VOLUME25 NUMBER 12
Industrial AND E N G I N E E R I N G Chemistry
DECEMBER 1933
J
HARRISON E. HOWE,EDITOR
The Editor's Point of View
T
HE MUDDY POTOMAC. The depression has
been endured by our citizens with a self-restraint that is noteworthy. There has developed a disposition to try out experiments which but a short year ago would ha\-e been condemned without a hearing, and to place faith in those who are striving to find the way out. The past nine months have seen minimal criticism of policies in the press. There have been few public utterances in opposition and even political factions have been relatively quiet. Without doubt conditions have materially improved, although the advance may have been slight in some quarters. Early in the year we drew some comparisons between experiments in science where variables are held constant in turn, and those then contemplated in government and in economics involving simultaneous changes in a large number of profoundly important factors. Following this latter procedure the situation has grown increasingly complex, inconsistencies have been created, confusion is developing, and the Potomac is muddy. It is beginning to be seen that many of the President's advisers appear more interested in pet reforms than in recovery, more concerned in trying personal theories than in calling upon experience. It has been suggested that business must be content to operate without profit, that industry can and must regulate itself or submit to public rule, but that until it has demonstrated suitable ability to administer self-control it must yield to government dictation. Several of the points involved, including the boycott, may soon place the whole NRA scheme on the calendar of the Supreme Court. Apparently redistribution of wealth by legislation has been determined upon. Organized labor has seized its opportunity to penetrate peaceful areas where employer and employee have been getting along very nicely without its beneficence. Certain farm organizations have shown their appreciation of process taxes and of federal loans based on prices far above the market for the commodities involved-thus making gamblers of all taxpayers-by striking in an effort to starve communities into accepting their dictums. The federal policy of subsidizing destruction of farm products, rather than financing their consumption. has thus far
failed to accomplish the aims of its sponsors. The white collar man is caught between the NRA and the AAA. But nothing has served to muddy the Potomac more than experiments in forcing up commodity prices and in manipulating the currency. Some economists insist that an artificial rise in commodity prices can only stimulate speculation and trade among those who buy at once to escape advance and that this is sure to be followed by a slump in production. Others say that the rate of consumption is the controlling factor and therefore a surplus is a mortgage on production; debt is a mortgage on consumption and to discharge it wages and prices must be restored to the level enjoyed at the time the obligations were incurred; therefore wages and prices must be advanced. On the other hand, the time may have been an abnormal one as, for example, in the construction industry, for which 1928 must be regarded as above standard. While it is pointed out that, in the management of currency, the only question is whether we will manage it or allow others to do it for us, the result has been decided retardation of recovery. With the dollar fluctuating daily there is hesitancy in making commercial contracts, thereby introducing a large element of uncertainty and weakening confidence which was beginning to assume normal proportions. Further, there has been an alarming flight of capital, at the very time when it is needed in the recovery program. Buying power must be expanded by resumption of capital industries. The type of short-time credit available through commercial banks and similar sources cannot be employed satisfactorily as capital. This must come largely from private investors, and from such sources money cannot be coaxed into doing that which imperils its own safety. The public debt, which had receded from the wartime peak of 26 billions to 16 billions in 1930, has exceeded 23 billions this year and if the full recovery powers which have been vested in the administration are exercised it may easily cross the 30-billion mark in the near future. The wisdom of rapidly increasing the public debt, of looking upon the national credit as inexhaustible, at the same'time manipulating the dollar,
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and more than flirting with currency inflation is questionable. If confidence in federal credit is allowed to weaken, how can the Government succeed in its necessary borrowing and refinancing? Those who favor inflation speak as if it were a new experiment and disregard history. Surely we need not repeat here any of the well-nigh impossible experiences which certain European nations endured and which we should know enough to avoid. The blow of such conditions fell with greatest weight upon the middle classes. Injustices were done which can never be corrected. Those who practiced thrift all their lives saw their savings vanish, salaried classes and wage earners suffered severely because the& in-
Vol. 25, No. 12
comes did not keep pace with advancing costs of living. Currency inflation with printing presses is not the sort of malady that can be controlled. There is great need for a positive, clear declaration of monetary policy by the President. It can come from no other with suficient authority, but from him would do much to remove the paralysis of business and permit restoration. Given stability, commerce can adjust itself within reasonable time. And yet, with almost cheerful resignation, the average man merely inquires, “Where do we go from here?” He cannot see, nor can we. T o him and to us the Potomac seems very muddy. N a y its colloids soon coalesce.
A QUARTER-CENTURY I N INDUSTRIAL SERVICE
W
I T H this issue INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING The first issue of the journal was that of January, CHEMISTRYcompletes its twenty-6fth year 1909, and Richardson was provided with an imposing of publication. This quarter-century has board of thirty-two associate editors. In accordance covered a period remarkable alike for an extraordinary with the policy of the Council, which was later abanactivity and development in chemistry as a science and doned, all editorials were signed. The Grst to appear for the rapidity with which these developments have was over the signature of T. J. Parker, entitled “The found industrial application on the grand scale. It Industrial Chemist and His Journal.” The concluding is, moreover, a period during which chemical industry sentence of another by F. B. Carpenter on “The Fixain the United States made such phenomenal growth tion of Nitrogen” is especially interesting in retrospect. that it freed the country permanently from its long It reads : “Considering, therefore, this inexhaustible dependence upon Europe, and especially upon Ger- supply, and considering what it means to agriculture and the arts if it can be utilized, the solution of the many, for essential chemical products. The task of securing and presenting an adequate problem of conserving the nitrogen of the air in a record of the constantly changing and expanding commercial way will be recorded as one of the imphases of these developments was one which placed portant inventions of modern times.” In this number a heavy burden of responsibility upon the successive the Emerson bomb calorimeter, which has since come editors of the journal, and the resourcefulness and skill into such general use, is described and illustrated. Especially notable was the appearance, in the March with which that burden has been carried are apparent in the splendid panorama of chemical development issue, of the fundamental paper by L. H. Baekeland, entitled “The Synthesis, Constitution, and Uses of spread out in more than 28,000 pages. In 1907 President Bogert appointed a committee, Bakelite.” The same issue carried an article by E. G. with W. D. Richardson as chairman, to consider the Bailey on “Accuracy in Sampling Coal,” which was feasibility of publishing a journal devoted to the special called “the most important contribution to the quesinterests of industrial chemists. At the meeting of tion that has appeared for years.” In the April issue there appeared an editorial by the Council a t Chicago, January 1, 1908, the report W. R. Whitney, in which that distinguished director of the committee, which had previously received of research said: “A theory is a suit of clothes coverenthusiastic and unanimous endorsement by the ing a nakedness. It is criminal to appear to be without Industrial Section, was considered, and after several it. It is foolish to change it too frequently, and it is hours of discussion it was unanimously voted that the slovenly to neglect it. We have used the atomic SOCIETYundertake the publication of an industrial journal under the title riJouRNALOF INDUSTRIAL AND theory because it covered for a time the nakedness we ENGINEERIKG CHEMISTRY,”the first number to be recognized, but it must apparently be changed.” The July number contained a long and especially issued for January, 1909. The format of the journal was fixed a t this time and, in accordance with the valuable paper on the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen recommendations of the committee, the general char- by A. Bernthsen, director of the Badische company. acter of its contents was determined by provision In view of all that has since happened it is curious to for its appearance under thirteen department head- note that two and a half pages are also given in July ings. Later, as a result of a letter ballot sent to to the judgment of the Board of Food and Drug the Council on June 4, 1908, W. D. Richardson was Inspection in a case concerned with the misbranding of whisky, and to this are referred any readers who elected Editor-in-Chief.
