The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1943-01-15
WHO'S
v NEWS "
This Week
Lemuel T. Parton

&zA EaM# kemueb T. 0ttUu
Consolidated Features.--WNU Release.
NJ W Notwithstanding optimists
in the news around the New
Year, one finds DR.. Thomas Midgley
Jr. becoming president of the Ameri-
Holds Science Will can s 1css,,-
Clear the Way for after years
Peace, Abundance o 81 hece and
dotted-line achievement. Among his
prophecies have been his forecast of
about three quadrillion dollars
worth of gold to be taken from sea
water, inter-planetary travel, age
control and the end of indigestion by
the use of hormones. His achieve
ments, which are many, include his
discovery of tetraethyl lead as a
gasoline anti-knock compound, his
development of non-toxic and nom
infammable refrigerants and his
many contributions to basic re-
search in synthetic rubber proc
eSSeS.
As to the mundane outlook i'm
general, DR.. Midgley takes the
cheerful view that the potential
creativeness and productiveness
Of science, with its command of
new energies and processes, will
clear the way for peace and
abundance in spite Of our col
lective stupidities and villainies.
These alluring, IL remote, hOri-
IONS, DR.. Midgley sees from his
wheel chair in WOrthingtOn,
Ohio, having been stricken with
infantile paralysis in 1910. Thus
afflicted, he has continued his
research, with no slackening of
either work or fervor, and pos
sibly heightened belief in some
kind Of happy ending, or rather
fulfillment for the comedie hu-
maine. His story would be
case in point for Thomas Mann,
who says the calmest faith ard
truest personal integrity is at
tanned through suffering.
In Cornell university, where he
was graduated in 1911, it was said
that young Midgley would coast
along through routine work, but was
always busy on something out Of the
groove-some idea of his own. This
inclined him quickly to research and
before he had been out of college a
year he was threading the SUBJ
atomic maze of synthetic rubber. It
was in the years from 1922 to 1926
that he brought through his knock
less gasoline, which bloomed into
the impressive ethyl gasoline indus
try, with headquarters at Detroit, Of
which industry he is vice president.
In his wheel chair, he is a big bust
ness executive, with special tele-
phone rigs to make his inter-office
communication around the country
easy and casual-like everything
else about him.
Speaking of attainment through
Illustration, he worked with telluri-
UNI when he was bringing through
his non-toxic refrigerants and that
permeated his genial person with a
powerful odor of garlic. He took
scientific measures something like
protective coloring. When he. trav-
eled, he found in the smoking car
the closest possible concentration of
bad cigars. The fragrance Of garlic
was just a harmless added starter
here, and nobody noticed him. He
is resourceful, diligent, optimistic.
- ~ 2S
pERSONS who have been bit
: jittery about the government tell
ing us where to work and what to do
may be assured by the public record
He'll Square Our anu Of G se..uI1s
War Manpower Clark, the
With Blackstone lawyer who
drafts the quite unprecedented and
drastic nanpower bill for Paul Nc
Mutt. A stanch advocate Of COM
pulsory military service, and of any
and all methods necessary for ma
tional survival, Mr.. Clark has been
at the same time an alert and out
spoken defender of civil liberties.
He is a pioneer of the Plattsburg
system and chairman of the Ma
tional Emergency Committee Of the
Military Training Camps, and an
active advocate of big and strong
army, but he is wary opponent Of
anything suggesting a military
caste. In May, 1881, he said:
''My experience in the war de-
partment has led me to distrust the
participation of army or navy ex-
perts in affairs of national policy"
Similarly, he has opposed any
encroachment ON Constitutional
safeguards by bureaucrats, or
excessive naturalization Of gov
eminent which might endanger
individual liberties. He may be
cited as conspicuous h0ldout
against both the weakness Of
peace-l0ying democracy and the
aggression Of lailitarists and
war-planners who might save
the country but leave it no long
er democracy.
He thinks we can keep both the
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