672 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1062 



a man 's work, in a man 's way, that lie has 

 not been an idler, nor a sloth, nor a drone, 

 but that he has been one of the busiest of 

 busy workers, with a keen eye and an alert 

 intellect, always searching for an oppor- 

 tunity for the betterment of his industry, 

 and for improvement of the conditions of 

 his fellowman. 



GERMAN SUPREMACY 



That the chemist has not done more is 

 by no means due to any unwillingness. It 

 is due in the largest part to the apathetic 

 attitude of those in charge of the manage- 

 ment of many of our industrial enterprises 

 requiring chemical knowledge in their ex- 

 ploitation. Many of these men in respon- 

 sible positions do not have a chemical edu- 

 cation even along the lines in which they 

 are financially active. In those cases chem- 

 ical novelties and chemical problems are not 

 passed upon, on their merits, by chemists 

 or by men with a chemical point of view, 

 but by merchants, by lawyers and by bank- 

 ers, men who, by their very training, are 

 not capable of taking the chemist's point 

 of view, of having the chemist's sense of 

 proportion, and are unwilling to take a 

 chemist's chance in a chemist's way. 

 Therein lies, perhaps more than in any 

 other one thing, the reason for Germany's 

 supremacy in most of the branches of 

 chemical industry. That also is the reason 

 for the success of a great many of our own 

 huge transportation, electrical and chem- 

 ical enterprises. The business is run by 

 men who know it from the technical point 

 of view. Railroads are run by men who 

 know the railroads from the operating and 

 construction point of view ; electrical enter- 

 prises by men who know the business from 

 the electrical engineer's point of view, and 

 they make their enterprises take their busi- 

 ness chances in a transportation way, and 

 in an electrical way. Practically aU of our 



chemical enterprises that have been man- 

 aged in the same manner have also been 

 successful, but there is still great room for 

 improvement, and just as soon as that im- 

 provement is accomplished, just so soon, 

 and no sooner, will there be less and less 

 talk about the incompetency of the Amer- 

 ican chemist. German chemical enterprises 

 are run and managed by chemists. 



Some years ago I was thrown in com- 

 pany with a very successful meat packer, 

 and a very successful metallurgist; the 

 packer asked me when chemists would make 

 glycerin synthetically and make it cheap, 

 as the price of glycerin was getting to be 

 altogether too high ; the metallurgist asked 

 me, rather impatiently, what elements make 

 up glycerin; somewhat dazed, I replied, 

 "Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen." There- 

 upon the metallurgist said to the packer, 

 ' ' Why, carbon is coal, hydrogen and oxygen 

 are water, both are plentiful and cheap; I 

 do not see why these chemists can not mix 

 coal and water and produce glycerin." I 

 felt that my life was altogether too short 

 to attempt to educate those two very suc- 

 cessful men to a proper appreciation of the 

 difficulties of converting coal and water 

 into glycerin. This metallurgist's answer 

 to the packer might with equal truth have 

 referred to such dissimilar things as wood 

 alcohol, grain alcohol, vinegar, olive oil, 

 castor oil, whale oil, starch, camphor, cane 

 sugar, beet sugar, grape sugar, carbolic 

 acid, alizarin, and host upon host of 'sim- 

 ilarly different things. I do not know 

 whether that packer, when he got home, 

 told his chemist to take a hunk of coal and 

 drop it into a bucket of water, and make 

 glycerin. I hope, for the chemist's sake, 

 that he did not give him that task. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OP MANAGERS 



If there is such a misconception of the 

 chemistry underlying their own products 



