American Dye Industry

The American dye industry, to judge from the banquet speeches of some of its leaders, must watch out for perilous competition from Germany. Francis P. Garvan, President of the Chemical Foundation, declared at a recent lunch of the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers' Association that prominent German capitalists and manufacturers are vainly seeking an alliance with American firms only to destroy them, and will shortly attempt to set up a German-owned dye industry within the U. S.

In a letter read to the same gathering, Elon H. Hooker, President of the Manufacturing Chemists' Association, warned of the coming dangers of German low-cost competition. Colonel J. I. McMullen, Judge Advocate of the War Department, for the same reasons urged the necessity of protecting the dye industry through a higher tariff, and also a restriction of our patent laws similar to those abroad, whereby the holder of a patent here must manufacture only in this country.

It is also recorded that Professor W. D. Bancroft of the Cornell chemistry faculty spoke on the "fastness" of dyes to light--a phase of the. American industry which lacks the after-dinner picturesqueness of certain other aspects of the industry, and yet has probably more real relation to its future success and progress than all of them put together.