The Science Committee of the National Resources Committee

The next few years saw a dizzying series of committee name changes and remapping of the federal bureaucracy that added up to a steady expansion of the National Planning Board's mandate, and its movement closer to the federal center of power. In 1934, it was replaced by the National Resources Board, which in turn became the National Resources Committee in 1935. The new board was a governmental organization chaired by Ickes and including the secretaries of several cabinet departments concerned with natural resources. The former three-member non-governmental National Planning Board members now were the advisory committee to the National Resources Board/Committee, and Frederic Delano was appointed its vice-chair.

Ickes had convinced the president that national planning was urgently needed to support federal initiatives in the management of land, water, mineral, and power resources. Technical committees were appointed in each of these areas. Then the National Resources Board decided to undertake the study of human as well as natural resources. In February 1935, the board invited the National Academy of Sciences, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Council on Education each to nominate ve members to an advisory Science Committee.¹⁸

Edwin B. Wilson, a mathematical physicist on the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health, chaired the science committee. During 1936, the committee focused its attention on population problems and the social consequences of invention. Early in 1937, it convinced Delano to propose to the president that they study the interrelations of government and the intellectual life of the nation, whether in research, in education, or in technology.¹⁹ The following July, Roosevelt approved a study of Federal Aids to Research and the place of research (including natural and social science) in the Federal Government.

18One of the three members designated by the National Academy of Sciences was John Merriam, a distinguished paleontologist, who was Charles Merriam's elder brother.

19Dupree, op. cit., 359.

Figure 4.2: Frederic A. Delano. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.

In view of Merriam's interest in planning as a tool for governance, it was inevitable that the resulting

Relation of the Federal Government to Research should have emphasized both natural and social science.

This was the rst ocial government report to view the entire system of science as a potentially signicant tool for federal governance. It was also the rst to recognize the importance of establishing stronger links between the federal scientic enterprise and non-government scientic research.

The report was groundbreaking. Produced under the auspices of a committee made up largely of social scientists, it broadly dened what qualied as research. It also took historic steps toward formulating a national research policy in which the federal government would assume some measure of responsibility for research outside of government in both the natural and social sciences. Previously, the federal government (with the single exception of agricultural research in the land grant colleges created by the Morrill Act of 1862, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) had provided no nancial support for research in universities.

Relation of the Federal Government to Research consists of a sixteen-page Report of the Science Com-mittee and more than two hundred pages of Supporting Studies,²⁰ many based on written questionnaires and interviews with over fty federal bureaus involved in natural and social science research. These studies include over fty pages on The Legislative Branch and Research, and thirty pages on Research in American Universities and Colleges. In particular, the report recognized the vital importance of statistical data col-lected by various federal bureaus to social science research in academia. This emphasis implicitly recognized the pivotal importance to academic social science of the innovative work of Merriam and his colleagues in Chicago during the 1920s.

From the perspective of the twenty-rst century, some of the more pertinent ndings are these:

• Competition for research workers and the demand for large funds to support research have created a situation which calls for better coordination of the research facilities of the Nation than now exists.

• The recruiting, placement, and in-service training of research workers in the Government are, under present conditions, less satisfactory than they might be.

• The solution of the problems of the utilization of the research facilities of the country as aids to research in the Government is rendered readily possible by the existence of a number of national councils made up of the scientic specialists in the major lines of research.

• It seems feasible to make more extended use than at present of the plan of entering into contracts with national research organizations to take charge or research projects.

• International cooperation in scientic research now exists on a large scale. It could be encouraged to the great advantage of the Nation if the Federal Government would adopt the practice which is common among the Governments of other nations of according ocial recognition and, wherever necessary, nancial support to international gatherings of scientists.

On the basis of these and other ndings, the report made several recommendations, including:

• That steps be taken to improve the methods of recruiting research workers for governmental service and to provide more eective in-service training for Civil Service employees of the Government.

• That research agencies of the Government be authorized and encouraged to enter into contracts for the prosecution of research projects with the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the Social Science Research Council, the American Council on Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other recognized research agencies.

• That research agencies of the Government extend the practice of encouraging decentralized research in institutions not directly related to the Government and by individuals not in its employ.

• That the interrelations of governmental research agencies be furthered by the organization of central councils along the lines followed by the existing national councils of research specialists. These in-teragency councils would serve to systemize the eorts which are now made by various interbureau committees to coordinate the research activities within the Government.

20National Resources Committee, op. cit.