Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-05-07
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

The most expensive blunder in bust
| ness is cocksureness, according to
high scientific authority. That state
ment applies to whole trades, and
may even become epidemic in ma
tion-the United States, for instance.
Wall Street Is said to be shocked at
the discovery that since February
Germans have been deluging our
markets with methanol. During all
of the year 1924 the total amount of
methanol imported into this country
| was 48 gallons. Last January we re-
ceived 40 gallons: February. 62,971,
and March, 1855 gallons. We can
produce methanol only at a cost Of
necessitating a retail price of rs
cents a gallon. while the Germans are
now making It at IS cents a gallon,
paying our tariff of IL cents a gallon
and making such profit that their
complete possession Of our market is
a question Of but few weeks. That
means not merely our market for
methanol. but for wood alcohol, or
industrial alcohol, for that is what
methanol means.
It is nonsense to talk about
methanol as endangering the Volstead
law, for It is the most poisonous kind
of wood alcohol" 1t is deadly in it's
effect--producing immediate blindness
followed by horrible death of it's vic
Tins. It is not the danger to the lives
Of bootleggers and their victims that
so agitates capitalists of Wall street.
IT is the life of 100000 capital
invested in industrial alcohol manu-
facture-perhaps also including the
other millions invested in the gasoline
and by-products enterprises.
Our chemists have known some
thing of the possibilities of the Ger
man basic patents for producing
methanol, for the patents were seized
in the World War, but they did not
contain directions in detail for pro-
ducing methanol, hence the vital i'm
portance of the danger was belittled
When the House of Representatives
was holding hearings on the Fordney
tariff bill last Winter, one of the
largest refiners of methanol appeared
before the committee on ways and
means and with a, great patriotic
flourish testified:
I'VE are not particularly interested
in protection, in the common accepta-
ton OF this word, because we believe
this country is big enough in natural
resources and has the technic, skill
and ability 20 enable us to compete
with any other country having the
same labor costs. Conditions existing
in all other countries except Canada
from their competition"
As a result Of such views, the tariff
on methanol was put at IL cents
Under the elastic clause the President
may order it increased SO per cent,
making the highest rate possible, I'M
til Congress acts again, IS cents, which
wholly fails to protect American man.
ufacture against the German competi.
ton.
1 II IL L. -
While the competition with our
$40 200, 900 wood alcohol enterprises
is serious enough, the demonstration
of the Importance of scientific re-.
search as an adjunct of all great bust
ness is counted by experts as even
more important. According to DR.. II.
E. Howe, editor of the official maya
zine of the American Chemical So.
ciety, the time has passed when manu-.
facturers can rely upon America g
superiority in raw materials. Even in
the case of chemistry. wherein the
labor cuts less figure than in most in
dustries, since chemicals are produced
in large quantities with comparatively
little manual labor, raw materials are
In danger at all times Of being super
seeded by synthetic substitutes, equally
satisfactory in practical manufactures.
The reply Of the famous artist to
the English lord who asked what he
mixed with his paints to make them
so brilliant was, "Brains"' The same
reply Is the secret of synthetic chem.
istry.
In an editorial in the April number