Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-05-29
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representing Company B and said in
substance:
you fellows had better get over on
your own side Of the river and quit
'muscling in If you don't, we'll put
your product on the spot! We can
make 1t cheaper than you can because
We have by-products we can use and
we will cut the price until 1t hurts.
Now, get back into your own territory,
or pick out some territory where you
can catch EN- mapping and unprepared.
In other words. you mind your own
business and we'll mind ours. Then
every one will be happy. including our
stockholders and yours"
Not only money but materials, ma
chimes, man-power, mass production,
mass advertising, mass merchandising
and mass distribution are all strategic
ally affected by laboratory research.
Old Order Changed.
1t used to be, when manufacturers re-
fused to send their boys to technical
schools on the theory that there Is
nothing new under the sun, that if a
manufacturer owned or acquired the
exclusive use of materials that he
10 d CCiIlIIOIl llccu, was safe.
Then. by working his crew of loyal folk
from kin to cawn't"-from the moment
you can see day until you can't see any,
thing-he could in the course of years
stow away more dollars behind a loose
brick in the fireplace than his family
could heave out with a shovel and
leave his business to his sons in the
bargain.
But today when the shelves Of any
store are notable for the total absence
Of all items that stood there 20 or even
a few years ago, our industrial labora-
tories are continuously contriving new
materials to replace old, in the only
concerted effort now being made to save
many Of our natural resources from be-
ing exhausted altogether They have
shown business men how to treat COCO
nut, cottonseed, peanut and other vege-
table oils under enormous pressures
made possible by advances in metal
lurgy. and thus to beget great quanti-
ties Of wholesome and edible fats to
supplement animal fats. BY treatment
with sulphuric acid they beget a sugar
commercially known as glucose from
corn, and our farmers are pleased by
seeing the plants of a single company
, using 100000 bushels of corn a day.
! They tranSmute sour milk into casein,
for use in one Of many plastic COM
pounds used in numberlesS ways, for
which there is growing yearly market
for more than 50.000,000 pounds: turn
cotton into bearings that wear like
bronze; turn the woodpile into a thou
sand and one products new in kind; use
ultra violet rays to ripen citrus fruits
and to put rouge on apples and lead DR..
, Arthur L. Little to hint that if half the
nyt hyy 6n To orI 10 =
been given to agricultural research
there might not have been farm PROB
lem.
Again. manufacturer used to be
safe, in the days when competitive bat
Ties were fought out on purely COM
mercial grounds, if he had few trade
secrets and could hug them to himself
behind closed doors. But nowadays few
trade secrets are immune to laboratory
curiosity: with a specimen under his
arm a chemist can often tell his re-
search workers to find out all they can
about the product in hand and in a few
minutes or few hours or days or
months report as to just what it con-
tains, perhaps just how it is made and
| how, possibly, it can be made better or
more cheaply
The seeker after old bottles knows
that of old bottle represented the
| magic skill of a craftsman's art To-
day machines developed in Laboratories
Whirl bottles out so swiftly that the cost
Is incredibly low. And meanwhile plate
glass is continuously rolled by the acre
while glass of other kinds is made into
bricks for. use in construction.
Methods Revolutionized.
Hard by. to take other illustrations
OF the obvious advantages of research.
We find the continuous rolling of steel
and other metals revolutionizing pro-
,, duction and progress all through the
metallurgical industries. Where only
two decades ago one could almost
| count on the fingers of two hands all
! OF the metals in. common use. today
| more than 5000 metals. many of them
alloys as distinctive as brass or bronze
| or carbon steel, are available. each
| with its mission to perform Some OF
these 5000 new metals have brought
| great new industries into existence
with still others now in the making
And many have made possible new de-
| increasing flow of new products and
| services.
Here is one alloy, for instance, that
was essential to long distance tele-
| phony and helped to make it possible
| to incorporate in a 2la-inch pipe as
many as 1900 mountaineering tele-
| phone channels where a few years age
| only a small fraction of this number
| was poSSible-and a few years before
that none at all. Others are essen
| Dr. Poon TIT