THE PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CON- 

 DITIONS AS RESULTS OF APPLIED 

 SCIENCE AND INVENTION 



By Hon. George W. Perkins 



Late President of the Commissioners of the Palisades 

 Interstate Park 



[This paper, by the late Hon. George W. Perkins, President of the Com- 

 missioners of the Palisades Interstate Park, was presented before the Section 

 of Social and Economic Science of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Dr. George F. Kuntz, Chairman, at Pittsburgh, 

 December 29, 1917. At the conclusion of the ensuing discussion, Mr. Perkins 

 presented me with a copy of the manuscript, from which this paper is 

 published. 



This paper has been considered particularly appropriate to publish in this 

 Bulletin, because it outlines in a striking manner the precise relation that 

 scientific research and invention bear to practical problems. It has an added 

 interest in coming not from a professional scientific man, but from a leader 

 in large constructive business enterprises. The dependence which he recog- 

 nizes between research and practice is the same relation that the research 

 of the Roosevelt Wild Life Station should bear to practical wild life 

 problems. 



An early number of this Bulletin will contain a paper by me entitled 

 " Forestry and the Food Problem," in which it will be shown how intimately 

 research on wild life is related to practical problems, as exemplified by 

 the production of food for man from the non-agricultural or forest lands 

 and waters. 



Mr. Perkins was a close personal friend of Mr. Roosevelt, and his 

 active, practical cooperation in the wild life research of the College, and 

 of the Roosevelt Station, has been much appreciated. The first financial 

 support which the Roosevelt Station received from outside sources was 

 through Mr. Perkins' cooperation in the Palisades Interstate Park. His 

 interest was further shown by his suggestions. He said : 'As a matter of 

 actual fact I think that any Roosevelt Memorial along the lines you suggest 

 ought in some way to be connected with the Palisades Interstate P'ark, 

 because, as you doubtless know, Roosevelt started it and was interested in 

 it for many years, and it has come to be a very large undertaking. However, 

 I do not feel like advocating this, because I am President of the Park Commis- 

 sion and have been since it started. However, since you bring up the 

 question of using the Park in connection with the matter in which you are 

 interested, I will say frankly that I think this is where it ought to be 

 located I am just at the eve of starting out to raise a consider- 

 able sum of money for the Park. Would there be any way of our getting 

 together on the undertaking? " 



Plans were later presented to him, and were under consideration by him 

 when overtaken by his last illness. To his wife, Evelina B. Perkins, 

 the Station is greatly indebted for permission to publish the address that 

 follows, as well as for the excellent portrait accompanying it. — C. C. A.] 



As recently as when our fathers were boys, Samuel F. B. Morse 



flashed to the world the first message ever carried by electricity. 



That message was the query, "What hath God wrought?" How 



[53] 



