FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



humanity. Until the very end of my official career, I never 

 opened my morning mail without the joyful feeling that perhaps 

 among the letters I would find the announcement of some im- 

 portant discovery, and frequently that happened. There was thus 

 the sense of adventure in the work and of adventure of far 

 import. 



I believe that it was not until 1920 that I first began to formu- 

 late in my mind the enormity of the problem. I had just trans- 

 lated Bouvier's book, "La Psychologie des Insects," ^ and through 

 it had become acquainted with the more or less imaginative 

 early writings of Maeterlinck. I think very likely that these had 

 a strong effect on me, because during that same summer I wrote 

 an address to be read as the retiring address of the President of 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and 

 that address concerned itself principally with the subject, "War 

 against the Insects." I was greatly encouraged by the reception 

 of this address. Newspaper men and magazine writers took up 

 the topic, and I suddenly found myself considered as a propa- 

 gandist, which, for a modest scientific worker supposed to deal 

 only with facts and not with theories, was at first rather dis- 

 concerting. 



This suggests a rather serious thought. The average scientific 

 man absorbed in his work does not welcome newspaper pub- 

 licity. But I have always had a kindly feeling for newspaper 

 people. And then, too, there have always been in Washington 

 some of the cleverest men in the newspaper profession. The great 

 journals have always had representatives there who were very able 

 men, and I have known many of them. To the best of them, 

 almost everybody in Washington, from the President down, 

 would talk freely, confident that the information would not be 



^The Century Co., New York, 1920. 



[164] 



