OUR NATIONAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Round Table

November 1 1915

by S. Avery

In my lectures to the freshman I used to define chemistry as a subject that concerned itself with products resulting from changes in the composition of matter. I shall use the term this evening in this broad sense. Our chemical industries then will be treated as those industries which relate to the making of substances of use to us and out national industries those that have a national significance. The reason for choosing this subject at the time is the fact that the great European War has seriously dis turbed these industries. It has cut off supplies of manufactured products as well as of raw material. It has thrown us out of immediate contact with Germany, the nation which has made the greatest strides in the manufacture of chemical products. It has emphasized our ability and our lack of ability at the present time to supply our needs. At the same time the very conditions to which I refer suggest the remedies that we can apply if we begin in time. We cannot deny that the war has produced throughout the world a tremendous spirit of nationalism. Logically and philosophically there is no sense of nationalism. I do not believe that it is the ultimate form of our civilization. Nationalism rests on purely arbitrary and artificial distinctions. There is no logical reason why we should be fellow countrymen with the blackest plantation negro and potentially enemies with Canadians who are so nearly like ourselves that they cannot be distinguished from us on either side of the borderline. But nevertheless the growth of inter-nationalism has through the war recieved a tremendous check and we are forced back to nationalism through the very fact that other nations have taken this attitude. Till recently the chemists of the country were inclined to say that since Germany makes the finer chemicals exceedingly well and with great economy let us be content to turn our atten tion to the heavier side of the indistry and let Germany have a monoploy on the more refined. We can make more money and Germany can make more money by letting our trade relations stand in this way and exchanging our goods. Now if Germany had taken the lead during the last twenty-five years in spreading a spirit of internationalism and good-will instead of fostering the spirit of patriotism and the sword there would be no need of concern on our part in regard to chemical industries in a national sense but this made in Germany war changes everything. I am now going to suppose that the United States were at war with a combination of European powers. Let us suppose that our coast defenses our torpedo boats our battleships our submarines and our aeroplanes made it difficult if not impossible to land any very large body of foreign troops on our soil. We will suppose however that troops could be landed in Mexico or Canada and that we had a line of troops along the international boundary that access to the sea was cut off and that otherwise the nation's industry was proceeding very much as usual. What would be the chemical situation? I will consider it first from a metallurgical point of view. Our great iron and coal mine, the smelting of ores the manufacturing of metallurgical products would go on. The mining of gold and silver with foreign commerce shut off would be quite enough to supply the nation's need of these metals. In a condition of isolation the gold reserve would increase rather than diminish. An abundance of copper ore would be smelted for purposes of war without melting down our trolley wires and church bells as they are doing in Germany and Austria. Antimony and lead would be provided in abundance so that there would be plenty of material in the country for the use of the printers that we might be regaled with true and fake war news as well as other things. In fact I think of the absence of only one substance that would interfere with our daily life and that is tin and for the use if the tin there are substances enough available. So our position on the metallurgical side would be well-nigh impregnable. To be sure, there are many minerals that we import but most of these are unnecessary or could be procured from American sources. The fact that the substances have not been greatly en hanced in price through the war except through strong foreign demand shows that if we were in the situation that Germany now is our condition would be an excellent one. Let us turn to consideration of the coal tar products so-called. I might say in parenthesis that every one of these products can be made without reference to coal tar but that for a great many of them coal tar has been the cheapest source. By the destructive distillation of coal and by catching the products rather than turning them and allowing them to escape we obtain coal gas bensol which can be converted into aniline and the whole range of aniline dyes totuol which by treatment with nitric acid forms crystalline products which are the basis of most of the floating mines and torpedoes carbolic acid which is nitrated for the use of lydidt shells naphthalene and other hydrocarbonsthe basis of very important dyes and a few other intermediates. By the term intermediate I mean those things that are manufactured into more complex compounds. That the shutting off of the supply of these from Germany has been a serious matter can be readily seen from the following prices showing the wholesale price before and after the war: Carbolic acid from 42 cents to $1.45; salicylic from $1 to $2.75; antipyrine from $4 to $15; toluol from a few cents per pound to $5. Many of the dye stuffs are off from the market. The manufacturers are using other colors or going back in some cases to the older vegetable dyes. Recently the United States Forestry Department called the attention of manufacturers to the use of the yellow dyes in osage orange roots which opens a promising substitute for German synthetic dyes. In photographic chemicals we are in some cases going back to the older domestic products which before the war had been considerable extent surplanted by the newer products of the German laboratories. Now in all of these things we have been disturbed harrassed and inconvenienced rather than seriously injured. A physician of course dislikes to be deprived of his favorite remedies but he is not helpless. There are other things that can be used. We could in a pinch get along without the use of dye stuffs except such as we might get from domestic sources but the greatest and richest nation in the world does not care to have its method of life disturbed because people will fight on the other side and the question naturally arises why not be commercially independent in these lines. There have been up to date a good many difficulties. We have not as yet a large body of chemists trained to conduct manufacturing. We can train them and also

utilize men of a general scientific training. Experience has shown that we can make almost any products in America quite as cheaply as can be done in Germany despite their advantage of labor conditions, provided we can make it in large enough quantities. There are about nine hundred German dye stuffs on the market. In most of these the volume of business is rather small. We can never compete with the Germans in making small understandardized products owing to labor conditions, and under labor I include the labor of the scientists on materials to be made in small quantities. Out of these nine hundred dyes there are about thirty of considerable volume. The most of these are now unprotected by patents. The manufacturing processes could be standardized and the crystals or pastes could be turned out with the accuracy and regularity of Ford automobiles. Thus we could easily enough by giving the matter a little care control all the products that are essential to our commercial welfare whereas I do not think we can ever compete in novelties. It is no hardship to do without novelties in war times. The entire business of the world in what might be termed coal tar products amounted annually in normal times to about $100,000,000. Of these Germany contributed about $90,00,000 the rest of the world $10,000,000. Of the $90,000,000 produced by Germany about $9,000,000 found their way into the United States. Hence it will be seen that Germany under normal conditions con trols the trade and through the organization of their chemical.

manufacturers can sell goods in this country for any price they please. In order to cut out competition in America the German association of manufacturers could supply us for nothing for any length of time that they might see fit taking the cost out of their profits or charging it up to the rest of the world. Under such sort of competition the present ad valorem duties of about 30% would amount to absolutely nothing. The only protection we could have would be specific duties and these specific duties I would have high enough so that American manufacturers could con tinue in business doing work at the selling price equal to specific duties free and a moderate overhead charge for business adminis tration. Furthermore, then, I would advocate the establishment at Washington of a great chemical research department under on of the Cabinet officers. It should be the duty of this department to conduct investigations along the lines of chemical manufacturers to patent the results of these investigations in all countries making them free for use in America and in America only. By these two means scientific investigations under government subsidy and protection against dumping by specific duties we shall be able to control the big business of the coal tar industry. Let Europe have the small industries just as the United States shall continue to make the standardized watches and clocks and let Switzerland have a monopoly on the time-pieces largely made by hand.

Of more importance than those things that I have mentioned are the chemical effecting agriculture. Nebraska is not buying agricultural chemicals yet but without them we raise crops equal in value to those of the state of Georgia where there is an annual expenditure of $30,000,000. The difference between our prosperous farms with their barns silos and houses with modern conveniences and the one window fireplace cabin of Georgia is largely a matter of soil fertility. But without these fertilizers Gerogia would hardly be on the map at all and the same is true of most of the states east of Indiana. Now the three elements necessary for commercial fertilizers are nitrogen phosphorous and potash. We get large amounts of the first two as by-products of our packing industry. So far as nitrogen is concerned we are as well off as any country in the world except Chile where the enormous nitrate beds are found. Our agriculture can depend largely on nitrogen from the air secured from clover and alfalfa. We have extensive phosphate beds and in fact are exporters of phosphorous. But Germany posesses in the Stassfurt mines the only ready-made potassium salts in the world that are immediately fit for agriculture. High grade potash salts can be mined at Stassfurt for $2 per ton. The Kaiser and the nobility own the mines and they charge what the traffic will bear. The crude salts sold before the war at about $6 a ton the refined salts up to $30 a ton. In normal times we pay Germany an annual potash bill of about $15,000,000. A number of years ago a German potash

syndicate consisting as I have said of the Kaiser's commercial bunch made new rules and regulations in regard to shipments. Relentless in competition as they are in their warfare they passed some ex post facto laws and disregard the protests of our government. Our government immediately began a search for potash supplies in America. Now while we have no mines of potash we have mountains of it looked up in the New England feldspar but the process of liberating it from the rock elements is even more expensive than the German monopoly prices and could not compete for a moment with such prices as Germany might make. There are some alkali lakes in Nebraska, one of which is controlled by the Cudahy Company from which they are now securing potash residue for their fertilizer business. They expect to take a million dollars worth of business out of this lake, but even that would be unprofitable except for the war. We have apparently an inexhaustible supply of potash in the giant kelp that grows on the Pacific Coast. The dried kelp or sea-weed contains as high as 30% chloride of potash. It also contains a considerable quantity of iodine. The process of obtain ing this subject is simple. The kelp is dried burned by hand and the chloride of potash bleached out. If it is desired to recover the iodine some oxidizing agent such as free chlorine is added and the iodine filtered off. The kelp grows with very great rapidity. The beds have been carefully surveyed and there is no doubt that we could secure from this source enough to supply our agriculture in an emergency. I might add that most of the

world is doing now without potash depending on the reserve in the soil. There is enough in Nebraska soil to keep our crope going for seven hundred years so we need not worry but there are reclaimed swamp lands in Illinois that will be sterile when the supplies on hand at the beginning of the war are exhausted. The natural advantage of Germany through possessing these mines of potash is so obvious and manifest that it seems to me hardly desirable to develop a potash industry through a high tariff. Potash is not contraband of war but is useful in making the old style of black gunpowder. Germany has now placed an embargo on it for fear it will reach her enemies. She would be glad to sell it to us at reasonable terms if she could be sure that it would not go into the manufacture of shrapnel. My own feeling in regard to the matter is that the appropriate for experiments in extracting potash from the feldspar and also from the sea-water should be made in sufficient amounts to conduct experiments on a commercial scale. If it is economically possible to procure potash in America for only a little more than Germany is in the habit of charging us then tariff regulations sight protect the industry in such a way that we could be independant. The chief explosive used in this war is guncotton or nitrocellulose made by the relatively simple process of treating guncotton with a mixture of nitric ad sulphuric acids. As the greatest cotton producing country in the world and having ample and prosperous sulphuric acid factories we have no need to worry about anything except our supply of nitrates.

The present supply if nitric acids us obtained from the nitrate of soda in Chile. Nitrates can be made by the electrolysis of the air and by the oxidizing of ammonia. We would soon run short of ammonia owing to the fact that we have not developed the coal tar industry but the proper development of this industry along with the dyeing stuffs would give us a source of ammonia which could be converted into nitric acid though not at a profit commercially. Nitric acid can be made profitability from the air where water power is available to produce horse power at $4 per year. My impression is that at Niagra Falls the selling price is about $20 per year. It seems doubtful then whether we can for a good many years compete with the ready-made nitrates of Chile. The only place where this is in successful c ompetition is in Norway where an international syndicate has the matter in control and in Italy where some exceedingly cheap water power is obtainable. Germany imports the great bulk of her nitrates from Chile and the stories that have been going the rounds that with this supply shut off they are manufacturing nitric acid from the air are probably pure fiction. Both the cotton and nitric acid used in Germany are probably from enormous stores accumulated before the war began. Nevertheless it seems to me that the govern ment might properly subside certain electrical plants or perhaps give them the free use of water in connection with some of the great irrigation works erected as government expense in order to have fully developed a number of plants that could supply us with

nitric acid for the manufacture of nitrocellulocae in case we should be out off from communication with the western coast of South America as might easily happen if Japan were our enemy. In times of peace the country consumes considerable quantities of liquid chlorine in gold extraction by the chlorination process. It consumes considerable quantities of liquid sulphur and dioxide for bleaching purpose and for disinfectant and sanitation. Those of you who remember will pardon my reminding those who may have forgotten their chemistry that both of these are heavy gases which are easily liquified under pressure and can be kept indefinite ly in iron containers. Chlorine can be made easily by the electrolysis of salt sulphuric dioxide by the burning of sulphur. Small specific duties should be placed on the imprtation of such articles. A careful survey of the commerical plants should be kept by the War Department and arrangements should be made to take these over in case of war. A mixture of these gases was used by the Germans with great success in the only advancement they have made against the British in Belgium in the course of a year. If any foreign enemies should land on our coasts and entrench themselves an abundant supply of these gases would come in handy. Provision too I believe should be made for flooding the enemies' camps with such subtances as arsine gas and prussic acid. As far as I am concerned I would not be squeamish about the methods I used in exterminating any foreign troops that were attempting to devastate our shores.

I now come to a section of my subject in which I have reversed my ladies since this war came on. A very great part of my chemical training was in Germany. I have dear friends there and I have or did have a very great enthusiasm for everything German except their military system their aristocracy and a certain arrogance and intolerance that certain classes display. I began my chemical work in the University of Nebraska with the assumption that nothing made outside of Germany was fit for students of chemistry to use and I even committed the folly of importing some German petroleum ether at $1 a quart when I was in reality getting the Standard Oil product that had been sent over there re labeled and sent back again. I could have bought a light gasoline down by the tracks on 14th Street at 15¢ a gallon that would have served the purpose. Scientific men have been and are a little dazed by the glamour of German achievement. We have purchsed out material in Germany duty free road German literature taught our students to look to Germany as the Mecca of all things chemical and naturally learned to despise the American products. Now as a matter of fact German chemicals were usually such better than those procured in America. The same was true of scientific apparatus but I found however that I could procure a better balance in Denver than I could in Berlin, though I had to pay a little more for it. A New Jersey firm is now making fine inorganic chemicals for laboratory

purposes at only a litttle higher price than those of Merck or Kahlbaum. But we have not given the manufacturers of American scientific intruments much encouragement. They have made their products to sell to druggists and commercial houses whereas if they where obliged to cater to scientific men capable of handling their wares discriminatingly, they would have been compelled to have improved their quality. Even though it would cost our schools a good deal more money and would be an immediate burden to the taxpayers of this state and a drain on the resources of the Univer sity, I believe it would be better to withdraw from schools and scientific institutions the right of duty free importations on the ware they buy in large quantities. We now surpass the Germans in all metal ware used in laboratories for scientific purposes. We excell them in rubber tubing. We are approaching them in porcelain ware. I regret to say that we are much behind the Germans in glass ware, but on second thought our best and cheapest glassware is not German at all but Bohemian. I have no doubt that it would be easy to develop a Bohemian glassware industry in America through the importation of Bohemian artisans who would probably be glad to adopt America as their home after the war is over. We should have men in our schools who are highly trained in America and who will insist and secure good articles from American manufacturers. It is time they were weaned from German milk. It was probably necessary for them in their infancy.

Everybody will concede that Germany has been the most successful country in this war. Next to Germany I would place England and France on a par England for controlling the seas and France for stopping the terrific onslought towards Paris. Russia and Austria presented an equally pitiful spectacle until Germany took over the latter and made it efficient. Italy has made small progress. In chemical industries Germany stands pre eminent. England and France come second Russia Austria and Italy have no standing. I do not claim that this is cause and effect. It is rather a result of national strength. There is one illiterate in every 5000 recruits in Germany. In England there are 50 illiterates in France 150 In Itay 1500 and in Russia they may be all illiterated. Figures are not available for Austria. In fifteen years Germany increased her production of coal 200% Great Britain and France each less than 100% the United States 350%. In the production of pig iron and steel in fifteen years Germany increased her production 300% Great Britain 35% France 150% the United States 575%. The national wealth of Germany is now equal to that of the United Kingdom 50% more than that of France and over half that of the United States. But I will not go further into the statistical side. It takes but a slight glance at comparative statistics to show that there are only two nations really in the running industrially and these two nations are Germany and the United States. With vastly greater

resources we are rather but not distinctly in the lead. Germany has far surpassed us recources considered. The rest of the world makes a poor showing on either score. The future development then of our chemical industries preeminently useful in time of peace absolutely indispensable in time of war should be the careful consideration of all those who believed that the United States should maintain the dominant position on the American continetn that Germany is assuming in Europe and the near east. My summary then of the situation would be as follows: First. A revision of our tariff laws based on the report of a comission consisting of out most statementlike public men associated with manufacturers and scientific men the avowed purpose being without regard to revenue or the immediate financial advantage to the country as a whole to build up our chemical in dustries through anti-dumping laws nations should not be permitted to sell more cheaply here than in the other markets of the world or in their home market. Second. The establishment of certain government plants or subsiding of certain plants where inducements for private capital are not sufficient to control the situation under ordinary conditions. Third. The development of large governmental scientific establishments including experimental manufacturing plants in which the profitable workings of certain processes can be demon strated to manufacturers and assistance rendered.

Fourth. The employment of a large number of trained experts by the government and the patenting of their dis coveries in all nations giving the methods patented free use to American manufacturers.