VOLUME25 NUMBER 9
Industrial AND ENGINEERING Chemistrv
SEPTEMBER 1933
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HARRISONE. HOWE, EDITOR
The Editor’s Point of View
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CIENCE IK STABILIZATION. Efforts to stabilize industry, to increase employment, and to augment payrolls are guided to some extent by landmarks established in the past, but the success of the plan depends in large measure, not on the old, but on the new. Industries, like individuals, grow old, and with increasing age there is a fixity of ideas and change becomes more difficult to undertake. After a timeindustries even seek political interference against the competition of younger enterprises and strive to maintain the sfaius quo. Control, with which goes a certain measure of security, is always more welcome to an industry which has become static than to one bristling with new ideas and still plastic enough, not only to welcome, but to seek, constructive change. The extent to which industry maintains research and utilizes its results is one measure of its youth. Just a little consideration will show how irnpossible it is to proceed far with our sights trained on the past. If there were no other factors, the research laboratories of the world, and especially those devoted to chemistry, are suficient to force us to right-about-face. During the past four years science has continued its march, creating ne\% opportunities, contributing many improvements, and unavoidably making necessary the abandonment of some processes and equipment. Recovery acts cannot be interpreted as protevting obsole-cence, and science may be depended upon to continue working its change3. Chemistry is destined to exercise great influence in the period just ahead, if for no other reason than because it is fundamental to the processes by which what the world offers is changed into what its people want. The consuming public becomes more critical of commodities as their abundance and availability increase and the improvements demanded generally require chemical research. Accelerated consumption may threaten the existence of an important material, and research is engaged much more frequently in creating equivalents than in finding substitutes. The scientist hesitates to assume the role of a prophet, but his faith in things that can happen is 951
strengthened by what has taken place within a decadeyes, even within a year. Such events appear of minor importance to the average man, yet their aggregate motivates industry and supports that acceleration in the supply of goods and services which gives stability to prosperity. From whatever angle one may view the future, science will be as important, indeed more important, as it has been in the period with which we are so familiar. No scientist holds that we have achieved the ultimate, though he himself may be unable to see from what direction the next move is to come. There is every reason to believe that the influence of research, which cannot be subject to code, will be of increasing importance as our requirements change and as our civilization attains higher levels.
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HEMISTS UNDER THE NRA. While the several groups of manufacturers who comprise the chemical industry, specialty manufacturers, and builders of chemical equipment, are perfecting organizations and preparing to submit codes for approval, the individual chemist in many instances is left wondering how he is affected. Title I of the National Industrial Recovery Act is concerned almost wholly with “trade or industrial associations or groups” and does not touch upon professional activity. Furthermore, the President’s blanket code, quite generally signed in advance of special codes for a particular industrial trade or group, does not take into account professional employees. Where industries have prepared a code to be substituted for the President’s blanket code provision niaj have been made for professional workers, and it is contemplated that the permanent codes, of which there are very few thus far, will take such employees into account. In Article I of the code submitted by the Chemical Alliance, “emplol-ees” is defined to include all psrsons and in Article I1 anyone employed in an executive, administrative, supervisory, and/or technical capacity, or as an outside salesman is exempt from the limitations as to hours.
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In these circumstances the individual chemists who are interested should look to the codes affecting the industries where they are employed to ascertain their status under them. Several firms of consultants and analysts employing staffs of workers of various grades, the majority of which are now paid well above anything contemplated in the codes, have signed the blanket code referring to hours of work and t o payrolls, so that they are doing their part. Where the consultant is practicing individually in his own name, it is clear that the President’s Reemployment Agreement does not apply. In Section 4 it is stated that “The maximum hours fured in the foregoing paragraphs shall not apply to employees (in certain places) nor to registered pharmacists or other professional persons employed in their professions.” It is hoped that a better situation may eventuate with respect to fair and proper charges for analytical and testing work, the basis for which quite obviously is a sound and uniform method of costing. If the code could accomplish this result it would be received with acclaim. An involved part of the problem is that touching those activities of staff members of educational institutions, which compete in analysis, testing, and even development and consulting work. It is generally recognized that the NRA program, which has made wonderful strides and has already accomplished certain miracles, cannot as yet be called wholly successful. T o make it succeed in the full sense of the word is the earnest objective of millions of our people. No alternative is offered. The plan must be carried to success. All are urged to do their utmost to achieve it.
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MODERN CANUTE. Among technical men trends in fixed nitrogen have become so well known that further discussion seems out of place. The public, however, continues to be interested and is likely to be misled. The press carries accounts of efforts to reorganize the Chilean nitrate industry and of repeated attempts by the European synthetic industry and the Chilean nitrate industry to reach some accord intended to control the world nitrogen market and avoid a price war. The object seems to be to command the waves of progress and the result will doubtless compare favorably with that achieved by Canute of old. It is small wonder that Chile is wellnigh desperate. Prior to 1914 she produced more than 60 per cent of the nitrogen consumed in the world. This had dropped to 36.4 per cent by 1924, fell to 9.6 per cent in the fertilizer year 1931-32, and will be still lower during the current year. Meanwhile prices have dropped precipitously, and we find the banks which have loaned money on stocks of nitrate becoming more and more nervous. The annual producing capacity for fixed nitrogen in the world exclusive of Chile is estimated at 3,400,000 metric
Vol. 25, No. 9
tons of pure nitrogen, while the maximum world consumption including Chilean nitrate was 1,950,000 tons of pure nitrogen in the 1929-30 year. In the face of this Chile had on hand at the end of 1932 stocks estimated at 2,000,000 tons of nitrate in Chile, 1,000,000 tons in Europe, principally in England, and 350,000 tons in the United States. hluch of this nitrate was mortgaged to banks against loans and while Chile has never resorted to dumping nitrates, it is conceivable that financial difficulties and the action of the banks may lead to such a course. The attitude of mind is further reflected in an article in El Mercurio published in Santiago July 4,1933, which, in discussing the new corporation that has been formed to take the place of Cosach which sank under the weight of a debt it could not meet, says that “it will fix prices which if possible will bring in a profit, but it will fix prices which above all will permit the sale of nitrate.” Courageous steps have been taken by the Chileans to regenerate their nitrate industry, which is so vital to their country and to their government. But it is futile to hurl challenges at the synthetic industry. Improvements in technic, reduced costs with large volume production, and the capacity for world over-production would be certain to bring further disaster to Chilean nitrate, should an unfortunate price war be undertaken. It may be unpleasant to sense the rising tide, but there is no likelihood that the waves can be controlled.
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REDIT T H E CERAMISTS. At the Washington meeting of the ANERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY a Symposium on Glass was presented, this being a joint effort sponsored by the Glass Division of the American Ceramic Society and the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY,as was widely publicized at the time. Through an inexplicable and unfortunate error, in publishing the papers of the symposium it was not stated that the Glass Division of the American Ceramic Society had collaborated. This is particularly unfortunate since the success of the symposium was due in largest part to the efforts of the members of the Glass Division, many of whom are also members of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY.The way for the symposium was made clear by the cooperative action of Emerson Poste, then president of the American Ceramic Society, and Alexander Silverman, chairman of the Glass Division. F. C . Flint, a prominent member of both societies, did all that any chairman could do to assure a worthwhile program, which was carried through only after those participating in it had conferred in person and agreed upon the scope of each paper. It is our hope that there may be further occasions for joint symposia held by the two societies which have SO much scientifically in common.
