This policy is "penny wise and pound foolish" when it so directly affects the safety of the nation. I was informed by Mr. Otto Exius, the managing director of the great Krupp Works in Germany, that the Imperial German Government has followed a far different method in fostering inventions that might be of benefit to the state. Mr. Exius informed me that when they undertook the development of a new invention for the purposes of national defence the government paid them for the cost of all material used and allowed them a sufficient percentage over labor costs to cover their overhead, plus a fair amount of profit. This probably accounts for the fact that Germany to-day is far ahead of us in her development of engines for the military submarine. There is no gainsaying the fact that the policy of our government has been to make up an ideally perfect weapon and then invite manufacturers to bid for the work. They have thus thrown the burden of development upon individual firms, many of whom have been forced into bankruptcy in their patriotic desire to furnish acceptable devices to the government. We have the inventive genius in this country to _create and originate_ new machines and new methods of manufacture. In most commercial and industrial lines we are able to maintain a leading position, but in devices designed for the national defence we originate, and other nations develop and profit. Had we supported our inventors and held within this country as far as possible the knowledge of their devices, and withheld the secrets of their work from foreign powers, as indeed we should have, the United States to-day would be in a position of military effectiveness very different from that in which we are found. All this is due to the fact that the government does not foster and protect our newly created devices, and to-day we are behind the continental powers in our gunnery, our airplanes, in our dirigibles, and in our submarine engines, as well as in many other auxiliaries necessary to our national protection. I feel that it lies within the province of the civilian board to correct the mistakes in our governmental policy, provided, of course, that Congress makes suitable appropriations to enable it to carry on investigations in a proper manner and to protect the inventors who submit new and original ideas. At the time Secretary Daniels created the board I wrote him, in part, as follows: "I notice by to-day's _New York Herald_ that you are proposing to appoint an 'advisory board of civilian inventors for a Bureau of Invention and Development,' to be created in the Navy Department, and that you have asked Mr. Thomas A. Edison to be the chairman of said board. "I wish to congratulate you upon this conception. I believe such a board, if its work is properly systematized, can be made of great and permanent value to the nation.