Movement in Great Britain and the United States to Consult Civilian
Experts
Early in June, H.G. Wells, the "novelist of science," wrote to the
London Times a letter urging the necessity of mobilizing Great
Britain's scientific and inventive forces for the war. On June 22 The
London Times printed a second letter from Mr. Wells proposing the
establishment of a bureau for inventors--"a small department
collateral rather than subordinate to the War Office and Admiralty."
At the annual meeting in London of the British Science Guild on July
1, eminent scientists and chemists, Sir William Mather, Sir William
Ramsay, Sir Boverton Redwood, Sir Philip Magnus, Professor Petry, Sir
Ronald Ross, Sir Archibald Geikie and Sir Alexander Pedler, condemned
the attitude adopted by the British Government toward science in
connection with the war, and demanded that in future greater use
should be made of the opportunities afforded by scientific knowledge
in the prosecution of the struggle. A letter conveying this opinion
was sent by these scientists to Prime Minister Asquith. On July 18 it
was announced in London that a number of eminent scientists and
inventors had been appointed to assist Admiral Lord Fisher, as
Chairman of the Invention Board, to co-ordinate and encourage
scientific work in relation to the requirements of the British navy.
Lord Bryce was said to be instrumental in this undertaking.
In the United States a similar movement was in progress. THE NEW YORK
TIMES published on May 30 an interview with Thomas A. Edison declaring
that in its preparations for war the American Government should
"maintain a great research laboratory, jointly under military and
naval and civilian control." In this could be developed the
"continually increasing possibilities of great guns, the minutiae of
new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression,
without any vast expense." If any foreign power should seriously
consider an attack upon this country "a hundred men of special
training quickly would be at work here upon new means of repelling the
invaders," Mr. Edison said; "I would be at it, myself."
Secretary of the Navy Daniels thereupon wrote to Mr. Edison a
congratulatory letter, saying: "I think your ideas and mine coincide
if an interview with you recently published in THE NEW YORK TIMES was
correct." He added:
One of the imperative needs of the navy, in my judgment, is
machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive
genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare as
shown abroad, and it is my intention if a practical way can
be worked out, as I think it can be, to establish at the
earliest moment a department of invention and development,
to which all ideas and suggestions, either from the service
or from civilian inventors, can be referred for
determination as to whether they contain practical
suggestions for us to take up and perfect....
What I want to ask is if you would be willing, as a service
to your country, to act as an adviser to this board, to take
such things as seem to you to be of value, but which we are
not, at present, equipped to investigate, and to use your
own magnificent facilities in such investigation if you feel
it worth while.
The consequence was Mr. Edison's appointment to head an advisory board
of civilian inventors and engineers for a Bureau of Invention and
Development created in the Navy Department. After a conference with
Mr. Edison Secretary Daniels on July 19 wrote to eight leading
scientific societies asking each of them to select two members to
serve on the Naval Advisory Committee, and as a first fruit of the
movement it was announced on July 23 that at the request of Mr.
Edison, the American Society of Aeronautic Engineers had been formed
with Henry A. Wise Wood as President and Orville Wright, Glenn H.
Curtiss, W. Starling Burgess, Peter Cooper Hewitt, Elmer A. Sperry and
John Hays Hammond, Jr., as Vice-presidents.