alone professional, will appreciate the fact that only on very rare occasions and under some great incentive does an organization ever become singleminded and express itself as being so. Actions must necessarily be compromise actions; radically new policies are rarely attempted unless there has been previous deficiency, and a new policy is simply corrective of some form of weakness. In a professional society most of the members behave themselves most of the time and fortunately violations of the laws of professional conduct are exceedingly few and far between.

It is only when there is some flagrant violation of the code, and considerable publicity is given to the case that those members of the society most ethically minded wonder whether the principles of conduct for fellow members have been sufficiently prescribed and if they have not, whether it would not be advisable to revise the existing canons or to make new ones. Of course this kind of questioning does not take place very often until the standards of conduct have become fairly determined.

All the above is as a preamble to saying that it was not until about 1910, thirty years after its organization, that the attempt was made within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to formulate a code of ethics. In January of that year the Council of the Society "approved the appointment of a Committee to consider respecting the advisability of the Society's preparing a code of ethics." A committee consisting of Mr. Charles Wallace Hunt, Dr. W. F. M. Goss, and Professor John E. Sweet was appointed. The discussion which led the Council to take its first action is not recorded, but a subsequent action is stated to have been taken:

Whereas, The Society is often addressed on the general subject, and Whereas, The

American Institute of Electrical Engineers have just adopted an admirable code of ethics:

Voted: That a Committee of three be appointed by the President to consider and report its recommendations to the next meeting of the Council.

The first Special Committee of three was later increased to five and its personnel changed to Charles Whiting Baker, Chairman, Charles T. Main, Colonel E. D. Meier, Spencer Miller and C. R. Richards. It was this augmented committee which in December, 1912, presented a report to the Council embodying a code of ethics.

The Council voted "to receive this report and publish it in the journal of the Society, with special emphasis on the suggestion of the Committee that the membership at large be invited to make suggestions and criticisms, to be sent to the Committee." It was also voted "that this report be made a matter of discussion by the Society as a whole at its semi-annual meeting held in Baltimore in 1913."

The proposed code was discussed at that meeting of the Society and the following action was taken:

Resolved: That it be recommended to the Council that the proposed code of ethics be printed in pamphlet form and a copy mailed

to each member of the Society, accompanied by a ballot so prepared that each member may vote upon each clause separately; and that if the majority of those voting are in favor this meeting recommends that the Council shall declare the report approved and shall arrange for the appointment of a committee on the interpretation of the code.

The code was duly issued and submitted to letter ballot of the membership in October, 1913, and the ballot was favorable. The code was thereby adopted by the whole Society. Mr. Charles Whiting Baker, Chairman, Charles T. Main, Colonel E. D. Meier,

Spencer Miller and C. R. Richards, the original committee which formulated the code, were appointed a Committee on Interpretations.

THE FIRST CODE ADOPTED BY THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

An analysis of the first code of ethics of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers reveals the fact that its purport was chiefly admonitory. This code, which was not a code of principles so much as a code of recommended practices in specific cases and injunctions against performing specific acts of impropriety is reprinted on page 271 of this volume.

ATTEMPT AT A SECOND CODE

At the end of 1918 a wave of idealism swept through the United States and professional engineering societies. made investigations of their activities in the light of their new concepts. In common with the other societies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers appointed a special Committee on Aims and Organization which made recommendations concerning the Society's activities and also concerning the activities of a national engineering organization in connection with the community.

The report of this Committee consisted of a series of different recommendations, condensed to a minimum. number of words and enumerated without very much preamble. The object of such a report was to focus attention on the most important activities to be developed and to avoid detail of discussion. The report of this Special Committee on Aims and Organization contained the following regarding the code of ethics:

RECOMMENDED: That it is the sense of this Committee that a short code of ethics of broad scope, general character

and positive rather than negative injunction, be prepared and that the same be enforced vigorously.

RECOMMENDED: That a Committee of five on Code of Ethics be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Council who shall report back to the Society at the Annual Meeting.

Upon the adoption of these recommendations by the Society, the Council appointed a new committee, consisting of Professor A. G. Christie, Chairman, Mr. Robert Sibley, J. V. Martenis, T. H. Hinchman, H. J. C. Hinchey and Charles T. Main, to prepare a new code, and to consider a means for enforcing it. This Committee reported to the Council. on April 19, 1920 and the report was referred to the membership at the Spring Meeting of the Society in the following month.

The discussion at the Spring Meeting was extended and earnest, and the code was referred back to the Committee for restatement in the light of the discussion.

At the same time the Society recognized the recommendation of the Committee that a code should be common to each branch of the profession, and it was therefore offered to the other engineering societies for their consideration. This was the beginning of the efforts for a joint code which are still under way.

The Special Committee before revising the language of the code thought it well to take into consideration representatives of the other engineering societies and recommended the appointment of a Joint Committee. The civil, mining and metallurgical, and electrical engineers responded, as did also the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, and later the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers.

The representatives of the American

Society of Mechanical Engineers on this Joint Committee are expecting to present again the proposed code, revised in coöperation with the representatives of the other societies, at the forthcoming Spring Meeting of the Society. The Committee still adheres to its plan of a Committee on Professional Conduct to enforce the code, and in fact regards this as an essential requirement.

The proposed code is printed in full on page 271.

It is the belief of many now within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers that success is now not far off. The forces operating for the adoption of the code have now reinforcements from an entirely different direction. The Committee on Constitution and By-Laws of the Society was requested two years ago to present to the Society an entire revision of the constitution and by-laws. This Committee has incorporated in the constitution an article headed "Professional Practice," the first section of which reads:

In all professional and business relations the members of the Society shall be governed by the Code of Ethics of the Society.

This section of the constitution is supplemented by the following by-law:

All members of the Society shall subscribe to the following Code of Ethics as required by the constitution:

(Here is to be inserted the new Code of Ethics when adopted by the Society.)

There follows a second paragraph in the by-laws:

All matters in connection with the administration of the Code of Ethics shall be in charge of the Standing Committee on Professional Conduct under the direction of the Council.

The duties of the proposed new Standing Committee on Professional Conduct are prescribed in the following proposed new by-law:

The Standing Committee on Professional Conduct shall, under the direction of the Council, have supervision of all matters relating to the Code of Ethics and its enforcement, as required by the constitution, and as detailed in the rules. The Committee shall consist of five members and the term of one member shall expire at the close of each Annual Meeting.

These matters of the Constitution and by-laws are likewise to come before the Society at the forthcoming spring meeting.

The work on a Code of Ethics for Mechanical Engineers has, therefore, consumed twelve years to date, and has now the prospect of full realization.

agreement upon such statement. Most attempts to produce a brief code comparable with the Decalogue have resulted in little more than an expansion of the Golden Rule, such, for example, as is the code of ethics adopted by the American Society of

Civil Engineers on September 2, 1914.

There has been much discussion by engineers of the need of adopting a comprehensive code in order that the ideals of the profession may be presented clearly to the young engineer. On the one hand, these efforts have been scoffed at; indeed, in the case of one of the national engineering societies, it was "decided that no gentleman needed a code of ethics, and that no code of ethics would make a gentleman out of a crook." At the other extreme, there are elaborate results, such as those of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and other organizations, quoted by Daniel W. Mead.2

The chief difficulty in agreeing upon and adopting a code of ethics for the entire engineering profession has arisen from the fact that there is little agreement, even among engineers, as to the meaning or limitations of the words "engineer" and "engineering," and of the word "profession" as applied to engineering. In the evolution of the English language, the word "engineer" has come into such common use and has been made to include so many different practices that it is now necessary to use some qualifying adjective in order to have a common understanding as to what is meant when using this term.

GRADATIONS OF THE TERM, ENGINEER

In contrast, there is little relative difference in conception when we speak about an architect. This is a term which applies to a rather limited body of professional men, and, moreover, it has been defined by law. In contrast with this, the word "engineer" as employed by a professional engineer has an entirely different

1 For this code, see Appendix, page 273.

2 "Contracts, Specifications and Engineering Relations." Daniel W. Mead, New York, McGraw Hill Book Company, 1916.

meaning from that understood by the general public or as interpreted by court decision.

In Great Britain the engineer is a mechanic, and, in legal usage, is a man who operates an engine. The organizations of engineers in Great Britain are to a large extent comparable with trade unions in America. In the United States there are possibly a halfmillion men who, in common usage, are known as engineers, and yet none of whom would be eligible for membership in one of our great engineering societies. The engineer, as the word is popularly used, may be a mechanic, a tradesman, or a professional man. The division between these groups is broad, and it is almost impossible to draw a sharp line.

Some of the best known professional engineers in the United States, prominent in the affairs of technical engineering societies, are themselves business men as well as engineers, managing or controlling directly or indirectly large corporations which construct, build, or sell engineering works, machinery, or power. Many of the leaders have come up through the ranks, and at one time or another have been draftsmen or mechanics, and as such have been eligible for membership in labor unions, even if they have not actually taken out a card. Others, educated in the best engineering schools and for a time serving as professional engineers, have become business men and have gone into contracting or trade relations without losing their standing as professional engineers.

Yet, in spite of these uneven gradations, there is an attempt made at all times to hold before the eyes of the professional engineer certain standards of conduct which differentiate him from the business man, contractor or mechanic. He cannot go so far as the

architects in acquiescing to the first rule of their code of ethics, which states that it is unprofessional for an architect "to engage directly or indirectly in any of the building trades." In fact the rigid adoption of such a rule might bring under the ban some of the most prominent members of the engineering profession, owners or partners in engineering corporations, nor has it been found practicable by engineers to follow the architects in their declaration that it is unprofessional to advertise. This drastic rule has been softened by the statement of the civil engineers that it is inconsistent with honorable and dignified bearing "to advertise in self-laudatory language, or in any other manner derogatory to the profession."

The ethical code of the engineer has been founded upon such long experience as has demonstrated that “honesty is the best policy." There may be, and doubtless are, many members of the profession who would prefer to consider that their ethics were purely altruistic and based upon the idealism of Kant, following his stern precepts of absolute devotion to duty and of self-negation. Such men there are in every profession, but the code of ethics has been evolved not by these stern idealists, but rather by the appeal to common sense and fair play, necessitated by the so-called practical conditions that surround the profession. Thus the civil engineers make the prohibition not against advertising but against carrying advertising to the point of self-laudation.

Because of the difficulty, found by the different branches of the engineering profession, in agreeing upon a common code, there has been a tacit agreement upon the point that the only way to perfect a code of engineering ethics is to follow the precedent of the British Institution, namely, to

make decision upon specific questions as they arise, the body of decisions thus furnishing a code which it has been found impossible to write out and to agree upon in advance. Such decisions reveal the underlying principles and can be appealed to in other cases until these principles thus become firmly established in the minds of all concerned.

THE CASE METHOD OF CODE
BUILDING

This so-called "case" or project method of building up a code has been put into practice by the American Institute of Consulting Engineers and by the American Association of Engineers. In both of these organizations, composed largely of civil engineers, a simple code has been adopted, and then, as specific cases arise which seem to need consideration, each of these has been considered on its merits and a decision published, stating, without giving names, the facts of the case and the conclusion reached by the Practice Committee. As these cases increase in number and cover more and more widely the conditions which occur in actual practice, there must result a better comprehension, not only of the ideals of the profession, but of the way in which these may be put into effect.

There are thus taken up and considered in succession, numerous questions regarding professional conduct as these arise between members or in daily contact with federal, state, or local officials and business men. The simpler personal matters are passed over quickly by the Practice Committee, but those involving the application of an important principle of ethics are given full consideration and are ultimately published without name. They thus form the basis for general discussion and become interwoven in