Jan., 1922
THE JOURNAL OF INDUXTRIAE A N D ENGINEERING CHEMI8TRY
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Chemically Speaking, How’s Europe ? By Watson Davis 1418 RRODBISLANDAvE., WASHINGTON, D. C.
We Americans have been hearing much about conditions in Europe since the war. Our friends have gone over, and they have brought us back stories of their impressions of places, things and people here and there. We are interested in knowing how science is recuperating after the years of its serfdom to war; whether it is taking hold again and whether it will succeed in making Europe again worth living in. This account is a composite picture drawn by three or four scientists who are lucky enough to have been over in Europe this past summer on roving commissions. It is written much as they told it to me and as they would tell it to you if you persuaded them to go over what is now to them an old story. The chemistry of this account often will not stand out pure and unapplied. It will blend into science in general, and in many cases even science will fade into the vivid background of hungry faces, depreciated currency, and war wreckage that is as yet only slightly cleared away. CONDITIONS IN GERMANY Scientific Germany is somewhat like a broken man, who has been sick and is now living on his stored vitality of past years. It must not be said that the patient will not recover, but just now scientifically he is largely relying on the achievements of better days before and during the war. There is a tendency to capitalize the things that were developed then. The dearth of equipment, books, supplies and all the things that make up a workshop for scientists is a real one, not only chemically but in all scientific lines. The talk of poor conditions that we have been hearing is more than mere bluff. Many of the largest universities and research laboratories, whose names were awe-inspiring in chemical circles before the war, have had practically no American scientific literature since the beginning of the war in 1914. And it is a financial impossibility for them to obtain foreign publications without outside help. The mark has lost so much caste among the moneys of the world that when it gets outside of its own country’s borders it can hardly demand anything. Not to know what the chemists of other nations have been doing for seven years is a serious handicap to the work of German scientists. It is declared that in all Germany there is but one set of The Physicat Review, the journal of the American Physical Society, complete to date. The lack of chemical literature is believed to be just as great. Universities are having a hard time of it financially. University salaries and grants are notoriously hard to increase in this country, and the conditions are similar in Germany. One of the institutes of the University of Bonn on the Rhine has had a superficially generous increase in yearly funds from the pre-war .;urn of 17,000 marks to 170,000 marks, but this becomes small indeed when it is learned that it costs 50,000 marks to heat the buildings of the institute. What the German universities lack in funds and equipment they have a tendency to make up for in students. The research laboratories a t Leipsig are declared to be very crowded. Salaries of professors are meager now in German universities. Before the war many of the university men had independent incomes of their own that supplemented their salaries. For the most part these auxiliary incomes have disappeared. Now nearly every professor has to hunt around for something to do on the side. They have been forced to adapt themselves to do more remunerative things in part of their time so that they may continue to teach. This situation promises to bring about a more intimate interlacing between the universities and the industries. Those yho
would normally be doing research in pure chemistry are being forced into commercial research for the industries because of the money there is in it for them. The glass works at Jena seem to be producing, but it is difficult to tell what was made during the war and wlfat is new production. Quite obviously some was made for war use only. A journey to a little inn on the top of the neighboring hills revealed a fine 15-cm. telescope with multiple high power eyepieces mounted as though on a man-of-war. Such a fine instrument seemed out of place there. Its only use was to provide magnified peeps a t the surrounding country; its only reward was the few coins that went into the penny-in-the-slot device that was attached to it. Food, which is interesting to the chemist both chemically and physically, is plentiful in Germany, although somewhat restricted as to certain kinds. Milk is the only food that people stand in line for now, and dairy products as a class are difficult to obtain and high in price. If you want white bread and butter you have to pay as much for them as you do for the rest of your breakfast. Vegetables are served liberally, and meat is being used in much the same old German way, largely as sausage and similar products. Another sign of the times in Berlin is that the pushcart book sellers are offering new and modern books instead of old and second-hand books as they did before the war. German firms are understood to be planning foreign exploitation of some of the new metals developed shortly before or during the war. One of these is the aluminium alloy that was intended for use as material for dirigible frames. It will be pushed as a material for engines, automobiles, and similar machinery. AUSTRIA The small area that still remains under the name of Austria appears strangely self-contained. There is seemingly a supply of raw material, and though wages are low there is, or a t least was last summer, work for all, and an unemployment problem was not acute. In Vienna the foreigner can get practically anything he wants in the way of food and other necessities. Although the hotels are hardly up to the standard that was set by them during the tourist trade of pre-war days, they are remarkably good. In the shops of Vienna can be seen many articles from Czechoslovakia, and trade and other relations with the Czechs are rapidly coming back to normal, as far as the exchange permits. Knickknacks from Germany, reminiscent of pre-war days, are displayed. These small importations are indicative of future commercial relations. From a business standpoint there is good feeling among Germans, Austrians, and Czechoslovaks, who just after the war were on very different terms. Educational Vienna is worse off than the universities of Germany. The University of Vienna has only money enough to heat its buildings one month out of the year, and as a consequence does not heat them a t all. Practically the same appropriation for its work is received as before the war, and this is now ridiculously small in purchasing power. One of the institutes receives 5600 crowns a year, which a t a certain time last summer amounted to $2.15 in real American money-it is probably worth less now. It would take nearly fow years’ appropriations for that institute to subscribe to THISJOURNAL for only a year. And this was all the money that was available for salaries, heating and equipment, as well as publications. Obviously subscription to foreign scientific periodicals is out of the question. Under these conditipns university work there
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THE JOURNAL OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
is limited to lectures, given in cold rooms. There is little or no research work. The effect of low foreign exchange in Europe is brought home by the following incident. A Polish chemist published a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He was asked if he wanted the fifty free separates that each author is entitled to. He did. And innocently he asked for them with covers. I n due and routine time he was sent a bill for $1.77, the cost of the covers. He wrote back from Poland: “This is a just bill but just now it would take a quarter of my month’s salary to pay it. Can payment be deferred a few years until conditions of exchange are better?” He was told to forget it. SCIENCEIN RUSSIA Russia has been a land in the shadow since the Soviet government has been in control. We have heard little about how science has fared in Russia, and that little has been pessimistic. Now that our relief organizations are penetrating into Russia to ameliorate famine conditions and the Soviet government is sending scientists to the other countries of Europe and to America, we are beginning to get a little information on scientific Russia. According to a botanist who had been sent into Germany to buy scientific books for the Russian government, the chemists at Moscow are still in their laboratories and, relatively speaking, they have been making out very well. It appears that the Soviets have established a policy of giving the productive academic men, those whose researches can be seen to influence industry directly, the same food and treatment as the children. And the children have been the first concern in Russia, both where the relief missions have and have not reached. But even with the most liberal treatment in Russia, even though university salaries are paid by the government in part in priceless food rations of the highest grade, the professors have to look around for odd jobs. This is a quotation from a statement made by one of our leading biologists, who has just returned from Russia as a special representative of the American Relief Administration :
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The salaries and food rations of the professors in the University of Kazan had been so meager that not a man was able to live on them, and every professor was meeting his family’s needs for food by doing something besides regular university work. The means for keeping himself and family alive were various, but in almost all cases they included the successive sacrificing of personal and household belongings. One professor of biology told me that he made shoes, and that his wife baked cakes and sold them in the city market. He had sold all of his own and his wife’s simple jewels and trinkets and one of his two microscopes. Yet this man, who had not been able to see any books or papers published later than 1914, has struggled along with his special researches and has actually achieved two pieces of experimental work on vitamines which seem to me, with my little knowledge of the subject, to contribute certain definite new knowledge concerning these interesting substances. But beginning in August, there had been a material increase in salary and in food ration. The monthly food ration had been put, in August, on the following basis: dark (mostly rye) flour, 30 Ibs.; dried peas, 5 lbs.; cereal grits, 13 lbs.; sweets, (not cane or beet sugar), 2% lbs.; tobacco, lb.; butter, 6 lbs.; meat, 15 lbs.; fish, 5 lbs.; tea, l / d lb.; white flour, 5 lbs. The items from dark flour to tobacco, inclusive, had been received, the rest of them promised but not received. About 250 professors and instructors receive this ration. The university buildings are so cold that most,of the men do all their work except lecturing in their homes. About 5000 students had registered but only about 10 per cent of them were in actual attendance. The largest departments in point of student enrolment were medicine and science.< My friend, the professor of biology, had never before ridden in an automobile until he rode with me in our relief car. About 20 men of the Kazan faculty have died in the last two years. An impression obtained in Europe is that the Soviet government has been fairly successful in carrying out its program in the territory that it directly controls, that is, within about
Vol. 14, No. 1
300 miles of Moscow. However, as far away from the seat of government as Petrograd, for instance, where control by the central government is difficult, preferential treatment of scientific and academic men has been much more irregular. Scientific eyes in central Europe are looking longingly toward America. The chemists and other scientists of these states are keen to come to America, where living conditions are ideal in comparison with the situation in their native lands. Many leading American scientists have been flooded with correspondence from those countries and the ultimate object, in most cases, is a place in America. This desire for migration from Europe to America began with the Russian revolution and the exodus of many scientists from Russia. How an influx of European scientists would affect the conditions of American scientists is problematical. I n these times of industrial depression, when many chemists are out of work, it is to be expected that American chemists will be sensitive about the possibility of greater competition for jobs. However, the scientists who wish to come to America because European times are hard will be apt to stay here and in many cases would be valuable additions to science circles in America. BSLGIUM,SWITZERLAND, AND HOI,LAND Belgium is the country that seems to be more nearly back to normal than any other part of Europe. There factories are working nearly in a pre-war fashion and university laboratories are again assuming a peace-time aspect. Belgium, first attacked in the war, has received the first part of Germany’s reparations and this has helped to make her the most normal country of Europe. Switzerland and Holland, the two neutral border states, both face outside competition. They have raised high and stringent tariff barriers to prevent a flood of goods from Germany and Austria and the other low-wage-plane countries from engulfing their own manufacturing establishments. There is a feeling, undoubtedly based on fact, that considerable smuggling is under way and that goods from the outside are appearing for sale in those countries relabeled under native disguise. The educational situation in Holland is quite similar to that of the rest of Europe. A t Leiden the number of students is getting back to normal. THECONDITION OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND France and England are gradually getting back into their old scientific stride. Paris has been the center for international gatherings since the war and has had the benefit of contacts with visiting scientists of all nations. Industrially the condition of France is nearly as far along as that of her smaller sister, Belgium. Food in France is practically up to normal in quality, although the bread is still not quite what it was before the war. The University of Paris is suffering from a scarcity of students due to the high living costs. The French of the better class who send their sons to college now find that they can hardly afford it. I n England the university conditions are quite similar to those here in America. The colleges are a little over-full. Industrial depression has forced the young men whose education was interrup!ed by the war back into college. Industry now has no strong call for them and those who can are entering the colleges to finish their education. The meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Edinburgh this summer had much the tone and spirit of the meetings before the war. From a food standpoint also, England is getting back to normal. They still have one crude chemical, brown sugar, on their tables, usually along with refined lump sugar, and this seems odd to Americans who find it nearly as hard to buy brown sugar for candy making as they did before the war.
