July 6, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



ing food stuffs, often sorely needed during 

 the famines in tliat country. 



It has seemed worth while to consider 

 this development of the manufacture of 

 indigo in detail because it points out so 

 clearly the road which we must travel in 

 America if we are to succeed in the color in- 

 dustry. It is a lesson which American 

 manufacturers are learning, too, and this 

 promises well for the future. A manufac- 

 turer in Michigan has recently taken a 

 promising research worker in organic chem- 

 istry from the University of Michigan to 

 help him develop the manufacture of in- 

 digo, and another manufacturer in Buffalo 

 last summer called a man from the Univer- 

 sity of Illinois at twice the salary he was 

 paid there, to organize a research labora- 

 tory for the manufacture of dyes. In each 

 case the man secured his training in the 

 research work of a university laboratory. 



At the beginning of the war we were 

 using dyes in the United States to the value 

 of about $15,000,000 a year. Of this 

 amount only about $3,000,000 worth were 

 made in America. Nearly all the rest came 

 from Germany. Textile industries having 

 a product worth hundreds of millions are 

 directly dependent on dyes and there is 

 scarcely a person in this country who has 

 not seen in some form the effect of the 

 shortage. The dye manufacturers have 

 been alive to the situation and in another 

 year they will be able to furnish the quan- 

 tity of dyes required, though they will not 

 be able to furnish as great a variety as were 

 formerly used. 



We have heard a good deal, in recent 

 years, about a scientific tariff commission. 

 The action of Congress last summer illus- 

 trates the need of such a commission. The 

 importance of making ourselves independ- 

 ent of other countries had become so evi- 

 dent that a bill was introduced providing 

 for an ad valorem tax on dyes of 30 per 

 cent, and a specific tax of 5 cents per pound. 



The specific tax is to continue for five 

 years. At the end of that time it is to be 

 decreased one cent a year till it disappears. 

 There is also a provision that if the Ameri- 

 can factories do not produce 60 per cent, of 

 the value of our home consumption at the 

 end of five years the specific duties are to 

 be completely repealed. While the specific 

 duty is only two thirds of the amount which 

 had been recommended by the New York 

 Section of the American Chemical Society, 

 it might, perhaps, have been sufficient if it 

 were not for another provision which was 

 allowed to creep in. Apparently at the in- 

 stigation of some large user of dyes, indigo, 

 alizarin and their derivatives were excluded 

 from the specific duties. No logical reason, 

 whatever, can be given for this exclusion. 

 It must be due either to stupidity or to an 

 attempt to favor some special interests. As 

 this class of dyes constitutes 29 per cent, of 

 the whole and at least 10 per cent, of the 

 other dyes are covered by foreign patents, 

 it is evident that the hope that our fac- 

 tories will produce 60 per cent, of our dyes 

 in normal conditions of foregin competi- 

 tion is small. 



Still other difficulties beset the industry. 

 The manufacturers of dyes in Germany 

 have very definite arrangements by which 

 one dye is made by one firm, another by a 

 second, and still another by a third so that 

 there is no real competition in the manufac- 

 ture of staple products. Such combina- 

 tions are fostered rather than hindered by 

 the German government, but similar com- 

 binations in this country are forbidden by 

 the Sherman law. The way out of this 

 difficulty seems to be in the first place a 

 census of dyes showing what dyes are used 

 and the quantities of each. Such a census 

 has already been prepared by the expert of 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor. 

 If we can combine with this, in accordance 

 with a suggestion of Dr. Herty, the editor 

 of our Journal of Industrial and Engineer- 



