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INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
York rediscount rate has been lowered. There have been successive reductions in acceptance rates, making cheap credit available for industry, and we still have the tremendous producing power of 120 millions of people enjoying an annual income of 90 millions of dollars, and with a great power for absorbing commodities and using service. The proposed series of Hoover business conferences has begun, and reports so far published indicate that great good will result and that confidence will be restored. Would that the Congress of the United States were as willing to forget politics and things petty and wholeheartedly work with the President to achieve the great objects he envisions as are the men of every industry to follow his leadership! It is not our province-even if we had the knowledge. which we have not-to forecast markets or advise investors. However, we have a profound belief in the fundamental position of the chemical industry, in which are to be found units that have successfully weathered many a financial storm and which bid fair to ride out the present disturbance without lasting damage.
Vol. 21, No. 12
believe that the SOCIETY should always remain in a sufficient state of flux to adapt itself to new conditions. Changes should be made only after the well-considered opinions of the individual membeis and of the local sections have been correlated by a painstaking committee, as is now a t work under the chairmanship of Doctor Volwiler.
Fuel Gas for Airships W COMMENTING editorially in our October, 1929, issue Imaking concerning the part which certain Americans had played in possible the round-the-world trip of the Graf Zeppelin,
our discussion was limited to that flight, but reference was made to research carried on a t an earlier date, out of which the later accomplishment grew. I n going back to the first round-trip flight of the 7eppelin to America, we should have given more complete information, and this further note is brought to your attention to round out the story. Interest in suitable fuel gas for dirigibles became intensified with the proposed first flight of the Zeppelin to America. Several officers of the American Navy were interested in cooperating with Doctor Eckener and his colleagues and discussed a t various times and with different specialists the H E Council of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY a t the question of such a fuel supply. The earliest conversations Minneapolis meeting authorized the President to ap- were with representatives of the groups mentioned in our point a committee of five to seven members to consider a previous editorial, but there is another corporation very plan offered by the Chicago Section for the reorganization of much interested in lighter-than-air craft because it manuthe SOCIETY. At the request of E. H. Volwiler, chairman of factures helium on a commercial scale and is naturally interthe committee created, the preamble and propositions as ested in increased demand for that safe gas. This corporapresented to the Council by the Chicago Section were printed tion, while not regularly in the business of supplying the of September 20. The type of gas needed for the dirigible, was nevertheless willing on page 4 of the NEWS EDITION October number of the Chemical Bulletin, published by the to undertake its preparation that this type of navigation Chicago Section, printed this material, together with com- might be furthered. Consequently, it was the Kentucky ments upon the various propositions, and editorialized upon Oxygen-Hydrogen Corporation, now a subsidiary of the the appointment of the committee. Local sections are now Girdler Corporation of Louisville, which, in cooperation with giving consideration to the proposals and in some instances the United States Navy, carried out the experimental work necessary to meet the requirements which had been agreed committees have been formed to report to the section. Obviously, the first requirement is to know your SOCIETY. upon for the fuel gas and supplied the quantity taken aboard Unless you are familar with the Constitution and By-laws in the balloonettes at Lakehurst. It is gratifying to know that the scientific and technical under which the numerous functions of the SOCIETY are discharged, it is quite impossible for you to consider the new equipment of our country is such that more than one group proposals from an informed point of view. You need to has been prepared to cooperate fully with those who see in know what the SOCIETY does under its Constitution and By- lighter-than-air craft a means of world-wide transportation laws, how it does it, and what the results have been, before which will still further shrink this old earth and meet in you are in a position to form an opinion of value regarding another way the continual urge for annihilating distance as well as time. any suggested changes. It had been our intention to reprint the Constitution and By-laws in the NEWSEDITION, but inasmuch as these documents in their latest form were published so recently as the July 1, 1928, issue of the Journal of the American Chemical ITH the return of the season during which our local Society, where they will be found in the Proceedings, we do sections display their greatest activity, we pass on not feel justified in taking valuable space for again printing material easily available to all those interested. Further- suggestions made by some of our members to whose lot more, members may secure reprints upon request from the considerable traveling falls. I n the course of the season a number of local sections are visited. Some of these have a Secretary of the SOCIETY. Changes in the organization of the SOCIETY should be made fellowship committee, or a committee with similar duties whenever it can be clearly demonstrated that a positive ad- though under a different name, while others appear to have vantage will be achieved. Changes should not be made overlooked the provision of any machinery calculated to make merely for the sake of doing something different, and in every the chemist stranger feel a t home among his new found colcase the question should be approached with the same careful leagues. The impression of a community one carries away is very thought and preparation as would characterize the action of any group responsible for a going concern of substantial pro- largely determined by his reception. Each local section portions. If members will refer to the Treasurer’s reports must wish to make a good impression. It can begin by makand the reports of the annual meetings of the Directors found ing it some one’s duty to see that all who enter the meeting are in the Proceedings printed in the February issues of the cordially welcomed, are presented to some of those present, Journal of the American Chemical Society, they will gain a and made to realize that when chemists get together there better understanding of the magnitude of our affairs. We need be no strangers.
Know Your Society
The Fellowship Committee
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