The labor standard., 1919-08-15
MOST DEADLY OF
 ALL WAR CASES
Ten Tons a Day Being Made When the Armistice Was
 Signed.
DISCOVERED BY PROF. LEWIS
Ten AirpIane Loads of This Super Poison Sufficient to Have De- stroyed All Life in Berlin
 Known as "MethyL"

Washington.-At the educational ex- reconstruction activities of the depart ment of the interior now being held there is being shown under guard a sample of the most terrible super poison gas known, the discovery of Prof, W. Lee Lewis while in the en- p1OY of the bureau of mines at it's American university laboratories.
 This gas, formerly called "Lewisite," |" later known as 'methyl," because the persons, was being manufactured by the war department at the rate of ten tons a day when the armistice came
 The gas is being variously described as ''the climax of the country's achievements in the 1ethal arts" and as |'the most terrible instrument of manslaughter ever conceived.' The department itself declares that it is the most deadly of all war gases, much more deadly than mustard gas, which heretofore was known by chem ists as ''the king of poison gases
 Most Deadly of All.
 It is said that ten airplane loads of "methyp would have been sufficient to destroy all life in Berlin, if such ex- treme measures had been necessary, and that a single days output would have been sufficient to snuff out the 100000 human lives on the island of Manhattan.
 This gas was not only discovered by prsSrF ' I>,,4 4J~ oped by him to point where it was ready for production at the American university while those laboratories were still under the control of the bu- reau of mines, one of the organizations of the department of the interior. When this work was first taken up by the bureau in behalf of the military authorities Professor Lewis was called from his civilian duties as professor of chemistry at Northwestern university, Evanston, Ill.,, and at the request of the bureau was commissioned as cap- tain in the ordnance department and assigned to the gas warfare service of the bureau of mines. While acting in this capacity Professor Lewis discov- cred and developed this gas, and IS days after the gas work of the bureau of mines was transferred to the juris- diction of the war department an H. acre plant for it's manufacture was started near Cleveland, O., where the work was conducted under the strict est military secrecy.
 "Mouse Trap" Plant
 This plant, which was dubbed by the workmen the mouse trap" because in order to prevent the leakage of in- formation, it was understood that the men who entered would not leave un- til the war was over, was in operation within a miraculously short time, and plans were made by the war depart ment to have 5000 tons of this most diabolfcal gas at the American front by March l, 1919. When the armistfce cape the plant was we'll ahead of it's production schedule, but the opportu- nfty had not come for the use of the gas at the battle front. Thus the Ger mans did not have chance to obtain a frst-hand experience with this most frightful of all poison gases, of which 1t is said that a single drop on the hand will penetrate to the blood and soon reach the heart, when it kills the victim in great agony. It is declared that among the 800 men at the plant there was not one fatality, this immu- nifty being largely due to the providing of all employees with gas masks, pro- tective clothing and extreme precau- tions in operation.