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

THE PECULIAR PEACE 433
Dr. Briggs agreed that the Bureau might undertake certain basic re-
search in consumer goods and materials but reserved his enthusiasm for
resumption of industrial research. "We need a steady flow of new industries
to take up the slack in employment," he wrote in April 1945, with strength.
ened research facilities at the Bureau to handle its responsibilities.for "pro-
viding new opportunities for industry." 12 Frail and tired, he had little in-
terest in the new fields of science created by the war. He was content to re-
turn to the familiar, to supplying industry and small business with technical
information, assisting industry with standardization, continuing basic re-
search in standards. Meanwhile, the Bureau must complete the military
projects on hand, and continue to serve other Government agencies and the
State governments.
Legislation to strengthen basic research at the Bureau, recommended
in the survey for Jesse Jones, also won Wallace's aproval. Explicitly,
Wallace proposed amending the organic act of 1901 to include areas of
research previously covered by special legislation and, somewhat vaguely, "a
limited enlargement of the Bureau's powers in a specified direction with re-
spect to increased freedom in securing high types of personnel." 13
Vannevar Bush, on the committee, demurred at the apparent impli-
cation of the "enlargement?' He wanted no fundamental research for science
or industry carried out at the Bureau except in the field of metrology. Never-
theless, he made unanimous the Visiting Committee's approval of the pro-
posed legislation:
I am entirely in sympathy with the Bureau's conducting basic re-
search in the sciences, especially those which involve standards.
However, the Bureau of Standards is the only body which has both
the responsibility and authority to perform the exceedingly im-
portant function of establishing standards of all kinds, and in the
future the Bureau is going to be subjected to a heavy and increasing
burden in this regard as a result of the rapid progress of science,
particularly in the field of atomic energy. The problem of formu-
lating standards in their field alone will be a major challenge to the
Bureau.
Hence, while I 'believe that it [the legislation] is important to the
effective organization of the Bureau and to its ability to conduct
basic research in science, nevertheless I think it should be unmis-
Memo, LJB for Secretary of Commerce, Apr. 5, 1945 (NBS Box 502, AG) -
Discussed in letter, Gano Dunn to Secretary of Commerce Wallace, Nov. 23, 1945
(NARG 40, Box 114, file 6700915), and Wallace correspondence in Box 112, files 67009/1
and 67009/12.