GRASSELLI M E D A L A W A R D
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but because he is one of a very few human catalysts who are synthesizing the applied sciences for the benefit of mankind. Because of our feudal inhibitions we have been slow to admit the homogeneity of the physical sciences. Once admitted, progress in application to human needs can be obtained only by group research. I t is being done even in our institutions of higher learning, those impregnable bulwarks of individualism. Industry, being painfully practical and profit-conscious, has adopted it without reservations. I am sure that the commission of award did not go to Washington and minutely examine the 125 odd patents granted in the course of this phenomenal development of resinoids; perhaps they went over to Bloomfield and peeped in a t the scores of research and development workers for whom the medalist is the coordinator. If they did, they probably didn’t count them. Why should I recount these details, just because I can memorize a few figures? The important fact is that, while Leo Baekeland by the judicious selection of catalvsts develwed a most useful material out of two very unpopdkr chemicais, he performed the act of supreme genius which revolutionized the electrical, mechanical, and decorative arts by staking his substance on group research catalyzed by Lawrence V. Redman. If there are any medals not working which have not already been given to him, they should forthwith be Rtruck in Dr. Baekeland’s honor for this act of vision and faith.
AWRENCE V. REDMAN, vice president and director of
research of the Bakelite Corporation, and presiden t-elect of the AMERICANCHEhiIcAL SOCIETYwas awarded the Grasselli Medal for 1931 on Kovember 6 a t the Chemists’ Club, Kew York City, in recognition of his paper on “Cost of Research and Its Apportionment.” An account of the accomplishments of the medalist in the field of chemical research was given by F. W. V7illard as follows: FTe in this land of snorting democracy and velvet-pawed oligarchy take ourselves too seriously. Not even our Mark Twains and WUl Rogerses really succeed in making us laugh at our own inconsistencies. We have proclaimed and do annually or oftener reaffirm a political theory of individual equality, but our chief occupation is hero stalking. We cannot dramatize the group and its accomplishment, but must have a Hercules. So competent newspaper editor would dare try to feature on his front page the results of a group effort, no matter how extraordinary they might be. He would surely pick out one individual and pin it all on him. Intellectual prowess is no exception. We just won’t admit that great accomplishment is inherent in a group. We must have heroes in the science-Newtons, Faradays, Maxwells, Michelsons, Millikens, Einsteins, and Edisons. Once in many long dogs’ ages, a discriminating minority convenes and picks out of a virile functioning group of “fifth estaters” an individual, drags him out in front, and says to the world, “This fellow is no hero; all alone by himself he can’t do much; but he made of himself a vicarious atonement for his associates, bore the drudgery of planning and coordination, settled disputes, gave them suggestions, got the money t o pay them and to provide them with good tools, praised them when they succeeded, did not chide them when they failed, kept them on the main track, and gave them all the credit.” Because Lawrence Redman has done these things, his associates have been able to create a great industry, making something which everybody uses every day, out of those vile-smelling twins, carbolic and formaldehyde. J,awrence V. Redman is honored here tonight, not because he looks grimly down at us from the volumes of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, nor yet from the Zeitschrift far angewandte Chemie,
The Grasselli RIedal is awarded annually by the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry for the paper presented before that section which offers the most useful suggestion in applied chemistry. The previous awards have been as follows: TEAR MEDALIST 1920 .illen Rogers 1922 Walter H. Fulweiler 1924 B. D. Saklatwalla 1925 E. R. Berry 1926 Charles R. Downs 1928 H. J. Rose 1929 Bradley Stoughton 1930 Per K. Froiich
PAPER “Industrial Uses for the Shark and Porpoise” “Chemical Problems,in the Gas Industry” “Ferrous Alloys Resistant t o Corrosion” “The-Manufacture and Uses of Clear Fused Quartz” “Catalytio Oxidation of Organic Compounds in the Vapor Phase” “Importanoe of Coal Preparation in the Manufacture of Gas and Coke” “Light Struotural Alloys” “The Role of Catalvsis in Hiah-Pressure Reactions”
V
Research as a Fixed Charge LAWRENCE V. REDMAN, Bakelite Corporation, Bloomfield, N . J .
I
N EVERY well-conducted business there are certain charges that have long been considered as inescapable. . Included in these are interest on borrowed capital, rents, taxes, insurance, depreciation, obsolescence. It is time, in this industrial age, that there be added to these fixed charges a charge for a n adequate and sustained program of research without which no industry can progress, if indeed it can survive. We are in a changing world. New and better things, new and better methods, are continually supplanting the old. This was recognized when obsolescence became a fixed charge against equipment. Although the accountant may never have thought of this as a charge for research, it is in no small measure indirectly just that. Since progress thus assesses a tax against industry, self-interest suggests offsetting this tax by the profits that accrue to invention. Our more progressive industries are endeavoring to maintain a consistent research program, but constant sustained
research has not yet acquired the status of an obligation of sound management in the minds of many of those who are i n control of business finance. Too often in the past has research been thought of as a luxury to be indulged in during a period of large profits and renounced when dividends could no longer be fully maintained. Better might a manufacturer cancel his fire insurance than drop his only insurance against retrogression. Kor can the manufacturer hope to profit, even if he would, through bringing unnecessary hardship on his men of research, whose success, not to say livelihood, is, like his, dependent upon sustained research effort. But while it is these who are mainly affected, everyone is the loser through wasteful interruption of research. It is encouraging to note the growing tendency a t our universities to endow research as well as instruction so that new knowledge in pure science, the very foundation of modern civilization may continue to grow, affected little or not at all by the ups and downs of the
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conrinercial world.
It is encouraging also to note that our
Government for many years has accepted as a permanent charge the cost of research in certain of its departments notably in a&ulture, standardization, tlre navy, the army. Gradually we in industry are realizing that research is n necessity for good times and for had alike; a n good times tu provide full employment for ailliiig riipif,al and greater return fur labor; a necessity iii bad tinics to prepare for tlie good times that are to folloa. Also, as has been recently SO well set forth by C , F. Kettering, it is a necessity in bad times if we are to -_ t e m p t f o r t l i f r o m hiding the reluctant iioarded dollar. It is an accepted, if someiviiat new tenet of the e c o n o m i s t , that not only is there at all times a saturation point in the consumption of necessities, but, when the nation is saving, it is only the new things, not the conimonplace, that tempt hoitrded money from its h i d i n g . T h e r e is indeed wisdom 011 the side of t.lre managem e n t that feeds out. the resillts of successful research and development at a rate that will irisurc reasonable continuity of output. There is added wisdom in seeing to it that not the least attractive of the new things are those scheduled to appear during times like the present. Is it not since this period of depremion s t a r t e d , a n d i n s p i t e of it, that Cellophane has burst upon us?
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SLOWNESS OF RESEARCH
skill. neeeiitly one of our professors of pliilosophy has said that the great discovery of the nineteenth century was the method of discovery. It is for the sustairied application of the method of discovcry that we are pleading. Rescarch will never be oversold to business. U u t it may be wrongly sold, and, if there is one dauger greater than another in any statement of the possihilitics of research, it is that the time factor will be too lightly stressed. W-ho tias not had occasion to view with dismay tlie enthusiasm of a proponent who would have his associates risk a fortune on a test-tube experiment, or the scarcely less foolhardy . . who would plunge into advertising on the appearance of the first hundred pounds successfully made. Such acts make investors the prey of the o v e r e n t h u s i a s t i c , the injudicious, and s o n i e t i m e s the unscrupulous, uhose glowing promises of success are a l l u r i n g even when heavily discountcd. On the o t h e r hand, who of you has not felt dep r e s s e d and broken in spirit from being a d v i s e d , e v e n urged by a financial a s s o c i a t e to stop Yome project which there is every reason to believe will be profitable if only time is allowed to bring it to eompletion. It is g e n e r a l l y your pet project, too remote and p r o f o u n d , shall I say, to be understood or believed in by the uninitiated.
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NECESSITY POORCONTINUOUS EFFORT
Organized r e s e a r c h is t o o new Butsuccessin researchanddevelocfor the laws zovernina its snccessful prosecutFon to be well undernient comes on the average only aft& IL. B long pull. True, wesornetimes realstood by the business world. Chemiize liandsoniely after only small expenditure of time and money. cal proceasos are nut as easily visualized BS engineering These bits of good fortune, hou.ever, serve merely to offset plans. The route from test tube to factory equipment is those adventures that prove to be dead losses. If ivc would flanked by greater dangers than that frinn blue print to prosper tlirough research and development, we must count strncture. It is for us who know the limitations BS well on years of outlay of money and effort; or make no start at as the possibilities of research not only to maintain and all. Average experience suggests as a fair expectancy, froin instil i&i our financial associates cuurageous enthusiasm tire start of research to full liquidation of the invest~iit~it. in the face of difficulties, but also to give early warning that, a periud of seven or eight years. If tliis time ~CPIIII-: tiio long to he successful, a promising project unce launched into t u the average iiivcstor, we would remind liirii that cerbain devekipment must be prosecuted tliruugli tlic yeam of dieengineering projects call for an cqual exorcise of patierice. conragement., sometimes at heavy cost of muney and nerves. Kcynea in his “Treatiie on Moncy” tells 11s tlmt in gold To make continuity of effort possible, the program of mining aii average of about seven years is to iin cnpec.tcd research and its much more expensive de\&ipment shodd hefore t,lie heginning of returns, when the sinking nf tlie first be held to an even keel. It must not ijc overdone in a period sliaft,s, the building of crusliing mills, etc., are takcn iuto of prosperity if it is to be maintained in a period of depression. consiiierati
