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supremacy. “My Country ’Tis of Thee” suggests no paeon of triumph over enemies; nor can I find in the history of our country that a noble woman engaged in deeds of mercy has been stood up against a wall and shot to death. I cannot find in the annals of my country that passenger ships, carrying no cargoes of munitions, but loaded with women and children, have been ruthlessly destroyed. I have not noticed thousands of my Eellow-countrymen wearing medals commemorative of such an inhuman event. I have never seen any round robin signed by the scientific men and professors in our colleges commending such an action on the part of our Government. I have never known the United States to deliberately and contemptuously disregard its own sacred agreement not to violate the territory of a helpless neighbor. I have never read any account of the United States military authorities breaking up the homes of an occupied enemy territory, sending the able-bodied men to military prisons and deporting children to our own country, never again to see their parents. There is a deep-spread impression among the unbiased economists and bankers of this country that Germany has deliberately made her currency worthless, as a basis for pleading the “baby act” to excuse her from repaying the damages assessed against her. If German science has deteriorated to the extent of the German political economy, there is no use shedding tears for our lack of fraternity. As I read my ancient history, especially that part of it written by Caesar, I learn that “Omnis Gallia” extended to the Rhine. The Rhine is, moreover, a natural barrier. Nature never intended that Gaul should be dismembered. Probably a lasting peace will not be restored in Europe until the plan of nature and the dream of Napoleon Bonaparte are again realized. By the time this millennium appears we will have forgotten the inhumanity of our scientific brothers beyond the Rhine and will be ready to admit them to complete fraternity, HARVEY W. WILEY WASHINGTON, D. C. March 11. 1923
Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: With much that Dr. Wiley writes I am in hearty accord. He seems to have overlooked the statement in my article, that “both slogans are also used in the sense of a patriotic international rivalry with no thought of injury to others.” I n saying that every European nation was responsible, in part, for the militarism which has cursed Europe for fifty years or more, I did not say equally responsible. I am inclined to agree that Germany was more responsible than others, especially in the policy following the Franco-Prussian war, but the roots of the difficulty go back to the Napoleonic wars and further. If Dr. Wiley will read the treaty of Versailles again he will find there pensions for British and French soldiers. In the supplement to L e Temps for October, 1922, page 6, is given a summary of “reparations” due France which includes 15 billion francs already paid for pensions and an estimate of 47 billion francs to be paid from now till 1990. I make no apology for German brutalities during the war nor for the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, and I agree with Dr. Wiley that ruthless German profiteers are partly responsible for the economic ruin which is coming over Germany, but I cannot agree that that is a sufficient reason why France should refuse to accept Secretary Hughes’s plan of a commission of experts who should determine how much Germany can and should pay. W. A. N o m s URBANA, ILL. March 12, 1923
Vol. 15, No. 4
Bricklayers and Chemists Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: In a recent number of THISJOURNAL are advertisements for six chemists wanted and twenty chemists wanting positions. I n to-day’s Chicago News are advertisements of 33 men wanting positions and SO1 men wanted, or twenty-four times as many vacancies as men. Among these men wanted are eight laborers at $27 per week, sixteen bricklayers a t $72 per week, and one chemist a t $30 per week. What has H. W. Jordan to say about this? D. DAVIDSON 4309 ELLISAve. CHICAGO, Ill. March 5, 1923
Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: The advertisement described by Dr. Davidson confirms m y frequent prediction that creative, research chemistry and engineering would slow down. Also the flattering “It is a chemists’ war” brought a flood of young graduates who, added to the torrent of near and pseudo chemists trained during 1918 to read burets to 0.1 cc., have inflated the profession numerically and punctured it financially. The main processes of chemistry have become static and require only routine. The financial executives of many large plants have dropped their older chemists of twenty or thirty years’ experience, under the excuse of economy, and have demoted the younger ones to routine plantcontrol analysis. Research is tolerated rather than sought. Promotion prospects suffer from low visibility, and ambitious, restless chemists shift to other positions a t lower salary in the hope of better chances. The colleges with swollen registration of three or four thousand turn out far more white-collar workers than industry can absorb. There is a glut in the brain-working professions. I n contrast, organized labor restricts apprentices and few employees attempt to train them. Building contractors say that in ten years there will be scarcely any masons or carpenters, because so few youths are undertaking those trades. Eighty per cent of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers are reported to have sent children to college. Thousands of Greeks, Slavs, and similar foreigners of the labor type are bootlegging, shining shoes, delivering telegrams, carrying ice water, and doing other luxury work and boys’ tasks. Organized labor has about two hundred schools with twenty thousand ambitious young folks studying economics, civics, and oratory, preparatory to promoting the rights of labor. The duties are not so interesting. They are neglected options. Meanwhile, chemists and engineers remain in civic coma, exeept for the little group of forward-looking men who center in the Federated American Engineering Societies. Another labor factor is the host of parasites who receive doles of coal, food, and rent from community chests and associated charities. This army, numbering about 15 per cent of our city populations, is recruited from those industrial workers who are incapacitated by preventable disease, bad housing, inherited physical inferiority, and coddled shiftlessness. They cost more than $500,000 a year in Syracuse. Science and sense applied to elimination of the causes of their troubles would cut that figure in half and add regiments to our working force. Proper psychological tests would eliminate 10 to 25 per cent of freshmen before they get fresh, and steer them back to plow, trowel, and hammer, instead of letting them clutter up college. These worthy but misguided boys of C and - C grade would earn bigger wages and be better citizens in vocations that fit
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their capacity. They need education like that given at Tuskegee to prepare them for constructive, creative life. Churches and Masonic lodges could do a work of sublime Christianity by helping able-bodied English mechanics and craftsmen to come over and settle in America. Two hundred dollars judiciously spent would bring a man here and establish him so that he could pay back the money or use it to bring over others. We have lost our immigration contacts with the northern people of our own blood. We should start the stream westward again and fill our quota with our sort of folks. Pastors and masters abroad would cooperate with us in selecting sturdy young men from the three million unemployed of England. These are some of the reasons why bricklayers and chemists are a t the ratio of 16 to 1 and $72 to $30 per week. H. W. JORDAN 133 STOLP AVE. SYRACUSE, N. Y. March 14, 1923
A Letter from Germany Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: Germany is still suffering from the lack of necessities of life, foods and raw materials, which a land as rich in these materials as America can hardly comprehend. Even the outlook for the future still is very gloomy, chiefly because the prices of the raw materials and the products made from them have already practically reached the world’s market price. For several months Germany, which in former years exported chemicals all over the world, has had to import from other countries such important products as sulfuric acid and chromium salts. Considered purely superficially-that is, according to their dividends and business budgets--certain industries appear to be in excellent condition; but if these are changed to a gold basis, they amount, in most instances, to a very small percentage. For example, a big company recently distributed a dividend of half a gold mark. The only outlook For improvement offered to Germany is through eastern and southeastern Europe, to which the whole German economic life will have to turn gradually. In the meantime, German chemical industry is trying to continue in the same way in which it has made its greatest progress-namely, to carry on manufacturing processes in a scientific spirit. Recently, therefore, the interest of chemical research and science has turned to the textile industry. The textile industry of Germany was, until lately, somewhat inferior to that of other countries, although in the field of dyes Germany was able to compete with other nations in the world’s production. For about ten years there has been in existence the “Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften,” and by this was founded in December of last year the “Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fiir Gaserstoffchemie,” which will make a thorough study of the structure of textile fibers and from this draw conclusions regarding the handling of such fibers. Glycylalanine anhydride, which has been found in proteins, seems to be an inportant constituent of silk. Several methods have also been worked out which make possible a factory control in the textile industry; up to this time it was thought that this problem could not be solved. Germany is a poor country in raw materials. This was shown especially during the war, when efforts were made to obtain sulfur and sulfuric acid from gypsum and other sulfates. I n this connection the sulfur patents of the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik and of other firms may be mentioned, in which, for example, barium sulfate is mixed with coal and heated in the electric furnace; the primarily formed barium sulfide, reacting with the excess of barium sulfate, forms sulfur dioxide. Recently F. Martin and 0. Fuchs made the very important observation
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that if iron, instead of coal, is used as a reducing agent, the alkaliearth sulfates can be readily reduced to the sulfides with the formation of sulfuric acid. The highest yields are obtained from calcium sulfate using the mixture CaSOe 4- 16/15 Fe, giving theoretically 80 per cent sulfur dioxide, and from strontium sulfate using the mixture SrSOc 4-8/9 Fe, giving theoretically 88.9 per cent of sulfur dioxide. In practice pyrites is used for the reduction of gypsum. Besides the production of sulfur dioxide the formation of small amounts of sulfur was observed, and without doubt the development of this process will be important for the industry. A certain sensation was created in chemical and medical circles by the new preparation, “Bayer 205,” which forms anew class of trypanosome medicines. It does not contain mercury, arsenic, antimony, or other ordinary therapeutic agents, but belongs to a new class of highly complicated, organic synthetic compounds. After the medicine was tested with good results in the laboratories of the dye factories formerly belonging to Friedrich Bayer & Company in Leverkusen, the English government permitted a German expedition under Professor Kleine to test the medicine in Rhodesia on monkeys, other animals, and men. According to the experimental data published a short time ago, the medicine has proved a success in sleeping sickness and nagana, and this has been contirmed recently by the English physicians. The endeavors in the medico-chemical field to combat cancer are also worth mentioning. Research has been turned to the study of selenium compounds and has been carried out especially by Professor Wassermann. Bismuth compounds . also have been applied by Wassermann and his collaborators to combat syphilis. WALTERROTH GBTHEN,GERMANY February 1, 1923
The Rapid Determination of Potash in Acid-Insoluble Silicates-Addendum Editor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: In a recent article in THISJOURNAL, 15 (1923), 163, under the above title, I failed to make any reference to a publication in THIS JOURNAL,13 (1921), 225, by Prof. Jerome J. Morgan, entitled “A New Method for the Determination of Potassium in Silicates,” in which he also used perchloric acid as a substitute for sulfuric acid in silicate analysis. My work was completed and published in ignorance of Professor Morgan’s article. He has called my attention to it in a private communication, however, and was evidently the first to decide on perchloric acid as a substitute for sulfuric acid in the determination of potash in silicates. MANUEL M. GREEN DEPARTMENT VF CHEMISTRY MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CAMBRIDGE, MASS. February 26, 1923
A New Bottle for Carbon Dioxide and Moisture-Correction In the article under the title above [THIS JOURNAL, 15 (1923), 2661, in the second table, under date of December 14, the figure for grams of carbon dioxide should read 0.4357. WILLIAME. MORGAN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY N E W YORK,N. Y. March 8, 1923
