Word: edisonizing
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Forty-eight now, Charles Edison has often said that he was born with two strikes called. The late (1931), great Thomas Alva Edison was a genius, but a genius can be a hard father to grow up with. Gifted with none of his father's inventive fire, blessed with a great appreciation for the important trivia of living, young Charles Edison spread his share of wild oats around Llewellyn Park, N. J., where the family reigned in feudal quietude. Not until he had labored through Massachusetts Institute of Technology and settled down in the business end of the loosely...
...Charles Edison thereupon found himself not only on a tough job but in a curious personal relationship with other Navy rankers. By statute and regulation the Assistant Secretary has under him the Navy's "shore establishments" (Yards & Docks; Engineering; Construction & Repair; Supplies & Accounts). He also has much to do with the Bureaus of Aeronautics (planes) and Ordnance (guns). But he -is exclusively responsible for none of these; the Chief of Naval Operations is also interested. And over both is the Secretary of the Navy. But he is exclusively responsible for none of these; the Chief of Naval Operations...
...already being made to order when Franklin Roosevelt began to do over U. S. foreign policy. The Army's Chief of Staff Malin Craig is an isolationist of the first water, genuinely believes the U. S. Army should be fitted to the minimum necessities of simple defense. Charles Edison's good friend, Assistant Secretary of War Louis Arthur Johnson, has the job of expanding it to a larger Roosevelt pattern, hence is in conflict with General Craig and Secretary of War Woodring, whom Mr. Johnson still hopes to replace...
...Ways. If Charles Edison has a comparable ambition, it waits on time and infirmity. On the best of terms with their Assistant Secretary, Leahy & Admirals prefer to remain that way by keeping him strictly ashore, well out of naval planning and operation. His awakening interest in such matters as the Navy's troublesome promotion system, its mountainous red tape, its broadening spheres in the Atlantic and Pacific, have caused hardly a ripple in the "Annapolis Club" of naval officialdom...
...every 100 U. S. citizens who have heard of Thomas Alva Edison, it would be hard to find one who has heard of Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903). Some years ago, however, a gathering of British scientists spouting learned chitchat in a cafe voted Gibbs no less than the greatest U. S. scientist ever...