26 



tor Kilgore responded by introducing separate legislation later that 

 month which incorporated his own ideas. The Magnuson and Kil- 

 gore science bills were debated in a series of joint hearings held in 

 the fall of 1945. 4 These hearings provided an open forum for the 

 debate and development of postwar science policy, and nearly all 

 the leaders of science were given the opportunity to testify. A clear 

 consensus was reached regarding the need for Government support 

 for science and the desirability of establishing a science foundation. 

 The areas of disagreement corresponded to the differences ex- 

 pressed earlier between Kilgore and Bush, namely the organization 

 of the foundation, the distribution of funding, the role of social sci- 

 ences, and patent policy. 



The governing structure of the proposed National Science Foun- 

 dation was a major point of contention. The Magnuson bill, based 

 upon Bush's Science — The Endless Frontier, proposed a strong Na- 

 tional Science Board made up of part-time people unconnected with 

 the Government in any other manner. The Board would appoint 

 the director, establish policy, and award grants and contracts. The 

 Kilgore bill, on the other hand, proposed an organization with a 

 strong director appointed by the President and a National Science 

 Board that served only in an advisory capacity. Testifying before 

 the Magnuson-Kilgore hearings, Bureau of the Budget director 

 Harold Smith spoke in favor of the latter approach: 



I believe that the most important principle involved in 

 these bills is that an agency which is to control the spend- 

 ing of government funds in a great national program must 

 be a part of the regular machinery of government. If the 

 government is to support scientific research, it should do 

 so through its own responsible agency, not by delegating 

 the control of the programs and turning over the funds to 

 any non-governmental organization. 5 



Patent policy was another point of disagreement, and occupied 

 the greatest amount of time at the hearings. The debate was over 

 whether patents resulting from Government-supported research 

 should be the property of the discoverer or the Government. Mag- 

 nuson's bill proposed a patent policy similar to that followed by the 

 OSRD during the war, in which private contractors received pat- 

 ents for work supported by Federal funds. Kilgore favored a patent 

 policy that would prohibit individuals or corporations from taking 

 out patents on discoveries arising from Government-supported re- 

 search, making them instead available to the public through Gov- 

 ernment ownership. 6 



Bush and Kilgore also had serious disagreements over the geo- 

 graphical distribution of Federal research funds. Kilgore favored a 

 wide distribution of funds. To prevent the bulk of Federal monies 

 from going solely to colleges and universities in the East, Kilgore 



4 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Military Affairs, Hearings on Science Legislation, hear- 

 ings on S. Res. 107 and S. Res. 146 (79th Congress, 1st session. Washington: GPO, 1945). See also, 

 James L. Penick, Jr., Carroll W. Pursell, Jr., Morgan B. Sherwood, and Donald C. Swain (eds.), 

 The Politics of American Science: 1939 to the Present (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1972), pp. 120- 

 122; and National Academy of Sciences, Federal Support of Basic Research in Institutions of 

 Higher Learning (Washington: National Research Council, 1964), pp. 32-33. 



5 Senate Committee on Military Affairs, Hearings on Science Legislation, p. 96. 



6 See England, A Patron for Pure Science, pp. 5-6 and 52-57. 



