There was nothing inherently uncanny, magical or wizardly about
their occupation whatever. It was nothing but plain hard work
and keeping everlastingly at it. Now, what was the actual thing
behind that chemical laboratory that we did not have at home?
It was money, willing to back such activity, convinced that in
the final outcome, a profit would be made; money, willing to
take university graduates expecting from them no special
knowledge other than a good and thorough grounding in
scientific research and provide them with opportunity to become
specialists suited to the factory's needs.

It is evidently not impossible to make the United States self-sufficient
in the matter of coal-tar products. We've got the tar; we've got the
men; we've got the money, too. Whether such a policy would pay us in the
long run or whether it is necessary as a measure of military or
commercial self-defense is another question that cannot here be decided.
But whatever share we may have in it the coal-tar industry has increased
the economy of civilization and added to the wealth of the world by
showing how a waste by-product could be utilized for making new dyes and
valuable medicines, a better use for tar than as fuel for political
bonfires and as clothing for the nakedness of social outcasts.




V

SYNTHETIC PERFUMES AND FLAVORS