Chemical Engineering WALTER J . MURPHY, Editor
News An Impossible Task JL his Week Magazine for Dec. 14 has an interesting inter pretative article on "What D o You Know About the VlcCarran Act?," by Louise Levitas. She points out among 3ther things: "In fact, it will be up to the Immigration Service consular officials to do the selecting, guided Dy some still undefined phrases in the act. For instance, t h e first 50% of all the immigrants admitted here each year—in addition to prov ing their good health, good morals, and good political com plexion—must be people (in the word of the act) 'whose services are determined by the Attorney General to be needed urgently in the United States because of the high education, technical training, specialized experience, or exceptional ability of such immigrants and t o be substantially beneficial prospectivelv to the national economy, cultural interests, or welfare of tne United States/ " Just how would one go about proving such qualifications and essentiality for a particular individual? It sounds un workable to us. Author Levitas goes on to say: "One of the tough problems which the act hands over to the Immigration Service is that of determining, with the help of the Department of Labor, which immigrant jobs would b e most important to the United States, and at the same time which slcills would compete with our own labor and therefore be unwanted. Service officers anticipate they will have to referee a perpetual contest among applicants from small quota countries to prove w h o is most skilled and most urgently needed. " 'There's going to be a conflict of interests here among organizations4 petitioning for immigrants/ one of the officers prophesied, and then we'll get arguments, for instance from soda jerkers who want to b e classified as chemists/ " A tew specific examples would prove quickly the difficulty of trying to show that the special qualifications of some highly skilled person at the professional level who wants to migrate to America are unmatched here. Seldom will you fina that two people in a profession have exactly duplicate qualifications, training, and experiences even though they are specialists in the same field. This is a problem which poses s o many practical diffi culties of administration that it seems likely Congress will be forced to take corrective action.
Missing α Golden Opportunity A FEW days ago we sat through a sound motion picture extolling the virtues of a certain class of consumer products made from chemicals. T h e color photography was out of this world and w e honestly believe the general public would be deeply impressed with the products described. The picture, strictly from a sales promotion angle, was wonderful, but w e had two criticisms of it when the show was over. The chemical industry through a "pilot plant" study of public opinion conducted by Opinion Research of Princeton, N. J., has discovered that people think well of the chemical profession but have certain reservations about the chemical industry.
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A golden opportunity was missed in our opinion ( 1 ) to show that the consumer products described really are chemi cals-and are made from chemicals, thus giving the viewer a clear-cut understanding of the benefits to be derived from the manufacture of chemicals. That while some stink, others are poisonous, and some others are flammable or explosive, chemicals are essential to raising the standard of living of millions; ( 2 ) to show that chemists, chemical engineers, and other scientists and technologists are the ones who are mak ing this rise in the standard of living possible. We have viewed quite a few industrial pictures not sub ject to these criticisms, but we have seen many that are right fully criticized by the members of the chemical profession. The great chemical industry can do much constructively to show that it is the chemical industry and it is the chemist and the chemical engineer who make possible new alloys and metals, antibiotics, drags, libers, paints, plastics, rubber, etc. Every time a motion picture, radio or television show, newspaper or magazine advertisement, paid for by a chemi cal company or une whose operations essentially are based cm chemistry, fails to bring out the two points mentioned, is just another golden opportunity missed to practice good public relations in behalf of the industry and the profession.
A Dynamic. Living History I N THE field of chemistry it is necessary to go forward or backward; there is no remaining static. Chemical science and the chemical and chemical process industries have gone forward with tremendous strides and are still keeping up the pace. The need to go forward holds equally for the AMERI CAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, an organization which is an integral part of the most dynamic field of this century. How well the ACS has accomplished this objective during the first 75 years of its existence is described in a new 5 2 6 page history of the Society just issued. The early growth of the ACS is feelingly described by Charles Albert Browne. At the time of his death in 1947, Dr. Browne had spent three fruitful years in working on the ACS story. The final chapters were completed by Mary Elvira Weeks. Fittingly enough, the book ends with a description,of a historic event in ACS history: the Diamond Jubilee. Another publication, "Chemistry . . . Key to Better Living/* issued by the ACS at the time of the Jubilee, may be considered as a companion volume. The "Key" places more emphasis on the relationship be tween the ACS and the industries in which chemistry plays a leading role. In so doing, it presents detailed histories of the ACS divisions. Most of the divisional histories interpret the» contribution the· ACS has made to the growth of Ameri can industry, thus demonstrating the service the Society has made to the health and welfare of the nation. Copies of "A History of the AMEIUCAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY"
are available at a cost of $5.00. T h e 244-page "Chemistry . . . Key to Better Living*' is available at a cost of $4.00. A special combination price of $7.50 has been set for both of these complementary' volumes. Orders may be placed with the Special Publications Department. AMI;HK:AN CIIKMICAI. SOCIETY, 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington
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