ROSA: SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT 37 1 



The General Electric Company has achieved notable success 

 in the development of electrical instruments and machinery, 

 electric lamps, steam turbines, the applications of electricity 

 to ship propulsion, etc., and a very large part of this success may 

 be credited to its scientific and development work. Its research 

 laboratories have turned out many valuable contributions to 

 science, in addition to the results of direct application in their 

 business. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 

 and its subsidiary, the Western Electric Company, have achieved 

 a world-wide reputation for their development of long distance 

 telephony, multiplex telephony and telegraphy and radio teleph- 

 ony as well as for the development of many of the engineering 

 features of telephone practice of the present day. 



These and other great corporations carry on research work 

 on a generous scale and derive great commercial advantage 

 therefrom. But thousands of smaller companies cannot do what 

 they do. The smaller companies are, however, rendering the 

 public a service that is very essential, and the public will serve 

 itself by helping them to improve this service. This does not 

 mean that they will have their burdens carried for them by the 

 government, but rather that the government as the agent of the 

 public should participate in research and standardization work 

 (in cooperation \vith manufacturers' associations and engineering 

 societies) in order that the public may be better served and in 

 order that the public may judge more intelligently of the quality 

 of the product or the service rendered. It is the open door 

 method of doing business as opposed to the method of keeping 

 the government and the public in partial ignorance. The 

 burden of this work when borne by over a hundred million people 

 is very light; the benefits far outweigh the cost. The American 

 Telephone and Telegraph Company's research laboratories 

 employ more research workers in their single field of investiga- 

 tion than the Bureau of Standards does for all its many lines of 

 work for all the industries of the country. The results obtained 

 justify the large expense for research in the telephone field. The 

 splendid results obtained are not due merely to the fact that 

 work is well managed and is done by a great corporation; but 



