in an atmosphere of freedom. It is desirable that classified projects and free studies be kept apart. However, we have thought that it might be wise to provide some mechanism for surveying the results of the research sponsored by the National Science Foundation so that new discoveries of military significance might be speedily brought to the attention of the interested agencies. This is the purpose of the ninth point in our resolution. I feel that the principal weakness of the present bill is that the scope of the Science Foundation is severely limited. In the first place, it is restricted to the support of "basic" research. This side of research is certainly most in need of support. But it will be exceedingly difficult to tell where to draw the line. Certainly the National Science Foundation must not compete with existing agencies or institutions which are doing an adequate job. But one can think of many instances where private institutions and industry are not able to carry out applied research or development which may be of great concern to the country as a whole. The Department of Agriculture, for example, has conducted applied research which has increased the yield of our farm land manifold. I would urge that the word "basic" be stricken out each time it appears. Earlier bills provided for an intergovernmental committee on research. The President has set up such a board, apart from the National Science Foundation bill, by Executive order. This function should be directly related to the Science Foundation and its Director. We do not believe that science or research can be planned. But we do feel that this agency should be charged with the duty to survey what is being done and to make reports so that the President, the Congress, and the people can know what is being done, how it is being done and decide how to improve our scientific establishment. There has been some concern that aid to foreign scientific institutions, as provided in 11 (c), might be used as a diplomatic tool. I'm sure this was not the intention. The generous provisions for support of international research and for sending scientists to international meetings (sec. 13 (a) (b)) meet with our hearty approval and will secure good will and do much to stimulate world science. I would like to conclude by expressing my deep appreciation of your continuing interest in and unselfish activity on behalf of this most worth-while legislation. Very sincerely yours, W. A. HIGINBOTHAM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Hon. CHARLES A. WOLVERTON, Cambridge 38, Mass., May 1, 1948. House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. WOLVERTON: I appreciate your sending me a copy of H. R. 6007, now before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. I have been an ardent supporter of the National Science Foundation from the start, as you know, and am delighted that a new bill has been introduced. I have examined it with care and have discussed it with some of my scienctific friends. It seems to me it represents a very good compromise between some of the opposing opinions expressed a year ago. I should like to be recorded as heartily in favor of passage of the bill this session, essentially as drawn up. Nothing has happened in the last year to change my point of view; on the contrary, the urgency of passing the bill is even greater than it was when I testified. I should like particularly to endorse the section dealing with scholarships and graduate fellowships. I feel this is of the utmost importance for the future welfare of the United States. I shall not repeat in this letter the reasons I have given so often for this opinion. With deep appreciation of your giving me an opportunity to express my views, I am, Very sincerely yours, JAMES B. CONANT. Hon. CHARLES A. WOLVERTON, THIRTY-ONE BIRD STREET, Needham 92, Mass., May 28, 1948. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN WOLVERTON: It does not now appear probable that I shall be able to be present at the hearings June 1 and 2 on H. R. 6007 and S. 2385 which I have carefully read with much interest. My preference is for S. 2385 because of less emphasis on the necessity for an executive committee. I am in favor of these bills with reservations. I am concerned that on page 2 the qualifications for persons nominated for members of the Foundation does not state that they should be citizens of the United States. This omission is the more conspicuous since the bill specifically states that candidates for fellowships under the National Science Foundation bill shall be selected from citizens of the United States. Very truly yours, HARLAN T. STETSON. SHORT HILLS, N. J., May 12, 1948. Hon. CHARLES A. WOLVERTON, Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. WOLVERTON: This is in final reply to your letter of April 16 requesting my comments in writing on H. R. 6007, Eightieth Congress, second session. As I wrote you some days ago, illness has prevented me from making an earlier reply. My comments, therefore, for what they are worth, may now be too late to be of interest to the committee. Further, in a recent issue of the Newark Evening News, I noted a dispatch from Washington, based apparently on a talk with you or Senator Smith regarding modifications of S. 2385 which seemed to indicate that the bill as it passed the Senate is substantially different from the draft of H. R. 6007 which you sent me. As I have not seen the final S. 2385, it may be, therefore, that my comments on part of H. R. 6007 are ultra viraes. I have read H. R. 6007 carefully and without having made a careful check of the National Science Foundation bill passed at the first session of the present Congress and vetoed by the President, it seems to me that the present bill is substantially the old bill modified merely to meet the President's principal objections. The elimination of these objections makes the present bill more purely a politi cally controlled affair and if passed would make the Foundation a firmly fixed bureaucracy which Congress will find it hard to control. As a purely political body it will be subject to all the pressures of every sort of interested group. As such it runs counter to the strongly expressed views of all the scientists who objected to the dangers of political control and were in favor of the bill passed last year. At the same time, if a foundation is to be "established in the Executive branch of the Government" I think that the President's objections to the old bill were well taken and would probably be held by any Chief Executive charged with the ultimate responsibility of its operation. If a foundation free from the dangers of political control, or with this danger reduced to a minimum, as all scientists (except those who may believe in the principle of a fully socialized state) feel should be the case, is to be established it will have to be set up outside the executive branch and be responsible directly to Congress. Since the provisions of H. R. 6007 are substantially the same as those of the vetoed bill, my general objections to it and the reasons for them are the same now as those which I presented when I appeared before your committee last year. For the sake of the record I should like to repeat the main points of my objections before commenting on H. R. 6007 in detail. 1. So far as fundamental and applied science are concerned, I do not think a convincing case has been made out for so radical and dangerous a divergence from the established proven method which has made American science and technology great as the creation of a tax-supported politically controlled Foundation would be. 2. The case advanced is that science in the future will require more monetary support than can be anticipated from private sources-individual or corporateergo, it must be supplied by the tax collector. The reasons assigned for this condition are the onerous exactions of existing Federal tax and inheritance laws. It assumes an immutability for these laws which does not exist in fact. It also loses sight of the fact that the tax collector is not a producer of wealth but merely the extractor by force of private wealth which might otherwise be contributed voluntarily to science and other philanthropic undertakings with far more assurance of wise expenditure than any politically appointed bureaucracy can possibly provide. 3. If one believes, as I do, in continuation of the traditional American system of support for science which has produced the present astounding results and felt, as is probably true, that continuation of the present tax and inheritance laws would result in insufficient private funds in the future, I would certainly try modifying the laws to create an incentive for private giving (both personal and corporate) before adopting the doubtful and dangerous experiment of a national science foundation. In passing, I understand from Senator Smith that Senator Millikin's committee in the Senate and Mr. Knutson's committee in the House are considering liberalization of the tax laws in this direction for gifts to philanthropic undertakings. 4. If a science foundation is established one thing is certain and that is that taxes will have to be increased or money now allocated to other services decreased below what it would otherwise be. That will certainly make the animals howl. So much for the main points of my objections to the experiment of any sort of a national science foundation at this time and embarkation on a further step away from the long-tried American system and toward a completely socialized centrally controlled state. Now for my specific comments on H. R. 6007. In passing, I note from the inclusion of the phrase "and other sciences" in the designation of powers and duties of the Foundation (sec. 4 (a) (2)) that it is the intention to open up the functions of the Foundation to all groups— social, economic, etc.-which can claim to be scientific. This will, of course, take it far afield from the fundamental sciences and increase greatly the number of appeals to it for aid and the political pressures on it, since many social and economic organizations which append science to their names are in highly controversial fields. 1. In addition to the general objections noted above to a national science foundation and in favor of a tax incentive as a means of providing for the adequate future private support of science in all its sectors-reasons which seem to me persuasive-I think that if Congress decides to attempt this through the tax collector-politically controlled bureau route, H. R. 6007 is a poor mechanism for achieving the objective. At best such a Foundation may possibly produce a few more good scientists, doctors, and engineers, and a little more first-rate science than would otherwise be produced, but at a high price. One thing it certainly will produce is a torrent of second-rate science and technology and a raft of second-rate scientists, doctors, and engineers. If it does produce any first-rate men who in turn will produce first-rate results (and these are all that really count), it will be at the expense of other fields of importance in a modern society. The history of science and technology everywhere over the ages has shown that with a free choice of vocation the men who have made possible the great advances have chosen science because it was the thing of overpowering interest to them. Most of them have been willing to make great sacrifices to follow their desires. They were not in effect bribed to enter the field. In the future as in the past this type of man will continue to go into the field, Foundation or no Foundation, and for the same reason. The most we can hope for from a foundation is that a few more such will be added by the lure of easy, uncritical money which it offers. 2. The bill attempts to cover too many things under the loose supervision of a small group of politically appointed men. Some of the things are governed by requirements so diametrically opposed that they cannot possibly be administered efficiently simultaneously by the same group of men. To do so presupposes that men can draw an iron curtain between segments of their brains. The sectors of fundamental science and military technology are a striking illustration of this. In the one, fundamental science, freedom of intercourse and discussion with one's fellows anywhere and freedom in the international exchange of information are the very heart's blood of progress. In the other, military tchnology, the exact reverse is the case. Rigidly imposed secrery is an absolute requirement. Without it the work would be of little value in the defense of the Nation. So well is this requirement understood by military men that even between allies in a war some things deemed to be of importance are not disclosed. This for two reasons: (a) because one never knows who will be bedfellows tomorrow; and (b) because information once disclosed to an alien country can never be protected as one would protect it himself. The advance of military science and technology is clearly a function of the Federal Government and should be fully supported in the civilian science field as well as in the purely military. Supervision of this support should not, in my judgment, be entrusted to a body concerned largely with the fundamental sciences. I think that the organization set up by the Secretary of Defense under Dr. Bush is the best place to handle all such work. 3. Medicine and engineering are not sciences but technologies. Both are vast fields. Each in the past has found little difficulty in obtaining all the money it could profitably employ for its advancement and there is little doubt that such will continue. Medicine among all the fields of applied science has an overpowering appeal to men because it deals with life itself. I doubt the necessity or wisdom of including it specifically in a national science foundation. If such a foundation is set up for fundamental science, medicine will derive substantially all the benefit it needs from that source. Without attempting to pass judgment on the merits or demerits of socialized medicine, it seems to me perfectly obvious that if the advances of medicine come to be largely dependent on money derived from the Federal tax collector through a science foundation established with it (medicine) as a named beneficiary, the pressure for complete socialization will shortly become irresistible. I cannot conceive of the public long continuing to have the use of knowledge obtained at its direct expense turned over for the use of a private group such as the American Medical Association and its members. If I were a physician and opposed to the socialization of my profession, I would oppose the specific inclusion of medicine in a national science foundation bill on that ground alone. As to engineering, the proposal to support advances in it from the Federal tax pot is even more questionable than is that of medicine. Like medicine, it is a technology and not a science. Its main advances are dependent on advances in fundamental science which it can do little to accelerate directly, but which it can and does exploit in a million and one ways industrially. Industry has shown itself to be perfectly capable of and willing to provide for the advance of engineering. The incentive to do so is irresistibly great and the investment industry makes in this sector is the safest and most profitable of all its investments, The most that a science foundation could hope to do in this field would be but a small but dangerous drop in a very great bucket. The field of engineering is so vast and diversified, so involved in matters of self-interest and economics that any incursion of Government into it would be to open Pandora's box of troublesclaims of favoritism, pressure for such favoritism in the choice of things to be supported, political pressure, and a host more. 4. Education: Scientific education is but a part of general higher education and cannot be pushed ahead of it. It would, I think, be a serious mistake to single it out and entrust it to a foundation concerned primarily with entirely different matters. So far as Congress feels that Federal funds should be allocated to higher education, the interests of scientific education should, I am certain, be entrusted to a body concerned exclusively with education. 5. Special commissions: While a foundation if set up should doubtless be given wide latitude of authority to set up commissions or any other groups as occasion demands, I think it would be a grave mistake to single out a few fields for mandatory treatment as H. R. 6007 does. To do so is to assume that present major problems will remain important. This assumes a wisdom as to the future which we simply do not possess. 6. Register of scientific and technical personnel: I am skeptical about the advisability of attempting any such thing and more than skeptical about the ability to do it effectively or of the value of what is done. The job of listing and keeping within shooting distance of up-to-dateness of a roster of "all scientific and technical personnel in the United States and its possessions" as a gigantic undertaking which can never be done satisfactorily or which will be much used except possibly for locating technicians. Many scientists-particularly the abler ones-will not be at all interested to be listed and many will not care to divulge details of what they are doing. When one is looking for scientific men for particular jobs he does not go to a roster-he consults men in the field of his interest who are most likely to know the kind of men he is interested to contact. In time of war or other national emergency, an emergency roster freshly compiled may be of some value, but in time of peace any such thing as H. R. 6007 proposes is, I think, pouring money down a rat hole. 7. Correlation of the Foundation's scientific research programs with those undertaken by individuals and by public and private research groups. To me, an attempt to do any such thing is fantastic nonsense, and the inclusion of any such mandate to the Foundation would seem to indicate a complete lack of understanding of what is involved on the part of whoever drafted the provision. It is hard enough to correlate what is going on in a single sector. To do it for all is an impossibility. 8. Director. This is a purely political appointment, with no assurance that the appointee knows much about science-the condition "after receiving recommendations from the Foundation" being surplusage which neither the President nor the Senate is constrained to follow. The possibility of getting a top line man to accept so important and responsible a job and one so filled with potential headaches and red-tape annoyances for $15,000 a year seems to me slim to the vanishing point. Many university presidents get double this, many professors as much, the heads of the larger private foundations two or three times as much, and directors of industrial research much more. In a Foundation such as H. R. 6007 proposes to set up which is so completely dependent for any success on the caliber of the men who constitute the Board and the Director, it would be far better to have no Foundation at all than any but really first-rate men on the Board and in the directorship. 9. Membership of Foundation. This is, of course, a matter of political chance, since no fixed standards for appointment are set up. The President can determine what constitutes "eminence" at his sole discretion and determine who are the "scientific leaders" whose views are to be represented. * * * The request that in making nominations the President "give due consideration to any recommendations for nomination which may be submitted to him by the National Academy of Sciences, etc, etc. or by other scientific or educational organizations” is, of course, merely a bit of pleasant window dressing, put in, I suppose, in seeming deference to the scientists and the others. There is nothing in it to compel the President to seek such advice or to pay any attention to it if offered. He is free in making nominations to get his advice (if he wants advice) from anyone he pleases. This is as it should be, if he is to be responsible for the operation of the Foundation. I think, therefore, that this whole provision should be eliminated. There are a number of other things I might comment on, but if you have survived to this point you may begin to suspect that, like Calvin Coolidge's report of the preacher's stand on sin-"He was against it," I don't think much of H. R. 6007. If Congress is set to pass a Science Foundation bill, as I fear they are, I do hope that they very completely revise H. R. 6007. It covers entirely too much ground, and is, in my judgment, a hodgepodge of things which have been thrown together in an attempt to please everybody a little. This, without anybody subjecting the result to the acid test of what will be involved or how successful it is likely to be. The kind of distrust I have of the dependence of science on the financial support of political government is nothing new. It was the basis of a great controversy in England 200 years ago which centered around an attempt of some scientist to obtain state aid. The great Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the January 29, 1751, issue of the Rambler, showed what the results would be. With the thought that you and your associates may be interested in what he had to say, I am enclosing photostatic copy of his article. His arguments are, I think, as valid today as they were two centuries ago. Sincerely, FRANK B. JEWETT. |