT HOOVER AND THE BUREAU OF STANDARDS 231
Office3° In 1926 a congressional act added an Aeronautics Division and
in 1927 a Radio Division to Commerce.
On taking over the Department, Hoover seems to have been under
the impression that "the Bureau of Standards had hitherto been devoted
mostly to formal administration of weights and measures," and that, as
he later said in his Memoirs, by greatly enlarging its research not only
in "abstract knowledge but * * * [in] its application in industry," the
Bureau under his direction became "one of the largest physics laboratories
in the world." In all fairness, the Bureau under Stratton had already
achieved that eminence. It is true that in the period 1921-28 it expanded from
9 divisions with a total of 68 sections to 13 divisions with 85 sections, but
staff and appropriations actually increased very little in those 7 years, from
850 to 889 members and from $2,209,000 in operating funds to $2,540,000.32
As for any limitation on Bureau research interests, it was quite otherwise.
Under Stratton and Rosa, little that was measurable in the home, in the
market, in commerce, industry, science, or Government but had at one time
or another become a subject of investigation at the Bureau, and as often as
not a sustained investigation.33
By 1920, in addition to several score investigations and test programs
conducted under statutory funds, the Bureau had some 16 other investiga-
tions going with special congressional appropriations. That year Stratton
secured more special funds to begin another nine studies. Three were
short.term investigations, in industrial safety standards, Government ma-
terials testing, and platinum and rare metals research. The other six,
metallurgical research, high temperature studies, railroad scale testing, sound
research, standardization of equipment, and a new huge industrial research
The transfer of the Bureau of Mines to the Commerce Department concentrated the
oil testing and ceramics work of Mines and Standards in the latter bureau, with a heavy
clay products section located in Columbus, Ohio. The transfer added 52 employes to
the Bureau staff. NBS Annual Report 1926, P. 44; Annual Report 1927, p. 2; NBS Blue
Folder Box 3, file AG—138c.
"Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, II, 73.
See apps. F and H. "In retrospect Hoover was proud of the fact that despite its
increased activity the department grew little in size or cost under his charge." Dupree,
Science in the Federal Government, p. 340.
"So reported a committee of electrical manufacturers appointed by Hoover in 1922 to
advise the Bureau on electrical research. The committee, apparently piqued by some
of the current public utility recommendations of the Bureau, called "attention to the fact
that the Bureau's activities have been very widely extended into various fields not con-
templated by the act creating the Bureau, through the medium of * * * special Con-
gressional appropriations, and * * * we [are] not ready to accept this means of enlarging
the Bureau's sphere of activities as a safe procedure, and especially since it is apparent
that when an activity of this kind is initiated by such appropriation it is apparently con-
sidered a function of the Bureau from that time forward." Letter, Chairman, Electrical
Manufacturers Council, Committee on the Bureau of Standards, to Secretary Hoover-
Oct. 2, 1922 (NBS Box 2, AG).