426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
many other technical triumphs have awakened the public to the limit- 
less potentialities of research and technology. 
ENORMOUS EXPANSION OF AMERICAN WARTIME RESEARCH 
Much of American industry learned its lesson in the First World 
War, when it found, as a result of the British blockade, how dependent 
it had become on German laboratories for many essential materials 
and supplies. In consequence, industrial research laboratories in this 
country multiplied many times over after the war, with great advan- 
tage to our peacetime economy and with invaluable results when a 
Second World War again caught us unprepared. 
This war is much more mechanized than any which has preceded 
it, so that the demands and opportunities for scientific and techno- 
logical developments have far surpassed anything in history. Thanks 
to the successful mobilization of the Nation’s scientists and engineers, 
the demands have been met and the opportunities fully grasped, so 
that in almost every respect our armed forces were before long 
equipped with more effective weapons and armament than those of 
our enemies, despite their long head start in military preparations. 
Marvelous as has been the achievement of American industry in con- 
version, almost over night, from peacetime manufacture to the pro- 
duction of munitions of all kinds, in quantity far exceeding anything 
that the world had ever seen, or that even Hitler had dreamed of, 
no less marvelous has been the swift conversion of our Nation’s science 
and technology from peacetime projects to the staggering task of 
overtaking and surpassing the German scientists and engineers who 
had been devoting years to the objective of building up an irresistible 
war machine. 
That formidable task for the most part has been successfully ac- 
complished, and although much of what has been done is still kept 
secret, enough has been published to give the American public a realiza- 
tion of the magnitude and diversity of scientific achievement in this 
most mechanized of all wars. 
SUSTAINED RESEARCH EFFORT REQUIRED 
From this conception of our potentialities has arisen a demand that 
the coming of victory shall see no slackening of intensive scientific 
research, but on the contrary, shall see the conversion of research, in 
full strength and intensive effort, to the promotion of our peacetime 
economy. Public and politicians alike are looking to research to de- 
velop new and better products, to create new industries, to prevent 
unemployment, to insure permanent prosperity for all, and to raise to 
new heights our Nation’s standard of living. 
Those hopes, although often too rosy, will insure much greater 
financial support for research, both governmental and private, than 
