870 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 781 



PRESIDENT TAFT'S MESSAGE 

 Paragraphs of special interest to scientific 

 men in President Taft's annual message to 

 the congress concern the TJ. S. Naval Obsery- 

 atory and a Bureau of Health. They read as 

 follows : 



The generosity of Congress has provided in the 

 present Naval Observatory the most magnificent 

 and expensive astronomical establishment in the 

 world. It is being used for certain naval purposes 

 which might easily and adequately be subserved 

 by a small division connected with the Navy 

 Department at only a fraction of the cost of the 

 present Naval Observatory. The official Board of 

 Visitors established by Congress and appointed in 

 1901 expressed its conclusion that the official head 

 of the observatory should be an eminent astron- 

 omer appointed by the President by and with the 

 advice and consent of the Senate, holding his place 

 by a tenure at least as permanent as that of the 

 superintendent of the Coast Survey or the head 

 of the Geological Survey, and not merely by a 

 detail of two or three years' duration. I fully 

 concur in this judgment and urge a provision by 

 law for the appointment of such a director. It 

 may not be necessary to take the observatory out 

 of the Navy Department and put it into another 

 department in which opportunity for scientific 

 research afforded by the observatory would seem 

 to be more appropriate, though I believe such a 

 transfer in the long run is the best policy. I am 

 sure, however, I express the desire of the astron- 

 omers and those learned in the kindred sciences 

 when I urge upon Congress that the Naval Ob- 

 servatory be now dedicated to science under con- 

 trol of a man of science who can, if need be, render 

 all the service to the Navy Department which this 

 observatory now renders, and still furnish to the 

 world the discoveries in astronomy that a great 

 astronomer using such a plant would be likely to 

 make. 



For a very considerable period a movement has 

 been gathering strength, especially among the 

 members of the medical profession, in favor of a 

 concentration of the instruments of the national 

 government which have to do with the promotion 

 of public health. In the nature of things, the 

 medical department of the army and the medical 

 department of the navy must be kept separate. 

 But there seems to be no reason why all the other 

 bureaus and offices in the general government 

 which have to do with the public health or sub- 

 jects akin thereto should not be united in a bureau 



to be called the Bureau of Public Health. This 

 would necessitate the transfer of the Marine Hos- 

 pital Service to such a bureau. I am aware that 

 there is a wide field in respect to the public health 

 committed to the states in which the federal gov- 

 ernment can not exercise jurisdiction, but we have 

 seen in the Agricultural Department the expan- 

 sion into widest usefulness of a department giving 

 attention to agriculture when that subject is 

 plainly one over which the states properly exercise 

 direct jurisdiction. The opportunities offered for 

 useful research and the spread of useful informa- 

 tion in regard to the cultivation of the soil and 

 the breeding of stock and the solution of many 

 of the intricate problems in progressive agricul- 

 ture have demonstrated the wisdom of establish- 

 ing that department. Similar reasons, of equal 

 force, can be given for the establishment of a 

 Bureau of Health that shall not only exercise the 

 police jurisdiction of the federal government re- 

 specting quarantine, but which shall also afford 

 an opportunity for investigation and research by 

 competent experts into questions of health affect- 

 ing the whole country, or important sections 

 thereof, questions which, in the absence of federal 

 governmental work, are not likely to be promptly 

 solved. 



THE GEORGE CROCKER SPECIAL 

 RESEARCH FUND 



By the will of the late George Crocker, of 

 New Tork City, valuable property, said to be 

 worth about $1,500,000, has been bequeathed 

 to Columbia University for researches on the 

 cause, prevention and cure of cancer. The 

 clause in the will relating to this bequest is as 

 follows : 



I order and direct my executors hereinafter 

 named to sell my land, corner of Sixty-fourth 

 Street and Fifth Avenue, in the Borough of Man- 

 hattan, City of New York, together with the house 

 thereon, known as No. 1 East Sixty-fourth Street, 

 and the contents thereof, as well as all my real 

 estate at Darlington, in the County of Bergen, 

 btate of New Jersey, together with the houses 

 thereon and the contents thereof, and the horses, 

 cattle and other personal property connected 

 therewith, and to convert the same into money 

 and pay the net proceeds thereof to the trustees 

 of Columbia College in the City of New York, to 

 be held by such trustees and invested as a perma- 

 ment fund, to be known as the " George Crocker 

 Special Research Fund," the income of which shall 

 be applied in such manner as said trustees may 



