Industry's Role in Strengthening Fundamental Research G E O R G E A . S L O A N , President, The Nutrition Foundation, Inc., New York, Ν . Υ. ^ f / BILE we, as a Nation, are trying to ^ ^ give the utmost of our resources, both human and material, in the war effort, we are looking ahead and planning for those now far from home a civilian economy worthy of the sacrifices wnich they are making. In so doing, we must preserve and strengthen those aspects of our way of life which have stood the test of time. In our anxiety for the future, while living in the precarious present, it i s to be expected that we shall listen to many promises. And many promises are lield out to us today—promises beyond the victory, promises of what victory will bring, and promises of fundamental changes in domestic and world economics. It is well that we encourage hopes for improvement and that we seek new oppor tunities, but we must be realistic. No international, national, or purely prrvate planning is going to change economic fundamentals. Genesis of Employment In our discussions of postwar problems, I sometimes have the feeling that there is too much emphasis on employment, without sufficient consideration of the means by which employment is sustained. Too many well-intentioned individuals are promising full employment. Everyone likes the musical sound of "full employment". But we cannot make a synthetic recovery out of symphonic headlines. No economist has as yet instrumented the score of full employaient. If it should ever be done, business will embrace it, for there is no music so symphonious to the ear of management as a plant running to capacity withi full em ployment. Markets are not developed nor produc tion justified by promises that are in conflict with the fundamental law of supply and demand. If the full em ployment planners will come down to earth long enough to see that consumer demand must occur before useful and profitable employment can ensue, and that violent and destructive fluctuations in employment can be dealt wifch only by cooperative effort in industry t o foresee and forestall these fluctuations, and not by mere exhortation to industry to operate irrespective of demand, then we shall understand where to apply our efforts in developing a sound economy and a healthy social structure. The real problem is one of making the most intelligent and efficient use of all V O L U M E ' S 8, N O .
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our national resources. In dealing with these postwar problems we shall find that there are many things that can be done better by voluntary cooperation than by individuals or by government directives. It is easy to put the brakes upon industry. But industry goes ahead as a result of incentives, and not by repression or com pulsion. The unemployed cannot be put to work, or kept at work, in any other democratic way. I do not think I overstate the case when I say that the public, generally, looks with increasing hopefulness to scien tific research as one of the principal means of solving postwar economic problems. The constant improvement in American living conditions; the over-all increase in employment and income through the years, accompanied by less drudgery and more leisure; the ever-rising standard of personal dignity and development; the advances in public health; and the gradual progress toward elimination of poverty—all stem, to a considerable degree, from constructive cooperative effort plus our extraordinary technical advancement through scientific research.
I do not mean to suggest that we rest on these achievements. On the contrary, we must strive always to improve our system of private initiative and enterprise to the end that it will be of increasing service to everyone. Specifically, I am urging that more and more people, in and out of government, recognize cooperative action in industry and between industries, as a constructive economic power, and not as an economic sin. We have reached a new stage in our industrial evolution. In the early, primi tive stages, important advances were often the work of single men. Today progress in many fields depends on patient and expensive research. Very often the technological conditions are such that important advances can be achieved only by combining the contributions of many men, or by the cooperation of several business organizations. Such things can be done only by voluntary action. They cannot be done by government directive. I am urging too that more industrial concerns and groups take the initiative in developing a longtime point of view in scientific research. By gaining more fundamental and technical knowledge, industry can strengthen the system of enterprise in the satisfaction of individual wants. Every worthwhile discovery adds to the demand, makes new business, and creates opportunities for gainful work, increasing employment, however, is a corollary and not an artificial precedent to these de velopments. Manufacturers themselves do not make employment, except as they bring out products acceptable to and desired by their customers. It is in this element of consumer demand that we find the genesis of employment. It is in research to satisfy this demand that we find the most power ful contribution to prosperity and a higher standard of living.
*/he teal psvo&lem o£ frdl emfdoifment id> one o£ makùtf the modt intelligent and efficient 4*âe o£ all out natural teéouàceé,, acc&uUnp to Qeo*ae A. Sloan, Ptedident o£ the A/ntUtion foundation, 9ησ~ /IdxU&Llna the institute of Good ^ecnnoloaidU at the, Zdaeutate* Beach Jfciel, Gluccufo, Man 2.9, he uUiêied that in dealing oiith fveetutal· ptoalemd. toe ohatl fcnd thene one manu tUinaé, that can ie do*te oett&t Itu voluntas* coopération than ùu in~ diitiduald utoJzi+uf. independently ΟΛ in fOue*nment diiectiveé» JUNE
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Research, Supply and Demand, and Employment Great progress has been made in scientific research, resulting in continued improvements in quality of product and lower cost production. Likewise, advances have been made in commercial research aimed at mass distribution and greater usefulness and serviceability of product. These gains have been based on recognition of the workings of supply and demand and of the fundamental importance of adjusting production to everchanging consumer requirements. Only in this way can industrial enterprise function and grow. Show me the leading manufacturers in any industry that have experienced a successful record of fair earnings to stockholders, fair wages to employees, and relatively stable employment, and I will show you a business where scientific research has played a major part, and where progressive management has applied its scientific knowledge to improved supply for public consumption. It is significant that more than 2,000 corporations in the I'nited States now maintain industrial laboratories which carry on research of a scientific nature. In the present emergency many of these plants were able to accomplish results of far-reaching importance in the development of new weapons and other essential military equipment. Without these established research organizations, such rapid progress would have been impossible. Countless small plants, spurred on by war demands and postwar needs for new and improved uses, are forging ahead in the same manner. The more efficient ones will be the large employers of tomorrow. That is America! One of the miracles of our generation is the way in which research men in industry are learning to gear in their development of practical accomplishments with the exploratory or fundamental types of research that characterize our university .and industrial laboratories. This team play in a sympathetic atmosphere goes a long way in obviating some of the difficulties which faced both types of research men in the past. The Doubters Advances will not be made without certain public doubtings, and there will be those who will still ridicule, for that has always been the history of man's attitude toward discovery. Pasteur was criticized by many of his own contemporaries because his ideas were so new concerning both resistance to disease and the spoilage of food supplies. Lavoisier first demonstrated that our food intake supplies energy for the human body, and Lavoisier was beheaded for his revolutionary ideas. In his first basic discoveries concerning the nature of e'ectric currents, Faraday 914
was criticized by tir political friends for working at such useless things. Yet Faraday predicted that some day these very expérimenta would lay a foundation for the payment of taxes! The first experiments with blood transfusion led to a murder charge. Denis, the scientist, was exonerated but further transfusions were specifically prohibited by Act of Parliament. More than 200 years went by before we learned of the necessity of matching types of blood. Early railroad locomotives were limited to 15 miles per hour. It was believed that passengers could not live at higher than horse-drawn speeds. In all these centuries of progress, the greatest share of which has been in our lifetime, the doubters are ever present. These persons of little imagination cannot believe what they have not seen, and some times disbelieve their own senses. Fortunately for mankind, our scientists and those who have supported their work have carried on. To an important extent our present civilization is the product of their labor, often at the risk of life savings and even of life itself. Ever-Expanding Frontiers From time to time we are told that our frontiers have all been explored. The only comfort we can derive from such assertions is the proof they afford that our radio and press are still free to all points of view. Industrial applications of atomic energy, supersonice, synthetic fuels, radio frequency waves, the use of invisible rays in photography, and many new ways of preserving health—these all serve as examples of new horizons. Throughout the history of scientific research, unexpected discoveries and byproducts have often outweighed original objectives in potential value and use. It is the "behind the veil" unknown opportunity which inspires risking of funds, equipment, and lifetimes of effort and in the end leads to the "more abundant life". In the study of thin films as soaps and lubricants, an industrial laboratory found unexpected results in optical science. Chemical research has expanded the family tree of petroleum and coal until the number of industrial descendants is legion. The ascendancy of our air forces in this war is to a great degree due to American petroleum-cracking applications. In the background of this development is a long period of intense theoretical study of the principles of catalysis. Our chemical engineers were fully abreast, if not in the lead, in putting new discoveries into production on the tremendous scale needed for war. We think of cattle, corn, peanuts, and soybeans primarily as food. In the future we will think of them also as sources of penicillin, synthetic fibers, hormones, vitamins, plastics, and a host of new
CHEMICAL
products which will increase the return to the farmers who raise them. Food Research Largely within one generation, the Nation has passed from a stage in which most of our food supply went directly from the farm to the consumer, to our present development in which the food industry processes and distributes a large and growing part of our total food supply. Why has this happened? Primarily because an organized, competitive, and scientifically guided industry can do the job much more efficiently. Within the structure of normal adjustments to supply and demand, the industry can provide better foods to the public at low cost. The whole social and economic order gains by the transition. The application of science to the industry can bring about another great objective. Besides producing the required quantity of food at lower cost, it is possible to produce and make available to the public more of the protective foods that are needed for optimum health. Here indeed is a challenge that calls for the best effort of an enlightened industry, working at the frontier of a new science. To illustrate this point, witness the rapidity with which citrus and other tropical fruits have been made available wherever there is modem transportation, over the entire world. In parallel with this greater consumption of citrus fruits, the tomato, which meets a similar need for rural and low-income groups especially, has become a standard food in every home. Or witness the rate at which milk and dairy products, in stable packaged form, are being extended as harbingers of health to all corners of the earth. Choice cuts of meat are frozen or canned and distributed to our troops from the equator to the arctic circle. Within a 3-year period, white flour and other cereal products enriched with vitamins and minerals have reached nearly every home in America. The food industry is peculiarly responsible to the public, beyond the usual considerations of efficiency, courtesy, and low costs. Its leaders are increasingly alert and responsive to the need for viewing our food supply as basic to public health. The practical problems of industry are therefore inescapably interwoven with the science of nutrition, and we may look forward to the increasing role of the scientist in guiding the policies of an expanding food industry. Just as the chemists and engineers are guiding the production of new and superior alloys, plastics, and fuels, so will scientists in the food industry develop better processed and protectively packaged foods. This will mean constant attention to the basic science of nutrition as a guide to what the public needs in its food supply. It is not enough merely to develop products that the consumer will prefer to buy.
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It seems inescapable then that in this as in other industries, the basis of leadership among individual firms and among the nations of the world will be research and careful provision for trained personnel. As a business man, I have had enough contact with the medical profession and with research men to see clearly that there are great gaps in our knowledge concerning what a man needs to eat. The war, too, has focused attention upon the magnitude and the critical importance of the problem. From a practical as well as a humanitarian point of view, is there any better way of maintaining public confidence and freedom of action, within the framework of a sound economy, than to foresee the public need of foods that provide for optimum health? The Nutrition Foundation In organizing the Nutrition Foundation and in building its program, we are serving the public and implementing the development of the food industry in a new way, but we are building on solid ground. Well-trained technical manpower is an important asset to every industry. On our fellowships at graduate student and postdoctorate levels, more than 200 young people of special promise are receiving training in nutrition research. They are working in outstanding research centers, in a nation-wide integrated program. They are extending the frontiers of basic information while receiving their training. The subject matter coverage in our program is broad—perhaps its general nature can be illustrated by citing what is being done in a single field, our studies on proteins: 1. Two university groups are finding which parts of our protein foods are essential for human nutrition. These studies are rapidly developing the first clear picture of the basic human protein requirement. 2. Two additional groups are making direct comparisons of typical high-protein foods, to extend the data obtained from the fundamental studies cited. There was immediate need, partly as a result of the war, for information concerning the relative protein value of certain foods. 3 . Four laboratories are being aided by the foundation in developing methods of protein analysis. 4. Three laboratories receive assistance in their studies to find out how the protein fragments function inside the body. We are also supporting studies on carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals, but for each of these major nutrient groups the corresponding types of basic information are being developed as complementary and not competitive with the research efforts of individual processors. The work of the Nutrition Foundation is a striking example of the ability of individual firms to see beyond thé confines of their own immediate interest, in the use of cooperative effort toward the broader general good, from which each unit and the public will benefit. Not uncommonly, we find it possible to
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facilitate friendly contacts between technical men in the food industry and leading men in related phases of university, government, and medical work. A considerable part of our program deals directly with relations of nutrition to human health. It is a challenging picture to realize that according to careful estimates, approximately 900,000 infants each year in the United States would get a distinctly healthier start in life if their mothers followed good eating practices during gestation! What could be accomplished if all people ate the food they need? No one can answer that question fully, but there is increasing evidence that food manufacturers can do much to bring about a solution of the problem. The consuming public must do its part, of course, but the industry can do much to educate and hold the confidence of the public in parallel with its search for clear, scientific guidance. In doing so, they will not only ensure their own further development, but will also make a historic contribution for the good of humanity. Textile Research Turning from food to some of the other basic industries, I can assure you that things are stirring in the age-old textile industry. Whatever may have been its attitude in the past, textile manufacture is now on its way to joining the front ranks of research-minded industries. After the war, the effect will impress itself upon the consciousness of the general public. True, there will not immediately appear futuristic models of garments, any more than there will be a sudden blossoming of new models of automobiles. But in a very short time, fabrics will have versatility and durability unheard of before. There are also promises of important developments in textile machinery and processes. No piece of standard textile equipment existing today has any assurance of permanence. Research looking to drastic changes in the manufacture of finishing machinery will tend more and more to enable a textile manufacturer to go from here to there in a straight line. Textile research is being shaped to follow four broad lines: fundamental scientific research, applied technical research, economic research, and research tied to the production of scientifically trained personnel on the graduate level. The combination of these four major types of research is basic to all industries. It represents a maturity in our appreciation of gearing in scientific research with the practical needs of humanity. Synthetic Rubber The experimentation in synthetic rubber which was carried on for 20 years prior to the war by the rubber and petroleum industries was made available to the Government immediately after the fall
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of Singapore. The knowledge of the chemists and other scientists of the rubber and petroleum companies was pooled to reach a solution of the problem. Since Singapore, the major task has been the development of production processes to meet exacting military requirements and improvement of the product. . The development of rubberlike materials is still in its infancy. The time is not far distant when research will have advanced to the point where the industrial laboratory can make a product to suit special needs instead of getting along with the characteristics of a single material. This will tend to free the industry from the violent price fluctuations which have characterized the crude rubber market throughout its history. Whether crude rubber continues to be used in the same quantities as before, its price will be governed by a steady and gradually decreasing price of synthetic materials. For this we can thank scientific research and the prewar established channels of mass distribution. Studies of chemicals suitable for making rubber have developed familiarity with the chemistry of a wide variety of materials which offer untold possibilities for the making of solvents, plastics, detergents, and artificial fibers. Steel It is estimated that the technological activities of the steel industry are now costing more than $25,000,000 annually. Of this amount, approximately $3,000,000 is devoted to fundamental research. In addition, the steel industry is supporting comprehensive investigations at the laboratories of a long list of universities, institutes of technology, and other research organizations. Numerous fellowships are being financed either directly or under the auspices of technical societies. This industry, like foods, has long since learned that applied research must be fed constantly by fundamental research. The steel industry, being largely a producer of capital goods, affects a wide circle of manufacture by its research efforts. In the development of mechanical or electrical power and of powered machines, which have done so much to remove the burden of toil, better adapted steels have made new constructions and efficiencies possible. Thus we have steel tubing for power plants, rotors and shell casings for steam turbines, which will withstand pressure, temperatures, and speeds unattainable only a few years ago. Owing to the enormous consumption of iron and steel in the prosecution of the war, all but the most urgent civilian requirements have necessarily been held in abeyance. The war research developments in all heavy or durable goods industries are not yet realized for everyday use. But some amazing facts will be announced when military secrecy is lifted. CONTINUED ON PAGE 9 4 8
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^^fc-t? ^%fék*é&&eLawrence W. Bass has been appointed associate director of chemical research, to serve jointly for Air Reduction Co. and U. S. Industrial Chemicals, Inc. He will be responsible for the development of plans for coordination and expansion of research of the two companies, as well as coordination of the work of the Research Department of each company with the work of t h e various operating departments. I>r. B&JS haa been director of the New England Industrial Research Foundation in Boston, and assumed his new duties in New York June 1. 1944.
Dohrman H. Byers, assistant sanitarian ( R ) . TJ. S. Public Health Service, has been assigned to the Montana State Board of Health as acting director, Division of Industrial Hygiene. He was formerly with t b e Division of Occupational Hygiene, Boston, Mass.
A l l T a y l o r l i q u i d c o l o r standards
