452 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTII i >\ s< II \( I \M) TECHNOLOGY 



advantages of the metric system for the development of science and 

 technology. This prompted Fulton to blurt out: 



Why don't we just take a point and say that we in the United States will be on 

 the metric system, and set the point far enough ahead in time that people can work 

 toward it and prepare and then have this committee have legislation which takes 

 that revolutionary step for the country and cuts the Gordian knot once and for all? 



A few minutes later, when Chairman Brooks left the committee room 

 and asked Hechler to preside, the latter quickly used the opportunity 

 to observe: 



I might say if the committee would care to foment a quiet revolution and adopt 

 the metric system, the Chair would note we perhaps have a majority. 



Six days after the hearing, on May 27, Chairman Brooks intro- 

 duced H.R. 7401, to authorize the National Bureau of Standards to 

 investigate and make recommendations on the practicability of adopt- 

 ing the metric system in the United States. Fulton went even farther 

 on July 27, 1959, when he introduced House Concurrent Resolution 364: 



That it is the sense of the Congress that the President of the United States should 

 take the appropriate steps, with the counsel of the Nation's leading educators and 

 scientists, to effect the adoption of the metric system of weights and measures as 

 the Nation's official system of measurement in all appropriate fields of endeavor, 

 and direct that all departments and agencies of the United States (particulary those 

 having functions related to education or schools) foster and promote the understand- 

 ing and use of such system by all the people of the United States. 



Although neither received any further action, the Brooks bill and 

 the Fulton resolution did stimulate additional discussion of the issue. 



ENDORSEMENT OF METRIC SYSTEM BY PANEL — 1961 



During the second meeting of the Panel on Science and Technology 

 on June 2, I960, Fulton mentioned that both Chairman Brooks and 

 he himself had introduced legislation "for the orderly adoption of 

 the metric system in all fields in the United States." Once more, at 

 the third meeting of the Panel on March 3, 1961, Fulton again raised 

 the question, and received a chorus of affirmatives from the scientists 

 serving as guest panelists. Chairman Brooks then put the question to 

 the Panel : 



How many of you agree that we should try to have the metric system adopted 

 in this country? 



There was another chorus of unanimous approval from the Panel, as 

 each panelist responded: "I do." 



The first metric bill of the 87th Congress was introduced on 

 January 3, 1961, by Representative James Roosevelt (Democrat of 

 California), eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt's 



