The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-04
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

dareSay that the trip of the Rotarians,
 the Kiwanians and the Civilians to the by-product plant of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company at North Bir-
 mingham was an eye-opener to many of
 them as to the great part that commer-
 cial chemistry is playing in the modern
 business world
 I can almost remember the time when
 only those who expected to be pharma- cists or doctors paid very much atten- sNion to chemistry in our colleges and uni versailles, and when the equipment of the
 institutions, to put it both mildly and
 kindly, were most meager. I know that
 many of the regular students dabbled in it
 bit, but none took it seriously. But all that is changed now, for chem ical invention is getting away from the
 purely scientific into the wider fields of everyday problems. The subject during
 and since the war is one of importance, where the relations between chemistry
 and manufacture have not been as close as elsewhere-Germany, for instance, whose first great successes in 1914 over
 the allies came through her special knowi-
 edge and preparation
 One author, in writing on the subject in America, refers to the medieval 0ays of 1ssi" showing how recent are the strides which the United States has made in catching up with some of her Euro
 pean competitors who for years prac- tically monopolzed the field, and even went so far, as was the case of Germany,
 as putting all kinds of hindrances in the
 way of American concerns who sought to set up rival establishments and turn out the specialized products on this side of the Atlantic.
 Marvellous as were the triumphs of our people in getting ready and in turning out chemicals which for years were bought abroad, each day may reveal to us some new use for those transcendent energies, energies of which so far we have been
 but living on the fringe I am sure it would come as a great surprise if we knew what had been wrought in this dis trict by our forward looking leaders, who,
 with the vision and the knowledge. had the faith to make great investments in order to meet some of the needs of man
 kind.
 I hope Richard F. Johnston, who for
 so many years has kept in close touch with the great industries, and who has
 the confidence of the leaders, will take the trouble to get the facts and let the people know them through his daily talks under the head of For the Good of the Community" I would undertake it, but statement about the conditions will carry
 more weight, for he is a specialist in in dustrial matters.
 I can only write in general terms, and while some may chide me for attempting to hold brief for the great corporations, yet in spite of what any one may say, I'm willing to go on record that large
 fortunes are being honestly accumulated cooperation of corporations anxious. and more than anxious, to conduct their op- erations through the principles of pro- gressive, scientific practice. Edison, Vest inghouse. Marconi and others had to have large capital behind them to make their
 inventions commercially profitable and
 helpful to the people.
 I am not standing up for the comn->y- z able features of the swift industrial trans formation taking place on account of the experiments and perfections of the manu- lfacturing chemists is the relegaton to the scrap pile of the old-type buccaneerng industrial captain, who in the past had | leading industries. He is giving way to men technically trained in the knowledge of the schools and possessed, of the deter mnation that their specific type of indus | try shall win supremacy on it's merits rather than through the throttling tactics which once ruled in the business world. | Call me an optimist, but I have faith | that in the future the public will hold
 
 overtrained in the art of money-making 1 through fraud manipulation, or those who steal it by indirection. I realize that in
 spite of all the seeming contradictions which loom up on the surface of things, there is a deep undertow which is going /, to engulf the man or the corporation who
 fails to play the business game on the square and who breaks faith with the
 public
 1 I'll be bold and make another prophecy
 The relation between chemistry and man.
 closer. This is said in face of the fact that in the past there has been lack oi mutuality between the factory orsanfza-
 tions on the one hand and the universi- lties and technical institutions on the
 other Generally speaking. the manufac-
 turers of the past have been men not ed
 ucated in the knowledge of the schools
 and knowing but little of science, forced
 their way to success through sheer fight ing methods, and through the application
 of principles which they did understand 1 This lack of mutuality depends prima rily upon a lack of understanding on ths part of some factory organizations oi | the advantages that are to be derived from the employment of sensible chemica
 research. and of corresponding lack o
 understanding on the part of institutions