The Rockefeller Foundation
May 19, 1937
Dear Linus:
As I suggested in my note of April 22, there are a variety of points relative to the
application, which is now before this division, from the CIT, which can, I think,
profit by somewhat more extended and detailed consideration.
1) First of all, as I reported orally to Dr. Millikan when he was recently here,
it will not be possible to obtain a decision on this request before December of this
year. Any modification or amplification of the present request should therefore take
this fact into account, indicating the beginning date at which the support is requested
to commence.
2) I think that it is somewhat more detailed and somewhat more con-sidered description
of the project than was feasible for you to prepare in the time which was available
when the application of March 27 was sent in. Among other points which could perhaps
profit by some amplification and some further consideration, I would mention the fact
that we would wish to have a reasonably definite indication of the cost of the initial
equipment for the organic laboratories. On account of a certain prejudice, perhaps
illogical but still understandable, which exists here relative to the purchase of
books and journals, it would also help me if I had some indication of the expenditures
of this sort which you feel it is essential to make.
3) The total request which is before us includes the sum of $50,000 a year for organic
and structural chemistry and also includes $25,000 a year in support of certain work
in biology. The latter portion of the request was given, I think you must agree, rather
casual treatment. Aside from the relatively brief reference to this request in Dr.
Millikan's formal letter of application, there was no supporting description from
the Division of Biology.
I entirely realize that the whole request was prepared somewhat hastily, but there
are naturally a good many important questions which it would be necessary to discuss
before we could give effective consideration to a request of this magnitude.
4) With particular reference to the request for aid in biology, but also with reference
to the request that our new grant expand our support of your own work in structural
chemistry from $10,000 yearly to $15,000 yearly, I think it is necessary to point
out that it is the characteristic business of The Rockefeller Foundation to assist
in the initiation of enterprises whech then are able to command appropriate local
support. My letter of December 19, 1933 to Dr. Millikan pointed out that The Rockefeller
Foundation was extending temporary aid for the development of re-search in biology
at the CIT with the understanding "that support for the work in biology is undoubtedly
to be forthcoming from normal sources, once the general situation improves." Later
in the letter occurs the sentence: "That is, it is our understanding that, if it prove
possible to continue this support as described above for the three-year period. The
Institute accepts full responsibility from then on," The closing paragraphs of this
letter also emphasized the fact that The Rockefeller Foundation could not accept any
responsibility for the continuance, beyond the three-year period then under consideration,
of the support of your own researches. I do not refer back to these old understandings
in any present spirit of low bargaining. It is, however, necessary to emphasize that
The Rockefeller Foundation would consider it a somewhat retrograde step, from our
point of view, to expand assistance of your own work by $5,000 annually, now absorbing
into our support a portion, the furnishing of which from local sources was one of
the strong motivations of our original grant. For similar reasons, there would be
a heavy burden of proof against now expending so large a sum for the support of the
work in biology - a sum nearly as large as that which was previously granted on a
basis which was explicitly emergency and non-recurring. I quite realize that the Institute
has not found it possible, during the last two or three years, to increase its resources
as effectively as had been hoped; and I believe that there would be a reasonably sympathetic
attitude here in connection with a proposal which involved our continuing some more
modest portion of this past support.
5) In view of all of the foregoing remarks I have been wondering if it would be possible
for your colleagues and yourself to work out a desirable and acceptable plan on the
basis of approximately $60,000 annyally for 5 years. In my own mind I find myself
tentatively supposing that approximately $10,000 of this sum would be devoted to work
in biology, perhaps to those aspects which are most closely and naturally connected
with the proposed development io bio-organic chemistry. I have also tentatively supposed
that the allocation, from the remaining sum of $50,000 yearly, for your own work in
structural chemistry could be kept at its previous figure of $10,000, the Institute
continuing to accept responsibility for contribution $5,000 for this project from
other sources. If such an arrangement is feasible, the remaining sum of $40,000 annually
would provide for the pro-posed $35,000 annual budget for organic chemistry and still
leave an annual sum of $5,000 (or a total of $25,000 for the five-year period) which
could be used primarily for permanent equipment. The major portion of this permanent
equipment would presumably be required during the first year: but it seems doubtful
and indeed undesirable that the program in organ organic chemistry should be at once
brought to the $35,000 level. Do you not think that it would be sensible to open
up the program rather slowly? If this were done, it would probably be possible to
arrange a decreasing schedule for equipment and an increasing schedule for salaries,
stipends, etc., so that the annual total would be approximately constant. It would
not, of course, becnecessary to handicap the develop-ment of the program just because
of an artificial demand that the annual expenditures be equal. Thus it would be possible
to give consideration to an appropriation which would provide a total of $300,000
over five years with the understanding that not more than, say, $70,000 be spent in
any one particular year, thus allowing some degree of elasticity in the annual sums.
It has further occurred to me that it might even be desirable for you to give consideration
to the possibility of entering still more slowly upon the proposed program, and considering
a proposed total of $300,000 over a period of six years rather than over a period
of five. That, however, is a point on which I have no strong feeling,
6) I am sure that Professor Morgan and you will both realize that the foregoing remarks
do not carry with them the slightest implication that we are more interested in the
Chemistry Division than we are in the Biology Division. The feeling that we are not
justified in now contributing so heavily to the research in biology, but that we are
justified in considering the initiating of support for the work in bio-organic chemistry,
is based upon precisely the same considerations which might entirely naturally lead
us, at some future time, to reverse the role of the two subjects and give preferred
consideration to the development of some aspect of the work in biology.
This rather long and somewhat complicated letter may give rise to several questions
on your part; and I know that you will feel entirely free to write to me as informally
as you please to carry forward the discussion. Inasmuch as this application primarily
refers to chemistry, but also includes a discussion of the work in biology, I am sending
a copy of this letter to Professor Morgan for his information.
Cordially yours,
Warren
Professor Linus Pauling
Gates Chemical Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California
