Doctor HUTCHISON. I was for 10 years chief engineer to and personal representative of Mr. Edison.

Senator ODDIE. We would like a statement from you as to the action of the Navy Department in connection with the accident to the S-4 and your views as to the safety devices in use and those proposed for submarines, etc.

Doctor HUTCHISON. There are, in this situation, three entities, as I understand it; the Coast Guard, the personnel of the submarine, and the Navy Department. If you have ever tried to observe a periscope from a ship on the surface of the water you will know that it depends entirely on whether the periscope is going from you or coming toward you, and the condition of the light and sea as to how well or how quickly you can see it; and you will find it very difficult sometimes to see it at all.

If you have ever been aboard a submarine making a test over a measured course, and are busy with all the implements at hand to note the speed and other things that should be noted, you will agree that everyone aboard the ship is pretty busy doing that which he is assigned to do.

If you have ever had anything to do with a large organization of any kind, you will realize how diffiuclt it is to get them to accept, without a great deal of consideration-and justly so-in many cases, any new device offered by Tom, Dick, or Harry.

I do not know that anyone was to blame; and probably all were to blame. That is to say, the man on the destroyer should have seen the periscope, perhaps, if he could have. The people on the submarine had listening devices, by which they could have heard the approach and determined the location of any passing craft at a distance of from 3,000 to 6,000 yards. If they had not been busy doing other things they might have had time to have done that provided the listening devices were in good order. The ship, finishing the mile test, probably came to the surface without listening in. The usual practice is to cut off one motor, proceed slowly with the other, and listen in on each side alternately before coming to the surface; but with the periscope out, it probably seemed to them that any craft on the surface had due notice of their being there, and they probably did not feel as though it were incumbent upon them to take that precaution.

The Navy Department and bureaus, as Mr. Sprague has so ably stated, are manned by men who are experts in each particular line, steam engineering, C. and R., and so forth. They can not listen to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes in with a proposition to do this or that. They reasonably expect matters of improvement on the devices being used by naval officers to come by suggestion from those who are using those devices.

Now, as to the execution of those demands for these improvements, they are at fault. A surgeon may have a very difficult operation on your abdomen. A surgeon never fabricates the tools that he uses in his operation. He would not even know how to temper a blade, perhaps; but he puts that up to an instrument maker, and the instrument maker fabricates the tool with which the surgeon can work. We have available, in the United States, a great many specialists. We have the Naval Academy at Annapolis. In its training of naval officers, it fits them for a variety of professions. You have got to be able to go ashore and run a locomotive if necessity requires; you have

got to navigate a ship. They should not expect a naval officer, or any human being in the world, to be a superman; and I think they should use, more than they are using to-day, the brains of men who are competent, each in his own particnlar line, that are at their disposal in the fabrication of, or helping with development by suggestion in their laboratories.

There is always room for improvement in every art. It is very easy to criticize. Unless one is down in a submarine and knows what is going on there, I defy anyone to say who is at fault in the submarine in the event of a casualty. There are so many conditions entering into this particular accident that it is most difficult to lay any blame on anybody; but I do believe that the Navy Department should have better salvage equipment if they are going to do the salvaging, or else turn it over to salvaging organizations, equipped for it, and let them get the boats up without interference while they are doing it. That is all I have to say, sir.

Senator ODDIE. Is the Naval Consulting Board still functioning? Doctor HUTCHISON. Yes, sir; available whenever needed, and not called upon.

Senator ODDIE. How many men are there on that board?

Doctor HUTCHISON. About 18 are left. Death has removed 5 or 6. Senator ODDIE. Can you give us a list of those men and their occupations?

Doctor HUTCHISON. Yes, sir; I have it in my pocket.

NAVAL CONSULTING BOARD OF THE UNITED STATES,
New York, June 6, 1928.

Hon. TASKER L. ODDIE,
United States Senator, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR SIR: In response to the request you made to Dr. M. R. Hutchison I beg to give you the names and occupations of the present members of the Naval Consulting Board:

Addicks, Lawrence C., 51 Maiden Lane, New York City, electro chemist. Arnold, Col. Bion J., 105 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, Ill., electrical engineer and owner of public utility companies.

Baekeland, Dr. L. H., Harmony Park, Yonkers, N. Y., chemist-president, the Bakelite Co., and lecturer, Columbia University.

Coffin, Howard E., 2335 First National Bank Building, Detroit, Mich., mechanical engineer vice president, Hudson Motor Car Co., and president, National Air Transport Co.

Edison, Thomas A., Orange, N. J.

Emmet, W. L. R., General Electric Co., Schenectady, N. Y., mechanical engineer-inventor of the electric drive, the mercury boiler, etc.

Hunt, Andrew M., 350 Madison Avenue, New York City, civil engineergraduate United States Naval Academy. In charge of large civil engineering projects.

Hutchison, Dr. M. R., 90 West Street, New York City, inventor of the klaxon, acousticon, etc. Scientific research and development.

Miller, Spencer, Orange, N. J., mechanical engineer-inventor of cableways, logging machinery, towing engines, coaling at sea devices, etc.

Riker, Andrew L., Fairfield, Conn., mechanical engineer, formerly chief engineer the Locomobile Co. Inventor of automotive devices.

Robins, Thomas, 15 Park Row, New York City, preisdent, Robins Conveying Belt Co. and Hewitt-Gutta Percha Rubber Corporation. Inventor of belt conveyor and other devices.

Saunders, W. L., 11 Broadway, New York City, chairman, Ingersoll-Rand Co. Inventor and executive.

Sellers, M. B., Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York, aeronautical engineer and inventor.

Sperry, Elmer A., 40 Flatbush Avenue, extended, Brooklyn, N. Y., electrical engineer president, Sperry Gyroscope Co., and physicist. Inventor of gyroscopic compass, stabilizer, etc.

Sprague, Frank J., 421 Canal Street, New York City, electrical engineer— graduate United States Naval Academy. Inventor of electric railway devices, multiple unit control, train control, etc.

Thayer, B. B., 25 Broadway, New York City, mining engineer and executive— vice president, Anaconda Copper Mining Co.

Whitney, W. R., general electric Co., Schenectady, N. Y., chemist and physicist-manager, research department, General Electric Co.

Very truly yours,

THOMAS ROBINS, Secretary.

Senator ODDIE: Are not those men anxious, individually and as a board, to render service to the Navy?

Doctor HUTCHINSON. More than anxious.

Senator ODDIE. Have they been called on recently, to your knowledge?

Doctor HUTCHINSON. Individually, they may have been, but not the board collectively. I do not know of any instance at all-do you, Mr. Sprague, except as perhaps in their business capacities?

Mr. SPRAGUE. The only case I know of recently was the suggestion of Doctor Whitney, which was made as a member of the board which was proposed by Secretary Wilbur to be appointed by the President, but which I believe did not go through.

Doctor HUTCHINSON. A great number of those men are constantly in contact with the Navy Department through their business affiliations in the concerns with which they are associated or employedWhitney of the General Electric, Emmett of the General Electric, Sperry, and so forth. It is a board of experts, each in his own line, that you could not employ on a retainer basis for a large sum per

annum.

Senator ODDIE. It would seem to me that that board is a very valuable branch or arm of the national defense.

Doctor HUTCHISON. It was the first board formed by the administration. President Wilson formed it October 6, 1915, in anticipation of the then coming conflict. It originated in my house in October, 1914, when Secretary and Mrs. Daniels were visiting me. I made the suggestion that such a board should exist. Mr. Daniels took it up. I do not claim any particular credit for it, but it came up in conversation, and that is the way it originated.

Senator ODDIE. Mr. Sprague has commented on the work that it did during the war in assisting the Navy.. Have you any statement to make in addition to what Mr. Sprague has said regarding the work it did during the war?

Doctor HUTCHINSON. I might mention that we had a whole floor or two in the Park Row Building, with a force of 100 or 200 men examining the submitted inventions. The chaff was taken from the wheat and the wheat passed on to the board. Then the board assigned each invention to the particular committee concerned. If the idea was worthy of development, money was appropriated therefor. A few things of service resulted: a dozen or two which were worth while. It requires a special aptitude to really get the wheat from the chaff in these things. A man has to be open minded. It is easy enough to discard anything. In the hundred thousand suggestions that were submitted probably ten thousand could have been developed to be of some use, but that is one of the factors you have to contend with. I believe in the development of an invention it is a mistake to not follow the same procedure that is followed in

building a bridge. For instance, in Albany they want a bridge across the Hudson. The man who designs the bridge simply supplies the aesthetic design to correspond with the environment. He does not put a Chinese bridge in Albany, or vice versa. Then the abutment man gets busy and designs the abutments; the steel man gets busy and designs the steel, and so forth, and when the bridges are built they seldom fail.

In my own line, if I were going to design a rotary valve for engines, I would get the best crank shaft expert to design the crank shaft, the same with the cylinders, and all the other parts that enter into the engine and then I would have some chance of my valves working. I would probably have 8 or 10 people consulting with me, and that valve would have built into it the best ideas that the most competent men could furnish. The Navy can have for the asking, the ideas of the entire personnel of the Naval Consulting Board. They would gladly tell anything they know in their willingness to serve our country. There is nothing selfish about them.

Senator ODDIE. All in the interest of national defense.

Doctor HUTCHISON. All in the interest of national defense, trying to keep the other fellow away from your back door.

Senator ODDIE. If you have any further statement that you believe will be helpful we will be glad to have you put it in the record.

Doctor HUTCHISON. I think that perhaps Mr. Sprague on the one part has covered it most exhaustively. I agree with everything he has said, and perhaps have added a few things to it. I do not think I should take any more of your time. It would be only reiteration. I would be very glad to assist in the common cause.

Senator ODDIE. I think you gentlemen have contributed a great deal of valuable and helpful material. On behalf of the committee I thank you heartily for coming before us and giving us this information.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I would like to add a comment, if I might, Senator. Senator ODDIE. Certainly.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I spent the interval between the morning and afternoon sessions mostly down at the Naval Research Laboratory. That was the outcome of the Naval Consulting Board's work. Appropriations for it are matters that must come up before the Senate and the House, and I do not think the necessity for the work this laboratory is doing is fully appreciated by those who are not familiar with research work. I wish, therefore, to express the opinion here and I think the submarine question is one which is very pertinent at the present moment-that there is no money which the United States Government can spend with greater satisfaction of possible return than in liberal support of the Naval Research Laboratory.

I was astounded to-day in seeing what had been done there, the scope of the work they are undertaking, not alone for the Navy, but for the Army as well. I believe that they have some matter of appropriation up this year. I do not know anything about the details of it, but I want to add my testimony as to the efficiency with which that laboratory is being conducted, and the very great possibilities of good which lie within its power provided they have sufficient money back of it to continue the work.

They are going to need expansion of buildings and equipment. They are training a very high grade of men. They have heads of departments devoting themselves to research work the immediate result of which is not always definable in such definite terms as perhaps an appropriation committee might like, but which results are of the utmost possible consequence. There is work being done there in that laboratory which I do not believe is touched by any concern in the world.

Doctor Hutchison spoke of Doctor Whitney, of the General Electric Co. That company has an enormous laboratory in which a very great amount of money is spent, in which the members of the laboratory, under general direction, are given very great latitude of work, not because of what they may get to-day or to-morrow, or a month from now, not the concrete results, but to get precisely what that man Whitney did get, for example, in discovering a method of making the tungsten metal used in the filaments of incandescent lamps ductile so it could be drawn readily. For a long time those researches meant nothing, except to his immediate scientific associates, but the practical result to the General Electric Co. was not only an enormous saving in manufacturing, a very great profit in their business, but a saving in the economical use of electricity running into scores of millions of dollars to the people of the United States. That is so in any research laboratory. You can not always put your finger upon the concrete results which are going to be obtained; but I reiterate that money could not be better spent than on precisely that kind of research.

Senator ODDIE. Mr. Sprague, you have touched on something that is very close to me, and I am going to comment a little from the standpoint of the Navy and of other branches of our Government, because you gentlemen are engineers, and I want you to know something of the difficulties we have to face.

An important part of our system of government to-day is the Budget Bureau. The Budget Bureau passes on all the appropriations. I have been, for some time, personally trying to get increased appropriations, or half-way adequate appropriations, for the Bureau of Mines, to enable that bureau to do more scientific, technical, and economic research work, and the Budget Bureau will not allow it. They do not understand what it means. They in general understand only pure bookkeeping or ledger balances. They can not comprehend the importance of scientific and economic research work.

Doctor HUTCHISON. Yes.

Senator ODDIE. They refused to allow a few additional thousand dollars of appropriations which would have saved millions of dollars to the economic and industrial resources of the country, and large numbers of human lives. The man in the Budget Bureau who determines what the Navy can or can not have is an ex-quartermaster sergeant of the Army. He naturally knows very little about the Navy. This shows what those of us who are trying to secure adequate appropriations for these important Government functions have to contend with.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I think, Senator Oddie, that you have touched the very heart of the trouble regarding appropriations.

Doctor HUTCHINSON. Yes, undoubtedly.