NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
507 
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
PRELIMINARY REPORT OF THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE TO THE 
PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY 
By George E. Hale, Chairman 
On April 19, 1916, at the closing session of the annual meeting, the Academy 
voted unanimously to offer its services to the President of the United States 
in the interest of national preparedness. The Council of the Academy was 
authorized to execute the work in the event of the President's acceptance. 
On April 26 the President of the Academy, accompanied by Messrs. Conk- 
lin, Hale, Walcott, and Woodward, was received at the White House by the 
President of the United States. In presenting the resolution adopted at the 
annual meeting, it was suggested that the Academy might advantageously 
organize the scientific resources of educational and research institutions in 
the interest of national security and welfare. The President accepted this 
offer, and requested the Academy to proceed at once to carry it into effect. 
Immediately following this visit, the President of the Academy, in harmony 
with resolutions adopted by the Council on April 19, appointed the following 
Organizing Committee: Messrs. Edwin G. Conklin, Simon Flexner, Robert A. 
Millikan, Arthur A. Noyes, and George E. Hale {Chairman). 
At a meeting of the Council of the Academy, held in New York on June 19, 
the Organizing Committee presented the following statement of work ac- 
complished up to that date. 
Much time was devoted during the first five weeks to the organization of 
committees to meet immediate needs, including those on Nitric Acid Supply 
(A. A. Noyes, Chairman), in co-operation with the American Chemical 
Society; Preventive Medicine (Simon Flexner, Chairman), in co-operation 
with the Committee of Physicians and Surgeons, and Synthetic Organic 
Chemistry (M. T. Bogert, Chairman), in co-operation with the American 
Chemical Society. Special attention was also given to arrangements for 
co-operation with the scientific Bureaus of the Government, the Committee of 
Physicians and Surgeons, the Naval Consulting Board, the national societies 
devoted to branches of science in which com^mittees were immediately needed, 
the national engineering societies, the larger research foundations, certain 
universities and schools of technology, and the leading investigators in many 
fields of research, both on the industrial and the educational side. The hearty 
encouragement received from all of these men and institutions leaves no 
doubt that, as soon as a general request for co-operation is sent out, it will 
meet with universal acceptance. 
During this preliminary period a more comprehensive plan of organization 
was developed, and finally embodied in the form indicated below. It was 
recognized from the outset that the activities of the committee should not 
be confined to the promotion of researches bearing directly upon military 
problems, but that true preparedness would best result from the encourage- 
ment of every form of investigation, whether for military and industrial ap- 
