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The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978)

Chapter: 10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science

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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Page 287
Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Page 292
Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Twenties: New Horizons in Science." National Academy of Sciences. 1978. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/579.
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The Even tics: ;Neza Horizons . I, . an Sconce ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923 - 1927) Robert A. Millikan, who came to the recently organized University of Chicago in 1896 as an instructor in the Physics Department, remem- bered Albert A. Michelson, head of the department, as possibly the most irascible and single-minded man of science he ever knew. He remained in Michelson's department for twenty-five years and wrote one of the most understanding of biographical memoirs of his former chief. Millikan commented on "the mellowing effect of [Michelson's] later years," when he had come to know him again as President of the Academy. ~ Michelson was born in Germany in ~85z and brought as a child to this country. At the age of sixteen he was appointed to the Naval Academy, and eight years later, in ~877, became Professor of Physics there. It was then that he began the research in the velocity of light Robert A. Millikan in NAs, Biographical Memoirs 19:127 (~938). 281

282 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923 - 1927) Albert Abraham Michelson, President of the Academy, ~923-~927 (Photograph by H. P. Burch, Assistant to I. H. Breasted of the Oriental Insti- tute, courtesy the Michelson Museum, Naval Weapons Cen- ter, China Lake, California). and in optical measurement to which he devoted himself to the very end of his life. He was at the Case School of Applied Science when he was elected to the Academy in ~888, the year after he and Edward W. Morley conducted their experiment in interferometry to determine the earth's motion through the ether. The negative results of that most important experiment were resolved later in Einstein's general theory of relativity. Michelson was universally recognized as the most distin- guished of American physicists, and Cattell ranked him first in his list of American men of science in ~ go3. Four years later he received the Nobel Prize, the first awarded to an American scientist, in recognition of his methods of precision measurement and his investigations in spectroscopy.2 At the annual meeting of the Academy in ~9~3, Michelson, who had been Vice-President under Walcott since ~9~7, was elected Presi- 2 Chemist Theodore W. Richards, awarded the Nobel Prize in ~9~4 for his determina- tion of atomic weights, was the second American to be so honored; the third was Millikan, in ~924, for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 283 Albert A. Michelson, Albert Einstein, and Robert A. Millikan at the California Institute of Technology in ~93~ (Photograph courtesy the archives, California Institute of Technology). dent, John C. Merriam, Vice-President, and David White, Senior Geologist in the U.S. Geological Survey, Home Secretary.3 Michelson was in his seventy-first year when elected President of the Academy, and Hale recalled that his "most striking characteristic was his honesty and frankness. He always said just what he thought...."4 In ~9~6 Thomas Alva Edison, who, fifty years before, at the last meeting over which Joseph Henry presided, had dem- onstrated his phonograph and carbon telephone before the Academy? "Minutes of the Academy," April ~923, pp. 200-20~. Henry F. Osborn disclosed that Hale was approached for the presidency, "be- cause . . . the Academy needs guidance during the next five years of the kind that President Michelson is not likely to be able to give, although he has the best intentions in the world" [Henry F. Osborn to Hale, May 2, ~924 (Carnegie Institution of Washington and California Institute of Technology, George Ellery Hale Papers: Microfilm Edihon, ~968, Roll 48 Frame 44~)]. See also E. B. Wilson to Hale,.~anuary 8, ~923 (NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers). Hale to Emile Picard, Secretary, Academie des Sciences, May 29, ~934 (Hale Micro- film, Roll 47, Frame 294).

284 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923—1927) Thomas A. Edison demostrating his tin-foil phonograph at the National Academy of Sciences meeting in April ~ 878 (Mathew Brady photograph, courtesy the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, Inc.). was proposed for membership. Charles G. Abbot of the Smithsonian recorded the event: During my term [as Home Secretary, ~g~g-~g23] the Section of Engineering was set up. ELater] some engineers favored Thomas Edison but Academicians of long standing defeated that nomination. At the next council meeting Dr. R. A. Millikan was persuaded by engineers to endorse Edison. Perhaps you may have seen Millikan balancing on his toes up and down, while speaking, like little lizards in the West. He was going splendidly, saying "I am sure that no physicist would wish to oppose Mr. Edison's nomination!" Dr. A. A. Michelson, at that time thought to be the greatest physicist in the world, was sitting in the front row. He rose quietly and said: "I am that physicist." Perhaps you've seen bubbles burst. However Edison was elected the year after.5 5 Charles G. Abbot to Frederick Seitz, June z9, ~964 (NAS Archives: ORG: Historical Data); Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science (Washington: Public Affairs Press, ~958), pp. 76-77. For Edison as scientist, see NAS, Biographical Memoirs 15:296 (~934), and Science 76:96 (~932). For his demonstration at the Academy, see NAS, Proceedings I: 130 (April 1878). The approach of the Academy in ~9~5 to its Constitutional limit of 25O members led biometrist Raymond Pearl to prepare a study of vital statistics on past and present members, disclosing that the mean age of the membership then, almost sixty-one, was ten years more than that of the incorporators [NAS, Proceedings II:752-768 (December

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science / 285 Relations between the Academy and the National Research Council Early in Michelson's presidency that same forthright manner led to some friction in relations between the Academy and the Research Council. As E. B. Wilson recalled, the Academy traditionally elected as President "one of its most internationally famous scientists without any expectation of his having much annoying detail to han- dle . . . Econfining] himself to the larger policy matters." Since Michel- son at that time divided his year between Chicago and Pasadena, it was expected that the detail could be safely left to the Vice-President of the Academy, John C. Merriam, who was then also a Vice- Chairman of the Research Council; to Home Secretary David White; Treasurer Ransomer and former Home Secretary Arthur L. Day, all residing in Washington.6 But Michelson, as Vice-President during the past six years, realized that some members of the Research Council, partly as a consequence of the Carnegie and Rockefeller funds and the magnitude of resulting activities, had lost sight of the role of the Academy in its operations, despite the ruling of the Attorney General in Anglo. The Academy had been at fault, also, in its reluctance to assume more active responsibil- ity for the direction of the Research Council in the postwar years. The lack of knowledge in the Academy of the activities of the Research Council was partly owing to the fact that the Academy Council and the Executive Board of the Research Council had ceased to meet together several years before.7 Michelson at once made clear his determination to reassert that leadership. As he said in his first Annual Report, "Ethel growth in influence, scope of activities, and actual volume of work accomplished by the Research Council naturally increases the administrative re- sponsibility of the Council of the academy and is receiving greater attention from the latter...."8 He wrote Gano Dunn a month later, however, "I may as well confess that I have had serious doubts as to ~925); cf. ibid., 35:117-125 (March ~949)]. For the extension of the limitation to BOO, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1924-25, pp. 8-~o; 1929-30, pp. I, 7-8. 6 E. B. Wilson to Frederick Seitz, June ~8, ~962 (NAS Archives: ORG: Historical Data). ~ E. B. Wilson and A. L. Day, ~924-~925 (correspondence in NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers); Gano Dunn to L. J. Henderson, December 3, ~924 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Relationship between NAS & NRC: Selected Correspondence: Second Series). NAS, Annual Report for 1923, p. 2; C. D. Walcott to S. W. Stratton, May I, ~923 (Smithsonian Institution Archives: C. D. Walcott Papers, Personal Correspondence, ~922-27) anticipated the event.

286 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923—1927) Gano Dunn, Chairman of the National Research Council, ~ 923- ~ 928 (From the archives of the Academy). the possibilities of the smooth workings of two such really indepen- dent organizations."9 The issue came to a crisis in a speech before the American Philosophical Society in April ~924 by outspoken Academy mem- ber Lawrence I. Henderson, Harvard biological chemist, who publicly, without naming either the Academy or Research Council, castigated a "mechanism, excellent for some purposes, and conceived with the highest motives, [that] has all but taken control of the men whom it should serve," so that "the men of science in America, in their corporate capacity . . . now find themselves allied and almost in partnership with industry and business."~° A fortnight later, on April 27, the day before the dedication of the new Academy building, Michelson appointed a Committee on the Relationship between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council, headed by Gano Dunn, the new Research 9 Albert A. Michelson to Dunn, May 2~, ~923 (NAS Archives: ENG: Relations with Engineering Foundation). to Henderson, "Universities and Learned Societies," Science 59:477-478 (May 30, ~924); E. B. Wilson to Frederick Seitz, lone ~8, ~962 (NAS Archives: ORG: Historical Data).

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 287 Council Chairman. Its members were John C. Merriam, Arthur Day, and Raymond Pearl. In the year that followed, the committee devised and saw enacted major changes in the Constitution of the Academy designed to determine "more precisely the scientific and business relations of the two bodies and a satisfactory procedure for common interests" that would ensure "the full responsibility" of the Academy for the research activities of the Research Council and vest in the Academy "final authority of control" over the administration and operation of the Council. Most significant was the creation of a seven-member Executive Committee of the Academy Council, composed chiefly of members within commuting distance of Washington, who would be able to hold frequent meetings for consideration of proposals for new Research Council projects. The members of the Executive Committee were, in addition, made ex officio members of the Research Council's Executive Board. And, removing any lingering doubts about the building, the Coun- cil of the Academy was authorized to appoint a Custodian of Build- ings and Grounds to control "all buildings, grounds, furniture, and other physical property belonging to the National Academy of Sciences or the National Research Council, or intrusted to their care." Provision was also made for the transfer to the Academy of any patent rights developed as a consequence of Research-Council- sponsored activities.~4 In a related action, in June ~924, the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation had changed the wording of its ~ 9 ~ 9 resolution governing the endowment fund. Instead of directing that the fund be used "for the gradual development and permanent support of the 1i The correspondence of E. B. Wilson suggests that the principal "Academy politi- cians" or "uplifters" were Hale, Noyes, and "the newly discovered evangelist" Millikan; their critics, Henderson, Wheeler, Cattell, and Morgan; and the moderators between them, Day, Merriam, Dunn, Jewett, Pearl, Kellogg, and Wilson (correspondence in NAS Archives: ADM: ORG: Historical Data: ~962-~964, and ibid., E. B. Wilson Papers); "Minutes of the Council," April ~924, p. 235. "Report on the Relations. . . unanimously adopted by the Committee," April ~6, ~925 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Relations between NAS & NRC: Report: General); NAS, Annual Reportfor 1924-25, p. ~4~; 1925-26, pp. 7-~ I, 55. t, Dunn to H. E. Howe, May I, ~923 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 48, Frames 42-44); Dunn to President, NAS, and Chairman, NRC, April ~2, ~924 (ibid., Roll 48, Frames 228-233), copies in NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Allocation of Space in Building: Jnt with NRC; NAS, Annual Report for 1925-26, pp 7-~2. As the corporate body, the Academy, through its Council, was required to approve all contracts proposed by the Research Council. 14 "Minutes of the Council," April ~925, pp. 306-307.

288 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923 - 1927) work of the Research Council" alone, the amended resolution stated that the fund was "for the purposes of the Academy and the National Research Council."~5 Several days later the Academy realized its only benefit from the new wording when the Executive Board agreed to provide funds from the endowment income for the Academy's first full-time staff member. Paul Brockett, Assistant Secretary of the Academy, who was previously a part-time employee with an office at the Smithsonian Institution, was moved to the new building and was appointed, as well, the Academy's Custodian of Buildings and Grounds. Thus, attention to the Academy's interests was assured on a day-to-day basis, in its relations with both the government and the Research Council. In a reflective moment, as the Academy-Research Council relation- ship neared resolution, E. B. Wilson reassured a distressed Gano Dunn that "Ea] meeting of the Academy isn't a directors' meeting. It is more like our old fashioned New England Town Meeting." And as he observed in another letter, "What the critical members of the Academy do not recognize is that of the ego members of the Research Council, 69 are members of the Academy and more would be drafted if they would accept appointment." Moreover, another 47 Academy members were involved in the Research Council projects, making in all ~ lo, or almost half of the Academy membership.~7 Engineering and Andes trial Research Michelson's assumption of office and his reassertion of the Academy's role came just as the Research Council was extricating itself from an IS NAS, Annual Report for 1924-25, p. 7. For the reasoning behind the original wording, see Elihu Root to C. D. Walcott, January 29, 1920 (NAS Archives: FINANCE: Funds: Grants: Carnegie Corporation of NY: Building and Endowment Fund). ~6 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1925-26, pp. 3, ~ ~-~2; G. K. Burgess to David White, July ~5, ~9~4 (NAS Archives: ORG: Staff: Assistant Secretary: Paul Brockett). The Academy's limited access to the fund was "in accordance . . . with the under- standing reached by all concerned prior to June ~9~4...." W. W. Campbell to F. P. Keppel, November 30, ~934 (NAS Archives: FINANCE: Funds: Grants: Carnegie Corpo- ration of NY: Building and Endowment Fund: Enlargement: Proposed). Paul Brockett, Assistant (later, Executive) Secretary of the Academy since ~9~3, held that of fire and the custodianship of buildings and grounds until his retirement in ~ 944, when the latter responsibility was transferred to the Business Manager of the Academy-Research Council [F. B. Jewett to Brockett, G. D. Meid, and W. H. Kenerson, January ~4, ~944 (NAS Archives: Jewett file so.~o.8)]. For the succession of executive

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 289 administrative impasse with its founding sponsor, the Engineering Foundation. A new Research Council division, the Division of Research Exten- sion, had been organized in June ~9~9 to act for the science and technology divisions in the Research Council in promoting their interests in industry. Its original designations as "industrial rela- i~ons" and then "industrial research" conflicted with primary concerns of the Division of Engineering. Research Extension was intended par- ticularly to encourage industrialists to broaden their research ac- tivities and to persuade smaller industries having common interests to join forces in establishing research laboratories. Within three years it had facilitated the organization of a Crop Protection Institute for research in plant diseases and insect pests, a Horological Institute, a Corrosion Committee, and a Tanners' Council. However, conflicts developed not only with the Division of Engineering, but also with the Engineering Foundation. The Research Council's Division of Engineering, its offices still in the Engineering Foundation building in New York, had reorganized after the war to stimulate and coordinate both fundamental and engineering research in industry by bringing together scientists and technologists. In the spring of ~92 I, the division Chairman, Harvard engineer Comfort A. Adams, proposed that the Foundation assume the functions of the Division of Engineering of the National Research Council, in order to coordinate better the similar efforts of its con- stituent societies representing civil, mining and metallurgical, me- chanical, and electrical engineering.l9 Initially, both the Foundation and Research Council looked with favor on the proposal, but before long it came under mutual suspi- cion. The young Foundation, with its meager funds, feared that it was about to be absorbed into the Research Council's much larger Division of Engineering. To the Research Council it seemed that, with en- gineering inextricably "interwoven in our scheme," as Hale said, any such move might well result in similar proposals in other divisions and threaten the whole structure of the Research Council.20 secretaries and executive officers of the Academy and National Research Council, see Appendix H. ~7 E. B. Wilson to Gano Dunn, April 7 and ~5, ~925 (NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers). 8 NAS, Annual Reps for 1 91 9, pp. 74-75, 80. For the origins of that extension division in a wartime Division of General Relations, see Annual Report for 1918, pp. 60-6 I, 64, ~ 02. ~9 Telegram, Dunn to Hale, April ~ I, ~92 I, and "Revised Draft, April . . . ~92 I" (Hale Microfilm, Roll 53, Frames 86, 88-go). 20 "Minutes of the Interim Committee," April ~ 6, ~ 92 I; Vernon Kellogg to A. D. Flinn,

ago / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (~9~3—~9~7) Much discussion and some acrimony occurred on both sides for almost two years; and early in Age, as Gano Dunn reported, "the Engineering situation. . . flared up again as sometimes flares up a battle to cover a retreat." A measure of harmony was assured upon the appointment of Frank B. Jewett, Vice-President of Western Electric, as Chairman of the Division of Engineering. Soon after, Maurice Holland became the full-time Director of the division a newly created office and mining engineer Charles F. Rand, Pres- ident of the Foundation, was appointed an ex officio member of the Research Council's Executive Board.22 Nevertheless, the first close ties between the Foundation and the Research Council had been weakened and remained so for the next three decades. The question in the Research Council, of the increasingly overlap- ping activities of its Research Extension and Engineering Divisions in their promotion of industrial research, was resolved in January ~924 with the consolidation of Research Extension in a new Division of Engineering and Industrial Research.23 Jewett and Holland set about revitalizing the division. For an advisory committee they called on division members-at-large, includ- ing Bureau of Standards Director George K. Burgess (whose agency during the war had acquired a huge industrial research building), consulting engineer John R. Freeman, Arthur D. Little, and Ambrose Swasey. Through a massive speaking and publication effort they proceeded to "sell the 'research idea' " to industrial executives, trade associations, and the public, and to promote expansion where re- search already existed.24 Added impetus came from the Academy's National Research En- dowment campaign, soon to get under way, and foreshadowed in division plans for the stimulation of larger industrial organizations, which may be in the situation to maintain their own independent laboratories, to see the advan- September 26, ~922; Dunn to Kellogg, September So, ~922; Dunn to Kellogg, Decem- ber 2, ~922; Hale to Dunn, December 3, ~922 (NAS Archives: ENG: Relations with Engineering Foundation). 2~ Dunn to Kellogg, May 24, ~923, (NAS Archives: ENG: Relations with Engineering Foundation). 22 "Minutes of the Interim Committee," February 26, ~923, p. 3; NAs,Annual Reportfor 1923, pp. 4o, ~25; "Engineering Foundation ~9~4-~954," Engineering Foundation, Annual Report for 1953 -54, p. ~4 (copy in NAS Archives). 23 Dunn to Executive Board, NRC, May lo, ~923 (NAS Archives: EX Bd: Com on Policies); NAs,Annual Reportfor 1923-24, pp. 83-84; "Minutes of the Council," November ~924, p. 278. 24 NAS, Annual Report for 1923-24, pp. 6~, 84; 1924-25, pp. 75-76 et seq.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 291 tage of contributing to the support of pure science for the sake of increasing the fundamental scientific knowledge on which future progress in applied science absolutely depends.25 Those laboratories in industry had begun to proliferate since the turn of the century, when there had been fewer than half a dozen, including the first, set up by Thomas Edison in ~870, and those of the Pennsylvania Railroad, B. F. Goodrich, Bethlehem Steel, and General Electric. In Ado, when the Research Council issued its first directory of industrial laboratories, they totaled fewer than three hundred. A decade later, stimulated equally by booming business and industry and by the energetic efforts of the Research Council, the number had risen above sixteen hundred. The expenditure on applied research in industry, in professional schools, technical colleges, and in govern- ment bureaus was estimated in ~925 at $200 million a year.26 Pioneering in the Field of Conservation The settlement of the engineering question had a salutary and stimulating effect on the Academy and came almost simultaneously with the first detailed report of its special Committee on Forestry. The accomplishments of that committee had been an extraordinary suc- cess and represented precisely what the Academy was set up to do. The committee had not only been requested to make the study by a government agency, the U.S. Forest Service, but had been adequately funded, first with Academy assistance and then by a General Educa- tion Board grant. It began with a paper on forestry problems particularly the re- forestation of cutover lands- presented at the annual meeting in ~924 by the Chief of the Service, William B. Greeley. Upon his request for the help of the Academy, Michelson appointed a commit- tee under Wisconsin plant pathologist Lewis R. ~ones, with Herbert 25 NAS, Ann?`al Report for 1923-24, pp. 6 ~-62. 26"Research Laboratories in Industrial Establishments...," NRC, Bulletin 2 (~920) . . .Bulletin 81 (~93~); Charles E. K. Mees and John Leermakers, The Organiza- tion of Industrial Scientific Research (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., ~920, ad ea., to), a. ~ I, reported 462 companies with q,~,~,o laboratory workers and expenditures --7 r- --7 --rig =~ r-~ -- =7~ - ---_ J _ _ 1 of $29 million in ~92 I, the number of workers doubling by ~927, and 2,350 companies with 70,033 workers and expenditures of $234 million in Ago. For Vannevar Bush's estimate of the magnitude of industrial research in the Ages, see NAS, Annual Report for 1938-39, p. 4~ .

292 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923—1927) Hoover, John C. Merriam, and Charles Walcott among its members. A year later the Academy submitted to the Service a report on forest policy based on research in the fundamentals underlying forest management, had initiated a special study of silviculture by two of its members, which would later be much acclaimed, and, crowning its efforts, had obtained the establishment of the Research Council fellowships in forestry and agriculture that it had recommended.27 The activities of the committee spanned a period of almost seven years. The Tones committee was closely related to the movement for the conservation of natural resources begun in the previous century and resumed with fresh incentives after the war. Besides the Academy's long-lasting conservation and forestry committees, still other aspects of the movement appeared in a number of Academy and Research Council committees as the century progressed. One example came out of the work of naturalist and taxidermist Charles Ethan Akeley, whose museum exhibits and movies of moun- tain gorillas in the Cong~the first motion pictures of wild gorillas in their natural surroundings led King Albert of Belgium to set aside a reserve for their permanent protection in March ~9~5. Following a request that April from the Belgian government, a Committee on the Parc National Albert under Robert Yerkes was appointed, initially to further the cooperation of American scientists in the use of the sanctuary and, later, to encourage the development of management policies for the park that would both preserve natural conditions and permit continuing scientific research.28 A second committee was that on the Scientific Problems of National Parks (earlier, on the Grand Canyon) under Merriam. Between ~928 and ~935 the committee prepared extensive exhibits for the Yavapai Station in the Grand Canyon and the Sinnott Memorial at Oregon's Crater Lake, explaining the geologic and paleontologic processes that had given rise to these natural wonders.29 In ~93~ a third Academy 27"Minutesof the Academy,"April ~924, p. 27Oetseq.; NAs,AnnualReportfor1923-24, p. 2~ . . . 1930 - 31, pp. ~9 - 20; NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Forestry; I. W. Bailey and H. A. Spoehr, The Role of Research in the Development of Forestry in North America (New York: Macmillan Co., ~ 929). For the long-lived (~9~9-~947) Committee on Forestry in the Research Council, see NAS, Anmlal Report for 1921, p. 48 et seq. 28 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1924-25, pp. Go-; 1930-31, p. 27; "Charles Ethan Akeley," in Dictionary of American Biography; Science 61: 623-624 (June ~9, ~925); NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Committee on Albert National Park: ~925-~93~. 29 NAS, Annual Report for 1927-28, pp. 38-39; 1930-31, p. So; 1934-35, pp. 3~-32; 1942-43, p. ~6. (Condinued)

The Twenties: Nero Horizons in Science 1 293 committee, also under Merriam, prepared a report at the request of Horace M. Albright, Director of the National Park Service, which confirmed that Arizona's massive crater (1.2 kilometers in diameter) was of meteoric rather than volcanic origin, and recommended that the area be designated a national park.~° In the Research Council, Isaiah Bowman's three-year Committee on Studies of Pioneer Belts, a joint project with the Social Science Research Council, made a worldwide survey of sparsely settled areas where proper use of environmental resources had been neglected. The resulting planning report and program were turned over to the Social Science Research Council and the American Geographical Society for their use. That same year, ~926, a study by a Committee on Shore-line Investigations subsequently led to the organization of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association.32 Possibly the most ambitious of the conservation committees was that on the Ecology of the Grasslands, set up in the Research Council's Division of Biology and Agriculture in the spring of ~933. Univer- sities in the Plains states had reported that the destruction of grasses by erosion and the misuse of the land by settlers and farmers had become as serious as the deforestation in the East at the turn of the century. The National Research Council organized its committee at the request of the Ecological Society of America (founded in ~9~5), and set out to provide support and direction to midwestern univer- sities planning fundamental investigations that would put grasslands management on a scientific basis. The large-scale cooperative project launched by the committee involved universities, biological and ecological societies, the National Park Association, U.S. Forest Service, Biological Survey, and the C:arneme Institution of Washington. It supported on-site research at the universities for almost ten years. During that same period, a Committee on Land-Use, of broader scope, under Isaiah Bowman, _ ~ - con For similar work carried out later under Research Council auspices, see the Mission 66 Committee of the American Geological Institute (NAS, Annual Report for 1958-59, p. 46). so NAS, Annual Report for 1931-32, pp. 25-26; Horace M. Albright to the National Academy of Sciences, November ~3, ~93~ (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Meteor Crater). 5~ NAS, Annual Reportfor 1925 - 26, p. 80; 1925 - 27, pp. 48 - 49; NAS Archives: G&G: Com on Pioneer Belts: ~ 926-28. 32 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1925-26, p. 79; 1939-40, p. 60. 33NAS, Annual Report for 1932-33, p. 59 et seq.; V. E. Shelford, "Report of the Com . . . ~939" (NAS Archives: B&A: Com on Ecology of Grasslands: Annual Report: ~939)

294 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (1923—1927) made studies of land resources and land use in relation to public policy. Both committees worked for a time in the same terrain. Efforts on Behalf of Basic Research During Michelson's presidency, the Academy renewed its efforts on behalf of a basic commitment of the Academy, namely, the support and promotion of pure science. Thus far it had pursued this goal with the small funds held in trust and through special increments for basic research, such as the Forestry Committee had realized.35 The pros- perity of the Ages seemed to offer a golden opportunity to achieve a larger, self-sustaining source. Hale first suggested such a possibility at a meeting of the Council in March ~924. A year later he reported a plan to establish a research foundation under Academy auspices and through its funds to "in- crease and strengthen American contributions to the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences" by making sums available to the ablest and most productive investigators engaged in pure research.36 On May 8, ~925, at a meeting at the Metropolitan Club in Washington attended by Andrew W. Mellon, Herbert Hoover (then Secretary of Commerce), William Welch, Thomas H. Morgan, and Vernon Kel- logg, Hale presented a modified plan, an Academy proposal for a National Research Endowment, its purpose to redress the imbalance between industrial research and its source, basic science. ,4 Shelford to Isaiah Bowman, January ~5, ~934 (NAS Archives: B&A: Com on Ecology of Grasslands: General). For the reports of Bowman's committee, see NAS, Annual Report for 1933-34, p. 85; Science Advisory Board, Report, 1933-1934 (Washington, September 20, ~934), pp. ~65-260; ibid., 1934-35, pp. 55-67, 425-440. For the work of an NRC Committee on Land Classification, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1933-34, p. 76 et seq. 45 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1924-25, p. 2; 1926-27, p. 2. As the Academy reported, it was the trustee for approximately $3,ooo,ooo and the expenditure of $, ~so,ooo for the Research Council, but income for its own purposes was less than $g,ooo ("Minutes of the Academy," April ~930, pp. 24~248; NAS, Annual Report for 1929-30, pp. 2~22). S6 "Minutes of the Council," March ~924, p.228; April ~925, p.332; NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Additional Funds for Research: ~924-25; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1925-26, PP i6-~7 For an earlier unsuccessful proposal that the Academy and Research Council jointly create a National Research Foundation to receive and administer large amounts for scientific research, see NAS Archives: EX Bd: Com on National Research Foundation: 1922.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 295 Madame Marie Curie, co-discoverer of radium, with President Herbert Hoover at the Academy building, October 30, ~929 (Photograph courtesy Wide World Photos).

2g6 / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (~9~3—~927) The impressive twenty-f~ve-member Board of Trustees of the Endowment, set up on November 9, ~925, and chaired by Hoover, comprised Elihu Root, Andrew W. Mellon, Charles Evans Hughes, Edward M. House, John W. Davis, Julius Rosenwald, Owen D. Young, Henry M. Robinson, Felix M. Warburg, Henry S. Pritchett, W. Cameron Forbes, and Academy members Michelson, Merriam, Dunn, Welch, Morgan, Carty, Veblen, Breasted, Simon Flexner, Lewis R. Jones (of the Forestry Committee), Arthur B. Lamb, and Hale.37 The Academy announced a goal of To million to be expended at the rate of $z million a year for ten years. The endowment would be used to relieve exceptionally qualified scientists of the excessive de- mands of teaching and administration in order to pursue their research and to augment the efforts of pure science institutions. As part of the fund-raising effort, a massive educational and publicity campaign was launched with the issuance of a brochure directed to selected individuals and industrial corporations, particularly those companies with large research laboratories. The campaign in its first two years produced a number of pledges, but thereafter ceased to prosper. The Academy came to realize that so large a fund might not be collected and in any event probably could not, without trial experience, be expended effectively.39 With the assent of those who had pledged support to the undertaking, the Academy initiated a new campaign, for a National Research Fund, setting the more modest goal of $~ million a year for a five-year period. That goal, with just seven contributors, was reached in the spring of ~930; and the Academy, amid the reverberations of the Great Crash, made plans to launch the program that October. The eventual default of one contributor in providing his share forced the Academy to release the others from their pledges, which had been 37 Hale to J. J. Carty (who had been unable to attend), May 9, ~925 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 9, Frame 657); "Minutes of the Council," November ~925, insert p. 435; NAS, Annual Report for 1925-26, pp. it, ~ 6- ~ 7. Predictably, Cattell in Science 63: 188 (February ~ 2, ~ 926) protested the premise of the fund. 88 Brochure, National Research Endowment: A National Fundfor the Support of Research in Pure Science (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: NRE: Brochure: ~925). For the special interest of Jewett's Division of Engineering in the fund, see NAS, Annual Report for 1925-26, p. 76. ~9 Hale to Root, October 2~, ~927 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 30, Frames 977-980); Hale, "Science and the Wealth of Nations," Harper's 156:243-251 ( June ~928).

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 297 contingent on the entire sum being raised. The project was finally abandoned in ~934.4° In the spring of ~937, as conditions in both the Academy and the nation improved, Academy member Albert F. Blakeslee, botanist and Director of the Department of Genetics of the Carnegie Institution, persuaded Frank R. Lillie, then President of the Academy, to seek a new broad-based science fund for the stimulation and support of fundamental research and for general purposes of the Academy. After much careful planning, which set no goal or limit on the subscription, the National Science Fund, "for the promotion of human welfare through the advancement of science," was formally established and launched in ~94~, three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.4~ Although the war hampered the Fund's growth, a review in ~949 revealed that over $~oo,ooo had been received and expended from it for purposes as diverse as production costs for an educational movie and awards for meritorious research. During this same period, how- ever, the wartime accomplishments of science had impressed the country with the national importance of pure research. The debate in Congress on federal support of scientific research ended in May ~ gbo with the creation of the National Science Foundation. Affirmed as national policy for that new agency was the federal government's responsibility for the promotion of basic research and education in the sciences. After a final critical review in December ~953, the 4°"Minutes of the Council," September AGO, pp. 299-3O2; Jewett, "Report of the Trustees of the National Science Fund . . ., April ~9, ~934, p. ~ (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: NRF: Final Report: ~ 934); A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ~957), pp. 34O-343; R. C. Tobey, The American Ideology of National Science, 1919-1930 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, ~97~), pp. ~gg-232; Lance E. Davis and Daniel l. Kevles, "The National Research Fund: A Case Study in the Industrial Support of Academic Science," Mine~va 12:207-220 (1974). Its termination, as well as that of a more successful eight-year-old Committee on Funds for the Publication of Research, appeared in NAS, Annual Report for 1934-35, p. 19. For unsuccessful efforts to secure funds for administrative purposes of the Academy, see "Minutes of the Council," April ~929, pp. ~22-~24, 246-248; NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Funds for Academy Purposes: ~929-~935. 4~ Memorandum, W. l. Robbins to Director, National Science Fund, May ~3, ~94~ (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: National Science Fund: Historical Account by W. l. Robbins: ~94~); Albert F. Blakeslee, "Origin and Ideals of the National Science Fund," Science 94:356-358 (October ~7, ~94~); NAs,AnnualReportforl940~1, pp.22-26.

2g~ / ALBERT ABRAHAM MICHELSON (~923—~927) Academy Council formally terminated its National Science Fund, bringing to an end an almost continuous effort of thirty Years.42 The Committee on Government Problems In addition to the impetus the Forestry Committee gave to the Academy's endowment campaign, the work of that committee also furnished inspiration for the Committee on Government Problems (and, briefly, Government and National Problems) proposed at the autumn meeting in ~9~5 by John C. Merriam, Academy Vice- President and member of the Forestry Committee. Citing the commit- tee's studies of "fundamental physics, chemistry and biology which. . . [would] serve as the foundation for future research in forestry," Merriam suggested that the government might be in- terested in the Academy's "helping to lay the foundations for study of other great national problems."43 The committee members under Merriam included President Michelson and Vice-President Fred E. Wright, the chairmen of the ten sections of the Academy, Gano Dunn as Chairman of the National Research Council, and Walcott, Chairman of the Research Council's Divison of Federal Relations. Meeting in April ~9~6, and again in ~928, the committee found itself unable to do more than agree that a problem existed. Reorganized in ~9~9 as the Committee on Govern- ment Relations with a more activist membership under Merriam, it fared no better. Even as he was seeking to increase the use the government made of the Academy, Merriam had to contend also with the traditional resistance within the Academy to the offering of unsolicited advice to the government. He had finessed such opposition with assurances that the purpose of the committee was not to offer recommendations to the government but merely to provide a mechanism whereby the Academy might "consider the greater research problems in their relation to the scientific research work of the Government in order that the Academy may be better prepared to aid the Government 42 NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: National Science Fund: Historical Account by A. N. Richards: ~949; NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, pp. `9; 1951-52, p. 24; 1953-54, p. 23; "Minutes of the Council," December ~953. The records of the funds, spanning the presidencies of Lillie, Jewett, and Richards, comprise more than four feet of materials. is "Minutes of the Academy," November ~925, p. 457; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1925-26, p. ~3; Merriam to Michelson, November 28, ~925 (NAS Archives: SAB Series: ORG: NAS: Com on Government Relations: Beginning of Program).

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 299 when called on for advice." As it was put, the appointment of the committee related "solely to purposes of information for the academy itself."44 At a meeting in February ~93~, the committee addressed both aspects of the problem that the Academy had "not been taken seriously by the Government," and that "the precedent to speak only when . . . spoken to" required the invention of "a means by which . . . [the Academy] can be asked" to give its advice on matters of national policy. After two hours of discussion, no solutions emerged, only the recommendation that "the whole matter go back to the Sections with the request that they give it consideration."45 At the meeting, the anthropologist Franz Boas had expressed much concern over the government's misguided handling of American Indians, both in the national parks and on the reservations the result of federal officials' ignorance of the Indians' cultural heritage. Although others on the committee agreed on the potential value of the Academy's opinion on the subject, no consensus had been reached on a proper method for securing a request for it. Two months later Boas wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior concerning the seriousness of the problem, with the suggestion that he "call upon the National Academy of Sciences, which has been established for the purpose of advising the Govern- ment . . . [and] ask for a report." When it did arrive, the request for advice on "certain of the underlying anthropological and sociological factors in the Government's Indian work" left the Academy Council floundering. With Boas's concurrence, President Thomas H. Morgan wrote the Commissioner inquiring as to the particular problems on which information was desired. No response was ever made, and the question was allowed to drop.46 "Minutes of the Academy," April ~ 9~6, p. 5 ~ 8; "Minutes of the Committee," April 27, ~926 (NAS Archives: SAB Series: ORG: NAS: Com on Government Relations: Meetings); NAS, Annua' Report for 1928-29, p. 38; "Minutes of the Academy," April ~929, pp. ~66-~67. 45 "Minutes of the Committee," February 24, ~93 ~ (NAS Archives: SAB Series: ORG: NAS: Com on Government Relations: Meetings). One suggestion at the meeting was that the Academy's recommendations be printed in its Annual Reports, reminiscent of the "memorials" printed in the Annual Reports in the previous century. No explanation has been found for President Hoover's request in January ~ 930 "for an abstract of the annual report of the Academy as presented to Congress and also any recommendation that the Academy was making to Congress" ("Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting," January ~4, two, p. 22~). 46 NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Projects: Interior Department Request for Advice on Care of American Indians: ~93 I. (Condoned overkaf)

300 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927—1931) Two years later, President William W. Campbell attempted a dif- terent method of soliciting government requests. His dinner speech before the Academy, which he made available to the press, explicitly called attention to both the availability of the Academy's expertise and the restrictive nature of its Charter: "The specification reads that 'the Academy shall, whenever called upon by any department of the Govern- ment,' and this corresponds to the definition of a one-way street."47 The Science Advisory Board, created in July ~933, appeared to be an answer to Campbell's plea, but it imposed severe strain upon the Academy, and on Campbell as well. THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927 - 1931) . Geneticist Thomas H. Morgan was elected President of the Academy in his sixtieth year. Although he had a strong critical sense and could be stern on occasion his students at Columbia and his laboratory collaborators called him "The Boss" and meant it he was open- minded and fair.48 He gave promise of being an effective President. The science of genetics began with the publication of Gregor Mendel's papers on his plant experiments in ~866 but developed no further unto three other scientists obtained similar results in Woo. Subsequently, Mendel's work began to attract worldwide attention, including that of Thomas Hunt Morgan, soon to go to Columbia as Professor of Experimental Zoology. Recognition of Morgan's work in the new field came in his fortieth year, and he was elected to the Academy two years later, in 1909.49 The next year he published his first paper on sex-linkage in Drosophila. In ~ 9 ~ 5 came The Mechanism Boas had more success with the New Deal Administration in ~933. John Collier, who was brought in by Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for the first time actively involved anthropologists in the formulation of policies and the restructuring of tribal organizations [Graham D. Taylor, "Anthropologists, Reformers, and the Indian New Deal," Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives 7: 151-162 (fall ~975)]. 47 W. W. Campbell, "The National Academy of Sciences," Science 77:549-552 dune 9, ~ 933) 48 A. H. Sturtevant in American Naturalist 80 :22-23 ( ~ 946). 49 For Morgan's election see "Minutes of the Academy," April ~9O2 45, 68, 96, ~36. ... ~906, pp. 26,

Thomas Hunt Morgan, Presi dent of the Academy, ~9~7- ~93~ (From the archives of the Academy). The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 30~ of Mendeltan Heredity, by Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, H. I. Muller, and C. B. Bridges, "the first serious attemot." Sturtevant commenterl "in A, _ interpret the whole field of genetics in terms of the chromosome theory."50 Morgan received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in ~933 for his discoveries of the function of the chromo- some in the transmission of heredity. The work of Morgan and his grou~"the new stars that have risen in the West," an English geneticist called them5~ontinued at Co- lumbia University; and Morgan's residence in New York, within commuting distance of Washington, had been an important con- sideration of the Academy Committee on Nominations and Elections. But the year after his election, Morgan took his colleagues Sturtevant and Bridges to the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena. However, with his own frequent trips East and the help of Academy 50 A. H. Sturtevant in NAS, Biographical Memoirs 33:296 (~959). For the subsequent work of Hermann J. Muller in Research Council radiation biology research, see p. 3~4 and Chapter ~6, pp. 535-536. si Quoted in George Basalla, "The Spread of Western Science," Science 156:620 (May 5, ~ 967)

302 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927 - 1931) Vice-President Fred E. Wright of the Carnegie Institution of Wash- things running smoothly again."52 ington, "Morgan got In retrospect, Morgan's election, following Michelson's term, had in it elements of timeliness and portent. It was during Michelson's presidency that American physicists, furnished with the first reports from abroad of quantum mechanics and its equations for atomic and molecular structure, began to prepare themselves for "one of the greatest revolutions of all time in the history of physics.''55 The biologists, during Morgan's term, were creating a revolution of their own, no less momentous. W. C. Curtis observed in 1935 with con- siderable prescience: Despite the advances of Physics within the last 35 years, the twentieth century is likely to be the "Biological Century," because of the possibilities for exact chemico-physical understanding in such fields as Genetics, Development, and Physiology.54 At the beginning of Morgan's presidency, the Research Council had several score important committees fully engaged; the Academy's Committee on Forestry as well as the National Research Endowment seemed to be prospering; and Morgan, quoting Joseph Henry, ob- served, "The sixty-fourth year of the National Academy of Sciences . . . finds the institution filling a role of larger usefulness."55 The Committee on Oceanography Morgan referred also in his report to the work of the Academy's new Committee on Oceanography. In ~927 Academy member Frank R. Lillie, Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, had requested the organization of the committee, whose purpose was 52 E. B. Wilson to Frederick Seitz, September 25, ~964 (NAS Archives: ORG: Historical Data). 53 John H. Van Vleck, "American Physics Comes of Age," Physics Today 17:2 I-26 (June ~964); cf. Ernest O. Lawrence, "Science and Technology," Science 86:295-298 (October I, ~937), with its notes on Michelson; and Charles Wiener, "~93e—Moving into the New Physics," Physics Today 25 :40-49 (May ~ 972). 54W.C.Curtisin"CumulativeReport,~g28-~g34,"MarchIg3s,p.s2(NAsArchives: B&A: Com on Effects of Radiation on Living Organisms: Cumulative Report). Neither in that decade nor later, however, would the Academy find support for its promising Committee on the Biological Processes of Aging (NAS, Annual Report for 1938-39, p. 49; 193940, p. 7O; NAS Archives: B&A: Com on Biological Processes of Aging: ~ 938- ~ 946). 5S NAS, Annual Report for 1926-27, p. I.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 303 "to consider the share of the United States of America in a worldwide program of oceanographical research." Lillie was appointed Chair- man; the other members were William Bowie, geodesist with the Coast and Geodetic Survey; Edwin G. Conklin, Professor of Biology at Princeton; Benjamin M. Duggar, Professor of Physiology and Eco- nomic Botany at Wisconsin; John C. Merriam, President, Carnegie Institution of Washington; and Thomas Wayland Vaughan, Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The committee soon found the question so large and so complex that, like the Forestry Committee, it would require the assistance of specially trained experts, funds from outside the Academy, and at least two years to survey the problems involved. With funds from the General Education Board, the committee put together its report by November ~929, together with a 6-page study prepared by H. B. Bigelow bearing the formidable title, "Report on the Scope, Problems, and Economic Importance of Oceanography, on the Present Situation in America, and on the Handicaps to Develop- ment, with Suggested Remedies." A second, or "worldwide," element of the report, with which committee member Thomas Wayland Vaughan had been charged, was delayed until ~937.56 As a consequence of the first report, in November ~929 the Rocke- feller Foundation agreed to the construction and support of a central Atlantic oceanographic station, to be incorporated as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Education Board of the Foundation appropriated $2~5 million toward a building, an endow- ment, and initial operating expenses. Lillie's committee, the first of a succession in oceanography, remained active until the publication of Vaughan's report.57 Weather Forecasting Associated with oceanography was the request of the Secretary of the Navy in the early summer of ~ 930 for ~ scientific appraisal of a system of weather forecasting offered by a commercial long-range weather 56 NAS, Annual Report for 1927-28, pp. I, 33-34 et seq. Bigelow's report was published in ~93~ as Oceanography: Its Scope, Problems, and Economic Importance (Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co.). Vaughan's, pub- lished in late ~937, was International Aspects of Oceanography: Oceanographic Data and Provisions for Oceanographic Research (Washington: National Academy of Sciences). 57 H. B. Bigelow in Science 71: 8~89 (January 24, ~ 930); NAs, Annual Reportfor 193 7-38, p. 21. See also Chapter ~5, pp. 499-502.

304 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927 - 1931) forecasting service in Washington.58 The Academy was reluctant to act even indirectly with respect to a commercial enterprise and persuaded the Navy to broaden the request to a determination of whether long-range forecasting was actually feasible. The ten- member Committee on Long-Range Weather Forecasting appointed under Merriam in March ~93 ~ included Charles F. Marvin, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau; geographer Isaiah Bowman; physicist Karl T. Compton; astrophysicist Charles G. Abbot; and oceanographers H. B. Bigelow and Thomas W. Vaughan.59 Systematic weather forecasting as a science and as a national service was then less than seventy years old. The first weather forecasting service, made possible by the invention of the telegraph, began in this country under Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian. The development of radiotelegraphy early in the twentieth century extended forecast possibilities with data on the weather over the oceans; and the radio meteorograph or radiosonde, developed in the late ~ 930S, made possible detailed weather data from the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The meager instrumentation available in ~ 93 I, however, required a new approach; and the committee decided to explore the possibility of obtaining better knowledge of sources and variables in weather patterns. That year the Academy convened its second symposium- the first, on exploration in the Pacific, had been in To deter- mine a modus operandi. The Academy reported the general sense of the meeting that very little was known about any of the influences on weather, terrestrial or atmospheric, but recommended exploration of the possibility of a periodic or cyclic element in earth climate, princi- pally emanating from the sun and observable in tree rings, in sunspot cycles, solar-radiation measurements, and the variations of earth temperatures found in the geological records.60 Owing to changes in Navy administrators, the committee made no progress beyond its symposium and a year later was discharged. Another committee on weather forecasting, again under Merriam, and with considerably more success, was convened two years later in the Science Advisory Board. 58 For that weather service, see Paul Brockett to T. H. Morgan, July 24, ~930 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Long-Range Weather Forecasting: General). 59 NAs,Annual Reportfor 1929-30, p. I; "Minutes of the Council," September Ago, pp. 292-~93; "Minutes of the Academy," April ~93~, p. 352. 60 NAS, Annual Report for 1931-32, p. 23; "Symposium on Climatic Cycles," April ~ 932, NAS, Proceedings 19 :349-388 ( ~ 933). 6~ NAS, Annual Report for 1934 - 35, pp. ~ I, 30; NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Long-Range Weather Forecasting: General ~930-33; ibid., Reports: ~932-35.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science / 305 Efforts toward Calendar Reform Another Academy committee in that period was one on calendar reform, appointed in February ~928 by President Morgan at the request of George Eastman, President of the Eastman Kodak Com- pany. The committee, under Fred E. Wright, petrologist at the Carnegie Institution and Vice-President of the Academy, and with members William W. Campbell, Gano Dunn, Robert A. Millikan, and Henry N. Russell of the Princeton Observatory, was asked to study a proposal for calendar reform in anticipation of the fact that in ~933 New Year's Day would fall on Sunday, the first day of the week- a circumstance that occurs irregularly at five- to eleven-year intervals under the Gregorian calendar, but one that would be permanent with the adoption of a "fixed" calendar.62 In the general euphoria of the Ados, the reform of the calendar, unchanged since the sixteenth century, seemed imminent, promising an end to the inconveniences of months of unequal length, variations in dates and days of movable feasts, holidays, and other periodical events, and, not least, an end to the difficulties the Gregorian calen- dar made in business and statistical computations. Reform would also eliminate forever Friday the Thirteenth! The "new" calendar was the International Fixed Calendar pro- posed by August Comte in ~849, as revised in ~888 and promoted by the single-minded British railway statistician Moses B. Cotsworth to the end of his life. In ~908 his calendar of thirteen months, each with twenty-eight days, won the endorsement of the Royal Society of Canada and soon after a leading place in the growing world move- ment for calendar reform. A strong competitor appeared shortly before war broke out in ~9~4, when the International Chamber of Commerce proposed in- stead a World Calendar of twelve months of equal quarters, based on a perpetual calendar devised by the Astronomical Society of France in ~88~.63 Since both calendars were highly susceptible to modification and their adherents agreed only on the need for reform, adjudication became necessary. 62 NAS, Annual Report for 1927-28, p. 35. The request had been made to the Academy "as a Government Department" (NAS, "Executive Committee Meeting," December ~3, ~927, p. 657). 63 Astronomer W. W. Campbell, in "Shall We Reform the Calendar?" Publicatiom of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 31 :15~157 (June ~9~9), had professed himself mildly inclined to this calendar, strongly favored in France and recently approved by the Academie des Sciences.

306 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927—1931) The rival plans simmered until 1 9~ a, when the International Chamber of Commerce, at the instigation of its American section, requested the League of Nations to appoint a committee of inquiry. Five years later, in September 1927, the League, with 195 proposals from fifty-four countries, asked those nations to appoint national committees to study and report on calendar reform. (Cotsworth, meanwhile, had come to the United States, where he found in George Eastman an enthusiastic supporter for his calendar. Eastman, certain that "the progress of the world is determined by the progress of business," and that this calendar was the best "unit of economic life," saw Cotsworth's reform as inevitable and no more difficult to establish than the world adoption of standard time in 884. Acting on the request of the League of Nations, Eastman in November ~927 called on Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg. In January, Kellogg agreed that Eastman might, with the sanction of the State Department, convene an unofficial committee of men and women prominent in business and social life, and of representatives from interested federal departments, to determine national sentiment before he appointed the formal committee requested by the League.64 At the same time that Eastman saw Kellogg, he also requested the Academy's opinion on the matter. At its annual meeting in ~9~8, the Academy formally and unanimously adopted the resolution of Wright's Committee on Calendar Revision to support the establish- ment of a twenty-eight-day, thirteen-month calendar, its new month, as yet unnamed, to be inserted between tune and July.65 With that endorsement, Eastman organized his twenty-two- member National Committee on Calendar Simplification in July ~9~8 and asked it to determine the extent of public sentiment for reform. Appointed to eleven special assisting committees were some one hundred persons representing industry, transportation and com- municaiions, finance, science and engineering, labor, education, ag- r~culture, law, journalism, women's interests, and social and public interests.66 64 The advantages and disadvantages of the two calendars are described in a booklet, The Question of the Calendar (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Calendar Revision: ~927-~929), prepared for Eastman's committee in July ~928 and widely distributed. The booklet disclosed that some sixty industrial concerns in this country then used for their internal accounting an auxiliary calendar of thirteen periods of twenty-eight days each. 65 Eastman to Michelson, November 12, ~927; Committee Report, April ~2, ~928 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Calendar Revision). 66 The Science and Engineering Committee of the National Committee, under National

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science I 307 It was anticipated that the promotion for calendar reform by the Nanona1 Committee would attract public sentiment. The committee might then press for U.S. representation at a proposed international conference that would promulgate an international treaty establishing the new calendar, whose adoption in this country would be effected by an Act of Congress. The plan was "greatly advanced," Eastman wrote Vernon Kellogg, when in December ~ 928 Representative Stephen G. Porter of Pennsylvania introduced ajoint resolution in the Seventieth Congress requesting the President to seek an international conference.67 The hearings on the resolution before Porter's House Committee on Foreign Affairs, just prior to Christmas ~ 9~8, disappointed Eastman when they brought to light strong objections to calendar change from religious groups and vigorous opposition from orono- nents of the World Calendar of equal quarters. ~ - -r At a General Conference called by the League of Nations in ~93~ and attended by representatives of forty-four nations, the World Calendar and its variants, along with over 350 other plans, formally entered the lists. Although the Conference found the thirteen-month Fixed Calendar theoretically more perfect, and the twelve-month World Calendar least disruptive of acquired habits, it made no choice, concluding that the year ~93~ was not a favorable time for reform.68 During the next eight years, ascendancy passed from the adherents of the International Fixed Calendar League to those of the World Calendar Association; and when in ~936 the latter sought Academy Bureau of Standards Director George K. Burgess, had among its members Vernon Kellogg, Elmer A. Sperry, and Fred E. Wright. Well-known names on other special committees included Adolph S. Ochs of the New York Times, novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart, American Federation of Labor President William Green, Gerard Swope of General Electric, Yale's Irving Fisher, Henry Ford, Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, Paul M. Warburg, Secretary of Labor James l. Davis, financier Roger W. Babson, Yale's James R. Angell, MIT'S Samuel W. Stratton, Mount Holyoke's Mary G. Woolley, Paul D. Cravath, Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound, Hearst's Editor-in-Chief Ray Long, Ralph Pulitzer, George M. Putnam, the National Geographic's Gilbert Grosvenor, Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, and James P. West, Chief Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. For the complete roster, see The Question of the Calendar. 67 Eastman to Vernon Kellogg, December ~ 2, ~9~8, and copy of loins Resolution, H. [. Res. 334, December 5, ~928 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Calendar Revision). Eastman reported still another advance on December ~ ~ when the National Research Council independently approved a resolution on the thirteen-month calendar. 68 Reported in A. E. Kennelly, "Proposed Reforms of the Gregorian Calendar," Proceedings of the AmericanPhilosophicalSociety 75:71-110 (~g3s),especiallypp. ~o3- lo4.

308 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927—1931) support for a new approach to Congress, Fred Wright reconvened his committee. Its consensus was that the possibility of any proposal for calendar reform now appeared remote, that no scheme presently advocated could be practical before 1950, and that in any case it would not be wise for the Academy to join a crusade to influence Congress when that body might later wish to ask the advice of the Academy. In 1936 the Academy rescinded its action on the thirteen- month calendar taken eight years before.69 The calendar of equal quarters proved hardy. In 1942 the Academy, persuaded to canvass its members, received replies from more than half of them, of which over JO percent supported the World Calendar. The time was still not propitious, however, and the next practicable date, January 1, 1g4s,would prove no more so.70 Dr. Campbell, who long before had pointed out to the superstitious the hazard in substituting a thirteenth month for Friday the Thir- teenth, had been prophetic as well in declaring that the greatest difficulty in reform would be the essential conservatism of national governments. He might well have agreed with his fellow academician Arthur E. Kennelly that resolution might be nearer were the Church to abandon the lunar portion of its calendar, reducing it to a purely solar phenomenon: "The disturbing influence of the vagrant moon," Kennelly said, "has been a burden on the Christian world for more than sixteen centuries."7~ The movement for calendar reform persisted, but at the annual meeting of the Academy in ~947, Fred Wright formally discharged his committee. Except for the loss of Dr. Campbell, whose place was never filled, it had served unchanged for nineteen years.72 The National Research Council and the Chicago World's Fair In ~ 9~8, the Academy became involved in a different kind of calendar event, the "Century of Progress" World's Fair, scheduled to open in 69 Wright to committee members, March ~8, ~936 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Calendar); NAS, Annual Report for 1935-36, pp. 25-26. The thirteen-month calendar was "now definitely dead," and the Academy's standing resolution placed it in an anomalous position [E. B. Wilson to W. W. Campbell, April ~6, ~936 (NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers)]. 70 W. E. Castle, "Calendar Reform and the National Academy of Sciences," Science 95:195 (February 20, ~942). 7~ Kennelly, "Proposed Reforms . . . ," p. ~7. 72 NAs,Annual Reportfor 1946-47, p. 26; see also NAS Archives: ORG: Projects Proposed: Calendar Reform: ~ 960—.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 309 The Hall of Science at the Chicago World's Fair in ~ 933 (Photograph courtesy the U.S. Information Agency). Chicago in June 1933 in celebration of that city's one-hundredth anniversary. The exposition theme, international in scope, was "the contribution of pure and applied science to industrial development during the last one hundred years"; and the Research Council was asked to assist in its formulation and staging. In a letter to George K. Burgess, Chairman of the National Re- search Council, Rufus C. Dawes, as President of the Board of Trus- tees of the World's Fair, wrote: To carry out successfully an exposition which contains the possibility of such dramatic interest and permanent influence requires the attention of the best minds of the nation. We feel greatly the need of assistance in formulating, announcing and developing this theme, and under these circumstances we appeal to the National Research Council for advice and assistance.73 The invitation was attractive in view of the National Research Fund campaign in progress, the opportunity "for the first time in his- tory . . . to popularize the great contributions made by science in all the fields of human activity," and as an occasion on which to hold world congresses and conventions. The Research Council appointed a Science Advisory Committee of six under Frank B. Jewett, assisted by more than thirty professional and technical members and eighteen 73 Rufus C. Dawes to NRC Chairman G. K. Burgess, August 2 I, ~928 (NAS Archives: EX Bd: Com on Chicago World's Fair Centennial Celebration); NRC Science Advisory Committee pamphlet, October I, ~929 (NAS Archives: EX Bd: Science Advisory Com- mittee to Trustees of Chicago World's Fair Centennial Celebration: Brochure).

310 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927—1931) members at large, drawn from the Academy, from the Research Council, and from science and industry. Altogether, the committee sought the counsel of more than four hundred experts in the plan- ning of the exposition and its construction. The task of the committee was completed in the spring of 1931.74 The preliminary report and plan called for a Temple of Science at the center of the exposition and, surrounding it, exhibits demonstra- ting "the compass of the principal sciences, their methods of work, and some of the outstanding results of science," with their applica- tions to industry, commerce, and the professions. The exhibits were also to include representations of "historical background prior to 833.~' From all accounts, the Fair was a resounding cultural and financial success, the only major world fair to end debtless and with a surplus of cash despite the fact that it took place during the Depression. Its eight-acre Hall of Science was, like others of the principal structures, a marvel of design and construction, innovative in its use, for the first time, of prefabricated materials, uniform lighting, and air condition- ing. In the Hall, with its mural-lined walls, animated exhibits traced the developments in the major sciences, and a geological time clock presented the record of ~ billion years of earth's history. A featured exhibit of the medical sciences was a transparent man, and, in as- tronomy, a Zeiss optical planetarium. Prominently displayed, too, were the exhibits from the Academy building brought in six crates from Washington.75 Committees on Drug Addiction In ~9~9 the Bureau of Social Hygiene transferred the work of its Committee on Drug Addiction, together with supporting funds, to the Research Council's Division of Medical Sciences. It proved to be one of the Council's longest-lived endeavors, for the problem con- tinued to grow. In ~ 924 the Public Health Service had considered drug addiction to be a steadily declining problem, with perhaps one hundred fifty thousand addicts in the nation. Just five years later authorities esti- 74 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1928-29, pp. 5, 53; 1929-30, pp. 5O-52; 1930-3Z, pp. 3~4O, 155. 75 NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Exhibits: Joint with NRC: Loan of Exhibits to Chicago World's Fair: ~93~-~934. For the dedication of the Hall of Science, see Science 76: 21-26(July8,~g32).

George Kimball Burgess, Chairman of the National Re- search Council, ~928-~932 (From the archives of the Academy). The Twenties: New Horizons in Science / 3~ ~ mated at least a million users of opium, morphine, or their deriva- tives. They declared addiction resulting from whatever reason~drug use in medical treatment, in the relief from pain or emotional stress, or because of the influence of other addicts a greater problem here than in any other country.76 Other authorities, who included alcohol among the addictive drugs in the United States, admitted that no real knowledge existed as to the extent of addiction. Many insisted it was a medical as well as a legal problem; but unfortunately, as the Research Council committee stated in ~938, there was little actual knowledge of the causes of addiction or methods for its prevention.77 William C. White, consultant to the National Institute of Health (later, National Institutes of Health) and Chairman of the Research 76"Drug Addiction in the United States," Science 59:Suppl. 10 (June 27, ~924); Morris Fishbein, "Drug Addiction," Scientific American 144:412~13 (June ~93 I). 77 Charles E. Terry and Mildred Pellens, The Opium Problem (New York: Bureau of Social Hygiene, Inc., ~ 928), pp. I, 52, 924; American Medical Association, The indispensable Use of Narcotics (Chicago: American Medical Association, ~93 I); Lyndon F. Small et al., Studies on Drug Addiction, Supplement 138 to U.S. Public Health Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, ~938), Introduction.

312 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927 - 1931) Council's Division of Medical Sciences, was asked to head the divi- sion's committee in early 1 9~9. The committee saw its ultimate goal as the development of medically effective but nonaddictive substitutes for all narcotic drugs. A second objective was the education of physicians in the appropriate uses of narcotics so that they would substitute for narcotic medicines reliable nonaddictive drugs when these were available. The committee hoped by these measures to reduce the production of alkaloids and, correspondingly, the neces- sity for police controls.78 Within two years, research programs were begun at the Universities of Virginia and Michigan to identify and eliminate chemical features of morphine related to addiction, to develop synthetic substitutes, and to initiate pharmacological trials of what might usefully emerge. A fellowship program had also been set up, and the cooperation of concerned federal agencies and drug manufacturers obtained. A decade later the research had produced a number of new synthetic drugs, the work on morphine yielding a promising derivative, Meta- pon, with high analgesic action and significantly decreased addictive characteristics, as well as several new compounds approximating the effectiveness of codeine.79 The work was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation until ~ 94 I, but, upon the establishment of a unit of chemotherapy in the National Institute of Health that year, the direct research functions of the committee were transferred to the Institute. The Research Council's committee became the Advisory Committee on Drug Addiction, serv- ing the Institute, the Armed Services, the Veterans Administration, and other federal agencies dealing with narcotic addiction. In ~947, with progress in the synthesis of morphinelike substances, particularly the German-developed methadone, a powerful synthetic drug, the Research Council reestablished a Committee on Drug Addiction and Narcotics with broader interests and a broader membership. With support from the pharmaceutical industry, a grants program for evaluation of analgesia, side effects, and abuse potential was inaugu- rated.~° 78 NAS, Annual Report for 1928-29, pp. 85-86 et seq.; Science 73:97-98 January 23, i93 I) 79 Report of the Committee on Drug Addiction, 1929-1941 (NRC collected reprints, ~ ,58 pp.), pp. xxiv, xxx. 8° Nathan B. Eddy, "The Committee on Drug Addiction and Narcotics," NAS-NRC News Report 4:93-96 (November-December ~954); Eddy, National Research Council Involve- ment in the Opiate Problem, 1928-1971 (Washington: National Academy of Sciences, ~973). (Continued)

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 3 ~ 3 National Research Council Studies in Geophysics and Physics The "discovery" of the new world of atomic physics and the publica- tion of Ernest Rutherford's Radio-Activity in egos opened up an extremely active field in the Research Council in the decade following World War I. Studies were undertaken of the nature of atomic structure, of the X ray, of X-ray spectra, and of radiation in gases. An early application of"the new science," as Charles S. Peirce called it, was made by the geologists in a Committee on the Measurement of Geological Time by Atomic Disintegration, who undertook to calcu- late the age of the earth by the rate of atomic disintegration of radioactive materials in rocks of different geologic ages.82 The research in geological time was begun in ~9~4, in cooperation with the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory, Harvard, MET, federal and state geological and mining bureaus, and the assistance of atomic chemist Theodore W. Richards, Nobelist and member of the Academy. It focused on the rate at which uranium and radium in rocks degraded into helium and lead. The committee remained active for thirty-four years, its accumulation of data admittedly "largely potential," but, as intended, furnishing much needed information to many outside agencies as well as to other committees in the Research Council. It made substantial contribution, for example, to National Research Council Bulletin 80, The Age of the Earth, including a new estimate of its antiquity as ~.6 billion years. That 487-page publication, appearing The National Research Council has continued to concern itself with various aspects of the drug addiction problem. Committees succeeding the earlier ones and reports of their activities beyond the time span of this history are documented in the archives of the Academy. 8~ See Chapter 9, pp. 262-263. C. S. Peirce reviewed Radio-Activity in The Nation 82 :61 (January GOOD). 82 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1923-24, p. 89; 1957-58, p. 4~. 83"Minutes, Exec. Com., Div. of Earth Sciences," February 8, ~958, in ES Annual Report, p. 26 (NAS Archives: ES: Annual Report: ~958). For the committee's important contributions in geochemistry and nuclear geophysics, see "Report of the Com . . . ~ 954-55," Preface. 84 Studies of measurement of geological time by means of radiation and atomic physics suggested its age as not less than ~.6 billion years ("The Age of the Earth," pp. 2, 3, 454); based on sediments and life traces, a conjectural 4so million years (pp. 2,62); and the age of the oceans as loo million years (p. 7 ~ ). More recent works estimate its age as 4.5 billion years [Henry Faul, Nuclear Geology, A Symposium on Nuclear Phenomena in the Earth Sciences (New York: John Wiley & Sons, ~954), p. 278; Robert L. Heller (ed.), Geology and Earth Sciences Sourcebook (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, ~962), p. 3O8; Science 150: 1805-1807 (December 3 I, ~ 965)].

314 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927—1931) in 193~, was one of nine in a series entitled "The Physics of the Earth," produced in cooperation with the American Geophysical Union by a committee of the same name in the Division of Physical Sciences. The committee was organized in ~9~6 to provide systematic data, in nine fields comprising the principal matter of geophysics, which were much needed then by scientists engaged in exploring oil and mineral properties.85 The publication of its studies "Volcanol- ogy," "The Figure of the Earth," "Meteorology," "The Age of the Earth" (all in ~ 93 ~ ); the 58 ~ -page survey "Oceanography" In ~ 932; "Seismology" in ~ 933; "Internal Construction of the Earth" and "Terrestrial Magnetism" in ~939; and "Hydrology" in ~942 com- pleted the work of the committee. "Roentgen Rays" and radium, the results of radiation research in Europe, were, for more than a quarter century after the discovery of the X ray in ~895, exhibited as public entertainments, exploited, and frequently misapplied as wonders of medical therapy. At the same time, they were being explored as challenging new instruments of science, but it was not until the early Ages that the first authoritative X-ray and radiation standards of measurement and protection be- came available. In ~928, the year after Hermann l. Muller, a member of Morgan's group at Columbia, demonstrated that X rays were capable of chang- ing the heredity of living things by producing gene mutations,86 the Research Council authorized a Committee on the Effects of Radiation on Living Organisms. W. C. Curtis was Chairman, and the commit- tee's function was to sponsor, guide, and where necessary support university research in the largely unknown field. Several years later, the committee, having devised the necessary safeguards, began to accelerate its research. It was active for eleven years and sponsored more than four hundred research papers.87 Changes in the Organization of International Science Morgan's term of office also witnessed new activity in international science. The German domination of the International Association of Academies organized in egos had led Hale during World War I, with Academy approval and the moral support of the Royal Society, to 85 NAS, Annual Report for 1926—27, p. 4~; 1931—32, pp. 43, so, 63. 86 Hermann ]. Muder, "Artificial Transmutation of the Gene," Science 66:~87 Duly 27, 1927). 87 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1927-28, pp. 72-73; 1938-39, pp. 4g-so.

The Twenties: New Horizons in Science 1 3 ~ 5 propose an International Research Council (1RC), for closer and more active cooperation in science among the Allied and neutral nations. The conference of twelve nations that formally inaugurated the International Research Council in July ~ 9 ~ 9 drafted the statutes establishing the ~RC'S International Unions of Astronomy, Geodesy and Geophysics, and Pure and Applied Chemistry, and anticipated subsequent Unions of Radio-Sciences, Physics, Mathematics, Biolog~- cal Sciences, and Geography. The conference continued, however, the specific exclusion of the Central Powers from the Council and its unions. The question of their readmission, brought up repeatedly by the neutral nations at subsequent meetings, and supported by the Academy after 1923, approached resolution in 1925, when Great Britain and the United States joined in the request of the neutral countries. A year later the International Research Council admitted Bulgaria and Hungary.89 Although invited, Austria and Germany steadfastly refused. In ~ 93 I, as the original convention expired, the International Research Council was reorganized as the International Council of Scientific Unions (~csu) to emphasize the potentialities of the interna- tional unions over and above those of the constituent national academies and research councils. ~csu gave the unions a larger and more active role in the parent body and freedom to accept as mem- bers national committees from nonmembers of the Council, particu- larly Germany and the Soviet Union, both of whom participated in several of the unions.90 Over the next decade, Use, legally established in Brussels with its administrative headquarters in Cambridge, England, became a "united nations" of science, with members from the research councils of twenty-six countries and thirteen others represented through their governments or designated government bureaus.9~ ~csu was affected only incidentally by the Depression. Its meetings 88 Cf. Chapter 7, pp. ~77-~79; Chapter 8, pp. 329-330. 89 "Minutes of the Academy," April ~9~9, p. 466, reported the resolution to admit the neutral countries to the IRC, the "Minutes" of April ~923, pp. ~95-~96, the resolution that "the time has arrived" to include all nations once again in international scientific . . Organizations. 90 Esther C. Brunauer, International Council of Scientific Unions (U.S. Department of State, Publication 2413, 1945), pp. 4-5 (copy in NAS Archives); Development of Interna- tional Cooperation in Science, a symposium (NAS-NRC, ~952), pp. 2-5. 9~ Brunauer, International Council of Scientif c Unions, pp. 5-6. Upon the organization of UNESCO late in ~946, ~csu became its coordinating and representative body for science (The Yearbook of ICSU, ~962, pp. 88-89).

316 / THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1927 - 1931) were fewer and its project planning curtailed. The unions, however, suffered prolonged distress, and, as in the Academy's Research Council, depended upon special supporting funds for the next twelve years.92 Those years were a time of reappraisal and reorganization for the Research Council.93 The members, as they had since Anglo, still num- bered between s80 and ~go, of whom more than so were members of the Academy. Nevertheless, the 80-odd committees in the early post- war years had grown to almost 130 a decade later.94 Yet, industrious and productive as the committees continued to be, the Research Council itself over the years suffered from accretions of structure and procedure. As Roger Adams, a long-time member of Research Coun- cil committees, of the Research Council itself, and then of the Academy, recalled: The ineffectiveness of the National Research Council during the ten to fifteen years following World War I was due in large measure to the frequent changes in those administering the Council and its Divisions . . . Las well as to a continuing] lack of consensus regarding the objectives of the NRC and how it should be organized.95 92 For congressional payment of the American share of expenses of ~csu and its unions beginning in ~935, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1935-36, p. ~5. In ~963 ~csu's statutes were revised to give the national members a voice in the governance of ~csu comparable to that of the unions (NAS Archives: IR: lU: ICSU: Com on ~csu Future Structure: ~963). 95 The years before, under Hale's influence, had often been confusing, not to say daunting. As anthropologist A. V. Kidder, Chairman of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology, said in ~927: "I believe that all chairmen go through four periods: (I) bewilderment, (2) a great burst of energy, (3) discouragement, and (4) a return to normalcy. The greatest problem of the chairman is that he is given a large handsome machine and no gas to run it" [S. S. Stevens, "The NAS-NRC and Psychology," American Psychologist 7: 123 (April ~ 952 )]. 94 The Research Council, in theAnn2`al Reportfor 1931-32 ( p. 32), showed 282 members of the Council and 888 members on its ~35 committees. 95 Roger Adams to Philip Handler, March lo, ~970 (NAS Archives: PUBS: NAS: History: Chapter Review: Comments). See also NAS Archives: ORG: Methods & Systems: Proce- dure for Initiating and Financing NRC Projects: Criticism: ~93~.

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The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 Get This Book
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Among the oldest and most enduring of American institutions are those that have been devoted to the encouragement of the arts and the sciences. During the nineteenth century, a great many scientific societies came and went, and a few in individual disciplines achieved permanence. But the century also witnessed the founding of three major organizations with broadly interdisciplinary interests: the Smithsonian Institution in 1846; the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, which in 1848 became the American Association for the Promotion (later, Advancement) of Science; and the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

The founding of the National Academy of Sciences represented a momentous event in the history of science in the United States. Its establishment in the midst of a great civil war was fortuitous, perhaps, and its early existence precarious; and in this it mirrored the state of science at that time. The antecedents of the new organization in American science were the national academies in Great Britain and on the Continent, whose membership included the principal men of science of the realm. The chartering of academies under the auspices of a sovereign lent the prestige and elements of support and permanence the scientists sought, and in return they made their scientific talents and counsel available to the state.

The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 describes the National Academies from inception through the beginning of the space age. The book describes the Academies' work through different periods in history, including the Postbellum years, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.

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