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

TOWARD A REDEFINiTION OF BUREAU FUNCTIONS 325
considered the relation between governmental and nongovernmental research.
The Board saw "no need for the GOvernment to embark upon comprehensive
programs on pure science, invention or industrial development." That was
the province of industry, the universities, and private institutions.76 The
proper scientific activities of the Government, which alone justified its scien-
tific bureaus, were "scientific services of such wide scope and universal
utility that no agency except the Government is competent adequately to
handle them" (e.g., the development of scientific and technical standards);
those "essentially supplementary to nonscientific governmental activities"
(e.g., standards for Government purchases); and those "which hold evident
promise of benefiting the public but which are not proper or practical fields
for private initiative" (e.g., NACA)
The "social objectives of science," whose consideration had been
a prime purpose in the creation of the Board, appeared in a section awk-
wardly entitled, "Recovery Program of Science Progress." In effect, the
Board recommended a new deal for science based on enlistment of "the
science and engineering groups in the country in a cooperative effort for
the quick success of the National Industrial Recovery Program." But the
proposal that a fund of $16 million (subsequently raised to $75 be
spent over a period of 5 years on research for public works programs, for
76 The discussion of the "place of science in the Government" in the reports of the Science
Advisory Board (1933—34, pp. 15—17; 1934.—35, pp. 40, 269) reflected the concern
of the National Research Council since the end of World War I for fundamental research
in this country.
A recurring anxiety voiced in the 1920's was that the war years had used up the basic
research of the previous century and it was not being adequately replaced. Industrial
research laboratories annually spent almost $200 million on applied science, Secretary
of Commerce Hoover wrote in 1925, while funds for all pure research did not exceed
$10 million. Yet the applied science laboratories were wholly "dependent upon the
raw material which flows from the laboratories and men engaged in pure science. And
the industrial investigators are the first to demand more support to pure science."
It is unfortunately true [Hoover declared] that we can claim no such rank
in pure science research as that which we enjoy in the field of industrial
research. Instead of leading all other countries in the advancement of funda-
mental scientific knowledge, the United States occupies a position far in the
rear of the majority of European nations. A list of the awards of the Nobel
prizes to men of various nationalities reveals the small proportion of first rank
minds that we support. Other tests lead to the same conclusion, namely, that
the number of first rank investigators developed in the United States is far
below what our population, education, and wealth would lead one to expect.
("The vital need for greater financial support of pure science research," an address before
Am. Soc. Mech. Eng., Dec. 1, 1925, reprinted by National Research Council EL/C:
Q11.N293]). See also Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 340—343.
Science Advisory Board, Report, 1934—35, p. 15 and n.