SUPPORT BY INDUSTRY 



basic research — they knew hardly anything about even the 

 chemical composition of the industry's primary raw material. 



One of the first acts of the new industry association was to 

 appoint Van H. Manning, former Director of the Bureau of 

 Mines, the A.P.I. Director of Research. With the aid of an 

 advisory committee of educators and industry scientists, of 

 which I had the honor of being the youngest member, a rather 

 ambitious program of research was outlined to be financed 

 cooperatively by the A.P.I. Unfortunately, this program failed 

 to distinguish between basic and applied research, and it was 

 turned down by the Board after a rather prolonged fight in 

 which the majority insisted that research problems should con- 

 tinue to be attacked in the competitive way characteristic of the 

 industry. 



Many of the leaders in the industry still felt that the 

 Institute should sponsor and support fundamental research; but 

 the program might never have recovered from this initial set- 

 back had not Mr. John D. Rockefeller, in 1925, and the 

 Universal Oil Products Company, shortly thereafter, made their 

 generous offer to donate $50,000 a year apiece for a five-year 

 period to support basic petroleum research if the Institute would 

 furnish the sponsorship and technical guidance. As a result, the 

 first A.P.I. Research Committee of the Board of Directors was 

 set up in January 1926, with a distinguished membership of 

 the industry's leaders under the chairmanship of Walter C. 

 Teagle. 



The committee wisely decided at the outset to channel the 

 available funds almost entirely to university and government 

 laboratories. This pattern is still followed. During the initial 

 period, when this program was financed by the two donors, a 

 total of forty-one different fundamental research projects were 

 financed at twenty-five different laboratories, each project being 

 given general guidance by an industry committee of scientists. 



207 



