Lm'jfiirrm5arm" }    Utilisation  of  Our  Own  Resources.  301 
eign  trade  is  cut  off  and  demoralized  by  the  European  war  it  becomes 
more  and  more  difficult  to  supply  the  usual  needs  of  our  people  in 
the  drug  lines  at  fair  and  customary  prices,  and,  as  "  time  grows 
long,"  unless  wars  cease,  these  conditions  will  grow  worse. 
To  illustrate  present  conditions  by  one  of  many  hundreds  of 
drug  articles,  a  short  time  ago  phenacetine  was  selling  at  wholesale 
in  Germany  at  20  cents  an  ounce,  in  England  24  cents,  in  Canada  26 
cents,  and  in  the  United  States  $1  an  ounce.  You  could  buy  this 
article  in  Canada  and  bring  it  to  the  United  States,  and  under  our  law 
it  was  necessary  to  pay  the  difference  between  26  cents  and  $1  to  the 
American  representative  of  the  manufacturer.  That  applied  at  that 
time  and  to-day  to  such  well-known  articles  as  creosotal,  aspirin,  and 
many  others.  German  chemists  claim  superiority  for  their  products, 
which  I  do  not  grant.  I  believe  the  firm  of  Powers-Weightman- 
Rosengarten  Company,  of  Philadelphia,  is  in  position  to  manufacture 
as  good  chemicals  as,  if  not  better  than,  are  made  anywhere  on  earth. 
A  great  deal  of  criticism  has  been  made  of  American  chemists  because 
they  have  not  manufactured  dyestuffs.  It  is  granted  that  coal-tar 
chemistry  has  been  a  special  study  in  Germany,  and  in  that  country 
they  excel  in  this  line.  At  one  time  we  manufactured  largely  car- 
bolic acid  and  other  preparations  now  produced  nearly  exclusively  in 
Germany,  but  the  prices  of  the  foreign  article  were  reduced  to  such 
an  extent  that  American  chemists  could  not  compete.  Their  chemists 
will  probably  work  for  400  marks  per  month,  equivalent  to  $100  in 
our  money,  while  our  chemists  get  from  two  to  five  times  that 
amount.  In  underselling  American  producers  it  seems  to  have  been 
their  policy  to  lose  money,  if  necessary;  and  after  that  our  manufac- 
turers decided  to  give  up,  and  to  use  the  machinery  for  something 
else  then  to  restore  prices. 
The  present  war  has  certainly  taught  us  a  few  very  bitter  lessons 
and  would  seem  to  indicate  that  we  should  demand  of  aliens  who 
wish  to  patent  an  article  or  register  a  trade-mark  in  this  country  that 
they  must  establish  a  factory  for  its  production  here. 
Lesson  May  Be  Profitable. 
But,  looking  beyond  the  effects  of  our  past  unwisdom  in  failing 
to  establish  manufactures  of  every  article  of  consumption  needed 
by  our  own  people,  we  may  make  a  virtue  out  of  our  present  necessi- 
ties if  we  will  properly  use  the  vast  drug  resources  of  our  own  vales 
