July,
1920
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R T
The business management of t h e Pharmacopoeia is vested in a Board of Trustees of seven members who, with t h e Committee ef Revision of fifty members, are elected decennially from t h e delegates who assemble in Washington on t h e second Tuesday of M a y in the years whose figure ends in a cipher. These delegates constitute a convention in whom t h e ownership of t h e
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Pharmacopoeia is vested and which is now a chartered body. T h e delegates mainly come from medica1 and pharmaceutical colleges and societies, b u t t h e AMERICANCHEMICALSOCIETY is one of t h e organizations regularly authorized t o participate, as are also the various departments of t h e United States Government whose work bears a n y relevancy t o medicine or pharmacy.
WILLARD GIBBS MEDAL AWARD
Brief mention was made in the June issue of THISJOURNAL of t h e presentation of the Willard Gibbs Medal t o Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell, recently appointed Director of the U. S.Bureau of Mines. I t gives us pleasure t o reproduce below the admirable address of the recipient of the medal, and Dr. Whitney’s remarks in p r e s e n t a t i o n . - [ E ~ i ~ ~ ] ~. PRESENTATION ADDRESS By W. R. Whitney Dr. Cottrell, in presenting t o you this medal on behalf of the CHEMICAL SOCIETY,in memory Chicago Section of the AMERICAN of the great Gibbs, I a m not going t o recite a list of your wellknown achievements. This is not merely because these achievements are so well known, but because I prefer t o preach a brief sermon. I choose t o call attention t o your process rather than your product. I believe t h a t the 7uay you have done things is even more important than the actual things themselves. Our country might get along without the particular products of yaur effort, but it could not get along without men personifying your procedure. We are not so much interested in recovery of fumes, the abatement of the smoke nuisance, in the saving of silver, zinc, or sulfuric acid, in the production of helium, or any other of the definite undertakings which are attributed to you, though these are in themselves very valuable, but rather we exalt t h a t human qziality which insures advanced undertakings of public welfare and interest. You are one of those who intelligently decline to proceed along entirely old paths but map out and push along new ones. You are one who, no matter how wisely you may act, must withstand many rebuffs and disappointments, because, in blazing new trails, countless obstructions must be encountered and surmounted. Herein you have always retained your momentum and your good nature. All our improved ways of living, our broadened views, our greater activities, and our increased pleasures are due t o new and difficult steps, often seemingly absurd when judged by us who are impelled by habit only. I n tilling new ground and in opening unbeaten paths you have needed your well-advanced scientific education for keeping high your coefficient of success; a splendid personal quality of open-heartedness and a carefully controlled physical constitution. All of these you have clearly and unselfishly devoted to the public good. You have not been satisfied t o accept things as they were, and we chemists highly appreciate ideals and those new ideas which, while not a t first acceptable t o the average man, can be made so by human effort. Your support of one universal language may be looked a t as only a few years too early, but it is a type of the thing for the realization of which people will have t o depend on someone like yourself, if it is ever t o be realized. Your work in the West and your radical undertaking in the East, in establishing the Research Corporation, together constitute a trail blazer which calls attention to the possibilities of cooperative research and t o the position ol our Government in relation t o ideas and inventions of its employees. You have started something which may well grow far beyond your anticipation. You have set an, example not only in accepting the responsibility of such public work, but your patient persistence in carrying out your own plans with
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support which only your well-known integrity, industry, and enthusiasm could insure, forms a new high plane of activity for the emulation of the American chemist. We are glad t h a t you have been added to t h a t group of chiefs of the Bureau of Mines, Holmes and Manning, which our Government has so fortunately possessed. We will be willing t o forgive in you many possible errors or mistaken undertakings in the future, if your ideals and your will t o be right and the intuition t o be constructively dissatisfied with imperfect existing conditions, persist as they have hitherto existed. MEDAL ADDRESS INTERRATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RELATIONS By F. G. Cottrell The experiences of the war have served t o illustrate as never before the importance of the position held by the scientist both pure and applied, not only t o our daily life a t home, but also in international affairs, and during the war perhaps no branch of science carried a more important load or gave a better general account of itself than did chemistry in all its various branches. The details of chemical war work have filled a good part of our journals for so long t h a t t o dwell on them here would be bringing coals t o Newcastle; but what the chemist’s part is t o be in the reconstruction period upon which the world is entering still lies before us and h a s a most legitimate and insistent call 011 our serious attention. The war certainly furnished a great stimulus t o discovery and invention, but from the standpoint of technical achievement it bids fair t o have served only as the prelude t o a vaster industrial development of truly international character which may reasonably be expected t o follow in its wake. The stress and strain of the period we have passed through has awakened the imagination of the rising generation t o a world consciousness as nothing less far-reaching could possibly have done, and we in this count r y are destined perhaps even more than those in Europe itself t o feel the full effect of this swelling pulse, because t o the European nations international contacts have long been matters of course and from a physical aspect almost as natural as intercourse among the states of our own Union. B u t this was a new experience to the majority of the 4,000,000 young Americans who just a t this most impressionable age have been thrown into daily physical and mental contact with their fellows of foreign countries, a s also the conditions and traditions of home and economic life in these countries. They have brought back with them a mental leaven which, though it may take some time t o fully develop, and will undoubtedly require careful guarding against the wild yeasts of Bolshevism and other extraneous growths, should eventuaUy make itself clearly felt as a tremendous power for good and for the broadening of the concepts of our national life both human and economic, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS FOSTERED Chemists in this country, as a class, have recognized and fostered international relations probably as much, if not more, than have most of the technical and engineering professions. This is perhaps due in no small part t o the very close and cordial cooperation which has existed from the first between pure and applied chemistry in this country, for it is usually easier t o get
