840 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol XLIII. No. 1120 



our total mamifactures five one-hundredths 

 of one per cent. 



Though we have made reasonable head- 

 way on our problems we are keenly aware 

 that much remains to be done. We do not 

 expect to set the market right in the dye or 

 other matters in a year or two. These de- 

 velopments take time and have always taken 

 time. Neither should we deceive ourselves 

 or the public into thinking because of what 

 we are doing that we could turn out with- 

 out the most careful and detailed previous 

 planning, adequate munitions for our own 

 defense ' ' in sixty days ' ' to supply the ' ' two 

 million men who would spring to arms" as 

 we so often hear would happen in that un- 

 desired emergency. 



It would be interesting to discuss in de- 

 tail some of the transient as well as probably 

 permanent advances, where they happen to 

 be a matter of personal knowledge, if it 

 were wise to hand information to the 

 assassins who lie in wait to hamper some of 

 them, for military reasons. It might be 

 wen therefore to spend just a little time in 

 emphasizing some general considerations 

 which are connected with this subject. 



There is little use in attempting to dis- 

 guise the fact that the present war is a 

 struggle between the industrial chemical 

 and chemical engineering genius of the 

 Central Powers and that of the rest of the 

 world. Quite irrespective of the war's 

 origin, aims, ideals or political circum- 

 stances, these are the cohorts from which 

 each side derives its power. 



When we consider the strategic position 

 of the Central Powers themselves, their 

 , capable education and training, their sys- 

 tem of government, which, no matter what 

 we may think of its selfish effect on the 

 world as a whole, we must admit makes for 

 more effective concentration upon its own 

 governmental objectives, among which pre- 

 paration for war is merely one of its mani- 



festations — when we take into account all 

 these things it must often appear to us that 

 the greatest outstanding feature of the past 

 two years is the miracle of the Entente 

 Powers' resistance to the terribly eiSciently 

 prepared onslaught of the Central Powers. 

 This resistance is due, to an extremely large 

 extent, to the efficiency of the chemists of 

 the neutral and Entente nations. The 

 chemists of the Entente Powers and of 

 America have arisen to the emergency as 

 no chemists have ever done before in the 

 history of the world. Confronted at the 

 beginning of the war by antagonists -whose 

 munitions industry for years had been 

 developed for just such a contingency, these 

 chemists have in less than two years buUt 

 up a rival industry at least as strong. 

 Plant after plant has sprung up of such 

 perfection of design and operation that 

 one wonders how the mind of man was 

 capable of such engineering. Though the 

 speed with which these new and unexpected 

 problems have been solved may appear sur- 

 prising, no one who is informed about the 

 progress and development of industrial 

 chemistry in this country, could have rea- 

 son to doubt that American chemical engi- 

 neers and industrial chemists would rise to 

 any emergency which it was within human 

 power to meet. They have already and 

 will continue to live up to what we have a 

 right to expect of them, in view of their 

 past successes. We should be surprised if 

 a similar degree of success did not crown 

 the efforts of the chemists of the other 

 countries, France, Britain, Italy, Germany, 

 Austria, Russia, for it has never been the 

 habit of American chemists to boastingly 

 claim superiority because of any advantage, 

 real or imaginary, with which they, like any 

 group, are apt to be blessed for a greater 

 or less period of time. We have always 

 appreciated chemical contributions to prog- 

 ress from whatever source they have come 



