April, 1924
I N D U S T R I A L AiVD ENGINEERING CNEMISTR Y
Bayer & Company a t first wanted the control, but that was not agreeable to Mr. Waldman and his associates. The Bayer company then subscribed to $10,000 of the stock. The company was organized in 1882, and after buildings were completed and equipment installed they proceeded to make fuchsin, paper blues (known originally as Blakely blues), nigrosine, Bismarck brown, and chrysoidine. In the course of time Mr. Lesser was sent to Elberfeld to learn the technology of alkali blue, and after his return this became a successful feature. Mr. Waldman tells of large sales of alkali blues to English and German importers of colors, who sold it as of foreign make. The company was successful from the start, and later there were added cotton blues and induline to their list of products. They could afford to pay good salaries and 30 per cent dividends for many years. Their arrangements with Bayer & Company, however, were such that they could not produce any color or wares that were not approved by that firm, and the president, Mr. Waldman, felt the pressure of these inhibitions. He therefore, in 1898, organized the American Color & Chemical Company, engaging for his technical director Dr. Emanuel von Salis, a Swiss, then active in Manchester, England. He secured a building and land on Van Rensselaer Island to the south of Albany, and had associated with him in the venture Martin Waldstein, of Mass & Waldstein, New York; William Lesser, his partner of the Hudson River works, F. E. Attaux, of Boston, an importer .of dyes, and James Lyons, a printer of Albany. Later he was joined by Herman A. Metz, of New York. Dr. von Salis was vice president and general manager. The American Color & Chemical Company began making a wool dye known as empire black, similar to diamond black. Then followed benzopurpurin, Congo red, naphthylamine black, naphthol black, and naphthol yellow. In 1903 Bayer & Company, then known as Farberfabriken von Elberfeld vormals Friedrich Bayer & Company, wanted to make phenacetin and aspirin. They concluded that the best thing to do would be to buy out Mr. Waldman and his associates, including the entire Hudson River Aniline & Color Works, which was accomplished under the following conditions: Dr. von Salis was to go over to the Hudson River works, which was first purchased by the Bayer company and the Hudson River company, then bought out the American Color & Chemical Company, keeping Mr. Waldman as president and treasurer of the Hudson River company for six years. The Van Rensselaer Island plant was dismantled, and the Hudson River company ceased to make the dyes that had been produced by the American Color & Chemical Company in competition with the Elberfeld works. That is, the various blacks, benzopurpurin, Congo red, naphthol yellow, etc., were made no more, although the Hudson River company continued to make aniline red, aniline blues, and those that had been made before, under the sanction of the Bayer company. But there was also introduced at the plant of the Hudson River company first the production of phenacetin and later of aspirin, which in time became their leading products. In 1909 Mr. Waldman retired from the presidency and Mr. Lesser also retired from active participation, both gentlemen having disposed of their actual interests several years previously. Long before this Mr. Preiss had become afflicted with a nervous trouble, was an invalid for several years, and died in 1896. Dr. von Salis remained as general manager and president of the Hudson River company. Here they continued to make phenacetin, aspirin, and the colors fuchsin, paper blue, cotton blue, alkali blue, nigrosine, induline, Bismarck brown, and chrysoidine. In 1913 the Farberfabriken von Elberfeld was succeeded by the Bayer company, which succeeded also to the ownership of the Hudson River concern. I n 1914, when the blockade began, the works were enlarged and they extended their dye
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interests. They added to their products manufactured: aniline oil, acetic anhydride, various colors for wool, including wool greens, naphthol blacks, alizarin yellow, azofuchsin, azoflavine, cotton azo blacks and browns, metanil yellow, Indian yellow, alizarin blue, gallocyanin, sulfocyanin, and diamond black. During the war the Bayer interests were seized by the Alien Property Custodian and sold to the Stirling Products Company for $5,410,000 and about $2,000,000 back taxes for two years. This company continues the manufacture of aspirin and other pharmaceuticals, but the dye works and whatever pertains to the manufacture of dyes the Stirling company sold to the Grasselli Chemical Company, at which point the record which I have been asked to prepare comes to an end.
American Dyestuffs‘ Reminiscently, Autobiographically, and Otherwise By George A. Prochazka2 CENTRALDYESTUFF & CHEMICAL Co., NEWARK,N. J,
F
RAGMENTARY records in my possession give an account of hearings in July, 1882, before the Tariff Commission on the dyestuff, or, as it was more familiarly called, the aniline color schedule. The witnesses mentioned in my notes are Henry Bower, of Philadelphia, James Hendrick, president of the Albany Aniline & Chemical Works, and John Campbell. I have been in intimate touch with tariff legislation from that time to the present. It appeals to me to base an analysis of the development of American chemical industries, of which dyestuffs form a part, alone upon the official records of hearings before tariff commissions, committees of the houses of Congress, congressional debates, editorial comment and correspondence in trade papers, and legislation from 1882 to date. Without intention to minimize what has been done before 1882, this analysis will show that a real, conscious, self-contained industry dates from then on-that there had been steady progress for the American dyestuff industry from then until the outbreak of the European War. The logic of events, had there been no European War, would have led to the elimination of existing obstacles and the ultimate creation of a satisfying, self-contained American dyestuff industry. The development in that case would have been in a better sense of proportion, more harmonious, more in line with sound economic maxims, and less hysterical and passionate than under the jerk of a world catastrophe. Accounts of the early and pre-war dyestuff industry have been variously given. At the Perkin celebration in New York, this international love feast of dyestuff chemists, and a t the last of the international love feasts, the International Congress of Applied Chemistry, in 1912, the dyestuff chemists of this and other countries associated in harmony and on a basis of equality. Among those whom I remember as being on record in print about the American dyestuff industry are the late I. F. Stone, of theNationa1 Aniline & Chemical Company, and H. A. Metz in 1910-from opposite viewpoints. The meetings of the respective societies where these addresses were delivered found comparatively few who had kind words to say for this struggling American industry. The Central Dyestuff & Chemical Company was established by my brother John and myself in 1898. My connection with the dyestuff industry dates back to 1882. I have, therefore, been in the game in the United States for over forty years. My career had been familiar to all the various American and European 1 Presented under the title “American Dyestuff-Past, Reminiscently, Autobiographically, and Otherwise.” * President of company.
Present. Future:
4 14
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
dyestuff interests before the war, as well as all chemists who took an interest in our line and many who did not. I became a member of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY in 1877, holding office and endeavoring to help the good cause along a t a now forgotten period on Washington Square, New York, by papers and abstracts. My chemical education has been obtained in Wiesbaden under Fresenius, in Heidelberg under Bunsen and others, in Bonn under Kekule and Wallach, and the Aachen Polytechnic. My brother John, after his college course in the United States, spent about two years a t the &ole de Chimie at Mulhouse under that foremost authority, Emil Noelting, and joined me in 1885, and we have been playmates ever since. In 1882 the number of dyestuffs known was limited-very few were covered by patents-there were few new ones. The Badische, to its regret, had omitted to patent eosin, the comparatively recent creation of Caro. It was an exception for dyestuff manufacturers abroad to manufacture their own intermediates. The manufacture of intermediates was considered a specialty by Very few of these dyestuffs have become itself at the time. irretrievably obsolete. Most of them are manufactured a t present in larger quantities than ever before-not, however, always by the then prevailing methods. FUCHSIN-ARSENIC ACIDMETHOD
In 1882 arsenate of aniline was on the free list. It was imported in barrels, filling them as one solid cake-obtained by mixing liquid arsenic acid of 68” to 72” B& with so-called “aniline oil” for red. The arsenate was supposed to be identical with that supplied to and preferred by some of the German factories for the same purpose. It was the favorite starting point for fuchsin. As late as 1887 large quantities were still imported, after which its use was generally abandoned. In view of the inconvenience of handling it, we discontinued it in 1884, when we began to purchase aniline for red (a mixture of one-third aniline and two-thirds mixed toluidine from direct nitration of toluene) and liquid arsenic acid separately. The arsenic acid came from England, a t first in stout wooden barrels, which began to leak in transit, and packages arrived here very often only half full. This difficulty was surmounted by the substitution of small, strong, 50-gallon iron drums, none too small for a liquid with a specific gravity over 2. This method of handling the acid had many drawbacks, and in 1885 we were compelled to take up the manufacture of this material ourselves. The handling of arsenic acid became very simple, as we began to discharge i t through pipe lines by means of montejus and compressed air from the arsenic acid factory into our melt kettles. As the methods, both chemical and mechanical, became more perfect, the plant operated very satisfactorily. Through a well-developed system of recovery the loss of nitric acid was minimal. Excess of arsenic in the finished product was negligible; of nitric, which at times had given much trouble in the imported product, there was not a trace. One pound of white arsenic a t 23/4 cents a pound gave 13/r pounds arsenic acid of about 68 per cent, a t a cost of not over 2.08 cents a pound. Between 1.5 and 2 million pounds had been manufactured up to 1890, a t which time the nitrobenzene replaced the method in use. The arsenic method, in view of rising arsenic prices and declining benzene and toluene prices, had become economically impossible. This method has been more or less correctly described in various textbooks, and presents comparatively few technical complications. In the early practice the cover was removed from the melt kettle and the finished melt was scooped out; later, the same result was attained by suitable bottom discharge. In the fuchsin process only part of the oil enters into reaction; 30 to 40 per cent is recovered in the distillates or kchappes, which’are mixtures of oil and water. The recovered oil goes into subsequent melts. To retain a standard composition corresponding to that of the original oil, adjustments must be
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made by the addition of p-toluidine and oils rich in p-toluidine. The amounts are determined by proper quantitative determinations of aniline and p - and o-toluidine in the various oil mixtures. The mother liquors of fuchsin crystallization contained the so-called “garnets,” mixtures of fuchsin, mainly phosphines. They were isolated by various methods. The percentage was large and the quantities that were readily salable entirely too small as compared with what had to be turned out as crystallized fuchsin. Stocks began to accumulate in a manner that was embarrassing. Happily, in 1887 I succeeded in splitting up the garnets quantitatively, by a method that could be easily executed on a large scale, into its principal constituents, fuchsin and phosphine. The phosphine obtained was of high tinctorial power and of very clear yellow shade. The superiority of the product in comparison with others familiar to the trade, very much to our surprise, mitigated against a ready market. In 1890, coincident with the expansion of the tan-colored shoe fad, the situation changed-sales and prices became satisfactory. I n the same year the nitrobenzene process of fuchsin manufacture replaced the arsenic acid process. My brother had put endless painstaking research into this proposition. A satisfactory process resulted, which was carried out on a large scale under his exclusive direction from 1890 to 1897. Great care must be exercised in the selection of the proper oils and to maintain the proper equilibrium in composition when recovered oils are used. The use of aniline oil for red was abandoned. There were substituted aniline oil pure, mixed toluidines, nitrobenzene, nitrobenzenenitrotoluene mixture, and nitrotoluene. The various formaldehyde suggestions did not seem to offer any particular advantage a t that time. Between 1884 and 1890 the large print works were extensive consumers of fuchsin for the production of chocolate shades, buying in ton lots a t a time. This constituted the bulk of the fuchsin trade in these years. After the disappearance of this trade the demand for fuchsin as such became relatively negligible as compared with its use as an intermediate for the manufacture of the various water-soluble blues for the paper tradeprinting ink, wash blue, etc. EOSINAND ITSAFFILIATIONS Early in 1852 I began work on eosin, with the result that in the same year a satisfactory method was in factory operation. Other products, erythrosin, chlorofluoresceins and their derivatives, and bromonitrofluorescein became subjects of chemical research. In due course the original methods were made more precise. They were reconstructed, modified, scrapped, or there was done whatever became necessary through the increasingly intimate knowledge that had been acquired in years of hard work. The products in question were manufactured by my methods and under my personal direction for fifteen years (1882 to 1897), in steadily increasing quantities. My first efforts went along very ambitious lines, with an attempt to manufacture phthalic acid and resorcin. The naphthalene question was relatively easy through an old friend and fellow student in Germany, the late W. T. Lees, of the New York Gas Light Company, which company in its water gas obtained lots of naphthalene, comparatively pure, as a nasty ballast. Neither pure benzene nor fuming sulfuric acid was available in this country. These ambitious problems, which probably would have taken years to solve, to our manifest advantage had to be shelved. We found manufacturers abroad who were not interested in dyestuffs for which phthalic anhydride and resorcin were used, who could furnish us these intermediates in proper quality and quantity. We were a t All times able to get adequate supplies of resorcin; but with reference to phthalic acid a very unfortunate situation arose in December, 1888. The Badische had obtained control of all outside producers, and refused to sell for export, apparently with the intention of putting us out of business. In this emergency my brother began to study
’
415 the oxidation of naphthalene to phthalic wid, and developed a method with permariganate with quantitative yields.3 For-
tunately, the contingency that would have compelled us to take up the manufacture of phthalic acid did not arise, as the Griesheim factmy consented to make it for us a t a reasonable price. The methods for the manufacture of eosin and erythrosin a r e described in Julius’s book (1) “Kiinstliche Organische Farbstoff e” in 1887. Potassium or sodium chlorate is recommended. The use of the latter is not particularly satisfactory. The method, otherwise, has to be modified in many details to insure an entirely first-class product. The requisite use of grain alcohol in view of the high internal revenue tax assumed importance. Greatly perfected methods of recovery, reducing losses to a minimum, made this process which is the only satisfactory one, an economic success. Other methods using water or other solvents were more expensive and the results far from gratifying as to the quality of the product. The status of alcohol for industrial purposes was very unsatisfactory in those years4 but, in spite of the advent of the denatured alcohol with its legal and other restrictions, it is today even less satisfactory. Fluorescein and chlorofluoresceins are obtained by heating to the proper temperatures 2 molecules resorcin and 1 molecule of phthalic anhydride or the respective chlorophthalic acids (di, tri, tetra). Chloride of zinc as a condensing agent is of no value and rather a hindrance, as the completion of the reaction is entirely a question of time. At an early period wood alcohol was used for the purification of fluorescein; later a far better method, which insured a quantitative separation of pure fluorescein from its impurities, was substituted. As to bromination and iodation-in no case had it been possible to reach the tetra state quantitatively. All commercial eosins, erythrosins, rose bengals (the iodo products of chlorofluoresceins) contain notable percentages of di products, from which the pure tetra products have to be obtained by other means.
CHRONOLOGY
EOSIN, ~ X DRELATBDDYES-Years
in which manufacture was
started : 1881-Eosin 1885-Erythrosin, eosin XX (pure), tetrachlorofluorescein and its iodine derivatives, bromonitroeuorescein (or safrosine) 1886-Di- and trichlorofluorescein and its derivatives 1890-Bromofluorescein, or so-called bromo acid-for which a trade had been created as an acid for“manufacturing purposes, as the claim was made that it was not a dye, and entitled to entry free of duty
As to the amounts manufactured, no records were available for 1882 and 1883, as the dyestuff plant was completely destroyed by fire in 1884. My present recollection as to the sale of eosins and related products for the different years is as follows: Years1884 to 1888 1890 to 1894 1895 to 1896 1897 ~~
Pounds Manufactured Annuallv (Averane) 28,000 57,000 73,000 100,000
-
I n the course of time preference was given to the iodine derivatives of tetrachlorofluorescein, as the yields all along the line were appreciably better. These iodine derivatives with a very bluish red cast were used mainly for the making up of bluish shade eosins. The iodo products of lower chlorinated products were not quite so bluish, and therefore more brilliant and more desirable as admixtures, but more expensive. Erythrosin was manufactured for a short time only, as its use was limited a t that period and the same effects were less expensively obtained by mixtures of eosin and rose bengal. OTHER DYESTUFFS for which the methods had been worked out possibly a year ahead of the time they were successfully installed as factory propositions: a Prochazka, Bw., 30,3108 (1897). 4 Prochazka, J . .Sw. Chcrw. Ind., 16, No. 3 (1897).
1886-Paper blues I888 and 1889-Nigrosines, Bismark brown, chrysoidines 189bOrange 1894-Fast red 1888-Induline
Violet had been steadily manufactured from 1882 to 1897 by various well-known methods, but not in very large quantities, as in the course of time it became difficult to compete with the large German factories who made their own dimethylaniline. Benzyl violet (Schultz No. 521), obtained by benzylation of ordinary violet, an extremely pretty color, was manufactured for a short time in 1885. Benzyl chloride had to be imported from abroad in carboys. The difficulties of getting a material over here with its well-known properties and the abandonment of lines on which it had to be used, will be appreciated. Martius yellow (sodium dinitro-or-naphthol) was turned out intermittently between 1885 and 1888. With the arrival of naphthol yellow, the demand became negligible, and its manufacture was abandoned. All our various factory processes, from 1882 to date, were based entirely on facts of common knowledge, accessible to everybody, The information available was generally meager, far from satisfactory for our purposes, and very often misleading. The results were obtained by most intimate study of the materials used, the reactions involved, the products that it was desired to obtain, with all their chemical and physical constants. The advantage of this mode of procedure was that it led to most precise thinking and experimentation, and finally the gratifying feeling that the processes and products had become conscious ones with which we were thoroughly familiar. There came the certainty that the work had been exhaustive. It was wonderful training. AZO COLORS I n 1914, a t the outbreak of the European War, our company manufactured the followhg azo colors: orange Y, orange R, orange I, crocein orange, lake scarlets (blue shade and yellow shade), Bordeaux, amaranth, wool scarlet, fast red, roccelline, azo rubine, Bismark brown Y and R, chrysoidine Y and R, amidoazobenzene, amidoazotoluene, and a full line of unsulfonated azo colors known as Sudan %olors. Numerous others had been planned, which could be easily linked into the existing program. Other dyestuffs that were produced were nigrosine base, induline base, spirit nigrosine of eminent solubility in alcohols. The bases were either sold as such or consumed by ourselves for oleates and stearates. These and the Sudan colors found a market for varnishes, wood stains, and various leather dressings. The compositions of all the foregoing colors are well known, as well as in a general way the reactions involved in their formation. Their economic production with proper quality and yields involved familiarity with details that were not always simple, but had to be worked out through painstaking research. With few exceptions, the entire line mentioned had been manufactured by our company since the beginning of its existence. Numerous other problems, such as paranitraniline, naphthol yellow, etc., had been solved. The results, however, were not utilized, as execution was found to be impracticable under existing conditions. The plant was small, limited in its program by its size and the money available. Orange Y and orange I required sulfanilic acid; orange R, sulfotoluidic acid; crocein orange, Schaeffer acid, which were manufactured a t the plant. Scarlet, Bordeaux and amaranth, needed R-salt. Wool scarlet needed G-salt, which was produced in high grade a t the plant. At first our scarlets, although fully equal to the existing types, were not so brilliant and clear as they had to be later because our European friends began greatly to improve their own products. After this contingency had been met, there came price cutting and the
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disinclination of the domestic trade to give us preference on an even basis, a t which we could still have had a small profit. By a modification of the fast red process and the use of our crude naphthionate, suitably purified, we succeeded in obtaining at low cost a product of superior solubility. We had an extensive trade also among importers, until the product was duplicated abroad, but not entirely equal in quality to ours. Pure naphthionate free from a-naphthylamine was manufactured a t our plant by our method, which, we are informed, is the same as used by all large manufacturers abroad a t the present time. Roccelline equal to the best was obtained by using a-naphthylamine sulfo acid, the product of a modified form of a-naphthylamine sulfonation. We were about ready to take up N. W. acid, but the outbreak of the war interfered with this plan, as with many others that we had made. We imported the following raw materials: Aniline oil (later we used the American product). The lowest price paid was 81/2 cents, f . 0. b. New York. o-Toluidine, xylidine, cumidine, nitrobenzene, dinitrobenzene, dinitrotoluol, a-naphthol. &Naphthol, on which the price ordinarily varied between 91/~ and 12 cents. During the severe competition of 1904-1905 it sold as low as 71,’s cents a pound, f. 0 . b. New York. a-Naphthylamine. Normal price variation between 9’/a and 14 cents. The low price in 1904-1905 was about the same as that of &naphthol.
In uncontrolled markets a-naphthylamine was about 2 cents lower in price than &naphthol. Before the war the world’s total of each of these intermediates did not reach 10,000 tons. About 1905 the various makers entered into a world convention or combination. Between then and 1914 the price of p-naphthol had varied between 97/8 and 1 1 1 / 2 cents; a-naphthylamine, 11 and 14l/2 cents. Contrary to the layman’s view combinations are not originally dictated by an endeavor a t restraint of trade, but through an economic necessity to conserve assets or avoid the drift into bankruptcy. The original German conventions, in my opinion, were dictated by such economic considerations. The menace to the consumer through unrestricted control of the market comes later, as the producer finds himself increasingly in a position to know what is used and the purpose, and to fix prices. As @-naphtholand a-naphthylamine were the essential crudes for the American dyestuff industry, it seemed very irnportant from that time on to guard against a contingency that might put us out of business over night, by being prepared and learning how t o make these products and make them tentatively. Our company was not in a financial position to carry out plans of this nature. AhlERICAN COAL-TAR INTERMEDIATES PRIOR TO THE WAR Long before 1895 Jayne, in Philadelphia, supplied notable quantities of dinitrobenzene, dinitrotoluene of excellent quality, phenol, nitrobenzene, and nitrotoluene. The latter contained in small percentage unnitrated benzene or toluene which was readily detected in the distillates of nitrofuchsin or nigrosine melts, and could not be found if pure nitro bodies had been used. In view of the discussion in German periodicals about the possible formation of benzene or toluene during the fuchsin melt, i t appears that a great many of the German products a t the time were no purer than Jayne’s. The following prices may be of interest as applying to the time before 1903: salt, $3.15 to $4.70 a ton of 2000 pounds in bulk, f. 0. b. Newark; iron borings, $9.00 to $10.00 a gross ton delivered. Domestic nitrite of soda was used for many years. Harrison Bros., Graves, of Philadelphia, and the National Lead Company manufactured it until replaced by the Norwegian air fixation product, which was available in the New York market at less than 5 cents. American manufacturers of dyes appealed from the very outset for trade to industries that were typically American, such as paper, paint, lakes, varnish, furniture, leather, leather
Vol. 16, No. 4
dressings and polishes. Great and proper credit should be given to them for the skill, patience, and perseverance shown in the intelligent study and solution of the various dyestuff problems of these industries. Much of the inspiration in these lines that had been obtained by foreign manufacturers, on analysis, will be found to be directly traceable to the early pioneer work of American manufacturers.
THETARIFF IN
THE PAST
Tariffs come and go, and will continue to do so. Without referring to any in particular between the years 1870 and 1914 or any precise phraseology, aniline colors, or coal-tar colors and dyes as they were more accurately called later on, were usually assessed at higher rates than other articles of the chemical schedule. Many chemicals were on the free list. The attempts to segregate certain dyes from the dyestuff paragraph have persisted through all tariffs on the quibble that they were not dyes, or not that kind of dye, or not commercially known as dyes and therefore entitled to free entry or lower rates of duty. Chemists, merchants, and experts, with the indispensable lawyer, appear before custom-house authorities and the courts. Much valuable time that should have gone into constructive effort is wasted in preparing and filing briefs, and appearing in person or through paid experts as witness or litigant in defense of one’s O m .
A few of the prominent.litigated cases were: 1-Orange, fast red, orange IV, should not be classed as aniline colors at 35 per cent and 50 cents a pound, but as articles not specified at 20 per cent. 2-Bromofluorescein is not a dyestuff, but an acid for manufacturing purposes and entitled to free entry. 3-Gallocyan and corulein are not coal-tar dyes, but dyes derived from anthracene and entitled to free entry. 4-Rosaniline and the whole line of basic dye bases are not coal-tar colors and dyes, but coal-tar products with a lower rate of duty. No matter how these cases may have been finally decided, this was quibbling. AMERICAN DYESTUFFS-PRESENT The profits of enterprise should be sufficient to cover liberally amortization, obsolescence, dividends, reserves for much more than absolutely necessary research, and a surplus for reasonable expansion out of these profits. Good salaries or their e$uivalent should be possible as an incentive to high type individuals to associate themselves with the enterprise. Are the present selling prices of the products of the American dyestuff industry sufficiently high to meet all these postulates? We are all interested in positive supplies a t reasonably low and not too greatly fluctuating values-such as of soda ash, caustic soda, ammonia, acids, coal-tar crudes (benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene, phenol, etc.). Have we reason to be satisfied with the present situation, or as it seems to loom up for the future? AMERICAN DYESTUFFS AND INTERMEDIATES IN THE FUTURE The newcomers are probably best qualified to speak. What are they and what are we all driving at? Too much stress has been put on the elimination of Germany. France, Great Britain, Switzerland, and other countries have aims identical with ours. This means a restriction of markets and intensified competition a t home, where actual and potential capacities exceed many times the ultimate maximum home demand and, in the case of a-naphthylamine, 0-naphthol, or-naphthol, aniline, etc., of the entire world. Do we expect to sell in world’s markets, with our so-called standard of living, the fallacy of the living wage, the terrorism of union organization, and consequent high price of labor and everything? Have we got dependable, steady labor, or are we hampered in every possible way in the effort to create and keep an effective organiza-
.4pril, 1924
I-VD USTRIAL A X D EATGIn’EERIATGCHEMIXTRY
tion? There are many problems that need intelligent economic solution-possibly not by what appeals t o the individual vanity of every one of us, namely, the consolation that it will be a survival of the fittest. I n this it is forgotten that the efficient pay the penalty and very often do not live sufficiently long to survive.
Washington’s Relation to the Dye Industry Prior to 1914 By Charles E. Munroe and Aida M. Doyle GEORGEWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.
T
HERE can be no proper historical review of industries in the United States, and particularly in their foreign relations, without taking into consideration the records of governmental action relating to them. While the difficulties encountered in the manufacture of organic synthetics are very real ones, records in Washington show that the most vital struggles of the coal-tar industry have resulted from constantly changing tariffs, with their attendant effects upon imports, patent registration, and even upon training in our universities. The struggle waged by the coal-tar industry has been a threecornered one, between a handful of domestic manufacturers, patient, persevering, and patriotic, trying to preserve the integrity of the home industry, lined up against a small army of importers and trained technicians from abroad, seeking to destroy that industry a t any sacrifice, working in unison with large organized bodies of domestic consumers, who have invariably thrown their powerful influence with the foreigners. The same arguments have been used for fifty years, one of the principal ones being that increased cost of dyes due to a high protective tariff would make finished products too expensive to compete in foreign markets. Yet a careful study of hearings before congressional committees, of sworn statements and letters, shows that figures substantiating these claims are conspicuous by their absence. Meanwhile, substantial tariffs on textiles and other products employing colors have been maintained, additional tax being exacted when goods were dyed.
PERSONNEL Probably in an experimental way small amounts of coal-tar colors were made in this country during the ten years succeeding the discovery of mauve, but the first record is that of a branch of an English concern, T. & C. Holliday, which located in Albany, N. Y., on or before 1866, and which sold out in 1868 to the Albany Aniline & Chemical Company, an American company with James ’I?. Hendrick as president.’ In 1879 the Schoellkopf Aniline & Chemical Company located in Buffalo, N. Y., and in 1882 four American firms were appellants at a tariff hearing-Schoellkopf, of Buffalo, N. Y.; T. & C. Holliday of Williamsburg, N. Y.; Heller & Merz, of Newark, N. J., and the American Aniline Works, of Parkersburg, W. Va., A representative of the Levinstein Company, England, claimed a t that hearing that his company manufactured here, as well as imported. The Albany Coal Tar & Chemical Company, two firms in Philadelphia, and a Boston house were also mentioned a t various hearings. The Albany Coal Tar & Chemical Company and the Albany Aniline & Chemical Works, both of Albany,N. Y., also William J. Matheson and the Leeds Manufacturing Company, of Brooklyn, N. Y.,and James H. Stebbins and Edward N. Dickerson, Jr., of New York City, appeared among assignees of patents registered a t this time in the Patent Office. The Hudson River Aniline & Color Works was mentioned in tariff hearings in 1889. 1 Tariff Hearing, 1882, Vol. I, pp. 207 a n d 253; also letter of H. K. Lansing, treasurer, a n d testimony of James Hendrick, president.
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At different periods, therefore, about ten companies were engaged in coal-tar dye manufacture during the twenty years of greatest activity. Owing to the tariff of 1883 most of these were forced out of business, and the number eventually dropped to three. New companies started in a small way later, so that in 1914 seven firms ostensibly were engaged in coal-tar dye manufacture in the United States.
TARIFFS Prior to 1914 tariff legislation governing dyestuffs had been enacted sixteen times. The first tariff, which was laid by the first Congress in 1789, just after the war for independence, admitted drugs and dyewoods free, while indigo was taxed 16 cents a pound. The cultivation of natural indigo was an important activity in the early days, indigo raised in India and imported by England being its chief competitor. Tariffs upon indigo fluctuated from 16 cents in 1789 to 25 cents in 1790, to 15 cents in 1816, 20 cents in 1828, 25 cents in 1829, 15 cents in 1832, and in 1833 indigo was admitted free. Thus the home industry was displaced after a forty-four year struggle. Although thirteen years later indigo was again taxed 30 per cent ad valorem, which tariff held for fifteen years, the industry never revived. In 1862, during another great war, the first mention of aniline colors in tariffs appeared as a tax of 25 per cent ad valorem, while indigo and its extracts and dyewood extracts were lowered t o 10 per cent. This was six years after the first aniline dye had been discovered, four years prior to any record of manufacture or of importation in this country, and three years before the Badische works in Germany were founded. I n 1864, antedating any record of manufacture here by two years, aniline dyes were amply protected by a tariff of $1.00 a pound and 35 per cent ad valorem. Indigo carmine was taxed 20 per cent. Thus the aniline dye industry in this country was started with every promise of success, but in 1870 the duty was lowered to 50 cents a pound and 35 per cent ad valorem, while aniline oil made its first appearance among specific items and was admitted free. Thirteen years later the tariff of 1883 reduced the duty on anilines to 35 per cent ad valorem, and later to 30 per cent, the specific duty being removed, while coal-tar products not dyes were given 20 per cent, later 15 per cent ad valorem, or a net margin of 15 per cent protection. Aniline oil, aniline salts, alizarin, and natural and artificial indigo were admitted free. This time the combined foreign forces had taken but nineteen years to kill the home industry.
IMPORTS Henry A. Gould, of Boston, claimed to have brought in the first thousand pounds of imported aniline dyes in 1866. He has told of the difficulties encountered in disposing of this lot within six months, but in the succeeding six months $75,000 worth of imported dyes were easily sold. The first official record of importations was in 1867, when 27,000 pounds worth $83,000 were entered under a duty of $1.00 a pound and 35 per cent ad valorem. During the following four years imports increased, and a t the same time unit values rose from $3.06 to $4.28 a pound of dye, In 1871 the duty was reduced to 50 cents and 35 per cent ad valorem, when imports immediately doubled and continued to climb until in 1883 they amounted to $1,200,000, or six times the amount under the previous tariff. Meanwhile unit values gradually decreased to $1.20 a pound, due to home competition, as this was the period of greatest activity in domestic manufacture. The tariff of 1883 cut off 50 cents specific duty, leaving 35 per cent ad valorem and a margin of but 15 per cent over raw materials. The average duty, based on import valuation, had mounted from 47 per cent in 1867 to 77 per cent, when the new rate of 1883 suddenly dropped i t to less than half. By 1893 imports had again doubled, and amounted to $2,400,000. With further lowering of the duty to 25 per cent in 1894, and a slight
