April, 19 10] American Chemist and the War's Problems 227 



country, could have reason to doubt that American chemical 

 engineers and industrial chemists would rise to any emergency 

 which it was within human power to meet. They have already 

 and will continue to live up to what we have a right to expect 

 of them, in view of their past successes. We would be surprised 

 if a similar degree of success did not crown the efforts of the 

 chemists of the other countries, France, Britain, Italy, Germany, 

 Austria, Russia, for it has never been the habit of American 

 chemists to boastingly claim superiority because of any advan- 

 tage, real or imaginary, with which they, like any group, are 

 apt to be blessed for a greater or less period of time. We 

 have always appreciated chemical contributions to progress 

 from whatever source they have come and praised unstintingly 

 the individual wherever he may be who has taken a distinct 

 step forward, for we firmly believe this is an important help in 

 advancing the progress of the science. 



These general developments are naturally not a matter of 

 public information, except attention is called to them. The 

 chemist works almost entirely beneath the surface of things 

 and only in a few spectacular cases is public attention drawn to 

 his work. It is quite natural therefore that appreciation and 

 praise of foreign chemical achievement and particularly our 

 consistent praise of German achievement to our students by our 

 university teachers of chemistry have been misunderstood, and 

 have prepared a fertile field for foreign propagandas to establish 

 a false impression of the superiority of certain groups of foreign 

 chemists. We would scarcely object to a good-natured adula- 

 tion of anyone's fatherland and its achievements. Such things 

 always contain good and are stimulating to everyone, and it 

 is a pleasure to hear them when free from arrogance, even when 

 the adulation contains little that is new or even strictly true. 

 When, however, this privilege is abused so that the point of 

 superiority must be made by depreciating American efforts 

 it has a vicious positive result upon the minds of the uninformed, 

 and at times causes great financial loss to them. 



If the shortcomings of American chemistry were frankly 

 discussed and compared with foreign successes in a chemical 

 publication, some help might thereby be given to those who 

 could derive benefit from it. When this is not frankly done, 

 but simply issued as an incidental depreciation of American 



