674 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1002 



really is. There are numerous difficulties 

 in the way. By its very nature, the work 

 of the chemist is more or less concealed from 

 public inspection. If you have a partic- 

 ularly well tanned piece of leather, the lay- 

 person thinks no further than that it is 

 a pretty good job, and is utterly unable to 

 appreciate the large amount of work that 

 has been necessary to produce or to create 

 the way of making that particularly good 

 piece of leather. There is nothing so con- 

 spicuous about the chemist's work as there 

 is, for example, about the bridge builder's 

 work, or about the work of a man who 

 erects a skyscraper. The chemist's work, 

 as a whole, does not fill the eye nor appeal 

 to the imagination ; and not filling the eye, 

 and not appealing to the imagination there 

 is really no practical method of valuation 

 easily accessible to the ordinary individ- 

 ual ; not only is the ordinary individual in- 

 capable of such a valuation, but even men 

 high in industrial pursuits have not that 

 particular intellectual vision which permits 

 them to appreciate the real significance be- 

 hind any given chemical product. The only 

 exception hereto seems to be coal-tar dyes.. 

 The reason for this exception is not hard 

 to find. Could anything appeal more to 

 the imagination than the conversion of such 

 a disgusting, sickly mess as coal tar into 

 brilliant colors that rival and excel every 

 tint and shade in nature? 



THE EESPONSIBILITT OP THE CHEMIST 



However, the chemist must not attempt 

 to absolve himself from all responsibility 

 for the prevailing lack of appreciation or 

 skepticism among capitalists and bankers of 

 the value of chemical work in industrial 

 operations. While competent chemists and 

 chemical engineers by their very effective 

 work have wrung from reluctant financial 

 men proper acknowledgment of the value of 

 chemical examination, control and manage- 



ment of enterprises requiring such, yet the 

 work has not gone far enough, and it is not 

 at all unusual for financial men to support 

 with might and main enterprises which any 

 qualified chemist or chemical engineer could 

 and probably did tell them were fore- 

 doomed ; also it must not be forgotten that 

 qualified chemists and chemical engineers, 

 like other professional advisers, have gone 

 astray in their calculations and have sup- 

 ported enterprises which ultimately failed. 

 The mining, electrical and railroad engi- 

 neers finally succeeded in obtaining their 

 present influential position among the in- 

 dustrial councils of this country and with 

 the brilliant success of the chemical engi- 

 neers of Germany in the same direction it 

 is not too much to hope that ultimately the 

 American chemist and chemical engineer 

 will come into his own. When he does, 

 there will be far fewer exploitations than 

 heretofore of the wild and fantastic schemes 

 of chemical enterprise now so easily fi- 

 nanced by the gullible portion of our in- 

 vesting public and fewer and fewer failures 

 of chemical enterprises undertaken in good 

 faith and serious mood. 



Therefore, let every chemist in advising 

 on chemical operations prominently bear in 

 mind that failure to give correct advice not 

 only reacts upon him but upon each and 

 every member of the chemical profession 

 and merely helps to postpone the day when 

 the chemist will come into his proper posi- 

 tion among the makers of the nation. 



CONCLUSION 



To bring the matter up squarely before 

 you let me recapitulate: The 10,000 chem- 

 ists in the United States are engaged in 

 pursuits which affect over 1,000,000 wage- 

 earners, produce over $5,000,000,000 worth 

 of manufactured products and add $1,725,- 

 000,000 of value by manufacture each year ; 

 the business in products of and for chem- 



