February 21, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



283 



referred to the committee on Coinage, 

 Weights and Measures. The measure was 

 before this committee two sessions, and re- 

 ceived from its members long and serious 

 consideration. There appeared before the 

 committee at one time and another, not 

 only men of science, but manufacturers 

 and engineers who were competent to speak 

 on such matters. Amongst all those who 

 appeared in favor of the bill, both before 

 the committee of the House and the com- 

 mittee of the Senate, there was none whose 

 opinion had more weight than that of the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Gage. The 

 following extract from his testimony be- 

 fore the Senate committee is worth remem- 

 bering in the history of this matter as the 

 suggestion of a high officer of the govern- 

 ment who appreciated not only the direct 

 commercial results of the measure, but 

 also its indirect moral effect : 



There is another side to this which occurs to 

 me. It may appear to many to have a more senti- 

 mental than practical value, but it gives the 

 proposition, to my mind, great force, and that is 

 what might be called the moral aspect of this ques- 

 tion; that recognition by the government of an 

 absolute standard, to which fidelity in all the rela- 

 tions of life afi'ected by that standard is required. 

 We are the victims of looseness in our methods ; of 

 too much looseness in our ideas; of too much of 

 that sort of spirit, born out of our rapid develop- 

 ment, perhaps, of a disregard or a lack of compre- 

 hension of the binding sanction of accuracy in 

 every relation of life. 



Now, the establishment of a bureau like this, 

 where the government is the custodian and the 

 originator of these standards of weights and meas- 

 ures as applied to all the higher scientific aspects 

 of life which we are so rapidly developing in, has, 

 to my mind, a value far and above the mere 

 physical considerations which affect it, although 

 those physical considerations are fundamental and 

 most important. Nothing can dignify this govern- 

 ment more than to be the patron of and the estab- 

 lisher of absolutely correct scientific standards and 

 such legislation as will hold our people to faith- 

 fully regard and absolutely obey the requirements 

 of law in adhesion to those true and correct stand- 

 ards. 



The bill for the establishment of the 

 bureau received at the hands of the Com- 

 mittee on Coinage, Weights and Measures 

 a consideration seldom given to such a 

 measure, and when it was finally reported 

 it received from that committee on the floor 

 of the House a support which indicated 

 their appreciation of its importance and 

 value. In particular the names of the 

 chairman of the committee, Hon. James H. 

 Southard, of Ohio; and Hon. John F. 

 Shafroth, of Colorado, deserve special 

 mention. In the closing days of the fifty- 

 sixth congress, when it was doubtful 

 whether the speaker could permit con- 

 sideration of the measure, Mr. Southard 

 kept his seat day after day, and even night 

 after night, in order that no opportunity 

 might slip by when the speaker might be 

 able to recognize him for the passage of 

 the bill. In the splendid new building 

 which Congress has provided for the hous- 

 ing of this bureau, and which is to become 

 in the future the home of the great in- 

 fluence which it will exert on science and 

 on industry, two names of those who had 

 to do with its successful inception, so far 

 as legislation is concerned, may well be 

 placed high on its walls ; and these are the 

 names of Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the 

 Treasury, and James H. Southard, Chair- 

 man of the Committee on Coinage, Weights 

 and Measures. 



In the Senate, also, the bill received 

 friendly consideration at the hands of the 

 Committee on Commerce. 



Looking back over the history of this 

 legislation, which was effected- without the 

 help of any lobby, at the recommendation 

 of a few men qualified to speak on such 

 matters, it is evident that it has been the 

 result, in the first place, of the work of 

 those who founded the Office of Weights 

 and Measures; of the influence of the 

 scientific recommendations of the last 

 twenty years looking toward the enlarge- 



