The Engineering Council

The Engineering Council is the outcome of several independent movements which took definite shape early during the present year. For a long time individual engineers and the engineering societies have considered the desirability of having some properly constituted organization empowered to speak in the name of engineers in general upon subjects of common interest to engineers and to the public. The need of such an organization in the interest of cooperation and uniformity of action on matters relating to the welfare of the engineering profession was brought to the attention of the Board of Directors of the Institute at its meeting held in Philadelphia in October 1916, at which the subject was discussed at considerable length. A resolution was adopted at that meeting authorizing the President to appoint a committee of five members of the Board and to invite the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers, to appoint similar representatives upon a joint committee with a view to formulating some plan of action for organizing such a central body. A series of conferences of the representatives appointed as a result of this action followed, and after considering numerous suggestions the conferees formulated a plan to amend the by-laws of the United Engineering Society so as to provide for a new department of that Society, to be known as The Engineering Council. These amendments were subsequently adopted, and have been approved by the four founder societies which constitute the United Engineering Society. The object and method of organization of the Council are expressed in the by-laws as follows: