There was some discussion as to the wisdom of releasing the latest in research or development in this country in exchange for similar data from abroad, but the admiral settled it characteristically. If you couldn’t keep ahead of the other fellow by resort to your own initiative and enterprise in a free market, he felt, then you certainly couldn’t beat him on a closed circuit. An alert mind could often find something in the other fellow’s research which the other fellow might have missed; and if the other fellow beat you to the punch in your own field, you deserved to lose out. The admiral’s highly competitive spirit kept the whole Bureau on its toes and a word of commendation from him fired his supporters to play better ball than they really knew how. This general type of leadership seemed to permeate the Washington atmosphere of the middle ’twenties. The team of Harding and Coolidge had been elected to office on the slogan of a “Return to Normalcy.” The American people had tasted the European way in World War I and had found it bitter indeed. Then, after President Harding had died, Mr. Coolidge had taken office and given us an administration founded on New England character and integrity. This had been particularly apparent in the monetary field. We in BUAERO had to supply Admiral Moffett with sound bases for our requests for appropriations, but when we did, the Old Man would come through; he had a rare knack for getting money, especially after he had established the principle of the five-year plan. But we were expected to make our appropriations pay dividends; they weren’t handouts for “social” purposes. We didn’t pretend to know anything about the obscure theories of economics, but anyone could understand the soundness of Mr. Andrew Mellon’s tax policies. The war had left us with the heaviest debt in the history of the country, and with income taxes at high rates. Mr. Mellon seemed determined to reduce the debt, and to this end he resorted to reduced taxation. Meanwhile Mr. Coolidge sat on the lid in so far as expenses were concerned. In BUAERO we got no sudden slashing, but a quiet mandate that when a vacancy occurred, it would not be filled; the work would either be divided among others or, if unnecessary, be allowed to lapse. And between the two processes, prosperity returned. Reduced taxes made funds available for new enterprises; new enterprises paid new taxes which further reduced the debt. Mr. Mellon now began anticipating this result by further tax reductions, which accelerated the creation of new enterprises and new jobs. And so a boom was born and men talked of the “new economic era.”