CHAPTER THREE— AD-X2: THE DIFFICULTY OF PROVING 



A NEGATIVE 



I. Background of the Case 



The purpose of this case study of congressional management of the 

 battery additive controversy of 1953 is to draw from recent history 

 useful lessons on the legislative role of scientific information. 



The hypothesis is that the world of politics is concerned -with 

 decisions on issues based on moral and social values, while the world of 

 science is concerned ^nth matters of measured fact. Since political 

 decisions involve both facts and values, the political problem of collec- 

 tion and interpretation of data for decisionmaking is particidarly 

 difficult uith respect to issues having a considerable scientific or 

 technological content. 



The battery additive controversy was selected as the initial case 

 study in this investigation because it shows how complex and far 

 reaching a seemingly simple technical issue can become, once it has 

 been identified with, political values. It introduces many of the prob- 

 lems of political use of scientific information that will reappear in cases 

 projected for subsequent investigation. During the battery contro- 

 versy, which simmered from 1948 through 1952, and climaxed in 1953, 

 many pohtical values were at stake. Seemingly, the virtue of a battery 

 additive was somehow ideologically related to the freedom of science 

 from political influence, the conflict between small business and 

 monopoly, the oppressiveness of business regulation by Government 

 bureaucrats, and the controversy as to whether the proofs of pure 

 science should prevail over the test of the marketplace, as applied by 

 practical men. 



The story in brief 



The initial statement of the facts is as foUows: A west coast vendor 

 of a white powder, represented as beneficial to the operation and useful 

 life of electric storage batteries, is asked by the Federal Trade Com- 

 mission to moderate his advertising claims for his product, and is 

 advised by the Post Office Department that transactions involving 

 his product may not go through the mails. These actions derive from 

 findings by the National Bureau of Standards that battery additives 

 are without merit, inckiding specifically the questioned product 

 AD-X2. The vendor challenges the NBS competence in battery 

 additive testing, and more particularly the use of NBS findings to 

 support and benefit commercial interests adverse to his own; he 

 appeals for exception through political channels. 



Before the issue died away — it was never cleanly resolved — the 

 resignation of a Director of the National Bureau of Standards had 

 been requested, accepted, deferred, rescinded; an Assistant Secretary 

 of Commerce had resigned; a Senate committee had produced a 

 785-page set of hearings to ascertain "whether or not agencies of the 



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