service for nearly a year. Hundreds of submarine-chasers have now been
built, and a number of destroyers and other craft completed and placed
in service. The first merchant ship to be armed was the oil-tanker
_Campana_; guns manned by navy men were on board when she sailed for
Europe, March 12, 1917. The big American passenger-liners _St. Paul_ and
_New York_ were armed on March 16 of that year, and the Red Star liner
_Kroonland_ and the _Mongolia_ on March 19. And continuously up to the
present writing merchant ships as they have become available have been
armed and provided with navy gun crews. Since the arming of the
_Campana_ more than 1,300 vessels have been furnished with batteries,
ammunition, spare parts, and auxiliaries.

But of equal importance, greater importance history may decree it, was
Secretary Daniels's action in 1915 of appointing the Naval Advisory
Board of Inventions. That was looking ahead with a vengeance. The idea
was to make available the latent inventive genius of the country to
improve the navy. The plan adopted by Secretary Daniels for selecting
this extraordinary board included a request to the eleven great
engineering and scientific societies of the country to select by popular
election two members to represent their society on the board. Results
were immediately gratifying. Nominations were forthcoming at once, and
in September of 1915 the board, which came popularly to be known as the
Inventions Board, met in Washington for organization. Thomas A. Edison
was selected by the Secretary of the Navy as chairman of the board, and
the other members were elected as follows:

From the American Chemical Society: W. R. Whitney, director of Research
Laboratory, General Electric Company, where he has been the moving
spirit in the perfection of metallic electric-lamp filaments and the
development of wrought tungsten. L. H. Baekeland, founder of the Nepera