1)eceeihcr. 1932
I iv D US T R I A L A N D E N C I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R Y
rated off. The residue was found to be resistaiit to oxidation with potassium permanganate and appeared to be a mixture of saturated compounds from which nothing definite could be isolated
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The apparatus used for the dry distillation experiments was coustructed by It. Hellbaeh of the mechanical staff of this laboratory. All identifications of conipounds by optical methods were made 1)y G . L. Keenan of the Mieronnalytic.al Laboratory of the Food and Drug Administration of t h i s department.
1441
LITERATURE Crmn (1) Duolaur, Ann. inst. Pa8tezLI.9.2fi‘J(1895j.
for Identification of Pure Organic (.omp&da.”~ol. 1, g . 81. Wiley. 1906. Pliillips, J . Am. C h m . Soc., 51. 2420 (1929) Pliilliys. lbid., 51, 2421 (1929). I’lAlips, lbid.. 51, 2423 (lW29). Phillim and Koensn, Ibid.. 53, 1924 (1931).
12) , , Mullikcn. S. P.. “Method
(3) (4) (5)
(6)
R r o r w m July 8. 19:12. ContribuLion 203 irom the Color m d P n i m Waste Divirion. I?ureau oi Chemistry and Soils.
AM E R I C AN C 0 N T E M P 0 H A R I E S Charles Holmes Herty IND words for the living are viewed asknnee. But omdor will say that Charles IIolmer Ilertp loves his fellaw man and is in turn beloved. Hia life has been marked by tireless d e v o t i o n to onc worthy cause after another. In the day of great need he led in bringing chemistry to t,he service of thr nation. A personal lradrr among chemists, be became a statesman of vision and achievement, unofficial and unmindful of political expediency. This career of service began half a cent.ury ago. Charles in his early teem, arphaned and living with his mstrmd p a n h o t h e r and aunt, w m not doing re11 at school. Thereupon his aunt. B woman of character and resnurrefulness, led him to his mother’s maw and earnestly unfolded to him the possihilitics that Iny ahead if only he would devote his life to worthwhile ohjrrtives. Then and there thm Saul hecame Paul. apostle ol worthy causes. He made himself the man of the household and munred responsibility for his little &er two years his junior. Devotion grew with the boy and the man until it emhraced the whole Southland, the whole nation, in the furtherance of objectives of far-reaching importnnre. It w m at Milledgeville, Gs., on December 4,1807, that Charles’s eventful life bcgan. His father, Bernard R. Flerty, who way of Irish Iinm~e,served in the ConJedrm1.e nrmy and was by vocation a druggist. His mother, Louisa T. Holmes, came u i old Georgia stork. Both parents died before he was nine yeam old. Following prepmation a t Georgia Military and Agricultural College, Charles attended tire University of Groraia. I k r e r a r d there sarriLnt8 us in assuming that he continued t,o “keep hi6 eye an the ball.” Those who have matched their skill against his at tho game of billiard-, may misundemtand the figure of specch. Purely his adept,ness with the cue almost tielies blip fact that he was graduated a t the ape of Piahtern and at the head of his cIas8. He had the advantage o i not being spoiled by riches, hut poverty had its drawbarks. As honor man it hecame his duty to officiate, spade in band, at. tire planting of the elas- tree. The ceremonial day dawned hot, and the overcmt he felt constrained t o wear brnughl bends of perspiration to his tiruw. But the dignity of the occasion rnlght not have h n
p r e s e r v e d had he exposed the seat of his trousers. Follou,ing his graduation Charles received a legacy of a few thousand dollars. Thk made rasier his further pursuit, o i an e d u c a t i o n . The next lour years were spent with Remsen a t J o h n s I l o p k i n s University. There he studied hml, entcred actively into athletics, and “supered” in the chorus a t the theatre. He received his doctorate at the age of twenty-two. Cdlcd to t a c h chemistry a t his Alma Mater, the University of Georgia, young Doctor IIerty brought m t h him thc spirit of research, and n l m Pop Vl’nmcr and the game of football, [,hen new to t h e colleges of t.he S o u t h . While a t floplrins, Remen had h k e n him to task lor soendine so much time in extracurricular activities. But Berty coiitended that lie II’RS prepurin8 himself to be a teacher and wanted to bo B porsonwl leader of his pupils. A pict,ure of Georgia’s baseball team of 1891 reveals in uniform Doctor Charles 11. Herty, first faculty director of rzthlctics at Georgia. I2o~ouryeam later we find him denominated I’liyaieni Director and Adjunct Profrssar of Chemistry. In this dual til.le the order af mention may have been significant. It --as at, least prophetic. “Doc“ Ilerty v’m a boy among the boys ha sought to lend to a knowledge of chemistry. Charley Iierty, B chemist among chemists, was fimt of all a man among men. It remained for vision, dovotion, and initiative t o provide tho strong persons1 leadership that came to mean so much in bringing oitr nation’s lawmakers and citizen8 in general to a knowledge of the importance of ch-mintry t o nationti1 nelfare. IIerty has always enjoyed sporb, hut he finds in them lessons for life’s more important pursuits. Baseball to him inculcate the principles that make for success in all organized effort--coneentrution, aeemacy, c o o i d ~ ~ d e d n t a squi& , deeision, rand, above all, t,rurnwork. 13ecuming adjunct professor must have suggeatcd to young Doetor Herty the p o d i i i t y of assuming a d d 4 responsibilit,iq for the itme year ho took RS his bride Miss Sophie Sehnller, t,lie belle of Athens. Thus began a life-long devotion that was later shared by two sons, Charles fiolmes, Jr., and 1“mnk Bernard, and a daughter, Sophie Dorothea. Herty’s first paper hefore the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY was presented in 1894. It was a seared boy who addressed his.
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Vol. 24. No. 12
colleagues on “Mixed Halides of Lead and Potassium.” Or was became a unit in the demand for American independence in the it that the bag of peanuts he felt it necessary to substitute for a matter of dyes and other organic synthetics. square meal gave his spirit inadequate support? The meeting With the December, 1921, issue of the JOURNAL, Herty retired was at Brooklyn, N. Y., which to an underpaid college instruc- from the editorship to become president of the newly formed tor was a good many dollars from Athens, Ga. Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association. I n a Ten years after leaving Hopkins, Herty spent a year abroad farewell editorial he reviewed briefly the work of his “five happy to work under Werner a t Zurich, and Witt and Knorre a t Berlin. years” of editorship. Then he strongly commended to us his One day Witt characterized the American method of turpentine successor, closing with two words now famous: “Here’s Howe.” orcharding as “butchery of the pines.” Indignant, yet too little During the years of his presidency of the S. 0. C. M. .4., he acquainted with conditions to reply, Herty resolved to investi- continued to enjoy the confidence of our lawmakers and of men gate the charge. Thus was he led to undertake his first great everywhere, many of whom might well have said with Congresspublic service. His cup and gutters, substituted for the ruinous man Fordney, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee: rrbox” that for a hundred years had been hewn into the tree “Herty advised me for fifteen years and never led me astray.’’ trunk to receive the oozing gum, saved our Naval stores industry When later he allied himself with the Chemical Foundation, from extinction. The report of his three years spent in the pine xhose ardent champion he had been from the beginning, his forests of Georgia is an epic of early industrial research. message continued to be that of the constructive power of chem1905-1916 were years devoted to teaching and research, as istry for national well-being. The nation now safeguarded in Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the School of Applied Science the matter of dyes and thus in chemical war Preparedness, he at the University of North Carolina. In the councils of the pleaded with earnest eloquence and renewed vigor the cause of AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYhe grew in helpfulness and im- chemico-medical research. He had been chairman of the comportance. He was elected to the presidency of the SOCIETY in mittee that prepared the comprehensive report on “The Future 1915 and again the following year. With the rest of the world Progress of American Medicine in the Age of Chemistry.” His at war, the need for the chemist was increasing daily. To this work in the cause of health he has called the greatest endeavor need President Herty brought vision and his genius for leader- of his life. Passage of the Ransdell bill, creating the National ship. He planned a census of chemists and thelr special qualifi- Institute of Health, came as a fitting climax. cations. He pointed out our chemical deficiencies, and urged Four years ago Herty announced his intention to devote the their correction. The presidency gave him a national viewpoint remainder of his life to the development of the natural resources of and a broadened influence. Our urgent need of chemical war the southern states. Instinctively he turned to the pine forests, preparedness provided a great cause. Opportunity for rare saved from destruction through hls earlier researches. Already achievement came in the editorship of the JOURNAL OF INDUS-an interesting story is unfolding, the gist of which is that the TRIAL AND ENQINEERINQ CHEMISTRY, when war was only a few wood of the young trees contains no more resin than that of months away. northern spruce and lends itself to digestion by the sulfite procThe new editor’s watchword was “cooperation.” He made ess in the production of white paper. The vast acreages inknown his earnest desire to serve as a coordinating influence volved and the rapid reforestation possible in this land of sunin those “helter-skelter, everybody-on-the-jump, vibrant days shine and moisture give grounds for confidence that cotton will of individual effort.” This desire was abundantly gratified. not always be the principal crop of the South. We are now deHe was trusted by lawmaker and manufacturer alike. To mem- pendent on foreign sources for much of our newsprint and raw bers of our National Congress he became one of the few sources material of our growing cellulose industries. So again it is a of personally disinterested information, and a rallying point movement for national self-containedness. for those who placed their country’s war preparedness above When recently “for noteworthy and outstanding service to all other considerations. Our nation having declared war, the science of chemistry and the profession of chemist in America,” he drove home to us anew our chemical weaknesses. I n the Doctor Herty was awarded the medal of the American Institute beginning it was a shortage of toluene, with T N T the growing of Chemists, he accepted it as given to “one who has been simply need; an ambitious aviation program, and not enough acetic a cheer-leader, endeavoring to stimulate others t o play this acid for “dope;” platinum required for munitions and research, game called Chemistry to the best of their ability.” not for adornment. He held up to ridicule the propaganda Herty has been a cheer-leader but not an unthinking partisan. that American coal is not suited and the American chemist not He has grown in power as a leader first of all because of his rare qualified for the manufacture of dyes. He published the amaz- personal qualities, but more especially because he possesses in ing declaration of our War Department that it had no need for marked degree that determining attribute of greatness, a keen chemistry. He urged the allocation of chemlsts to the much sense of relative values. It is this that has led him to espouse needed chemical war work. He fought for the establishment great as well as worthy causes; t o choose for emphasis the issues of the Chemical Warfare Service, and, the war over, for its re- of major importance; and, in the pursuit of his life’s ideals, to maintain a consistent course throughout. tention as a discrete unit. Werner early predicted for his pupil the leadership of AmeriThere was a personal directness about the Herty editorial can thought in industrial chemistry. As though Werner’s preexhortations that compelled attention. Had one eavesdropped on their preparation, the secret of their power would have been diction were not now sufficiently justified, we find Charles Holmes evident. At night, alone in his study, pencil in hand, his index Herty at sixty-five only increasing his pace, apparently unmindfinger saying (‘this means you,” he drove home to an imaginary ful of the fact that there are already laid up for him a crown group before him the truths he burned to impart. Then a soda of constructive achievement and a lasting place in the heart A. V. H. MORY of the nation. cracker, and to bed at three. Appointed by President Wilson after the war to negotiate abroad for America’s quota of the reparation dyes, he found an attempt being made to bring American dye users again under the foreign yoke. He returned to renew the fight for American CORRECTION.In the discussion on Pumps [IND.ENG.CHEM., chemical independence. Repeatedly he called the attention of o w statesmen and the country a t large to the intimate chemi- 24, 1109 (1932)] by C. W. Cuno, through an inadvertence, due cal relation between dyes and synthetic medicinals, on the one acknowledgment was not made for the reproduction of Figures hand, and explosives and toxic gases on the other. Eventually 4, 7, 9, 11, 15, and 16, which were from “Elements of Chemical Engineering” by Badger and McCabe. our statesmen and dye conaumers, as well a8 dye manufacturers,
