MARINE SCIENCE a5 
There has been so much talk about oceanography since the N.A.S.- 
N.R.C.’s Committee on Oceanography began its work, since the Con- 
gress began its consideration of the subject, and especially since an 
ocean-oriented President has been elected, that the casual observer 
of the national scene must believe that the Nation’s ocean research 
is in a flourishing state. Nothing could be further from the case. 
The ocean research establishment of the Nation is very little better off 
for funding than it was 3 years ago when you began your work, and 
in certain important respects it is worse off. 
As one example of the latter, one may point out that the Bureau 
of Commercial Fisheries of the Department of the Interior has less 
ocean research ships at sea now than it had 5 years ago and that it 
has actually been laying up ocean research ships for lack of funds 
with which to operate them and keep them at sea. 
The Nation’s ocean research has been further hampered because 
of a lack of higher, so-called supergrade positions. These just don’t 
seem to be available for our oceanographers. As a consequence, the 
Government cannot bid for and obtain the services of top ocean sci- 
entists to plan and lead its ocean research work. 
I might say in connection with what Dr. Idyll and Dr. Pritchard 
said, if you get funds to support graduate students—and I have been 
in that business myself, you will remember—and if you get research 
money to keep them alive while they are going through college, you 
still aren’t going to get the best men because so long as your salary 
range in the top jobs in oceanography in the country is low, the smart 
boys are going to drain off into space work, into atomic fission, into 
medical work, or wherever there is a better field for their talents, 
and you won’t get the best people so long as you keep the salary scale 
low. This is pretty nearly all governmental work, and the Govern- 
ment rates set the pace. Until you get some of these special positions 
into the oceanography area, you are just not going to have the de- 
velopment of the staff that you need in the country. 
No one in the country is better acquainted with the intransigence of 
the Bureau of the Budget and departmental budget officers in pro- 
viding funds for ocean research than the chairman of this committee. 
It was you who took the lead in seeking the passage of the Saltonstall- 
Kennedy Act, for example. The principal purpose of that act was to 
bypass the budget officers and pump new funds into fisheries re- 
search. They didn’t like it. It was you who took the lead in re- 
organizing the Department of the Interior’s handling of fishery af- 
fairs which resulted in the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956. A prin- 
cipal purpose of that act was to raise the status of fishery work in In- 
terior to where it would have a budget of its own to defend by giving 
it the status of a Federal bureau, and to increase and make permanent 
the funds provided by the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act. It is you who 
has taken the lead in implementing the NASCO report through an 
omnibus Ocean Research Act, which we all favor so strongly. The 
prime purpose of this bill is to pump funds into ocean research. 
We have followed with praise and support each of Senator Magnu- 
son’s efforts over this long period of years as we do now. We have 
to report that you have not done very well, and neither have we in 
helping. We spent a lot of time trying to blast or wheedle funds 
for ocean research from the land-oriented officials of the Bureau of 
