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Notable Gifts Announced seventy-fifth meeting a t St. Louis was unique in T q f e large number of first registrations, six hundred and twenty-four having attended the dinner on the first evening. It was gratifying in the attendance, which passed the thirteen hundred mark, and there is nothing but praise for the arrangements made and hospitality extended by the host section. The excellence of the scientific program Drill be reflected in the papers subsequently to be published in the various journals of the SOCIETY. Much could be said that would mark this as another of the long list of highly successful semiannual meetings, but it differed in the importance of announcements made to the Council. We have frequently called attention to the needs of Chemical Abstracts in particular and the publication program of the SOCIETYin general. It has been made clear that, to bring our record index of the world literature to an ideal state of development, the minimum of $50,000 a year for five years should be secured to tide over until such a program of conservative expansion could be placed on a permanent basis. As a result of the efforts made by the officials of the SOCIETYand a statement issued by the Directors, industry has to date provided a sum equivalent to $125,000 over the five-year period. I n due course the list of those embracing this opportunity will be published, but it will suffice to say here that a very generous contribution by the Allied Dye Corporation heads the list. This interest has been taken in the work of the SOCIETYafter carefully considering the program strictly upon its merits. It is therefore most enheartening and the grateful thanks of the SOCIETY are tendered to all the industries who have responded to its proposal. The Chemical Foundation has so often given material evidence of its support for worthwhile scientific enterprises that it waq to be expected that Chemical Abstracts-an indispensable tool for research-would receive favorable consideration. But no one could have anticipated the generosity with which the appeal for support has been accepted by the Foundation, through its president, Francis P. Garvan. The Foundation has given a total of $250,000, to be used as the Directors may deem wise, in enabling Chemical Abstracts more fully to serve its purpose. To the chemists who, through gratuitous work and many sacrifices, have developed our publications to their present state of serviceability, this is the greatest single event in SOCIETY. Too the history of the AMERICANCHEMICAL much cannot be said in expressing gratitude to the donors, and yet this is intended to be but the nucleus of the funds that must be secured to carry on our work unhampered in perpetuity. This expression of confidence in the projects will, it is hoped by and in the managl)ment of the SOCIETY the officers of the Foundation, serve to attract to this nucleus sums of varying sizes until a capital is secured, the income from which will make the work of the SOCIETY progressively
May 1, 1928
more complete and broader, uninfluenced by those variables which make unendowed efforts so uncertain. Nore than this, Mr. and Mrs. Garvan have made possible a Sixth Prize Essay Contest for the academic years 192829, with prizes aggregating more than $37,000, to be conducted along the lines of the fifth contest which is just nearing completion. This is in addition to the heavy expense of administrating the contest. It is no wonder that the mention of the name of Garvan before the Council of the SOCIETY brings forth spontaneous and unanimous applause. The consistent work of many years is beginning to bear fruit. We need but the persistent, united efforts of the entire membership successfully to complete the financial programs planned, after which our entire attention can be devoted to the active cultivation of our scientific pursuits.
The Background of Today OLICIES and actions are indisputably influenced by the economic and industrial background of any age or generation. In the pioneer days of this country when the industries were home industries and when there was no adequate communication between communities, the average man met upon the street could be expected to entertain a sound opinion on questions of the day. His solution of pressing questions might be as good as that of any other indiTyidua1, and when elevated to public office his views could be counted upon as reasonably sound. I n the years that have intervened, all this has changed and the changes have been brought about by the application of scientific work. The latest census figures show that our national income is nearly ninety billion annually, and that our national wealth is approximately four hundred billion. This measure of prosperity indicates how well scientific methods have been applied to our natural resources and how extensively native ability and ingenuity have had an opportunity to assert themselves. The possession of such resources and their products has given rise to a number of generally accepted ideas, differing materially from those held elsewhere and at other times and indicating how industrial prosperity colors our actions and ideas. We not only demand for every individual such an education as he may be able to assimilate, but we have adopted standards of living which, for so numerous a people, have probably never been approached a t any other time in human history. The most startling inventions no longer make more than a passing impression, and whatever the accomplishment, we demand still more from those who invent and devise. By the coordination of numerous individual units, we step-up our powers to investigate, research, and discover, for in many fields, especially one so diverse as chemistry, no single human mind can contain more than a fraction of the total existing knowledge. But by bringing together a group of specialized minds our powers are enormously multiplied. What has been done industrially through the application of science not only leads us to expect more than we even now
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enjoy but gives rise to a set of highly complicated problems which, in this country, we must continue to meet in accordance with the rules laid down by a democratic form of government. We still elect from our midst men to meet these various complex situations, many of them so new that there is no precedent for guidance, and all of them calling for expert knowledge which no single individual can hope to have in adequate measure. All of us are in the habit of taking exception to the actions of our public representatives, but we are only justified in doing this when they fail to call into consultation those who have expert knowledge and to act upon facts that are presented in an unbiased and unprejudiced manner. Advice is sometimes difficult to evaluate, being often influenced by those who hold the purse strings, while others qualified to hold an opinion sometimes decline to become involved in controversial disputes. As we see it, there is a constantly growing need alike for men in public office to seek the help of the specialist, and for men of scientific training to be willing to serve the state by making available the facts which they have accumulated. How else can a common council struggling with sewage disposal, or a garbage reduction problem, or the question of water supply hope to arrive a t the right answer? A dozen instances in the experience of the Federal Government could be named to illustrate the point. Where such coordination has been perfected, we find successful public works. mhere it has failed, we find public money wasted. We believe more men with scientific training should be induced to strive for public office. Of course the work of humanizing science should go forward in the hope that eventually the electorate may have a t least such an intelligent sympathy for scientific work that they will insist upon scientific approach and the application of the scientific method to technical problems-at present almost wholly solved in accordance with some political equation. An industrial and economic background has been created through scientific endeavor. The questions of the day cannot be met by those wholly unversed in science without the assistance that science offers.
Patent Reforms HOSE experienced in patent procedure hold two reforms to be essential, although there are many others which they think could be undertaken with profit to our industry. We are not forgetting recent improvements in the Patent Office, nor that, although still far behind, the business is not so congested as formerly. The Patent Office a t present in a very real sense is a training school. Many men become patent examiners with the frank purpose of leaving for patent law practice and more lucrative positions as soon as they feel qualified. The salaries paid by the Government, notwithstanding the accumulated profits in the Treasury from the granting of patents, is so low that the best men do not remain in the service, and industry suffers as a result of continually breaking in a new personnel. The inexperience of a constantly changing staff inevitably causes a great deal of confusion and ultimately costly patent litigation. This leads to the second pressing need, namely, the establishment of a single court of patent appeals. This subject has been perennial for more than twenty-five years, but the idea has failed to materialize for two reasons. First, it is opposed by some six thousand patent lawyers. Second, there are industries which have learned how to use our present patent system to their own advantage, and which stand prepared to spend considerable sums in an effort to defeat any move in the direction of a single patent court in which all ac-
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tions for the adjudication of patents can be taken. A few outstanding members of the patent bar have endeavored to bring about the establishment of such a court and many bills have been introduced in Congress to this end, but thus far without avail. Not only is a decision in one of the nine districts no bar to a similar action, with all that goes with it, in every other district, but the number of courts in which a patentee may be called upon to defend his patent runs into several score. Few realize that the United States is not united with respect to patent litigation. The nine districts bear no relation to each other in so far as patent decisions are concerned. Thus, a decision in the district court of Xew York in favor of a patent has no force in the law in Illinois, and if a man wishes to continue to infringe in the state of Illinois, the patentee must pack up his grip and, with his retinue of witnesses and attorneys, go there and fight for another decision. If, in the meantime, some other infringer becomes active in the state of Idaho, the patentee can move on to that district and may eventually encircle the United States. I n the report of the Patent Committee of the National Research Council as long ago as 1917, the first proposal looked to the establishment of a single court of patent appeals to have jurisdiction of appeals in patent cases from all United States district courts throughout the country, in place of the nine independent Circuit Courts of Appeals in which appellate jurisdiction is now vested. It was pointed out in this report that “while theoretically the law is the same in all of these courts, there has been an irresistible tendency to drift apart in the application of the law. It has even happened in a substantial number of cases that two of the appellate courts have taken a different view of one and the same patent.” This committee was composed of scientists, inventors, and patent lawyers. These proposals, so often made and so often defeated, seem reasonable and logical enough. Why is nothing done? I n addition to the opposition noted above, there is a lack of interest on the part of the public which could bring about such reforms if understood. The question is one of very limited public appeal. It does not find its way into political discussion. Both its proponents and opponents have come largely from members of the patent bar and the patentees who, after all, are but a small percentage of our population. When additional funds have been needed to hold valuable men in the patent service, there has been no organized effort on the part of industry, boards of trade, manufacturers, chambers of commerce, and others to make it clear to the Bureau of the Budget and the appropriations committees that here is one place to spend government funds to the real and direct advantage of those from whom such funds are derived. The proposal will be made many times in the future, but unless some large group makes it its serious business t o have such acts become law, efforts in that direction will continue to be dissipated on the treadmill.
Outstanding Books NNUALLY the American Library Association compiles a A list of the forty notable books issued during the year. Have you noted that books in chemistry are not infrequently included? Thus, “Ultra-Violet Rays,” by Ellis and Smith, appeared in the list of 1925, and in 1926 one of our monographs, “Photosynthesis,” by Herman A. Spoehr, was included. That scientific books such as those indicated are able to win one of the forty places in the year’s compilation is an indication that little by little people generally are coming to appreciate what is being done, why it is being done, and what it means to the public.
