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

304 THE TIME OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1931-40)
The first serious disagreement with the AESC arose over the degree
of Bureau involvement in the simplified practices program, which, the com-
mittee asserted, increased the reluctance of some industries to accept the
principles of simplification and standardization for which the AESC worked.15
The establishment in 1927 of the trade standards division at the Bureau,
for the purpose of bringing together the standardization, simplification, and
specification activities of the AESC and the Bureau, at once met resistance.
In 1928, at the direction of Dr. Agnew, its executive secretary (and
former member of the Bureau), the AESC was reconstituted as the American
Standards Association (ASA), with authority, through acceptance by con-
census of its members, to make standards and validate them as well, and
thereby "draw to itself * * * the bulk of standardization and simplifica-
tion" in industry.16 Preliminary to the reorganization, the AESC formally
requested Bureau withdrawal from all commercial standardization activities.
A period of estrangement ensued during which Burgess and other Bureau
members ceased to attend ASA meetings.17
The resolution was rescinded, but the estrangement continued as the
Bureau reported that whole series of projects begun by its trade standards
group were being held up or deliberately duplicated by ASA and that the
attitude of the association had become antagonistic. Claiming interference
and lack of cooperation, ASA retorted that the Bureau was usurping ASA
functions and was promoting Federal specifications as commodity standards.
As a result, ASA claimed, both producing and consuming industries, fearful
of Government interference, resisted the validation by ASA of standards
largely determined by Federal agencies.18 The conflict of interests was not
to be entirely resolved for another two decades.
The ASA estrangement was but one manifestation of increasing cen-
sure of Bureau research. in 1924 a Baltimore newspaper article, "What be-
comes of the money you pay in taxes," singled out the Bureau as representa-
tive of bureaucratic extravagance, claiming it wasted public funds on testing
gas meters, recording the flight of golf balls, investigating fire hazards of
motion picture film on ocean liners, testing watches, and making liquid air,
all to no purpose.19 An editorial in the "Washington Post" on "Futile putter-
"Letter, GKB to chairman, AESC, May 14, 1923 (NBS Box 43, IDP); memo, GKB for
Durgin, Simplified Practices Division, Jan. 10, 1924 (Box 71, AG); memo, Crittenden
for GKB, Sept. 30, 1925 (Box 141, PM, SSMC).
"Eng. News-Record, 99,291 (1927); ibid., 101,712 (1928).
Minutes, AESC Executive Committee, Jan. 19, 1928, par. 1923; rescinded in letter,
chairman, AESC to GKB, June 15, 1928 (NBS Box 231, IDS—AESC).
18 Memo, Fairchild for GKB, Sept. 10, 1928 (NBS Box 231, ID—CS); letter, chairman,
ASA to R. Hudson, Nov. 15, 1928 (Box 231, ID—SP).
"Attached to memo, GKB for Assistant to Secretary of Commerce, Feb. 15, 1924,
and Bureau articles, in manuscript, in reply (NBS Box 71, AG).