September 8, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



315 



I have not got it right. This is hot weather 

 anyhow. I presume the passage in " quotes " 

 is from some of Sir J. J. Thomson's writings. 

 I do not want Dr. McCoy to think that I am 

 Warning him. But if so, what are all these 

 papers of Thomson's and Wien's on positive 

 rays about? Being an old fogy, I sometimes 

 feel that there are too many electrons about, 

 and that one of the wonderful fly-traps that 

 you read so much about in the papers ought 

 to be devised to catch them. I remember 

 (dimly) that when I was a boy in college I 

 had a great aversion to molecules. I had 

 never seen one, and didn't like them. And 

 now I have the same queer feeling about, elec- 

 trons. But perhaps I shall see one some day. 

 Rutherford has. But the one he saw was 

 positive. Wasn't it? I am not positive. 



Speaking of chemists, I think the best joke 

 ever made by a chemist was when MendelejefE 

 undertook to consider the ether as a chemical 

 element ! Why not have the ether made of 

 electrons? To which of these hypotheses 

 should we incline? I answer in the words of 

 Dr. Holmes, " To ether." 



Arthdr Gordon Webster 

 WoRCESTEE, Mass., 

 August 4, 1911 



THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT 



To THE Editor of Science: Investigations 

 are the order of the day, not only by scientific 

 men, but (save the mark) by Congress. Your 

 quotation from the Independent with regard 

 to Dr. Wiley encourages me to express the 

 hope that this incident may lead to an investi- 

 gation (by both classes of persons) of the 

 whole question of the relation of the govern- 

 ment to science. Every interest in the country 

 that has votes enough and can log-roll enough 

 support is looked after by the government, 

 and eventually gets a cabinet oiEcer, why not 

 science ? I suppose there is no doubt that our 

 government spends more on science than any 

 other. I suppose there is equally no doubt 

 that it gets less for its money than any other, 

 and that there are many abuses unworthy of a 

 civilized regime which ought to be abolished. 

 Of these the chief one is, why are not scientific 



affairs managed by scientific men ? I suppose 

 it is because members of congress do not 

 believe that scientific men are worth more 

 than $9 a day. As long as scientific men are 

 willing to tolerate such an assumption I do 

 not much blame the congressmen. 



But there is another reason, hinted at in 

 your quotation. It is that the atmosphere of 

 Washington is not only rotten (I have treated 

 the atmosphere elsewhere) for science, but it 

 is infested with a most dangerous parasite, the 

 red-tape-worm, I do not rightly know whether 

 to call it a protozoan, a microtome, or a cyto- 

 blast, but either Dr. Charles Hookworm Stiles 

 or Dr. L. Culex Howard can tell. This worm 

 eats the vitals out of the scientist, and leads 

 him to pretend that he didn't do the research, 

 but that the man higher up did. Washington 

 is a charming city, full of statues of men on 

 horseback, waving cocked hats, but when every 

 scientist has to have an assimilated rank, so 

 that he shall know whether he is a captain or 

 a major-general, the results can only be pain- 

 ful. I am glad that I did not coin the phrase, 

 " Washington Science," and equally glad that 

 some one else did. By the way, not all Wash- 

 ington science is done under the government. 

 I hope this letter may provoke discussion, but 

 I do not wish to take part in it. Like all 

 brave anarchists, I wish merely to explode the 

 bomb, and then run like . . . . ! 



Arthur Gordon Webster 



Worcester, Mass., 

 August 4, 1911 



To the Editor of Science: Due to the 

 death of my imaginary stenographer, I am 

 able to write you but a few lines. This is a 

 quotation from any one of several hundred 

 scientific contributions that I have read lately. 

 The object of my writing now, Mr. Editor, is 

 to ask of you (for the first time) a favor, and 

 that is that you will refuse to print any com- 

 munication in which the adjective " due " ap- 

 pears in any way except as agreeing (I think 

 that is the word) with some noun or pronoun. 

 As I believe that one who does not do research 

 himself may do good by suggesting subjects 



