Science: Fifth Estate

“It [the Fifth Estate**] is, in short, the company of thinkers, workers, expounders, and practitioners upon whom the world is absolutely dependent for the preservation and advancement of that organized knowledge which we call Science. It is their seeing eye that discloses, as Carlyle said, ‘the inner harmony of things; what Nature meant.’ It is they who bring the power and the fruits of knowledge to the multitude who are content to go through life without thinking and without questioning, who accept fire and the hatching of an egg, the attraction of a feather by a bit of amber, and the stars in their courses as a fish accepts the ocean.”

—ARTHUR DEHON LITTLE

Last week was memorable for the rapping and banging that scientists made upon the half-open doors of industry.

Dr. Robert Andrews Millikan, Nobel Prize Winner, chided the New York Chamber of Commerce because businessmen in general are slow in applying scientific research in their affairs.

The new Association of Consulting Chemists & Chemical Engineers tried to quiet timorous industrialists by adopting a code of ethics.

Arthur Dehon Little, most prosperous of industrial consultants, adroitly proved the prudence of business investing in scientific research—through his new collection of essays, The Handwriting on the Wall (published by Little, Brown).

Maurice Holland, director of the National Research Council’s division of engineering and industrial research, published his Industrial Explorers (Harper’s, $3), describing the work of 19 scientists who lead the industrial research of companies smart enough to hire them.

Dr. Harvey Nathaniel Davis, Harvard’s able, big-hearted professor of mechanical engineering, made a special point to get Dr. John Johnston, U. S. Steel Corp.’s director of research, to attend his inauguration this week as president of Stevens Institute of Technology. Stevens Institute sells scientific information and advice to wise business leaders.

The National Academy of Science was headed for Schenectady, N. Y., to hold its autumn meeting this week among General Electric Co.’s great factories of applied science.

Most memorable, two thousand business and scientific specialists in fuel were filtering into Pittsburgh for the Second International Conference on Bituminous Coal, called there this week by President Thomas S. Baker of Carnegie Institute of Technology. The coal business, particularly the bituminous part, has long had trouble making money. Despite great reserves of mined coal, competition from gas, oil and waterpower have kept prices low. The producers have become aggressively intent on selling coal derivatives—pulverized coal, tar, fuel oil, gasoline, gas, dyes, perfumes, drugs, alcohol, etc., etc. How to get those products, scientists already know much; how to utilize that knowledge, coal men know very little.

The Situation. Businessmen in general are cagey about new ideas. Twenty-five years ago they squinted dubiously at advertising. Advertising men pugnaciously proved their utility. Now he is a stupid salesman who does not use advertising. To teach a similar lesson scientists are using similar utilitarian appeals. Rarely does a researcher give a talk without a lateral exposition on how useful to business his discovery can be made.

The great corporations snatch at such new knowledge and profit from the usufructs. General Motors, General Electric, Westinghouse, Bell Telephone, U. S. Steel and others have their own research staffs. The research leaders. The fine character, the sure knowledge and the adept application of the men who lead industrial research in this country have done incalculable good in this persuasion of industrialists. Those described in Maurice Holland’s Industrial Explorers epitomize the profession. For example: Willis Rodney Whitney, 60, directs nearly 400 chemists, physicists, engineers, research assistants, machinists, glass blowers, electricians, stenographers, clerks, for General Electric. They work in laboratories at Schenectady, N. Y., Lynn and Pittsfield, Mass., Cleveland. On his staff are Dr. William David Coolidge (cathode rays) and Dr. Irving Langmuir (incandescent gases). Professor Whitney (he is nonresident professor of chemical research for Massachusetts Institute of Technology, school of most industrial research leaders), has a genius for inspiring co-workers with eagerness for their jobs.

Frank Baldwin Jewett, 49, is president of Bell Telephone Laboratories’ 2,000 scientists and their 2,000 assistants. It is the biggest organization of its kind in the world. They invented permalloy and thereby quadrupled the amount of messages possible to send over cables. They made long distance and overseas telephony possible. They have saved the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., and Western Electric Co., for whom they work, millions of dollars, and helped the companies earn more millions.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland, 65, knew tropical oils and resins. He worked with formaldehyde and phenol until he created a new kind of resin. He called it Bakelite.

Harden Franklin Taylor, 38, went from Government work (Bureau of Fisheries) to aid a sick industry (fisheries). Fish, even packed in ice, lost flavor, spoiled quickly, could be sold only near the coasts. The trouble was, he discovered, that the fish were frozen too slowly. So he invented a refrigerator for quick freezing. Now frozen fish are shipped throughout the country, housewives can vary their menus, and the Atlantic Coast Fisheries who supported the research makes money.

William Hastings Bassett, 60, led the research into the microstructure of copper and its alloys. And from this came dependable, non-corrosive water and steam pipes, boiler tubes to the profit of the American Brass Co., whose technical superintendent he is.

Dr. Charles Edward Kenneth Mees, 46, was brought from England by George Eastman, whose Eastman Kodak Co. dominates the world’s photography industry because Mr. Eastman at the very beginning of his business career went to scientists for help. Dr. Mees’ large Eastman staff has made purely scientific research into the chemistry of colloids (gelatine, cellulose, rubber, etc.), which industry is not yet using as extensively as it might.

Dr. Eugene Cornelius Sullivan, 56, invented Pyrex glassware for the Corning Glass Works. His aids were Dr. J. T. Littleton, his chief physicist and W. C. Taylor, his chief chemist.

Charles Edward Skinner, 63, invented a cash register just after he was graduated from Ohio State University. National Cash Register made a better one, and the young man went to work for Westinghouse at Pittsburgh. His great curiosity has always been on why things do not work properly. That, too, is the attitude of Westinghouse’s physicists, chemists and electrical engineers whom he directs.

Dr. Charles Lee Reese, 66, consultant chemist of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., during his 25 years service has made the company a world leader in the manufacture of explosives, cellulose products, dyes, paints, industrial chemicals.

William H. Miller, 32, devised the wind tunnel for testing airplanes. A young man, he was an authority on aerodynamics. The Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co. decided that they could improve their planes with a scientist on their staff. They hired the young man, and he to a great extent has made them one of the world’s largest plane makers.

**The other Estates: Church, Government, People, Press.