Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-05-29
BY DONALD WILHELM.

TN hotel in Berlin a page raced
along corridor carrying little
silver tray wherein lay a cable
i gram. He knocked on a door.
Inside, in large room, two Amer
leans faced a group of German bust
ness men. Here arrangements had
almost been completed for an armistice
that prevailed before the World War
and we're promptly resumed when its
last gun had ceased to roar.
tribute, to the tune of $4,000. 900,
was about to be paid German science,
indemnity for the right to have and
use German discoveries in the making
of ductile tungsten! Carbon alone
had in 1910. been used in our electric
lamp filaments. Tungsten, heavy
white metal in the main brought from
the interior Of China on the backs OF
electrical industry could not make
tungsten ductile, could not work it into
the silken little threads called fila
ments The Germans, then decade
or two ahead of us in scientific re-
search. could; had patented their
process in the United States: could
dominate future competition, demand
tribute.
QOfS Ol eicd1 Hie1ASoAA COMPANY
present said:
You can imagine our feelings We
realized to the full the Importance OF
these German patents. We knew, of
course, what havoc German scientific
discoveries had played with the Brit
ish indigo industry and many others
Also we knew that back home in our
own laboratories. force of more than
200 men had been working night and
day. we're still working against time,
rather desperately, to WreSt from that
old shrew. Nature. the secrets involved
in making tungsten behave. But we
couldn't afford to wait longer, had
bargained enough, had told this syn
dictate of German scientists and bust
ness men that. subject to confirmation
from home, we stood ready to hand
over a certified check for 100000"
But now the hotel boy and the cable
he brought. those days before trans
oceanic telephony, spoiled the picture
for the other side!
There was a silence full OF meaning
when the cable was opened. Inc
American tossed that live little piece CT
blue and white paper on the table
Those others read it. got its meaning
and. with a fortune sliding out of their
fingers, groaned. 1t said that by
process of their own the American
scientists had won through, had licked
the problem in hand, had Won!
Then, just to prove that research
pays-in many instances has paid divl-
bends in the ratio Of thousands to one
these Americans mopped up and cleared
the air of all remaining difficulties and
hard feeling by acquiring the German
patents for precisely 100000 instead OF
100000. Now every one knows that
today, thanks in large part to these
events, the making Of electric light
bulbs constitutes in itself great
American industry directly prospering
and serving thousands of other indus
tries and millions of city and rural
homes
There you have only one illustration
of the logic of laboratory research and
one suggestion among thousands that
all go to explain why. in the midst OF
the worst world depression in history.
research is thriving in the United
States as never before; why it has come
to be the guiding light in nearly all
manufac curing why it has new, direct
and pretty conclusive bearing on bust
ness strategy and is rapidly calling into
existence new type of business execu-
tive.
For example:
In the Naugatuck Valley, in Connecti-
cut, a scene not without humor, took
place hardly decade ago in a rubber
factory that had got along pretty we'll