Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-12
CHART MAKERS ROW
Fight Between Weather Bu-
reau and photographers.
INSURANCE MEN TAKE HAND
Protest Against Weather Bureau
Making Pilot Chart.
MOORE AND KNAPP CLASH
Former Declares His Thunder Is
Stolen by the Naval Bureau.
Congress as Umpire.

1--WE want sailors and not farmers to
prepare the governments monthly pilot
charts The weather bureau may be all
right to tell the 'rubes when to plant
corn and wheat and other stun and when
to salt the stock, but we don't want to
sail our ships by their calculations"
'"rhe photographic Office is stealir~ our
thunder. We supply 80 per cent of it's in
formation and it gets out the pilot charts
and takes all the credit. We want it
stopped
These are the arguments, for and
against, now being used on the House
committee on appropriations In connection
with the bitter row which is on between
the weather bureau and the hydrographlc
office, the facts in which just came to
light today.
There has been trouble between these
two bureaus ever since 1898, when a
board appointed by the President defined
their respective duties to the satisfaction,
it appears, of neither bureau.
Weather Bureau Broke Peace.
The weather bureau just the other day
broke the tentative peaceful arrangement
with the photographic office by demand
ing that Congress grant it exclusive III
thority to compile and issue the monthly
pilot charts The result has been deluge
of protests from mariners all over the
world. who have been accustomed to go
by the data furnished by the hydro
graphic Office and who look upon the OIL
Gals of the weather bureaus as lot OF
farmers who don't know that ship Is
hollow.
The most serious feature of the row
developed today when the approprla-
tons committee received petition
signed by all the marine insurance COM
xanix h,rci in, q
New York, protesting against the work
of preparing the governments monthly
pilot charts being turned over to the
weather bureau. While there is no in
timation to this effect in the petition,
which merely dwells upon the superb
ority Of the photographic office to DO
this sort of work. the members OF the
appropriations committee. are afraid
that If the weather bureau is given the
job Of preparing these charts the
rates on marine insurance Will go up
like stock market prices on general
bull movement. Among the companies
which signed the petition against the
weather bureau are the Sjoforakrings
Achebolaget ocean Goteborg, the
sveriges AangfarlynJgs Assurancee dfdene
Skibas Drummer and the
Agders misunderstanding Grinstad, as
well as a number of others with quite
pronounceable names.
Denies Moore's Contention.
Commander Knapp of the navy was
before the committee on appropriations
the other day, and while he testified
that he didn't know great deal about
the photographic Office, having been In
charge of it only a short time. yet II
developed that he had decided views
on the proposition. of sailing seagoins
vessel on rural dead reckoning. He en-
nhatically denied, moreover, the conten-
tion of Willis Moore, chief Of the weather
bureau, that 30 per cent of the lnforma-
ton used by the photographic ONCE In
getting out its chart was supplied by the
weather bureau.
He nointed out that the photographic
office has many branches in the various
ports of the United States and that sell
dom a day passes that some vaiuabie
information isn't turned into one or THESE
branches by grizzled sea dog whose
schooner sat down on an iceberg OF
poked her nose into shoal, and who re-
members within half degree where the
distressing thing happened.
Would Lose Information.
Commander Knapp didn't believe for a
minute that dignified mariner with a
husky voice and weather-tanned map
would take a paror car to Washington
| for the purpose of notifying the chief oil
the division of barometric pressure, OF
| the CHIEF clerk of the division of thermo-
metrical evolution, or the expert on now
Iis-the-time- to plow-and-plant that in
latitude IS. longitude All, at half-past six
| i'm the evening. with a flowing sea, a
| head wind and a cook with a broken
arm. he had sighted derelict drifting
sou.east by east a half north, and
thought the next pilot chart ought to con-
tain the information.
| Yet. on the other hand. Chief Moore
| claims that the government Is now spend
| ing twice the money necessary to get out
| the pilot charts, as the photographic
| ONCE and his bureau both come across
| monthly with the same production, one
| called the pilot chart" and the other the
| meteorological chart" but both contain
/ ing the same information.
| He is borne out in this. The hydro
| graphic office folks say with great heat
| That the weather bureau has been inchins
| up on them for years and they want /,
stopped The committee hasn't decided
| what to do.