NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
91 
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD 
At the National Research Council Building, December 21, 1918, at 10 a.m. 
Present: Messrs. Bogert, Cross, Flinn, Howe, Hussey, Johnston, Manning, 
Mendenhall, Merriam, Millikan, Pupin, Walcott, Washburn, Welch, Woods, 
Woodward, and Yerkes. 
The Chairman presented a report of the Committee on Reconstruction 
Problems. This Committee at its first meeting on August 18, 1918, adopted a 
program calling for research into the agencies and activities dealing with 
after-war problems. It appears that many organizations have taken up, or 
are about to take up, some phase of this far-reaching matter; so that, in theory 
at least, there are relatively few points not being covered. The Committee 
decided therefore to limit its efforts to a specific undertaking; and recom- 
mends the preparation of a comprehensive report on the whole question of the 
supply and control of water in relation to food and power production and other 
industries, a question which enters largely into all reconstruction plans 
throughout the world. In the compilation of data and preparation of this 
report it is proposed that each member of the Committee should cover one of 
the major topics, and that experts in Government service be invited to co- 
operate; and that the whole should be edited by some one person, with due 
credit to the several collaborators and sources of information. 
Moved: That the plan presented by the Committee on Reconstruction Problems be ap- 
proved, provided that it does not conflict with similar activities of present Government 
organizations and that the manuscript of the report having to do with reconstruction be sub- 
mitted to the Committee on Publicity and Publications for approval before it is sent to 
press. {Adopted.) 
Mr. Merriam, Chairman of the Committee on Organization, presented a 
report, in substance as follows: 
The period of the war emergency having come to an end, so far as activities in most 
phases of research are concerned, the National Research Council must take up for imme- 
diate consideration the extent of readjustment necessary in order to adapt its machinery 
most perfectly for functioning through the period of reconstruction and in normal times of 
peace. 
In the evolution of the Research Council the first stage was that of a temporary organi- 
zation intended to continue for a period not longer than one year, within which time it was 
assumed that the best mode of operation would become evident. The entrance of America 
into the war made necessary considerable modification of the temporary machinery in 
order to permit concentration of effort within the briefest limits of time and space. These 
shifts were not presumed to lead in all cases in the direction of permanent organization, and 
suggestions relating to the ultimate plan upon which the work of the Council was to be 
based continued under discussion through the period of the war. While it is not neces- 
sary to assume that either the aims or the plan of operation of the Council must be materi- 
