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

240 THE TIDE OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (1920-30)
If Dr. Burgess was perhaps less impressive in figure or manner than
Stratton, he was considered a better scientist. Yet as he saw the need for
better technology in the field of metallurgy, he turned increasingly to the
practical application of his earlier research.58 As Director he was to be as
concerned as Stratton in promoting Bureau cooperation with industry in
solving its scientific and technical difficulties.
To the surprise of many, Dr. Burgess in the Director's chair displayed
a marked talent for enlightened management. Unlike Stratton, who found
it difficult to believe that the growth of the Bureau had put it beyond a per-
sonally directed operation, Dr. Burgess delegated authority widely. He
worked from his office and his desk, but his door was always open. Dr.
Hobart C. Dickinson, who succeeded Dr. Waidner as chief of the heat divi-
sion, was to say that the Bureau under Dr. Burgess "became a democracy
* *
Meetings of the Division Chiefs for the free exchange of ideas under
[his] skillful chairmanship * * * became the order of the day. Appoint-
ments, promotions, and salaries became matters of common knowledge. The
needs and welfare the individual employees became more and more
important as compared with those of the institution as a whole."
At the same time, the Bureau seems to have become a somewhat more
rigid institution under Burgess. Stratton's encouragement of individual
initiative and of new projects had permitted the wide latitude of research
that characterized the work of Rosa's division. Similarly, when Dr. Paul
Foote and Dr. Fred Mohier, members of the heat division, became interested
in spectral phenomena in atomic physics, Stratton let them forget about
pyrometry and pursue their research in a section set up in his own optics
division. And Raymond Davis, who came to the Bureau in 1911 to estab-
lish a photographic service, after devising on his own time a number of
ingenious photographic instruments, was rewarded with a new section, photo-
graphic technology. It was generally understood that if you had a good idea
you could go ahead with it, even if it wasn't your particular job.6°
Burgess on the other hanil was inclined to be a stickler for academic
orthodoxy, venerated the graduate degree and its symbol of competence,
and had a strong sense of propriety. Despite the success of his own enter-
prise that had led to the metallurgy division, as Director he tended to dis-
References to important research results of Burgess and his group appear in H. M. Boy!-
ston, An Introduction to the Metallurgy of Iron and Steel (New York: John Wiley,
2d ed., 1936), pp. 416, 492n, 517, 543n, 544.
Nat!. Acad. Sci., Biographical Memoirs, above; MS, memorial address, H. C. Dickin-
son, "Dr. George Kimball Burgess" (Feb. 8, 1936), p. 18 (NBS Historical File).
'° Interview with Dr. Mohier, Oct. 9, 1962; interview with Raymond Davis, Dec. 1, 1961.
As Dr. Coblentz (From the Life of a Researcher, p. 132) said, Dr. Stratton gave
promising men of his staff "an opportunity to pursue research unhampered, and with
a freedom beyond all expectations."