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Vol. IV. No. 17
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NEW YORK, APRIL 22, 1916
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Five cents
Public
Brains
By CHARLES FERGUSON
At the invitation of President Wilson
the live national societies of Engineers
are organizing standing committees to
make a survey of the industrial resources
of the country. In each State five men,
skilled in the practical arts whereby we
all-directly or indirectly, honestly or
dishonestly-get our living, will make an
orderly effort to find out how well or ill
the immense apparatus of private pro-
ductionis adjusted to the public need.
The engineering societies elect the com-
mittees and these will serve under Fed-
eral appointment but without pay.
The immediate end in view is prepar-
edness for war. But we have come to
understand-Germany has taught us the
lesson--that productive power and de-
structive or defensive power are two
sides of the same thing. Therefore, in
evolving organs of scientific intelligence
to husband our industrial strength for
fighting, we have achieved also-as a by-
product-an intelligence that can be
turned to the building of cities and the
subdual of the earth. It is a pity that we
had to think socially about killing people
in order to take social thought about the
economizing of our own lives. One may
wish that we had come to this new ad-
venture on more honorable terms.
Nevertheless, a momentous thing has
come to pass. We have developed a so-
cial cerebrum--PUBLIC BRAINS!
So far as I know this is the first time in
the history of modern republics that in-
stitutions based on sheer competency and
self-devotion and exercising distinct pub-
lic jurisdiction, have risen up out of the
people.
Take note that these engineers are not
officials. They remain private citizens.
Their power to affect the operation of
laws and to influence events, depends
solely upon the public persuasion that
they know their way around in the real
world, and that they are going to use
their knowledge with a single eye to the
general welfare.
Now, having gone thus far toward the
organization of practical intelligence on
democratic grounds, we shall be inex-
cusable if we don’t go farther.
It is a good thing that every State
should have a public brain, working free
and clear from the pressure of private
interest, the warp of party politics and
(Continued on page 284)