550 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1086 



bitterly to task and have made decidedly- 

 unfavorable comments upon their abilities, 

 because, since the European war, dyes could 

 no longer be imported from Europe. But 

 Dr. B. C. Hesse, an American-born chemist, 

 a graduate of the University of Michigan, 

 has already ably answered this indictment 

 of the American chemists. In a paper full 

 of information on this subject, which he 

 presented at the New Orleans meeting of 

 the American Chemical Society,^ but which, 

 unfortunately, has received little or no at- 

 tention from our daily press, he has clearly 

 demonstrated that the aniline-dye-con- 

 sumers of the United States can have all 

 the chemists and all the dyes they want; 

 provided they are willing to make the neces- 

 sary investments of capital and to submit 

 to the risk of uncertain profits by starting 

 their own dye-manufacturing establish- 

 ments here in the United States instead 

 of, as in the past, favoring imported dyes, 

 either through personal prejudice, or by 

 fostering legislation which forbids the home 

 manufacturers to utilize such methods of 

 selling agreements as "Kartels" or other 

 consolidations of interests; or "dumping," 

 so as to kill new competitors in the field, 

 while making up the temporary loss by in- 

 creasing the price of other products, and, in 

 general, any of the many other trade-ar- 

 rangements and trading tricks freely and 

 openly utilized by European manufacturers 

 so as to stifle possible competition of our 

 home aniline-dye-producers. 



The outcry which has been raised as to 

 our shortage of artificial dyes is out of all 

 proportion if we take in consideration that 

 the annual importation of dyes and syn- 

 thetic products from Germany amounts 

 only to about $9,000,000. Mr. A. D. Little, 

 a former president of the American Chem- 



2 See Journal of Industrial and Engineering 

 Chemistry, Vol. 7, No. 4, April, 1915, p. 293. 



ical Society, pointed out^ that this repre- 

 sents about the same money value as the 

 amount of candy sold annually by the 

 Woolworth ten-cent stores. 



The development of any chemical indus- 

 try is a matter of local opportunities; for 

 instance, the manufacture of cellulose, as 

 well as the industry of wood-distilling, has 

 taken a greater development in the wood- 

 covered sections of the United States than 

 in Germany or any other country in the 

 world. 



The magnitude and earning capacity of 

 the largest German chemical enterprises, 

 however imposing they may be, look less 

 important if you take into consideration 

 that some of these companies have been in 

 existence for more than half a century. 

 Much younger American chemical enter- 

 prises, which make American specialties — 

 for instance, the Eastman Kodak Company, 

 which sends its films and photographic 

 papers throughout the world — have an- 

 nual earnings decidedly greater than the 

 most successful German chemical works of 

 much older existence. Nor is the value of 

 the output of some of our largest purely 

 chemical companies much less important 

 than that of the German concerns. 



This country is now the greatest pro- 

 ducer of sulphuric acid, with an annual 

 production of about 3,000,000 tons. Yet it 

 is not so long ago that the first maker of 

 sulphuric acid had trouble to find pur- 

 chasers for a triflingly small production of 

 a few tons per week. It needed the oppor- 

 tunity of a home market; by and by this 

 market was created through the refining 

 processes of petroleum after the discovery 

 of our oil fields; the discovery of natural 

 phosphates and the resultant industry of 

 superphosphates; the use of dynamite for 

 blasting; the development of the glucose 



3 See Journal of Industrial and Engineering 

 Chemistry, Vol. 7, No. 3, March, 1915, p. 237. 



