also in the interest of the Government and the consumer, because it is an established fact that many of those products which are not manufactured in this country are selling at excessive prices and many products could be enumerated which are selling 30 to 50 per cent cheaper now that they are also manufactured in this country. The duty on these products, which made their home manufacture possible, therefore not only did not increase the selling price of these products, but was the actual cause of bringing it down to a reasonable figure. That the present duties are not of a prohibitive character is demonstrated by the fact that importation of dutiable products is steadily increasing, and the present tariff system and principle of levying duties should therefore be also satisfactory from the standpoint of Government revenue. On the other hand if duties should be put on raw materials, the importation would undoubtedly decrease to a great extent, because the manufacture of products necessitating such raw materials would be discouraged and stopped as soon as foreign competition would make such manufacture prohibitive. It is therefore more than likely that duties on raw materials would prove to be a very unreliable source of revenue. If, however, changes are considered necessary, due consideration should be given to the arguments submitted by the various manufacturing interests, because they are in position to give data and facts which make a thorough study of the subject possible. On that basis changes could be brought about for revenue purposes and with the object of doing away with some prohibitive duties as may exist at present and without the danger of inflicting serious damage to the industry. Having at heart not only my own personal interest as a chemical engineer, but also the one of the profession and the growth of the American chemical industry as well, I urge you to give that important branch of American manufacture in the coming issue a fair hearing and the chance for further development to which it is justly entitled. Yours, very respectfully, DR. J. BEBIE, 8717 McDonald Avenue. ALLERTON S. CUSHMAN, WASHINGTON, D. C., WRITES REGARD- THE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH, Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD, Chairman Ways and Means Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I have followed with the closest attention the hearings of the Ways and Means Committee with reference to Schedule A. I have also given study to the bill, H. R. 20182, which was passed at the last session of Congress and which was framed on lines that, in the general average, called for distinct reductions on the finished products of American chemical industry and showed a tendency to place taxes on raw materials previously on the free list. My position as director of the Institute of Industrial Research, which calls for cooperative investigation work with a great number of chemical industries in this country, has led me to the belief that PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. the general policy of heavy reduction on finished products and increase of taxation on raw materials must inevitably tend to discourage and, to some extent, to destroy the chemical manufacturing industry of this country. There is probably no line of human industry, in my opinion, in which this country is more justified in seeking protection than in the chemical industries, nor is there any line in which we are more distinctly led, up to the present time, by Europe. Nevertheless, we have been making great strides in this country, especially in the last ten years. Many of our chemical industries are just struggling to get ahead at the present time, and although the labor cost against our chemical industry is much higher than the European cost, our American ingenuity and cleverness in adapting means to ends by substituting labor-saving devices is beginning to pull us out to even terms. I can not help but feeling that if the committee should in their wisdom give very careful heed to the arguments which have been filed by the manufacturers they will notice that, in respect to Schedule A particularly, there is very little indication of greed or desire for undue or unjustified profits. The taxation of the raw materials considered under Schedule A, as well as the substantial increase of duties on finished materials, will, in my opinion, operate only to the advantage of Germany and the other big manufacturing countries. Only my close touch with the subject which I am discussing would justify my adding my word of appeal to you in respect to these matters. Very sincerely, yours, PARAGRAPH 1: ALLERTON S. CUSHMAN, Director. Acids: Acetic or pyroligneous acid, not exceeding the specific gravity of one and forty-seven one-thousandths, three-fourths of one cent per pound; exceeding the specific gravity of one and forty-seven one-thousandths, two cents per pound; acetic anhydrid, two and one-half cents per pound; boracic acid, three cents per pound; chromic acid, two cents per pound; citric acid, seven cents per pound; lactic acid, containing not over forty per centum by weight of actual lactic acid, two cents per pound; containing over forty per centum by weight of actual lactic acid, three cents per pound; oxalic acid, two cents per pound; salicylic acid, five cents per pound; sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol not specially provided for in this section, one-fourth of one cent per pound; tannic acid or tannin, thirty-five cents per pound; gallic acid, eight cents per pound; tartaric acid, five cents per pound; all other acids not specially provided for in this section, twenty-five per centum ad valorem. For boracic acid, see also Italian Chamber of Commerce, page 103; for thymol and terpin hydrate, see Verona Chemical Co., page 71. ACIDS. SALICYLIC ACID. STATEMENT OF DR. S. LEWIS SUMMERS, FORT WASHINGTON, PA. Dr. SUMMERS. Our Government and its citizens are being unjustly taken advantage of by a $100,000,000 corporation of Germany. Through the inequalities of our tariff laws, in conjunction with our patent laws, and the skillful manufacture and dissemination of defamation calculated to discredit competition, this special interest PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. has patented control of opportunity and deprived the noncombative sick of the use of what would best restore their health. This corporation is selling in the United States a long list of patent medicines at prices many hundred per cent in excess of the prices for what they sell the same products for to all other peoples. The druggists of the United States have to pay 43 cents per ounce for aspirin or acetyl-salicylic acid. There are most probably more than 10,000 ounces of it sold in this country every day. It costs the manufacturers of it less than 5 cents per ounce to produce it. All other peoples can buy the same identical substance, made by the same corporation, for less than 10 cents per ounce. The excess extortion filched from the sick of the United States by this corporation of Germany for acetyl-salicylic acid will most probably exceed in 17 years over $20,476,500. The so-called patent on acetyl-salicylic acid was obtained from our Government by misrepresentation. The product was fully described in Current Literature by Kraut in 1869. They claimed that their acetyl-salicylic acid was different from that described by Kraut in that their's did not liquefy until it reached a much higher temperature and that it did not produce a violet color when added to a weak solution of chloride of iron. Our Patent Office has since acknowledged, when it issued patent No. 740702 on the sodium salt of acetylsalicylic acid, that if the medicine is made in exact accordance with the prescription written by Kraut in 1869 it would produce the identical acetyl-salicylic acid they claimed. As to the definite temperature at which the product is converted to a liquid condition, there is none. It will completely liquefy, with decomposition, if gradually heated to a temperature of 120° C., or 15 less than claimed in the patent. If our tariff is to be one of protection to American industry or one of evenness, then these medicines should be taxed on the basis of their selling prices in this country, and not taxed on the basis of the cost of their production in another country. The postal laws of our country are being violated by the Journal of the American Medical Association to the material benefit of this octopus corporation and some other favored German corporations who have combined in the restraint of trade. Under the regulations governing the use of the mails by publications at second-class rates, our laws provide that there shall be no discrimination between manufacturers in the use of the advertising pages. The Journal of the American Medical Association refuses the opportunity of making known the truth about American-made competing chemical compounds of superior value-on the technicality that all products advertised in the journal must be first approved of by its council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association. This device is supposed to constitute this council as a "referee" and is supposed to bind those who are intrepid enough to submit their products to it to abide by its decision and forfeit the right to advertise in that journal. Do our laws tolerate such blatant deceit? Thus the patent medicines made by the $100,000,000 corporations in Germany, who are in the combination to restrain competition in medicines in the United States, were approved of en masse, over six PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. years ago, by this so-called council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association. The competing medicines that possess superior values in the amelioration of human suffering were to be acted on later, after due consideration. It was not a question of proprietary rights versus freedom of manufacture. Neither was it the laudable question of curative values versus medicinal uselessness, as stated by the chairman of the council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association in a letter to me that the proprietary products made by the favored German manufacturers * * * Are recognized and will need no investigation on the part of the council. If your preparations are patented, send the number and date of the patent. The therapeutic properties of the preparations need not be gone into except in brief. The main thing in this case, of course, is to define the chemical position. That being done, the rest is easy. There is no class of men so sensitive to ridicule as the medical profession. This fact has made the American people the victims of the German corporation. Were the maintenance of this German monopoly and the discrediting of American competition merely a question of merchandise the Government would not stand for it. It is far worse. Being a question of human life the public naturally have a right to think that the function of this council was in the interests of the health of the people. It is the cleverest device ever foisted before the American people for the patenting of control of opportunity in behalf of special interests by the manipulation of the confidence of guardians of the health of the Nation. The tremendous prestige of the honorable positions held by the individual members of this council, and the knowledge that the issue involved human lives, made it unthinkable that any such class of men would permit the use of their reputations in this scurvy attempt to discredit medicines having the power to alleviate human sufferings. Thus, the weighty influence of the high prestige of Harvey W. Wiley, then Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Agriculture, the chief of the Drug Laboratory of the Bureau of Agriculture, along with the power of the high positions in our leading medical colleges held by the other members of that body, have produced deep-rooted prejudices and fixed opinions of the prescribers of medicines and established an insidious boycott of medicines capable of reducing the period of sickness as quickly and in many instances much more rapidly than any other medicine made anywhere by anybody. By the display of the official positions of the individuals composing the council on pharmacy and chemistry there is accomplished the appearance of the indorsement of favored patent medicines and the condemnation of meritorious chemical compounds of known composition by our Government and the leading medical colleges of our country that should prohibit the use of their stationery for such purposes. Six years ago the Government bought some acetyl-salicyl-phenetidin on the open market. It was analyzed and found to be a true chemical compound. The chief of the drug laboratory, Lyman F. Kebler, the so-called referee (he stated) to whom the council on pharmacy and chemistry had referred this chemical compound to for a report on it, told me that he could not report favorable upon it, "because it passed through the alimentary canal without being PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. absorbed." He gave as authority an article that had been published in Germany. In the stipulation contained in the agreement sent me by the chairman of the council on pharmacy and chemistry all that was essential was that- The main thing in this case, of course, is to define the chemical position. That being done, the rest is easy. The therapeutic properties of the preparations need not be gone into except in brief. Under legislative law the chief of the drug laboratory of the Bureau of Agriculture has to admit that these competing synthetics are chemical compounds of known composition. Under the caption as "referee" of the council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association he avoids approval by sophistry on specious technicalities. After several letters from me demanding evidence in substantiation of his statement to me he supplied the name and issue of the German publication. For this gentleman to be so well posted in the literature of the world, especially in a branch of science different from his vocation and that printed in a foreign tongue, caused me to smile when I thought of the many other such partisan statements that had been conveniently printed in Germany and astutely circulated in the United States for the purpose of discrediting the chemical compounds which I had created. The article he referred to was printed in the Berechte der Deutschen Gesellschaft, volume 37, page 3975, and entitled, "Acetyl-salicylphenetidin." See page 69 of my monograph. The article was prepared by two of the leading chemists of Germany and one of its greatest authorities on pharmacological testing. It was honest in what was stated, but dishonest in conveying misleading inference by adroitly omitting to state the principal part of the whole truth. It gave me credit as being the originator of the compound and admitted that the process, published by me, for the manufacture of this synthetic chemical compound, was correct. It admitted that the medicine does not reduce the normal temperature of the body, and that it does not interfere with the oxygen-carrying function of the red-blood corpuscles-so vitally essential for life. But it deftly omitted to tell the important part of the whole truth that where an abnormal temperature or fever is present as the result of the germs of disease that the chemical compound does remove the excess temperature with safety. When that quality of not doing harm whilst doing good is the valuable feature of the compound which I added to this world's sum of knowledge, and is the one true reason for its existence, what does the suppression of such important knowledge indicate! The product that is the nearest approach to this unequaled chemical compound in relieving mankind of the pains of neuralgic conditions and the fevers caused by infectious diseases, colds, etc., is controlled by the favored German corporation, there being none other made in this country. Statistics state that there are 25,000 deaths from typhoid fever and 100,000 deaths from pneumonia in the United States every year. There is no one medicine more efficient and potent in the treatment of these diseases than is acetyl-salicyl-phenetidin when used in ade |