let’s Take the long View CRAWFORD H. GREENEWALT, President, E. 1. du Pod de Nemours & Co.
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IS INTERESTING TO NOTE that when anyToday it is research that gives the American economv one in the past has attempted to predict the longits characteristic surge and its dynamic qualities. And term future, his forecast has turned out to be hopelessly research requires people with the same courage, vision, short-sighted and pessimistic. Benjamin Franklin, for and determination as those who a century ago crosscd example, thought at the end of his life that it would the Western Plains. perhaps take centuries to settle the American continent. I n the pioneering of the laborator) we encounter the The State of California stands as a monument to his same risks, the same disappointments, the same frustraerror. Thomas Jefferson in announcing the Louisiana tions. Research today requires large organizations of Purchase felt that the territory might be full)- occupied technical specialists and elaborate facilities. It requires after 25 generations. T h e railroad and the steamboat time, for the interval between the start of a research opened it up to settlement within a few decades. In the project and its successful conclusion becomes longer as earl>- 1900’s a gentleman from Philadelphia grew enscientific techniques grow more complex. And it rethusiastic about private motorcars and foresaw the time quires enough financial confidence and patience to when there would be a hundred or so in ever)- city. I allow for the long succession of failures that accompany might add that he viewed this development as a boon to eker) commercial success. . . highway safety as it would free the country from drunken There has been some talk in past \ears of the possiriders and wild horses. ,4 British socialist during the bility that our economy is maturing, that we are reach19th century foresaw the period when it Lvould be uning an industrial plateau from which we will progress necessary for children to work more than 10 hours a day. only as our population increases. That point of vie\v The economist Jevons, in 1860, \vas alarmed at the seems to me to be nonsense. For it is tantamount to possible exhaustion of the earth’s coal supply within sa) ing that the last scientific barrier has been crossed, a fekv years. I have heard similar predictions on petrothat there is no fruitful objective for further research, and leum almost yearly since my college days. Sir Il~7illiam that man’s appetite for a more abundant life has been Crookes, a distinguished scientist, saw earl!- starvation fulfilled. of the race through diminishing supplies of nitrogen. In the 50 years or so during which we have practiced \\’hat he did not foresee was that chemistry through applied science, it seems to me me have made only the nitrogen fixation byodd within a generation or so prove smallest of forward strides, and the horizons before us his error. are unlimited and extend far beyond our present vision. . . I could go on Lvith similar examples, hut it should be IYe must not accept a definition of securitv that evident that the progress of genius and inventiveness is merely preserves the status quo, for that will lead to something that is always underrated. I think, therefore, stagnation and something like the dark ages of medieval that those who become unduly alarmed at our short-term histor>-that, you lvill recall, was a depression that prospects are guilt>-simply of economic myopia. They lasted more than 800 \ears. forget that our economic orbit is shaped not b>- inventories, government spending, or any of the host of business indicators but by human courage, desires, and (Excerbts from an address before the Commonwealth Club of incentive. . , San Francisco, J a n . 22, 7954.) T
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AGRICULTURAL
A N D FOOD CHEMISTRY
