The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-14
ADVISORY BOARD OF
 INVENTIVE GENIUS
 WIDELY APPROVED
Secretary Daniels Preparing to Invite Noted Inventors to Join Thomas Edison
 in the Work

Washington, July Naturalization ot the oountry's inventive genius to aid in working out naval problems as proposed by Secretary Daniels was discussed wide ly today by officials of both army and navy, and the selection of Thomas A. Edison as head of the civilian advisory board met with unanimous approval
 Secretary Daniels now is preparing to invite other noted inventors and technical experts to join in the work He would not say yes or no 10 a dozen names sug- gested to him. declaring he would make known the other members of the advisory board only after their acceptance had been received
 'As l stated in my letter to MT. Edi son." said the secretary tonight. 'I am not prepared to announce full details of the plan. An informal conference was held today with the chiefs of the bureaus of ordnance steam engineering and con struction and repair. and l expect to an- nounce the organizaton in a more ce1inlte way fin short time ''The country does not yet known the far-reaching and important experimental work done by Admirals Griffin. Strauss
 
 for months have been studying every new development brought out by the war in Europe. and already they have con tributed to increased naval experts to They will be given additional experts to carry on this development work they have been doing with ability and success
 Requires Careful Thought
 ''The selection of the members of the advisory committee requires careful thought, but I hope to announce them shortly. Whit Mr. Edison so willingly and cheerfglly responding, l feel sure that the advisory council when the names are all selected will be composed of men of such prominence as to make the coun- try feel that what it is possible for the human mind to devise will be devised for our navy"
 Among the names suggested to MT. Daniels as possible members of the new board were those of Charles P. Stein metz. one of the worlds authorities on electrical engineering; Hudson Maxim, in ventor and maker of guns and explosives, Orville Wright one of two brothers who led the world in aeroplane flight; simon Lake, submarine inventor; Lewis Nixon, shipbuilder and former naval officer; Alexander Graham Bell. inventor of the telephone; John Hays Hammond, Jr., and R. A. Fessenden. radio communication experts; J. B. Walker editor of a scen- tific magazine and an inventor of note, and a score of others.
 Attention called today to an act of Congress prohibiting the acceptance by the government of voluntary services. A there is no provision for remuneration for the proposed board. 1t was suggested that law might prove an obstacle and require a specific authorization by Con gress. MT. Daniels said that he had not examined the law, but he thought it would be possible to avoid conflict with it.
 On Advisory Board
 The bulk of the work in testing new de- vices and reviewing suggestions will fall on the department itself the secretary explained. and for that reason he con templates creating bureau of invention and development to which the civilian experts will be advisory board
 MT. Daniels indicated that he had not yet developed anything like a complete working plan for the bureau. He has in view. however, concentration of navy ex- permental stations the coal testing plant at Annapolis, the tank for testing hull models at the navy yard here and the aerodrome, where studies in air cur