December 1, 1916.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



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HENRY C. PEARSON, Eaitor 



Vol. 55 



DECEMBER I. 1916 



No. 3 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



A RUBBER SYMPOSIUM. 



' i 'HE Rubber Club dinner is slated for the evening of 

 *■ January 8. On the afternoon of that day there is 

 to be held at the Waldorf a function that bids fair to 

 rival the banquet in trade interest. It is to be a sym- 

 posium on the pregnant subject of crude rubber. The 

 dominant note will be a discussion of ways and means for 

 assuring to American manufacturers a continuous and 

 controllable supply of this most vital of raw materials. 

 Experts on the subject of wild and plantation rubber, on 

 ocean transportation and kindred subjects will speak. 

 Discussion of these subjects will be open, not only to 

 members of the Rubber Club, but to visitors who are in- 

 terested. Cards of admission will be issued to those who 

 apply to the secretary of the club. The committee in 

 charge consists of H. Stuart Hotchkiss, William E. 

 Bruyn, and the Editor of The India Rubber World. 



THE ADVANCE OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL 

 INDUSTRY. 



1\ yiUCH has been heard of late years about the won- 

 '■^'- derful accomplishments of German chemists. As 

 an object-lesson it has been beneficial, but, unfortunately, 

 there are pessimists who assume that chemical America 

 is standing still. They agree that America showed the 

 way in electricity, in machinery and machine tools, and 

 to-day stands first in methods of efficiency, but they do 

 not know that the United States bids fair to become the 

 world's chemical leader. 



The preliminary statement of the Bureau of the Census 

 for American chemical industries, by five-year periods 

 since 1899, shows that the number of establishments in- 

 creased from 1,785 to 2,461, and the capital invested, 

 from $238,471,290 to a total of $722,988,871 in 1914. 

 The value of the products during these three periods 

 covering 15 years leaped from $202,506,076 to $547,- 

 801,937, or 170.5 per cent. Correspondingly there was 

 also a gain of 37.5 per cent in persons engaged and of 

 144.1 per cent in salaries paid. 



The war has stimulated the chemical industry tremen- 

 dously, and the longer it continues the greater will be 

 the growth. Europe, and indeed America, is awakening 

 to the fact that American chemists already mean to 

 American industry what German chemists have meant to 

 German industry. And it can be said truthfully that in- 

 dustrial chemists in the United States are to-day the 

 equal of any in the world. For years every great manu- 

 facturing establishment has had a research laboratory 

 where a corps of skilled chemists worked systematically 

 toward wider knowledge, improved methods and higher 

 standards of efficiency in the product. Germany was not 

 unique in this respect; the chief diflference has been that 

 we have taken it as a matter of course and failed to give 

 it proper publicity. Another handicap has been the sec- 

 recy and isolation attending much of the chemical in- 

 vestigation of the past; the keen commercial rivalry, 

 characteristic of America, has to an unfortunate extent 

 discouraged comparison of results and coordination of re- 

 search for the common good. 



A step in advance was taken, however, when the chem- 

 ists of the American rubber trade discussed aging tests 

 at their recent meeting in New York. Not specifically 

 as to the subject chosen, but rather because it showed the 

 absolute willingness of those in charge of some of the 

 biggest and best equipped rubber laboratories to discuss 

 questions of general interest fully and frankly. The key- 



