Senator MCGEE. One quick question. In the judgment of the department, is the figure in the legislation of $2.5 million for 3 years a resonable figure?

Mr. HOLLOMAN. While we can't anticipate all the analysis in advance of having looked at the problem, we believe that amount would permit us to operate and come back to the Congress at the end of 3 years with a sensible series of recommendations of all the sound courses of action; yes, sir.

Senator MCGEE. The Senator from Oregon?

Senator NEUBERGER. Yes. I am going to make a statement that will not take too much time and I want to insert the report of the metric study task force in 1960.

Now, Secretary Holloman, I am sure you are familiar with this. Is this a basis for the present bill? It would seem to me this bill wouldn't require very much, because a lot of the spadework has already been done.

Mr. HOLLOMAN. There was a study, a preliminary study of some of the problems that were associated with changing the metric system but there has never been, Senator Neuberger, a detailed analysis of the costs, the benefits, nor the way in which you could best go about the conversion; whether or not you should go industry by industry, whether or not their should be a greater emphasis on American standard sizes and then simply convert the measurement system that

you use.

There has never been a detailed study of the consequences, economic and psychological and social, of conversion-full conversion-to metric system.

Senator NEUBERGER. Did this task force study have any appropriation?

Mr. HOLLOMAN. Not to my knowledge. No special appropriation. Senator NEUBERGER. It was just a good will study by a group of people; is that it?

Mr. HOLLOMON. That's correct.

Senator NEUBERGER. Actually, it was requested by the Director of the National Bureau of Standards in accordance with the memorandum of April 12, 1960, from Under Secretary Philip A. Ray.

Mr. HOLLOMON. That's correct.

Senator NEUBERGER. Your point is very well made, that the actual work of the conversion is just not discussed. I read this again very carefully and merely enumerates the problems and discusses the engineering problems. It makes some suggestion for retaining the survey foot and the effect on geodetic survey, so I think nobody could say that a study of the kind encompassed in this bill had been made.

I am particularly interested in this bill for another reason that might seem rather small after discussing possible losses to our international trade—that is, the consumer's dilemma.

Maybe we can get rid of these 1234-ounce consumer packages because this system allows us a much better way of determining and measuring portions.

When I made a speech in the Senate in 1961 and was interested in the consumer effect of the metric system, I had everybody in the Commerce Department, my office, and the Bureau of Standards working slide rules for weeks trying to construct a chart to show how we could

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convert 1234 ounces worth of something or other at the grocery store into milliliters and grams. I have again looked at this chart to try to see how to do it and this is a terrible thing. You just can't convert when you get down into those little consumer items. I would love to throw out all the three-quarter ounces and get around to millimeters or grams, if we could ever do it.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MAURINE NEUBERGER

Mr. Chairman, I am particularly pleased to participate in the hearing this morning because I have long had an interest in the adoption by this country of the metric system. Six years ago this month my late husband, Senator Neuberger, introduced into the Senate a bill providing for a study by the Department of Commerce of the desirability of the adoption of the metric system. When I first came to the Senate, I carried on my interest and concern in this proposal, so I have been pleased to join the distinguished junior Senator from Rhode Island in introducing such legislation.

The history of the metric system controversy in our Nation is a long one, going right back to the time of George Washington. Shortly after I submitted my weights and measures bill in the 87th Congress I described for my senatorial colleagues some of this history. I ask the consent of the chairman that my remarks to the Senate at that time be included in the committee hearings at this point.

(The statement follows:)

By way of further background for this committee I suggest that the Report of the Metric Study Task Force, of March 1961, also be included in the committee hearings at this point. This task force was appointed by the Director of the National Bureau of Standards in accordance with a memorandum of April 12, 1960, from Under Secretary Philip Ray. The task force was instructed to examine the problems involved in conversion to the metric system by American industry, commerce, and trade; and to present a plan for action. The task force recommended that the Department of Commerce undertake a comprehensive, factfinding investigation on the advantages, disadvantages, and cost of conversion from the present U.S. customary system of units to the metric system. report gave the reasons for undertaking the investigation, outlined the scope of the work to be done, and presented a plan for a 3-year study.

This

I do not want to take away any more time from the witnesses to appear before us today, but I would like to emphasize in closing that I agree wholeheartedly with those who suggest that one of the key factors in this issue is the relationship between the adoption of the metric system and our position in world trade. If it is true that our failure to adopt the metric system more widely in our industry is costing us billions of dollars each year in international trade, then this committee had better act and act quickly on this proposal. With Great Britain now switching over to the metric system, it is going to be more and more expensive to insist that everyone is out of step but the United States.

REMARKS OF SENATOR MAURINE NEUBERGER, IN THE SENATE, JUNE 16, 1961

A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

Mrs. NEUBERGER. Mr. President, though there is no mention of it on the Senate Calendar, I would like to bring to attention some of the unfinished business of the Congress and the Senate. Specifically, I speak of a proposal urged upon the Continental Congress by the Articles of Confederation and upon succeeding Congresses by the Constitution to fix the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States.

Mr. President, as much as it distresses me to say it, there is no legally recognized system of weights and measures in the country today-some 180 years after the Congress was first instructed to determine such a system.

At best, the inch-pound system under which the country operates today has the sanction only of the Secretary of the Treasury, not of the Congress as the Constitution requires.

In 1781, the Article of Confederation gave the Continental Congress certain powers. One of these, was the fixing of the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States. It was never done.

The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation in 1789. Section 8 of article I of the Constitution provides:

"The Congress shall have power to fix the standard of weights and measures." Despite this very clear and specific instruction in the Constitution, the Congress has never come around to performing this important task.

The question of national standards for weights and measures has been presented to the Congress many times in the past. It is, I think, one of the anomalies of legislative history that nothing has been done on this important matter through all the years of the Republic.

In his first message to the Congress, a former President said:

“Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to." That President was George Washington, and the remarks were made in January of 1790.

As a result of this Presidential message, the House of Representatives requested the then Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, to prepare and report to the House a plan for establishing uniformity in the weights and measures of the United States. In the report, Mr. Jefferson suggested that we reduce "every branch to the same decimal ratio already established in coins, and thus bring the calculation of the principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply and divide plain numbers."

In December of 1790, President Washington addressed his second message to the Congress. Again he urged the establishment of standards of weights and measures. The Jefferson report, which had been languishing in the House, was then referred to the Senate where a select committee was asked to study the measure. The committee recommended in the late winter of 1791, that no changes be made in the system of weights and measures then in use in the United States. However, it must be remembered that no national system of weights and measures was in use. A pound in New York was not the same thing as a pound in Virginia. The problems affecting trade are obvious.

In the fall of 1791 Washington sent another message to the Congress in which particular mention was made of the problems of weights and measures. Legislation was introduced, and in 1792, on four separate occasions, was before the Senate. Yet this body did not act. In subsequent years, diminishing efforts were made to secure the enactment of a uniform weights and measures law. None of these efforts were successful. A considerable number of committees from each House of Congress studied and reported on the question. However, no legislation was passed.

The major effort of the early 1800's focused on a report prepared by John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, at the request of the Senate. In December of 1816, President Madison reminded the Congress that no laws had been enacted to implement the report presented by Thomas Jefferson more than a quarter of a century earlier. Madison said:

"The great utility of a standard fixed in its nature and founded on the easy rule of decimal proportions is sufficiently obvious."

In response to this urging, the Senate adopted a resolution referring the now aging and weighty problem to the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.

The Adams report stands even today as a scholarly and elaborate document. It ran to 250 pages, and, in discussing the theory of weights and measures, attempted to relate the topic to the natural history of man.

Unfortunately, there was no congressional reaction to the Adams report. It is interesting, however, to discover that Secretary Adams, later President, said of the metric system:

"This system approaches to the ideal perfection of uniformity applied to weights and measures."

At about this time, Mr. President, some effort was made by the State legislatures to establish weights and measures standards. All that the States did, however, was merely to formalize the hodge-podge system that they had been operating under. Clearly, the only viable solution was a national one-and the lead had to be taken by the Congress.

The period through the mid-1820's was filled with more commissions, committees, studies, and reports. No action was ever taken. But the lack of a uniform standard began to pinch the Congress where it was the most sensitivein the Federal pocketbook. Reports began arriving from customhouses up and down the coast that there was a substantial loss of revenue due in large part to inaccurate measuring devices and standards. At this point, it will be recalled revenue from customs was the major part of the Federal income. The upshot of heated debate on the floor of the Senate was a resolution offered to establish an integrated system of weights and measures on standards correpsonding to those adopted by England. This was never adopted.

In 1830, the Senate directed the Secretary of the Treasury to cause a comparison to be made of the standards of weights and measures now used at the principal customhouses in the United States and report to the Senate at the next session of the Congress. Such a study was made under the direction of Ferdinand Hassler, the Superintendent of the Office of Weights and Measures in the Treasury Department. The report showed serious discrepancies which the then Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane, referred to as "a serious evil." However, the Secretary believed that the Department had full authority to correct the evil by having uniform and accurate weights and measures to be supplied to all customhouses. The Department undertook to do this, and the Treasury Department set up fundamental units of a yard, an avoirdupois pound, a gallon, and a bushel. It is important to note that the Treasury Department did this only for customhouses under its control with no direct congressional authorization.

The customhouse determinations made by Hassler for the standards were based on existing British standards. The historical record seems to indicate that Hassler always regarded the British yard as the real standard of length in the United States. He based the avoirdupois pound on the troy pound in the ratio of 1 avoirdupois pound equals 7,000/5,760 pounds troy. He copied the wine gallon and the Winchester bushel from outmoded English standards that were in general use in the Colonies, but had been superseded in England even before Hassler brought them here.

These fundamental standards that Hassler recommended were adopted by the Treasury Department. And, the weights and measures of the customs service were made to conform. But, they were never adopted for the Nation as a whole. On June 14, 1836, Congress finally did legislate on weights and measures. Nearly a half century had passed since Washington's first address on this topic. And, despite the long history of studies, commissions, and reports, the joint resolution adopted in Congress merely directed the Secretary of the Treasury to have a complete set of weights and measures, as adopted by the Treasury Department for use in the customhouses, furnished to each State.

Three decades passed before Congress turned once again to weights and measures legislation. Then, in July of 1866, a joint resolution and a law passed Congress, and we came as near the establishment of a system of weights and measures as we have ever come. The resolution directed the Secretary of the Treasury to furnish to each State a set of standard weights and measures of the metric system for the use of the States. The law made the metric system a lawful system of weights and measures throughout the United States.

Mr. President, let me emphasize this point. The only legislation ever passed by Congress in carrying out its responsibility under the Constitution has been to make the metric system lawful throughout the United States of America.

The conclusion to which such an analysis must lead is only this: that the only system of weights and measures ever formally made lawful in the United States by Congress is the metric system.

In the 1866 law making the metric system lawful throughout the United States, there is a schedule giving the metric equivalents to the system "in use.' The metric equivalents were not for the then-legal system; they were merely for the system "in use." Subsequent codifications of the law of 1866 have retained this language, and today in the United States-title 15, section 205-the metric denominations and values are presented, and in the adjacent column are listed the "equivalent denominations in use."

I think Senators will be interested in the statements of a former Senator from Massachusetts on the subject of the metric system :

"There is something captivating in the idea of one system of weights and measures, which shall be common to all the civilized world; so that, at least, in this particular, the confusion of Babel may be overcome. Kindred to this idea is

one system of money. And both of these ideas are, perhaps, the forerunners of that grander idea of one language for all the civilized world. Philosophy does not despair of the fulfillment of this aspiration at some distant day; but a common system of weights and measures and a common system of money are already within the sphere of actual legislation."

The Senator making this statement was Charles Sumner. The date on which he made it was July 27, 1866.

The decade of the 1870's was an active one in the field of weights and measures. The most important event was the treaty of 1875, known as the Metric Convention. This treaty was ratified by the President, on the advice of the Senate, in 1878.

France has taken the lead in this treaty. Two conferences at Paris in the early 1870's had agreed on constructing new meters and kilograms. Of these, one would be selected as the standard, and the others would be distributed to the nations signatory to the treaty. In 1890 meter No. 21 and kilogram No. 4 were received in Washington and were deposited in the Office of Weights and Measures, the forerunner of the National Bureau of Standards.

In 1893 the Superintendent of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures made a ruling of prime importance. It was approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, John G. Carlisle, and provided that in the future, the Office of Weights and Measures would regard the International Prototype Metre and Kilogramme as fundamental standards. The customary units, such as the inch, foot, year, and pound would be derived from these standards, pursuant to the law of July 1866. The Superintendent making this ruling was T. C. Mendenhall, and it has been subsequently known as the "Mendenhall order."

So we have come to the curious situation today. The 1866 law, the only one ever passed by Congress, and the subsequent Mendenhall order, seem to make it quite clear that the basic legal system of weights and measures is the metric system. It, however, is not in common use. The customary system of inches and pounds has never been formally baptized.

For years, we have been able to get along quite well under our customary system. But the transportation revolution, the pace of which has been, accelerating over the last 2 decades, and the increasing volume of international trade, are making us more aware of the need for one system of measurement the world

over.

As our provisions for the defense of the Western World become more efficiently integrated, a standard system of measurements would be beneficial in making more efficient the purchase of parts and materiel for cooperative military efforts.

Several days ago, Mr. President, I introduced a measure calling on the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a study to determine the advisability of putting the United States on the metric system in everyday use. I introduced into the Record a preliminary study by the metric study task force appointed by the Director of the National Bureau of Standards.

This study outlines some of the hard questions that will have to be asked to determine the value of switching to the metric system. There will doubtless be many problems. However, I think it would be a prudent expenditure of a limited amount of Federal money to determine whether there are not greater long-range benefits to be derived from the metric system, and in that spirit I urge the attention of Senators to this measure.

REPORT OF THE METRIC STUDY TASK FORCE

The Task Force on the Metric System was appointed by the Director of the National Bureau of Standards in accordance with a memorandum of April 12, 1960, from Under Secretary Philip A. Ray in his capacity as Chairman of the Commerce Science Committee. The task force was instructed to examine the problems involved in conversion to the metric system by American industry, commerce, and trade; and to present a plan for action.

The task force, as a result of its inquiry, recommends that the Department of Commerce undertake a comprehensive, factfinding investigation on the advantages, disadvantages, and cost of conversion from the present U.S. customary system of units to the metric system. This report gives the reasons for undertaking the investigation, outlines the scope of the work to be done, and presents a plan for a 3-year study.