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

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME 9
Among the small pleasures of life was a trolley ride to the suburbs for
3 cents (soon to advance, amid bitter outcries, to 5 cents), and on special
occasions one might hire a coach with rubber tires, electric lights, and carbon
heater for a day in the country for $3. And there were no city sales taxes,
no State, county, or Federal income taxes.
Freedom from taxes made it possible for Andrew Carnegie to keep
every penny of his personal income in the year 1900, well over $23 million,
and for Henry Clay Frick to spend $17 million for a marble and limestone
palace covering a square block on Fifth Avenue. Charles Schwab's house
built on Riverside Drive in 1905 had 75 rooms and 40 baths, but was no
match for Edward Stotesbury's 130-room hail in Philadelphia, or John D.
Rockefeller's $30 million estate near Tarrytown, N.Y.
Under a benevolent and business.minded Government, more than
20 percent of the total wealth of the Nation was in the hands of fewer than
4,000 men, The bankers, speculators, and industrialists who through headlong
exploitation of the world about them created immense fortunes for themselves
and controlled the fortunes of the Nation. "Malefactors of great wealth,"
Teddy Roosevelt in the White House might call them, but as yet only they
had the resources and power to turn the discoveries of science, invention,
and exploration into the shape of things to come.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
The builders of America's industrial complex had little interest in
standards as such, but the scientists, engineers, and experimenters working
for industry or independently found themselves increasingly hampered
without them. The need for a Federal bureau of standards was talked about
for almost 20 years before legislation for its establishment was introduced in
1900. By then the necessity had become imperative as science and industry,
ready to take giant steps in the new century, looked for better measurements
and more uniformity, precision, and control in the laboratory, factory, and
plant.
The climate that produced the National Bureau of Standards is thus
to be found in the world of science and technology as it appeared at the turn
of the century. Some of this has been described in the previous section.
More is furnished by contemporary historians who catalogued in book after
book the century's birthright of invention. The promise was great, and
prophets abounded with predictions of the future of science, industry, and
society.
Without exception, the calendars of invention and histories of progress
published in the early years of the new century gave first place to the
electrical marvels of the previous decade and the "electrical magicians,"