We are confronted with a new and terrible engine of warfare in the submarine, to consider only one of the big things which I have in mind; and I feel sure that with the practical knowledge of the officers of the Navy, with a department composed of the keenest and most inventive minds that we can gather together, and with your own wonderful brain to aid us, the United States will be able, as in the past, to meet this new danger with new devices that will assure peace to our country by their effectiveness.
Upon Mr. Edison's acceptance—he was the first American chosen by selective draft—each of twelve leading scientific societies was asked to name two representatives to compose the membership of the Board. Most of them were eminent in scientific research or the development of useful apparatus. This was the first civilian organization of a war character which was created. Because of the personnel of its members, it aroused wide interest.
The Board was composed of Thomas A. Edison, president; William L. Saunders, chairman; Benjamin B. Thayer, vice-chairman; Thomas Robins, secretary; Lawrence Addicks, Bion J. Arnold, Dr. L. H. Baekeland, D. W. Brunton, Howard E. Coffin, Alfred Craven, W. L. R. Emmett, Peter Cooper Hewitt, A. M. Hunt, M. R. Hutchison, B. G. Lamme, Hudson Maxim, Spencer Miller, J. W. Richards, A. L. Riker, M. B. Sellers, Elmer A. Sperry, Frank J. Sprague, A. G. Webster, W. R. Whitney, and R. S. Woodward. Admiral William Strother Smith was named as special representative of the Navy Department. All bureau chiefs and other naval experts worked in coöperation with the Board.
With its technical talent, the Board began at once a survey of the industries of the country, having effected an organization in every state, with five technical men in each as advisory members. These field aids, giving their services free, went into industrial plants throughout the country, listing all machinery and machine tools suitable for war service, and the men competent to serve in shops. That gridiron organization functioned perfectly. This information of the manufacturing resources of the country for public service in case of emergency was the first that had been collected. The Navy had taken a census of the ships and the Army knew of munition plants, but it was this survey of industrial material and services which later formed the basis for the big production work of the two military departments and the War Industries Board. This was real preparedness—and it was begun in 1915. Before England went into the war, it had prepared no record of skilled labor suitable for war work. The result was that many men hastened to the front whose services were far more valuable in munition plants. The inventory taken by the Naval Consulting Board, completed in five months, enabled our country to avoid that mistake. It made it comparatively easy, when war came, to retain skilled men where they counted most, and enabled factories to swing from their regular line of production to Army and Navy work.
The card indexes, prepared with thoroughness, showed the concerns that were working on military orders for foreign governments. It was ascertained that 35,000 concerns in the United States could manufacture war material, and the names, location and facilities of these plants were docketed. The Board pointed out, what afterwards became generally recognized, that the manufacture of munitions was a parts-making business. Parts made in Toledo, Ohio, must fit those made in Portland, Oregon, or Augusta, Georgia, and all these parts must fit each other to the hundredth part of an inch. Over 500 concerns manufactured parts of the Mark VI mine. When the Council of National Defense was established, it took over the data and organization, and requested the Naval Consulting Board to act as the official Board of Inventions for the country.
After the experiments at Nahant, which followed the March meeting, in 1917, in company with Mr. Edison, Mr. William L. Saunders and others of the Consulting Board, I visited New London. We took a sea trip on a submarine-chaser equipped with listening devices. It was a matter of gratification to both civilians and naval men to witness personally the success of submarine detection, and to feel that their faith and experiments had been rewarded.
Ship protection was the subject of constant study, and various methods—camouflage, armament, smoke-boxes, submarine and torpedo detection, plans to prevent and withstand attack and increase buoyancy—were studied by the Consulting Board. It was through that board that the naval research and experimental laboratory, now under way on the Potomac, below Washington, was established and the money provided through Congressional appropriation.
Mr. Edison spent most of his time during the war—practically all of it—either on board the Sachem, which had been fitted up for his special use, or in his office in the Navy Department at Washington. I was in intimate touch with him. It was a revelation to go into his chart-room and talk to him about his study of the lanes of the sea; to see his maps studded with pins pointing out where sinkings were most frequent, and to obtain his advice as to the routing of ships to lessen the probability of attack. An authority on many other subjects, he learned much about troop transportation, the routing of merchant ships and their quick turn-around, and avoiding U-boats by changing routes.
One of his most successful and yet least known of his experiments was in the detection of torpedoes. The Wizard of Menlo Park was most modest in his claims. To a lady, enthusiastic over what she called his inspiration, Mr. Edison is reported to have said, "Madam, it is not inspiration, but perspiration." In a letter to a sub-committee of the Senate, when some one had attributed the success in detecting submarines to Mr. Edison, he wrote:
I never worked or pretended to work on the detection of submarines. All of my work in this general direction was confined to the detection of torpedoes and to the quick turning of cargo boats ninety degrees in order to save the boat from being torpedoed.