HISTORY OF THE STANDARD WEIGHTS AND MEASURES OF THE UNITED STATES." By Louis A. FISCHER. The subject of weights and measures is one of such great interest and importance and is attracting so much attention in this country and in England at the present time that a short account of the steps taken to secure uniformity in the United States is deemed an appropriate subject to bring to the attention of this convention. The attention of the United States Government has long been directed toward securing uniformity in this country, and in the effort to secure international agreement in weights and measures it has always shown the greatest interest. The history of the original Confederation of States and of the constitutional government of the United States is full of evidences of the perplexities arising from the diversity of weights and measures throughout their jurisdiction and of the desirability of a uniform system. The weights and measures in common use in this country at the time of the American Revolution were all of English origin and were in use in England at that period. The principal units were the yard, the avoirdupois pound, the gallon, and the bushel. More or less authentic copies of the English standards of the denominations mentioned had been brought over from time to time and adopted by the different colonies. Divergencies in these weights and measures were, however, quite common, due no doubt to the fact that the system of weights and measures of England was not itself well established, and hence the copies brought to this country were often adjusted to different standards. That this condition was recognized very early is made evident by the Articles of Confederation which contained the following clause: "The a An address delivered before the First Annual Meeting of the Sealers of Weights and Measures of the United States at the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C., 1905. United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States-fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States." This power was transferred to Congress by the Constitution of the United States in article 1, section 8, the language being as follows: "The Congress shall have Power . . . To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;". While Congress was not slow to take action in regard to coinage, it seems not to have been inclined to come to a decision in regard to weights and measures, though apparently willing enough to consider the subject. Washington, in his first annual message to Congress, January, 1790," stated that "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." In accordance with Washington's suggestion, the matter was referred to a select committee of the House of Representatives with instructions to prepare a bill, and it was also ordered that the matter be referred to the Secretary of State to prepare and report to the House a proper plan for establishing uniformity in the weights and measures. Jefferson was then Secretary of State, and in response to the above request made a report, in which he proposed two distinct plans. The first was substantially to "define and render uniform and stable the existing system to reduce the dry and liquid measures to corresponding capacities by establishing a single gallon of 270 cubic inches and a bushel of eight gallons, or 2,160 cubic inches * The second plan was "to reduce every branch to the same decimal ratio already established for coin, and thus bring the calculations of the principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply and divide plain numbers."c * No action was taken, however, by the House and in his second message to Congress, on December 8, 1790, Washington again called the attention of that body to the importance of the subject. A few days later the House ordered that the report of Jefferson, referred to above, be communicated to the Senate. On March 1, 1791, the Senate committee to which the matter had been referred reported that it would not be eligible to make a change in the weights and measures, as a a Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1, p. 66. c Journal of the H. R., Childs & Swaine, p. 106. proposition had been made to the French and British Governments to obtain an international standard." This report was accepted and the matter rested there, although Washington, on October 25, 1791, repeated his former recommendations in his third annual message to Congress, in the following language: A uniformity in the weights and measures of the country is among the important objects submitted to you by the Constitution and if it can be derived from a standard at once invariable and universal, must be no less honorable to the public councils than conducive to the public convenience. A week later the Senate appointed a committee to take into consideration the subject of weights and measures. The committee reported on the 4th of April, 1792, recommending the adoption of the second plan proposed by Jefferson, which was an entirely decimal system. Again no definite action was taken. The matter was considered in a desultory way by Congress from time to time, but no agreement was reached notwithstanding that the repeated recommendations of Washington were followed by those of Adams. A sufficient explanation for the disinclination of Congress to act in a matter of such admitted importance was the difficulty of agreeing upon a plan. The Fifth Congress, second session, in 1799, passed an act ordering that the surveyor (of each port of the United States) shall from time to time, and particularly on the first Monday of January and July in each year, examine and try the weights, measures, and other instruments used in ascertaining the duties on imports with standards to be provided by each collector at the public expense for that purpose; and when disagreements and errors are discovered he shall report the same to the collector and obey and execute such directions as he may receive for the correction thereof agreeably to the standards aforesaid." This was the first act passed by Congress in regard to weights and measures, but in view of the fact that no standards had ever been adopted the legislation was not put into operation until about thirtyfive years after its passage, when certain standards, which will be referred to later, were adopted by the Treasury Department. After the war of 1812 the question of uniformity in weights and measures was again brought to the attention of Congress, and in 1819 a committee of the House of Representatives proposed to adopt absolute standards conforming to the weights and measures in common use; to obtain through a commission copies of the yard, the bushel, the wine gallon, and the pound supposed to conform to those in common use in the United States; to preserve these standards and to dis a Journal of the Senate, p. 143; John L. Fenno. tribute copies of them; to compare the length measure with the length of the second's pendulum and also with that of an arc of the terrestrial meridian; to connect them by determining the weight of a certain bulk of distilled water, and to define the bushel and the gallon by the weight of water which they contain." No further record of the report is found, and it may be assumed that no action upon it was taken. The Senate had, by a resolution adopted March 3, 1817-two years prior to the above report-requested the Secretary of State to prepare and report a "statement" relative to the regulations and standards for weights and measures in the several States and relative to the proceedings in foreign countries for establishing uniformity in weights and measures, together with such propositions relative thereto as might be proper to adopt in the United States. John Quincy Adams was at that time Secretary of State, and four years later-namely, on February 22, 1821-he submitted an elaborate report to the House of Representatives, in which, among other recommendations, the following are found: (1) To fix the standard with the partial uniformity of which it is susceptible for the present, excluding all innovations. (2) To consult with foreign nations for the future and ultimate establishment of universal and permanent uniformity. As before, Congress took no action, probably because the situation at that time was extremely complicated. Neither the metric system in France nor the system in common use in England was well established. In France the law making the metric system compulsory had been repealed, and the metric system was in use side by side with the ancient weights and measures, thus producing endless confusion. In England the situation was not much better; the ale gallon of 282 cubic inches and the wine gallon of 231 cubic inches were both in use until 1824, when the new imperial gallon, containing 10 pounds of water, and of a capacity of about 277 cubic inches, was adopted, together with the bushel of 8 gallons. Neither of these measures was in use in this country, and hence the United States could not at that time adopt either the system in use in England or the one in France without introducing radical changes in the weights and measures already in use, nor was there at that time any positive assurance that either the English or the metric system would be permanent. While Congress had been considering the matter, most of the States had, independently of one another, secured and adopted standards. Most of the standards thus adopted were brought from England; nevertheless, standards of the same denomination differed widely a Executive Doc. No. 73, 30th Cong., 1st sess., Senate. among themselves, thus perpetuating confusion in the commerce between adjacent States. Though confusion in commercial transactions might be overlooked, uncertainty in regard to the coinage could not be tolerated, and on May 19, 1828, a certain troy pound was adopted as the standard for coinage by Congress in an "Act to continue the Mint at the City of Philadelphia, and for other purposes." The section 2 of the act referred to reads as follows: * * * And be it further enacted, That, for the purpose of securing a due conformity in weight of the coins of the United States the brass troy pound weight procured by the minister of the United States at London, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, for the use of the mint, and now in the custody of the Mint at Philadelphia, shall be the standard troy pound of the Mint of the United States, conformably to which the coinage thereof shall be regulated. The troy pound thus adopted had been procured in the year 1827 by Albert Gallatin, minister of the United States at London, and brought to this country by special messenger, who delivered it to the director of the Mint at Philadelphia. The weight was of brass and an exact copy of the imperial troy pound of Great Britain, according to the statement of Captain Kater, who made the comparison between the two standards. The casket and accompanying packages were retained under seal until Mr. Adams, President of the United States, visited Philadelphia and verified the seal of Mr. Gallatin and the other facts in regard to its authenticity. This ceremony took place on October 12, 1827, and the full certificate of President Adams in regard to the seal, which he readily recognized, and to the whole transaction and consequent accuracy of the weight was added to the vouchers in the case. He declared, in conclusion, his belief that the brass weight then exhibited was the identical pound copy of the imperial standard troy pound of Great Britain referred to in the aforesaid certificates." The foregoing facts were communicated to Congress through the Committee on the Mint and resulted in the passage of the act cited above. While the act of Congress of 1828 only made this pound the standard for coinage, it virtually became the fundamental standard of the United States from which the avoirdupois pound in common use was derived. On May 29, 1830, two years after the mint pound had been legalized for coinage, the Senate passed a resolution directing the Secretary of the Treasury to cause a comparison of the weights and measures in use at the principal custom-houses to be made, and to report to the Senate at its next session. a Report on Weights and Measures, Franklin Institute, 1834, Appendix No. VII. 2214-No. 3—05—6 |