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Hon. ROBERT CROSSER,

UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION,
Washington, D. C., March 22, 1949.

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives.

DEAR MR. CROSSER: This is with further reference to your communication of January 12, 1949, requesting an expression of the Commission's views on the bill H. H. 311 for the establishment of the National Science Foundation. This report is confined to the provisions of section 15 (a) of the proposed bill relating to the appointment of technical and professional personnel. Section 15 (a) would permit the Director, subject to such general directives as may be prescribed by the Executive Committee, to employ such technical and professional personnel and fix their compensation without regard to the provisions of the civil-service laws and regulations and the Classification Act of 1923, as amended.

During the last Congress the bills introduced to establish the National Science Foundation, one of which (S. 526) was vetoed by the President, contained similar exempting language. The Commission in its reports to the Members of Congress sponsoring the legislation and to the committees to which the bills were referred, stated its objections to excepting the employment of technical and professional personnel from competitive procedures and the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, on the grounds that the Commission is able to recruit such personnel and further that such legislation would violate the principles of the civil-service merit system.

The merit system established by the Civil Service Act of 1883 provides that positions in the executive establishment shall be open to competition among qualified applicants. The act also permits any necessary exemptions from competition by Executive order. The Commission therefore urges that the principles of the civil-service merit system and of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, be adhered to in the appointment of technical and professional personnel to be required by the Foundation, and that the bill be amended accordingly. The Commission, in accordance with established procedure, has been informed by the Bureau of the Budget that there would be no objection to the submission of this report to your committee.

By direction of the Commission:
Sincerely yours,

Hon. ROBERT CROSSER,

HARRY B. MITCHELL, President.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,
Washington, March 29, 1949.

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN CROSSFR: This is in response to your letter of January 12, 1949, requesting a report of the Department of Labor on H. R. 311, a bill to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, to secure the national defense, and for other purposes.

I favor in general the purpose and provisions of H. R. 311 to create a National Science Foundation with adequate powers and duties in furtherance of research and education in the sciences. I shall, however, confine my detailed comments to aspects of the measure of direct interest to the Department of Labor.

Section 10 (b) of the bill would provide that the Foundation shall maintain a register of scientific and technical personnel and in other ways provide a central clearing house for information covering all scientific and technical personnel in the United States and its possessions. In section 15 (j) of the bill there is provision for the transfer of the national roster of scientific and specialized personnel from the Department of Labor to the Foundation, together with appropriations, records, or property available for the administration of the roster, as the President shall determine.

The maintenance of such a roster is a very important function, and I believe that it properly belongs in the National Science Foundation. Since, however, a close working relationship should be established between the Foundation and the United States Employment Service in order to utilize the Nation-wide facilities of the Service for locating employment opportunities for scientifically trained personnel and for bringing properly qualified personnel to employers, considera

tion may be given to indicating in the bill the desirability of establishing such a relationship.

With respect to the provisions of section 15 (j) of H. R. 311, transferring the roster from the Department of Labor, I wish to point out that the transfer of the United States Employment Service to the Federal Security Agency has raised some legal questions as to whether the roster is at present a function in the Department of Labor. The uncertain status of the roster at the present time would seem to make advisable the use of broader language in effecting transfer so as to ensure that the roster, the records, and any available appropriations would be transferred regardless of where they are situated at present. The Bureau of the Budget advises that it has no objection to the submission of this re ort.

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DEAR MR. CROSSER: This is with further reference to your communication of January 28, 1949, requesting an expression of the Commission's views on the bill H. R. 1845 for the establishment of the National Science Foundation. This report is confined to the provisions of section 14 (a) of the proposed bill relating to the appointment of technical and professional personnel. Section 14 (a) would permit the Director, subject to such policies as the Foundation may from time to time prescribe, to employ such technical and professional personnel and fix their compensation without regard to the provisions of the civil-service laws and regulations and the Classification Act of 1923, as amended.

During the last Congress the bills introduced to establish the National Science Foundation, one of which (S. 526) was vetoed by the President, contained similar exempting language. The Commission, in its reports to the Members of Congress sponsoring the legislation and to the committees to which the bills were referred, stated its objections to excepting the employment of technical and professional personnel from competitive procedures and the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, on the grounds that the Commission is able to recruit such personnel and further that such legislation would violate the principles of the civil-service merit system.

The merit system established by the Civil Service Act of 1883 provides that positions in the executive establishment shall be open to competition among qualified applicants. The act also permits any necessary exemptions from competition by Executive order. The Commission therefore urges that the principles of the civil-service merit system and of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, be adhered to in the appointment of technical and professional personnel to be required by the Foundation, and that the bill be amended accordingly. Similar personnel provisions appear in the bills H. R. 12, H. R. 185, and H. R. 311. This report is based on the reports submitted to your committee on those bills to which the Bureau of the Budget found no objection. By direction of the Commission: Sincerely yours,

HARRY B. MITCHELL, President.

NATIONAL MILITARY ESTABLSHMENT,
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD,
Washington 25, D. C., March 24, 1949.

Hon. ROBERT CROSSER,

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: This is with reference to your recent letters requesting the views of the Secretary of Defense with respect to H. R. 2751, H. R. 2308, H. R. 1845, H. R. 359, H. R. 185, H. R. 311, and H R. 12, bills to establish a National Science Foundation. I have been designated by the Secretary of Defense to prepare this report, and it has been coordinated among the Departments and Boards of the

National Military Establishment in accordance with procedures prescribed by the Secretary of Defense.

The establishment of a National Science Foundation will influence so profoundly the cultural and technological development of the country that it is small wonder that it has stimulated so much attention and comment during the past three and a half years. It is to be hoped that all that has been said and done with respect to the Foundation has served to bring about a fuller knowledge and appreciation of the objectives sought and of the most desirable means of achieving them. From the start, with but few exceptions, the need for a Science Foundation has been universally recognized and accepted both from the standpoint of aid and stimulus to research and from the standpoint of increasing the flow of trained scientists. This acceptance is general on the part of qualified scientists and educators in this country, and I believe that representatives of industry are likewise generally aware of the benefits which will accrue to it. We have reached a stage in basic research in many fields in which the complexity and costs of the equipment and instruments necessary for further progress, and the scale of activities are such as to be beyond the resources of individual scientists, of universities and even of the great private foundations. Financial assistance on the part of Government has become a necessity if work is to go forward effectively and speedily. High speed calculators necessary to reduce the enormous mass of experimental data to usable form in a reasonable time, and of course, particle accelerators for nuclear studies are good examples, and there are many others. Moreover, fields such as meteorology and terrestrial magnetism involve world-wide investigations which require Government cooperation. The need for a National Science Foundation is even greater now than it was 3 years ago. Costs of research relative to endowment income and other available private sources of funds have continued to rise. Costs of education have likewise continued to rise, and a recent study indicates that average university tuition charges have increased about 40 percent since 1939. At the same time, the National Military Establishment, carrying on research and development on new and improved weapons with increasing economy and effectiveness, is reaching the limits of accumulated knowledge of a fundamental character. We are more and more often meeting problems the solution of which is retarded or temporarily prevented by the lack of such knowledge. This is true on all sides not only in the Military Establishment's research but also in the research activities of other Government agencies and of industry. The Foundation will extend on a broad front the basic scientific knowledge which then will become available for application by Government, education, and industry.

The bills before your committee fall into two principal groups. The one group comprises those identical with H. R. 6007 approved by your committee in the Eightieth Congress. The other group consists of bills identical with those passed by the Senate last year and approved by its Labor and Public Welfare Committee this year. Both are entirely satisfactory to us, and they meet the specifications for a suitable form of National Science Foundation which were accepted by all but a few of those interested in this legislation. Moreover, I believe that both groups of bills provide a generally acceptable resolution of all of the controversies which have arisen in the past.

Specifically, they provide for an independent agency in which the wisdom and experience of a rather broad cross section of the leaders of science, industry, and public affairs will be brought to bear on the highly complicated technical problems which the Foundation will be called upon to solve. At the same time, they provide for efficient administration by a well-paid director who will be subject to proper controls within the executive branch of the Government. This latter statement requires some qualification, for the Foundation should not be subject to all of the restrictions imposed upon most executive agencies. Basic research is by its nature unpredictable. It is therefore necessary to permit certain flexibility in the way the Foundation conducts its affairs. It should be able to select individuals and organizations to conduct research on the basis of the policies established by the Congress without competitive bidding and other usual formalities of contracting by executive agencies. It should also be able to support research projects over a considerable period of time, and this requires that its funds remain available beyond the usual pericd—preferably until expended. In addition, the Foundation should have flexibility with respect to its organizational structure in order that it may adapt itself most effectively from time to time to meet changing circumstances. As the rate of scientific progress

varies in different fields at different times, so the emphasis of the Foundation should shift. Thus it would in all likelihood wish to establish special commissions for cancer and heart diseases, but if the cause and cures should be discovered, the need would cease. Conversely, though the Foundation should be responsive to the backward areas of basic research which are the concern of the National Military Establishment and other Government agencies, relatively simple administrative mechanisms would probably suffice for liaison and coordination, but in the event of circumstances requiring mobilization of all or most of our scientific resources, then more highly organized machinery would be established to carry on the necessarily closer relations with the National Military Establishment. In this respect H. R. 1845 and H. R. 2308, in my opinion, are slightly preferable in that they are not quite so specific with respect to the initial organization of the Foundation as are the bills of the other group. However, I have no doubt that the eventual structure of the Foundation would be substantially the same under either type of bill.

H. R. 359 stands apart from the two groups of bills above discussed. In general, it contains the provisions which gave rise to the major issues the resolution of which has been accomplished by both of the groups of bills now before your committee. The most important of these issues have been fully discussed during the past 3 years. Nevertheless, it might be well to touch briefly on one of themthe patent provision.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the main purposes of the Foundation are to sponsor basic research and to provide scholarships and fellowships. It is very unusual to produce patentable inventions in the course of basic research so that the presence or absence of the patent clauses in either of the two groups of bills is of very little importance. Moreover, these provisions do not add any necessary authority and do little more than direct the Foundation to follow a course of action it would probably follow on its own initiative. But, the sweeping provisions of H. R. 359 would have the effect of amending the basic patent law and would apply to all Government agencies. I should hate to see the National Science Foundation legislation become embroiled in a controversy over the important but irrelevant question of general Government policies to govern the acquisition or disposition of patents.

Except for H. R. 359, I believe that any of the bills before your committee would provide a sound and effective organization. I do not think that it is necessary at this time for me to express a preference, for their differences are of a relatively minor nature which I am confident can readily be reconciled. I strongly urge, therefore, that your committee report out at the earliest opportunity any one of either of these groups of bills in order that we may be assured of a National Science Foundation this year.

The Bureau of the Budget has advised that there is no objection to the transmission of this report to you.

Very truly yours,

KARL T. COMPTON,

Chairman.

NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR AERONAUTICS,
Washington 25, D. C., March 10, 1949.

Hon. ROBERT CROSSER, M. C.,

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR MR. CROSSER: Permit me, in the absence of Chairman Hunsaker, to respond to your letter of February 16, 1949, enclosing a copy of H. R. 2751, a bill relating to the establishment of a National Science Foundation. This bill is similar to H. R. 12, one of the bills on which the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics submitted comment to your committee under date of March 3, 1949, after clearance from the Bureau of the Budget.

Three copies of that letter are attached hereto, and the comments contained therein represent the present views of the NACA with relation to the establishment of a National Science Foundation.

Sincerely yours,

J. F. VICTORY, Executive Secretary.

NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR AERONAUTICS,
Washington 25, D. C., March 3, 1949.

Hon. ROBERT CROSSER, M. C.,

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR MR. CROSSER: Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of February 1 enclosing for comment bills H. R. 12, H. R. 185, H. R. 311, and H. R. 1845; your letter of February 2 enclosing for comment bill H. R. 359; and your letter of February 7 enclosing for comment bill H. R. 2308. All of these bills concern the establishment of a National Science Foundation.

These bills were considered by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at is meeting on February 10, 1949. It is the judgment of the NACA that it is timely to establish in the Federal structure such a National Science Foundation as is proposed in these bills.

Sound American business principles recognize the effectiveness of a board of directors guilding the policies and operations of an organization through officers who are subject to the Board. An organization similar to this is proposed in all of the bills except H. R. 359, which would place the whole authority in an administrator with a board which would be merely advisory to him. It is believed that highly qualified men who can best guide the destinies of a National Science Foundation would be reluctant to serve under an administrator who would be free to act without regard to their considered judgment. For this reason, the NACA suggests that the form of organization proposed in H. R. 359 is less desirable than that proposed in the other bills.

Section 5 of H. R. 359 would require geographical apportionment of the funds available for research and development activities. It is the opinion of the NACA that such a limitation would not permit sufficient freedom in the Foundation to apportion funds where the greatest national interest would indicate.

The patent provisions of all of the bills except H. R. 359 approach the patent problem realistically and in a manner best calculated to protect the interest of the public and of persons and organizations having relations with the Foundation. The patent provisions of H. R. 359 are set out in greater detail than in the other bills and might be construed so as to discourage individuals and organizations from undertaking federally financed research. The NACA recommends that the patent provisions governing the operations of a National Science Foundation be as simple and realistic as may be consistent with the greatest national interest.

It appears that the esablishment of a National Science Foundation will not be inconsistent with the operations of the NACA, since all of the bills except H. R. 359 provide that the Foundation's activities shall supplement and not supersede those of other Government agencies; and H. R. 359 provides that the Foundation shall not operate laboratories, pilot plants, or other such scientific or technical facilities.

In summation, the NACA recommends the passage of legislation to establish a National Science Foundation consistent in form and operation with the foregoing comments.

Sincerely yours,

J. C. HUNSAKER, Chairman.

UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION,
Washington 25, D. C., March 22, 1945.

HON. ROBERT CROSSER,
Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

House of Representatives.

DEAR MR. CROSSER: This is with further reference to your communication of February 16, 1949, requesting an expression of the Commission's views on the bill H. R. 2751 for the establishment of the National Science Foundation. This report is confined to the provisions of section 15 (a) of the proposed bill relating to the appointment of technical and professional personnel. Section 15 (a) would permit the Director, subject to such general directives as may be prescribed by the executive committee, to employ such technical and professional personnel and fix their compensation without regard to the provisions of the civil-service laws and regulations and the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. During the last Congress the bills introduced to establish the National Science Foundation, one of which (S. 526) was vetoed by the President, contained similar

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