Committee on the Signal Service of the Army, the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department

The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Signal Service of the Army, the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department, 1884

In the Sundry Civil Act approved July 7, 1884, Congress directed the appointment of a joint commission of the Senate and House to consider and report on the organization of the Signal Service of the Army, the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department “with the view to secure greater efficiency and economy of administration of the public service in said bureaus.” It would appear that the demand for this inquiry had a double origin. In Congress and in the country generally it was thought that the weather service, which was organized under the Signal Service of the Army, would be improved and extended if it were taken out from under the control of the War Department and placed in charge of civilians. A separate inquiry into this matter was at first proposed, but subsequently it was merged with an inquiry into the relationships of the several national surveys. Regarding the latter the Joint Commission remarked in its report:

“It has been frequently stated in the course of debates in Congress that the several scientific Bureaus named were engaged in unnecessary work, so far as practical results were concerned, and also that there was a duplication of work, two or more Bureaus being engaged in substantially the same character of investigation and in the execution of the same work. It was claimed, especially, that the Geological Survey and the Coast and Geodetic Survey were duplicating their work; and it was also claimed that the work of the Coast Survey proper could be more economically performed under the direction of the Navy Department by use of the force and organization in that Department known as the Hydrographic Office, and that that work should be transferred from the Treasury to the Navy.” [House Reports, 49^th Congress, 1^st Session, Rep. no. 2740, pp. 1-2.]

As originally organized, the Joint Commission consisted of Senators Wm. B. Allison (chairman), Eugene Hale, and Geo. H. Pendleton, and Representatives Robert Lowry, Hilary A. Herbert and Theodore Lyman (secretary.) The Commission was unable to report in December, 1884, as the law demanded, and the time was extended to December, 1885, “or as soon thereafter as may be.” In the meanwhile Senator Pendleton and Representative Lyman had retired from Congress, and were replaced on the Commission by Senator John T. Morgan and Representative John T. Wait. The report was finally submitted on June 10, 1886. [House Rep. no. 2740, 49^th Congress, 1^st Session.] The testimony taken before the Commission had already been published. It forms a thick volume of more than a thousand pages. [Senate Misc. Doc. no. 82, 49^th Congress, 1^st Session, 1886.]

Feeling that it should receive the advice of the National Academy of Sciences, the Commission, through its secretary, Hon. Theodore Lyman, requested that a committee of the Academy be appointed to consider the subject in question. The committee appointed by President Marsh consisted of M. C. Meigs, Wm. H. Brewer, Cyrus B. Comstock, S. P. Langley, Simon Newcomb, E. C. Pickering, W. P. Trowbridge, F. A. Walker, and C. A. Young. All accepted appointment, but subsequently Prof. Newcomb and Gen. Comstock resigned by order of the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War, respectively. These orders were issued on the ground that it was not proper for the two members who were active officers of the Departments mentioned to be concerned in giving advice to Congress, which might result in action which would embarrass the heads of those Departments in carrying out their policies. [This view did not affect the appointment of General Meigs, apparently for the reason that he was a retired officer. He was requested by the Secretary of War to withdraw, but upon his submitting a protest the matter was dropped.]

On the other hand, President Marsh held that the Academy should not be deprived of the services of the two members in formulating advice asked for by the legislative branch of the Government. He declined, therefore, to accept their resignations, and laid the matter before the Academy. The Academy appears, however, to have taken no action regarding it.

“First. What is the organization of the government surveys, and of the signal service, in the chief countries of Europe, and could any part of this organization be advantageously adopted in this country?

“Secondly. In what way can the scientific branches above referred to be best co-ordinated?

“Thirdly. What changes in, or additions to, these branches are desirable?” [Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1884, p. 35.]

The report of the committee was submitted on September 24, 1884, and with the appendices, covers 30 pages. To the first inquiry propounded by the Joint Commission the committee replied that in its opinion the efficiency of the surveys of the United States would not be increased by adopting any form of organization existing in Europe, but that a more extended use of photography and zincography might prove economical in the production of maps and charts. It then called attention to a previous recommendation of the Academy that the Coast Survey be transferred to the Department of the Interior and that its work be extend to include topographic land surveys. The committee recommended that the Weather Bureau be separated from the Signal Service of the War Department and placed under the control of a scientific commission. No immediate change in the scope of the Hydrographic Office was recommended, but it was suggested that when the original survey of the coast should be finished, the work of re-sounding, re-examining, etc., might perhaps be advantageously committed to the Navy Department. Having given attention to these particulars, the committee then pronounced its conviction that a proper coordination of the scientific work of the Government would be most satisfactorily effected by the establishment of a Department of Science. It was proposed that this Department should include the Coast and Geodetic Survey under the name of the Coast and Interior Survey; the Geological Survey, unchanged; a Meteorological Bureau, to which should be transferred the main portion of the meteorological work of the Signal Service; and a physical observatory, “to investigate the laws of solar and terrestrial radiation and their application to meteorology, with such other investigations in exact science as the Government might assign to it.” Attention was also called to the desirability of having in this department a bureau of standards, which might include the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Should Congress consider it inadvisable to establish a new Department of Science, the committee suggested that all the scientific bureaus be assembled under some one of the Departments then existing. In case either action was taken, the Committee recommended that a permanent scientific commission be created to direct the policy of the several bureaus, this commission to consist of the Secretary of the Department of Science, or other Department to which the bureaus should be assigned (who should be president ex officio), the President of the National Academy of Sciences, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, “two civilians of high scientific reputation,” an officer of the Engineer Corps of the Army, a professor of mathematics in the Navy, the Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Director of the Geological Survey, the head of the meteorological bureau.

This report was sent to the Government Commission on October 16, 1884, together with certain letters of the heads of the several scientific bureaus.

The more comprehensive recommendations of the committee of the Academy have not been adopted by Congress up to the present time. Neither a Department of Science nor a general scientific commission has been established, but several of the changes proposed have been made. The meteorological service, formerly combined with the Signal Service of the Army, has become a separate bureau under the Department of Agriculture. [The Department of Agriculture became an executive department on February 9, 1889, and the Weather Service was transferred to it on October 1, 1890.] A Bureau of Standards has been established in the Department of Commerce and Labor to which has been transferred the work of the former Bureau of Weights and Measures. An Astrophysical Observatory has been organized under the Smithsonian Institution corresponding to the observatory proposed by the committee of the Academy. To this extent, the views of the committee have found favor with Congress. Whether the larger plans will eventually be adopted time alone will reveal.

The report of the Academy was printed in the introduction to the volume of testimony given before the Joint Commission. Many high officials were called upon by the Commission to express their views or to make statistical or other statements relative to the matter under investigation, including the Lieutenant-General of the Army, the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, the heads of the several scientific bureaus concerned and many subordinate officers. The discussion took a wide range but returned repeatedly to the recommendations of the committee of the Academy which formed the text for many remarks.

The report of the Joint Commission in reality comprises three separate reports. Allison, Hale and Lowry agreed as to the various questions at issue, and Wait also sided with them, except in so far as the Signal Service was concerned. Morgan, Herbert and Wait submitted a separate series of recommendations regarding the latter, while Herbert and Morgan presented a minority report relative to the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Geological Survey.

The conclusion of the majority of the Commission regarding the Coast and Geodetic Survey was as follows:

“…A majority of the commission concur with the view expressed by the Academy of Sciences, that when the original survey shall have been completed it will be time enough to raise the question whether or not the hydrographic work involved in these resurveys may not then be transferred to the Navy Department; but until that time the undersigned believe that question should not be seriously considered…” [House Report no. 2740, 49^th Congress, 1^st Session, p. 6.]

“There is nothing in the testimony to indicate that the work now performed by the Survey can be more efficiently performed if transfer is made, nor is it shown that the Navy can more economically execute the work, so there is no reason either on the score of efficiency or economy for making the change. It is suggested that a new method might be adopted, which would result in a considerable saving of expenditure, but the commission does not regard itself competent to decide upon the methods to be adopted in a survey so highly scientific in its character and objects, much less does it feel competent to recommend a change of method which has received the sanction of the scientists of our country, and has the sanction of more than two generations of experience and criticism…” [Op. cit., p. 13.]

Concerning the suggestions of the Academy that a commission be established to direct the work of the scientific bureaus, or that a department of science be created, the report remarks:

“…The commission considered with care the many suggestions respecting a change of existing law looking to the selection of a supervisory commission, which should from time to time, and at least once in each year, consider what work should properly be done by the several bureaus under examination, and supervise the methods of executing the work committed to them severally. They regard this as impracticable as long as these bureaus are distributed as now among several Departments of the Government. They believe it wiser to leave this general direction and control to each head of Department for the bureau under his supervision. It would be impracticable to give such Commission power to overrule the head of a Department, and if this were not done its powers would only be advisory.

“Nor is the Commission prepared to recommend the establishment of a scientific department of the Government to take charge of all these bureaus. There is no such duplication of work or necessary connection of these bureaus with each other as make such establishment essential to their efficiency, as in cases where one bureau finds it necessary to utilize the work of another, a request for information and data is always complied with.” [Op. cit., pp. 53, 54.]

Messrs. Morgan, Herbert and Wait, reported on the Weather Service as follows [Op. cit., pp. 63-64.]:

“As the result of their investigation of the Signal Service Bureau, the undersigned respectfully submit to Congress the following bill, and recommend its passage:

“’A bill to establish a Weather Bureau in the War Department, and for other purposes.

“’Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That on the first day of July, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, the Signal Service Bureau shall be abolished, and a Bureau to be styled the Weather Bureau shall be established, to which shall be transferred the records and property of every kind now in charge of the Signal Service, except arms and other military equipments and stores, all of which shall be turned over to the proper officers of the Army.

“’Sec. 2. That the Weather Bureau shall be organized as a civil establishment to promote meteorological investigations, and shall be under the direction of the Secretary of War.’

Regarding the Coast & Geodetic Survey, Messrs. Herbert and Morgan made the following minority report:

“The undersigned favor the transfer of the Coast Survey proper to the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department. We mean to include not only the hydrography, that is, soundings, etc., now done by naval officers under the direction of the civilian head of the Coast Survey, but all topography upon nautical charts, including such triangulation as is incident thereto. We believe the Navy would execute this work more economically and speedily, and therefore more effectively, than it is now being done.

“So far as a further survey of our coast is concerned, there seems to be a propriety in transferring that work to the Navy Department. The other duties now in charge of this establishment, if they cannot be profitably attached to some existing Department or other Bureau, should be prosecuted under a law exactly defining their scope and purpose, and with a careful discrimination between the scientific inquiries which may properly be assumed by the Government and those which should be undertaken by State authority or by individual enterprise.” [Report, p. 80.]