Januaby 8, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



43 



out of Germany is an undertaking properly and 

 fitly to be described as titanic. 



Why the other countries have failed is probably 

 due to the fact that they contributed little or 

 nothing to the real upbuilding of the business and 

 to its ereationj for the coal-tar dye business is a 

 created bustaess; those who aided in its creation 

 ■were in a position first to reap the benefits — an 

 advantage they have no doubt earned and deserved 

 through the effort they expended and the risks 

 they assumed. 



In 1913 Germany had for sale to foreigners $3 

 worth of these products as against every dollar's 

 worth that it needed at home. 



Nine hundred different dyes were on the United 

 States markets of which one hundred were made 

 or assembled in this country from intermediates 

 purchased from Germany. Yet these one hundred 

 do not seem to be enough for American dye-users. 

 How much less than the full nine hundred will 

 satisfy American users is known to them and to 

 the importers; the latter can not be expected to 

 divulge that information; if the former want sub- 

 stantial help from American chemical makers fhey 

 must divulge it, no other way of ascertaining 

 being available. 



In 1909 the United States produced $3,462,436 

 worth of artificial dyes which are probably anilin 

 dyes in the strict sense. Compared with Switzer- 

 land's $3,200,000 production, i. e., "assembly" in 

 1896 this is an achievement of which Americans 

 need not be ashamed. The wonder is not that we 

 have not done more but that in the face of the 

 well-organized manufacturing plants of Germany 

 and of Germany 's very much superior facilities for 

 foreign trade, both banking and carrying, that we 

 have done as much as we have. Blame should not 

 be parcelled out for what American chemists have 

 not done, but credit, which has been so far with- 

 held, should be given for what has been done in 

 spite of obstacles abroad and obstacles at home. 

 The users of dyestuffs have invariably opposed 

 any tariff enactment that would substantially en- 

 courage a domestic production of coal-tar dyes. 

 That so many are produced in this country as are 

 being produced is due to no cooperation of dye- 

 stuffs users but was accomplished in spite of their 

 obstruction and if to-day the users are in serious 

 difSculty through a lack of dye-stuffs they have 

 their own shortsightedness to blame and can not, 

 by any argumentation whatever, shift the blame 

 to American chemists. With proper help and en- 

 couragement the American chemist will be able to 

 increase the domestic production of coal-tar dyes 



and to inaugurate the making of intermediates; 

 in the course of time this country may then ulti- 

 mately look forward to a substantial share of the 

 world's coal-tar dye business. 



Hardly any of the valuable or useful inter- 

 mediates ever were patented. A considerable num- 

 ber of non-German chemists have invented and 

 patented finished dyes made from non-patented 

 intermediates. These inventors had perfect free- 

 dom to make the needful intermediates and an ex- 

 clusive right to make, sell and use their new dyes 

 therefrom, yet they bought their intermediates 

 from Germany rather than make them themselves. 

 The patent situation is therefore, really, that Ger- 

 many excelled the rest of the world in making 

 patentable combinations from non-patented and 

 non-patentable intermediates a,nd further in mak- 

 ing those non-patented and non-patentable inter- 

 mediates in open competition vrith the rest of the 

 world. So, from one point of view, it appears that 

 the rest of the world, inclusive of the United 

 States, lay back, let the Germans do all the hard 

 work and when the rest of the world finally woke 

 up to the value of what the Germans had accom- 

 plished they became very busy making excuses and 

 explaining instead of making a determined, di- 

 rected, united and effective attempt to recover the 

 ground so lost. That such a recovery will require 

 the hardest kind of work on the part of all, users, 

 capitalists, consumers and makers alike, is self-evi- 

 dent and obvious and the question is : do we want 

 to pay the price? It can be done, if the price be 

 paid. 



At the conclusion of Dr. Hesse's lecture 

 the directors w^re called upon for remarks. 

 One well qualified arose and simply quoted 

 from Mrs. Stowe's "Old Town Folks": 



One of the characters, Sam Lawson, had gone to 

 "meetin' house" to hear the new preacher, and 

 returning shortly afterwards to the kitchen, where 

 the "women folks" were preparing the meal, they 

 inquired of him why he happened to come so soon 

 — "surely meetin' couldn't be out." 



He replied: "No, meetin' isn't out, but the 

 preacher said how by a state of natur ' we were 

 all down in a deep well, and the sides of the well 

 were glar ice. There warn't one in ten, warn't 

 one in one hundred, warn 't one in a thousan ' never 

 get out, and yet it war the partiekler duty of 

 every one of us to get out. At that pint in the 

 discourse, I rose and went out, thinkin' any one 

 was welcome to my chance. ' ' 



