Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-17
BIG FIRMS BOOST
NET BY RESEARCH
About 500 Concerns Spend
ing $500, 900, 600 a Year to
Learn New Methods.

Scientific research as an essential
factor in the future expansion OF
American industry is the subject of
survey issued by E. A. Pierce g. Co.,
members of the New York Stock Ex-
change and the other principal ex-
changes throughout the country. The
survey sums up, for the first time, the
research facilities of the 40 leading
American enterprises, together with
notable achievements in savings ef-
fected, new products developed and new
industries created.
Pointing out that 10 years ago there
were not more than 200 industrial lab
oratories in this country and that today
$500 companies are spending $780,
100000 year on industrial research,
the survey says: THUS in decade has
science become the handspring of In
dustry 1t has reorganized, expanded
and revitalized modern business and is
lighting the way to vast industrial
realms hitherto UNEMPLOYED.
Profits Offset Costs.
Contrary to popular fancy" says the
survey, lit is not the dream of discov-
ering some important new substance or
inventing some marvellous new device
that induces great corporations to make
so huge an investment in laboratory
and employs artists to sell its products,
it is utilizing science and scientists to
improve processes, to reduce costs, to
make better product at a lower price.
Functioning on this basis, the labora-
tory pays its own way.
Scientific research draws from the
sum total of human knowledge and ap-
plies the results to the whole world of
industry. The laboratory forces, run
NV n cts zors& b. IT
more than 5000 specialists, include en-
gineers electrical mechanical
chemical, mining, automotive, electro
chemical and onautical-chemists
physicists, metallurgistS, biologists,
mathematicians, opticists, bacteriolo-
gists, ceramists, agronomists, biologists
botanists pharmacologistS, paleontolo-
gists and patent attorneys"
A record even of comparatively re-
cent laboratory achievements reads like
an imaginative history of another world
Take, for instance, the American Tele-
phone & Telegraph Co.'S Bell Telephone
laboratories, one of the most extensive
of all research organizations, with a
personnel of more than 5000, including
graduates of most of the universities
and colleges in the United States and
OF many universities abroad The an
nual budget exceeds $20,000,0 900.
Recent Accomplishments.
THE history of General Electric's re-
search activities is a record of the mod
ern revelations of science applied to
industry Conspicuous has been the
development of radio art, television,
photophone talking movies, electric re-
fr1geration, carboloy and other remark
able metallic alloys, the sunlight lamp
and a host of revolutionary improve
mentS worked out either in the General
Electric laboratories or in association
with the research departments of other
great corporations.
mot so long ago it took 81 DAYS to
paint an automobile because the lin
seed oil in the paint dried slowly The
research staff of the General Motors
Corporation. working with one of the
five laboratories of E. I. DUPONT de Ne
mours & Co., developed Duco, a quick
drying lacquer the use of which has
Speeded up the whole automobile in
duStry and saved automobile manufac-
turers and owners millions of dollars
in paint bills. Ethyl gasoline, cromium
plating and crankcaSe ventilation are
other practical achievements of the
General Motors research engineers. An
interesting feature of the Detroit lab
oratorleS is room which looks like q
road in the dark, where problems of
lighting and night driving are studied.
THE average investor has at hand
no yardStick to measure the dollars and
cents worth of research in relation to
securities, but positive assertions come
from executives of great corporations
that scientific industrial research Gre
ates substantially tangible investment
values. We can figure says a treas
urer, that our leading profits are from
100 to 200 per cent of the amount ex-
pended for research vice president
of another company says: For every
dollar spent in true research we have
reduced costs and increased our net
revenue BY at least $780,"