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

242 THE TIDE OF COMMERCE AND iNDUSTRY (1920-30)
was to result in small but steady increases in Bureau appropriations through-
out his tenancy. Apparently acting on a hint provided by a member of the
House Subcommittee, who had requested that the Director include in his
presentation a list of Bureau publications of the previous year, Burgess at his
first confrontation with Congress early in 1924 deluged it with statistics.
Annually thereafter he compiled imposing catalogs of Bureau operations,
Bureau economies effected on behalf of other Government agencies and of
industry, and current scientific and technological accomplishments of the
Bureau, some of his presentations running to a hundred pages or more and
much of it in fine print.64
One other influence on Bureau operations may be noted, that of the
Visiting Committee, invigorated by the presence of Dr. Stratton.65 The
Committee had originally been set up to keep the Secretary of Commerce
informed of "the efficiency of * * * [the] scientific work [of the Bureau]
and the condition of its equipment." Perhaps to reassure Congress, or
even with the thought of extending the influence of the Committee, Stratton
had said soon after the first visitors were appointed: "The visiting commit-
tee we shall make an advisory board." 66 In the 1920's, more than ever
before, the Committee became that board.
By 1923 the staff and plant of the Bureau of Standards made it the
largest physical laboratory of its kind in the world. Dr. Burgess was fully
conscious of the enormous responsibility over which he presided. He
intended no further expansion of functions or of avenues of research. He
was content to carry on the work and Stratton. A cautious man,
isis was to be, as Dr. Briggs said, "a wisp administration." 67
04 Still other tabulations included the 82 advisory committees on Bureau research, the
56 conferences held at the Bureau in the past year, and a selection from a single random
day's mail that comprised almost a hundred specific requests for services of .one kind or
another. Altogether, the tabulations spanned pp. 209—319 of Hearings * * * 1925
(Feb. 12, 1924). A year later Burgess included work-in-progress as well as accomplish-
ments of the divisions, section by section, and added an impressive chart of the total
value of products produced by each industry served by the Bureau, arranged according to
Bureau appropriations for its work in those industries. Hearings * 1926 (Jan. 5,
1925), pp. 157—159.
° Few references to the Visiting Committee appear in the annual reports prior to 1924.
With NBS Annual Report 1925 (p. 38) and its announcement of the forthcoming NBS
M63, "Report of the Board of Visitors * * * Nov. 1924," the recommendations of the
Committee became a matter of public record. But the same economy that reduced
the Bureau's annual report from 330 pages in 1923 to 38 pages in 1924 also ended the
separate Visiting Committee report, and summaries of its recommendations thereafter
appeared only in the Bureau's annual report.
Hearings * * * 1903 (Jan. 28, 1902), p. 146.
Interview with Dr. Briggs, Nov. 1, 1961; Briggs, "George Kimball Burgess," Science.
76,46 (1932).