Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-05-29
Science Leading Way
Research Industrial Laboratories Booming Despite Business Lul

walk; science has become the creative
faculty OF the rubber industry, as it
has in many another, as it has been in
all except a few. Moreover, SO vari-
ously has science worked that where
before there were only relatively few
uses of rubber. today there are thou
sands, with no end of new tints, tex
lures, tires and outlets, and rubber lab
oratories thriving as never before.
Practically every modern mandatory
today has, retains or makes use of con-
troll laboratories. The great bulk of
these, save in many small industries, are
or testing materials or products or over
seeing machines or processes. Quite
apart from these, in 1900 We had 500
research laboratories of all kinds; in
1881 we had 1900 an increase of more
than 200 per cent in a generation; and
today, thanks in part to the lessons OF
the World War and the prolonged pres
ence of the supreme fact-finder trouble
maker and truth-teller called depres-
sion, the research industry is growing
and expanding
Scores of companies that are hewing
and cutting, like Uncle Sam, to balance
their budgets, are nevertheless estab-
fishing research laboratories for the
first time or extending their facilities !;
even in hard times such organizations
as the American Chemical Society and
the National Research Council ale hard
put to provide the brains demanded.
And even more to the point here: not
only have the spirit and logic of rel
search come to pervade nearly every
manufacturing industry in the land, but
the laboratory has come to be a domi-
nant force in what may be called the
strategy of business.
Research Brings Profits.
Despite the depression, the manufac-
turing concerns which have put the
most emphasis upon research are con-
spicuous for their success. Any list of
preferred industrial securities includes
the names of such companies. AS
Maurice Holland. director of the divi-
sion Of engineering and research of the
National Research Council, concludes:
The time is rapidly coming when We
shall all be familiar with the technical
or science audit of an industrial COM
pany. Research facilities, the attitude
toward research, and technical ad-
vancement made in foreign countries
that may influence the domestic mar
ket, all have meaning to the eye of
llIe ShllleU ODSGINeI. AllC lIlLS meaning
can then readily be translated into the
language of dollars and cents, deficits
and dividends"
The presence of adequate research
facilities and gray matter has, in fact.
come to be a kind of insurance for
investors. Here is Company A. for ex-
ample, pioneer in the field where it
created. essentially by research, a new
industry whose products are sold all
over the world. And here is Company
B, older by far, with great laboratories
that have revolutioniZed an old indus
try. established a wholly new one i'm
portant to us ALL re-energized some
that existed and produced scores of
new products essential to war and
peace. including one that directly in
truded upon the main market of Com
pany A.
If Company A had, like almost all
manufacturing concerns of few
decades back. relied solely upon rule
O. thumb and skill O. hand for guild
ance in competition. its securities
might have begged down and it might
have been driven into merger or out
of the picture altogether 1t so hap
pened. however. that its own labora-
tories had, while cropping into the I'M
known, discovered a mode of making
one of the major products Of Com
pany B advantageously. So. to make a
long story short. the day at last came
when field marshal representing
Company A sought out field marshal
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