Our History

Copyright 1983, Robert Burns MacMullin - ODYSSEY OF A CHEMICAL ENGINEER

HEYDAY OF THE LOCAL SECTION

The Western New York Section of the American Chemical Society was organized in 1905, and Dr. John A. Miller was its first chairman. He was followed by such eminent pioneers as G. H. A. Clowes, F. Austin Lidbury,

A.H. Hooker, L. E. Saunders, Walter Wallace, and C. G. Derick.

I had joined the ACS in 1920, the year of my arrival in Niagara Falls. The local section then had 305 members. The chair passed from Frank Low to C. H. Childs, R. C. Snowden, M. J. Ahern, G. P. Fuller, John Handy, Fred Koethen, R. W. Hess, and Van. L. Bohnson. Mysteriously, membership had steadily declined to 237, and E. B. Benger, chairman-elect for 1928, decided to do something about this. I invited the new executive committee to meet at my house in La Salle for a brainstorming session.

Among those present on that warm summer evening, as I remember, were Bohnson and Benger (DuPont Rayon), Bob Moore (Pratt and Lambert), Paul Brallier (Niagara Smelting), Fred Koethen (Acheson Graphite), Ray Hess (National Aniline), Lester Hoyt (Larkin), Ray Brown (Comstock and Westcott), John Williams (US IRS), and Ray Ridgway (Norton). "All right, gentlemen," said Benger, "let's proceed around the circle. Dr. Hess, you're first."

Hess: "The last time the ACS convened in Buffalo was in 1919. Let's invite them again. That ought to put us back on the map. The brand new Hotel Statler would make it easy." A motion was made and carried.

Moore: "We have lots of talent in this section, and great things have been accomplished. I suggest that we recognize this by awarding a medal annually. We could unveil the first award during the national meeting. Think of the publicity it would get." "Great!" we chorused. "Let's make it a gold medal." And it became Moore's special task to work out the details.

When my turn came, I said, "These are long-range plans. I doubt whether we could nail down a Buffalo convention in less than three years; there's a waiting list. We need a shot in the arm right now, to build up our membership, attract better attendance at our local meetings, stir up interest. Let's start a monthly bulletin. Other big sections do it, the Northeastern section has its NUCLEUS, Pittsburgh its CRUCIBLE, New York its INDICATOR. There's more-ISOTOPICS, ACCELERATOR, and OCTAGON."

Response: "Sounds like a good idea. Will you tackle it?"

I gave Andy Gailey an appraising look and said, "OK, I'll be editor if Andy agrees to be business manager. We'll have to run ads to cover our expenses, otherwise we'd be a drain on the section treasury." Andy gave his consent. We needed a good name for the new publication, and we batted this around for a while.

Ridgway: "The Niagara Falls section of the Electrochemical Society has more than a hundred members, and many of them belong to the ACS as well. Instead of competing with each other, why not hold some joint meetings. That would swell attendance. If the new magazine would cover ECS affairs as well as ACS affairs, the ECS would contribute its share of the expense." That would be one kind of bond, I thought.

Additionally, the ACS usually alternated section officers and meeting places, between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. That was another kind of bond.

Suddenly an appropriate name for the bulletin flashed into mind. "I have it. Let's call it the DOUBLE BOND! All of us know what a double bond is. It seems to fit the situation." Everybody else thought so too, and the title was enthusiastically approved.

That is how our three-year plan for rejuvenating the Western New York Section got underway. Polly treated the brainstormers to pitchers of minted iced tea and platters of spice cake (her specialties). As we broke up, there was a gleam in the eyes of each of us. Much hard work lay ahead. How we met the challenge will now be told. During this critical period the chair of the local section passed from E. B. Benc,,er (1928-1929) to R. B. MacMullin (1929-1930) to L. F. Hoyt (1930-1931), and finally to P. S. Brallier ('31-32). The chairmanship was really nominal, for we worked shoulder to shoulder.

THE THREE-YEAR PLAN

At first, we gave thought to holding the meeting at the Chautauqua Institution, a famous resort on Lake Chautauqua that combined recreation with the pursuit of the performing arts. We dreamed of pulling off another Institute of Chemistry. Alas, the facilities were inadequate, so we settled on Buffalo. Delegates were sent to the next national meeting of the ACS, and they lobbied for a Buffalo meeting in September 1931. They were successful, and Charlie Parsons, the secretary (King and Kaiser and Czar), made the entry on his calendar. Three years in advance, we picked Lester Hoyt as convention chairman, and in jig time he organized fifteen committees to handle the affair. I was appointed chairman of the entertainment committee, and I in turn found twenty able and inspired assistants. We programmed four events that went down in the history of the ACS as something special: a subscription dinner on Monday evening; a variety show and dance at the Elmwood Music Hall on Tuesday evening; the awards meeting and concert by the Guido Chorus at the Consistory on Wednesday evening; and a picnic with outdoor entertainment in Victoria Park in Canada on Thursday afternoon; plus, the Double Bond, Jr., of which more later. To cover the expense of this elaborate program Burrows Morey, finance chairman, raised $4,500 from the local industries.

Originally, we had guessed at an attendance of 1,500. When it was over, we counted over 2,050 registrations. Buffalo, 1931 was the second largest meeting of the ACS ever held up to that time.

THE SCHOELLKOPF MEDAL

Bob Moore, vice-chairman of the section in 1929, approached Jacob F. Schoellkopf, Jr., about the proposed medal award. "Your father was an eminent industrial pioneer on the Niagara frontier. We'd like to honor his memory by calling it the Jacob F. Schoellkopf Medal." J. F. S., Jr., a man of wealth, was interested, and he generously agreed to create a trust fund, the income from which was to provide for a gold medal to be awarded annually by the WNY Section of the ACS. The original award committee-Moore, Burwell, Hinckley, and Hoyt,-worked out the rules and regulations. These were promptly adopted as amendments to our constitution and bylaws. They selected Frank J. Tone, president of the Carborundum Company, to be the first medalist. It was a good choice, for not only was Tone worthy of the honor, but he was nationally prominent in financial circles-the Mellon interests. Frank Tone had picked up the reins of the Carborundum Company when Edward G. Acheson had dropped them. Both were noted for discovering and developing silicon carbide as a superior abrasive. All this was duly exploited in the advance publicity in the journals and news media. It was undoubtedly a big factor in the success of the 1931 ACS Convention.

THE DOUBLE BOND

Andy Gailey and I were greenhorns at publishing a monthly magazine, but we learned fast. At the Wahl Printing Company of Niagara Fans, we settled on the format and the paper stock. We learned about fonts, points, slugs, zinc cuts, and haiftones; about galley proofs and page proofs; and deadlines. Andy persuaded some chemical equipment houses to run full-page ads. He arranged for second-class mailing at the post office. He budgeted expenses and paid the bills. I oiled up my portable Corona and typed copy for vol. 1, no. 1, which appeared on I September 1928. It had only eight pages, but in the course of the very first year it grew to twenty-four pages. In this first issue I listed the intended activities of the Double Bond as follows:

1. Devotion to the interests of chemists and electrochemists residing in this district.

2. Announcement of section meetings, with a description of the speaker and his subject.

3. A full report of the last section meeting.

4. News from local organizations of interest to chemists, such as the Niagara Falls

Electrons, Buffalo Museum of Science, Engineering Society of Buffalo, etc.

5. News from regional meetings of the ACS and conventions held in our section.

6. Up-to-date reports on library facilities and an effort to improve them.

7. Announcement and welcome of new members; personals; industrial notes;

employment notices.

8. Cooperation with educational institutions.

9. Humor.

10. Advertising.

For input, I appointed contributing editors from all the chemical and related plants in our area. Many other technical organizations, such as the American Institute of Chemists, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, were anxious to cooperate and enjoy the free ride. The success of this new venture was astonishing. In one year our circulation reached 500 copies. Membership in the local section climbed to 307 by the time we hosted the ACS in 1931. It kept on climbing, to about 850 by the end of WW 11, and to over 1,000 as I write these memoirs. After one year as editor (an exhausting job), Paul Brallier volunteered to take over. After two years, Andy ceded the business manager's job to Paul Magill. The succession of editors that followed was brilliant and inspired-Connie Burwell, Matt Weber, Jim Landy, Fred Walker, Tommy Vaughn, Bob Fowler, Ed Guillot, Graham Hill, and Frank Birkett (to 1946). The Double Bond became a slick magazine, the best of the section publications, replete with original articles on popular science, book reviews, industrial history, patents, poetry, humor, and hobbies. It had its own staff artist and art photographer. In 1937 I started a puzzle page, "Brain Teasers," and it was so popular that Carl Thompson and Noel Hopper kept it going after 1939. The biggest issue of the Double Bond was vol. 4, no. 1, put together by Landy and Brallier as a souvenir for those attending the eighty-second meeting of the ACS in Buffalo, 1931. It had eighty pages! It was dedicated to Moses Gomberg, president, whose portrait appeared on page six. Besides the program guide, it contained a history of the WNY section, an illustrated description of the industries of the Niagara frontier, a feature article on the Schoellkopf Medal and Frank Tone, and another on the society's Langmuir award to Linus Pauling.

THE DOUBLE BOND, JR.

The gay touchstone of the entertainment committee was used to brighten up the more serious interludes of the various divisions of this learned society. We put together a daily edition called the Double Bond, Jr., a one-page scandal sheet (II" x 16") that appeared each morning before breakfast in the hotel lobby. I had hired a professional cartoonist, J. C. Weller, for the duration to draw caricatures of prominent and newsworthy scientists. As I pointed them out, Weller sketched them on the spot. They were wonderful likenesses, exaggerating the very features that we remember people by. They were printed in the next issue of DB, Jr. We properly lampooned them in our scandal sheet, to the delectation of everybody, including the victims.

Sample, Monday, Aug. 31:

Moses Gomberg has just announced his startling discovery of the cause of the current wave of man-a-block movements and apple selling. "It is the Depression," declared Dr. Gomberg. "There is just one way to cure a depression-fill it in. Take dental cavities, Dempsey noses, or even hunger. An empty stomach is depressed: fill it. An empty pocketbook is depressed: fill it. Nature abhors a vacuum. . . . We have no lack of fill. For empty stomachs, 50' wheat. For empty cars, 10' gas. For empty heads, peewee golf. Now there are more chemists in this country than we could possibly have use for. Therefore, when a depression hits the chemical industry, why shouldn't the chemists themselves fill in the depression? "

Sample, Tuesday, Sept. 1: BADGER, LEWIS CONFIDENT'AS TIME OF CONTEST APPROACHES.

"Principles" meet "Elements" in Battle of McGraw Hill. Warren K. "Strangler" Lewis: "I'm sure to win on my Principles (of Chemical Engineering)." Walter L. "Bull" Badger: "My Elements (of Chemical Engineering) can't be broken down." Weights will favor Lewis with 770 pages, while Badger is lighter with only 625 pages. . . . The promoters, McGraw and Hill, scornfully deny all rumors that the results were "in the bag." "Why should we -fix it?" they demanded. "Both men belong to our stable and we stand to win either way."

Sample, Wednesday, Sept. 2: PAULING WILL ACCEPT CASH.

Loses Amateur Status Tonite. Langmuir awards emolument to promoter of the eigen function . . . (and ending with) Scientists are reluctant to disparage what they fail to understand.

Sample, Thursday, Sept. 3: CHEMISTS CLIMAX CONVENTION WITH FREE LUNCH IN CANADA.

After four days of less important activity, several thousand chemists will invade the Dominion of Canada for a picnic supper and festival in Victoria Park. Arrangements have been made to turn on the water over the Falls. Exhibition ball game, the Has-beens vs. the Might-bes. Nature dancers will cavort on the green. Kiltie Band an' a' that.

HIGHLIGHTS, MONDAY

Some 500 guests came to the delightful subscription dinner. The souvenir program read

The menu was printed in numerical cipher-a typical ploy of our WNY pranksters. To decode, you substituted the symbols of the chemical elements for their atomic numbers.

For example:

5 + 92 + 2(9) + 13 + 8 16 + 52 + 18 + 19

B + U + 2(F) + Al + 0 S + Te + A + K BUFFALO STEAK

This is a surefire way to break the ice and to catalyze conversation with your table mates. After all, we are just what we eat-chemicals!

Earl Whitford's talcs, in Wisconsin Swedish dialect, were gems and provoked much laughter. Earl was a vice-president of Oldbury Electrochemical.

HIGHLIGHTS, TUESDAY

There must have been 2,000 guests at the complimentary party at the old Elmwood Music Hall. They were in a carnival mood and we didn't disappoint them. We started off with a Chemical News Reel, produced by George P. "Bing" Vincent, a colleague of mine at Mathieson R & D. The 1,500-foot film included an aerial tour of the industries of the Niagara frontier; on-the-spot interviews with prominent visiting chemists; and short skits by our local comedians. There was no sound strip such as we would have today, but it was a talkie nonetheless. Aping Graham McNamee, or maybe Floyd Gibbons, I filled in for the sound track, using a public-address system.

The aerial tour was more of a joyride than a documentary, being leavened by such one-liners as, "Here is the water works where chlorine is added to that dilute solution that is called Lake Erie, thus producing that never-to-be-forgotten chlorphenol taste that makes Buffalo's water so distinctive." "The Mentholatum plant is just below you-it is just another drug on the market." "You are approaching Ye Olde Malt House; if your eyes are sharp you will see the famous inscription upon it-'Prohibition, Taxes, and Crime, or Temperance, Beer, and Wine, Which shall it be?"

At Niagara, "This is Gas Alley, Union Carbide, Hooker, Niagara Alkali, and Oldbury, which are the inspiration for the song you have just sung, 'Smells........ Here is Carborundum, where Frank Tone, the Schoellkopf medalist, keeps his nose to the grindstone."

When closeups of our prominent guests were shown, I wisecracked:

Hoyt-While there's life there's Larkin Soap.

Gomberg-The free radical himself.

Redmond-As Parsons would say, presidents may come,

McPherson-And presidents may go,

Parsons-But I go on forever.

Lamb-Ba-a-a-a.

Crane-This fellow is too abstract for comprehension.

Pauling-It takes curly hair to do it.

Bancroft-He has blue eyes, but where are his blue feathers?

Vincent's movie was a masterpiece, the first of its kind, and was later loaned to other ACS sections for private showing. Much credit was due to Shorty Brainard, John Fonda, and Matt Weber, who helped him.

Our vaudeville show included a dancing act by the Long Sisters, barbershop by the Darktown Minstrels, a comedy on the Intentionally Cryptical Tables, and a review of the goofiest patents ever granted by the Patent Of-

fice by Walt Soley. Refreshments were served after the show, and after that we danced to the music of Art Laird's famous orchestra until midnight.

HIGHLIGHTS, WEDNESDAY

In contrast, the meeting of the society on Wednesday was supposed to be a formal, elite affair. It was held in the beautiful Consistory of the Buffalo Shriners. The theater had a sky blue ceiling peppered with blinking starlight. The program was to feature a welcome by Alfred H. Hooker (our honorary section chairman), a presidential address by Moses Gomberg on atomic structure, presentation of the society's first award to Linus Pauling, Pauling's paper on the nature of the chemical bond and presentation of the first Schoellkopf Medal to Frank Tone. All this was to be followed by a concert by the famous Guido Chorus, Seth Clark conducting. I had engaged the Guido for this occasion and had asked them to show up at half-past nine.

There were some unforeseen hitches, and we got behind schedule. For starters, Al Hooker wasn't on deck at 8:00 p.m. We made a frantic search, and fifteen minutes later we found him, slightly inebriated, hiding in a dark corner. He had been fortifying himself for the unaccustomed ordeal of making a public appearance. Tardily, and I fear incoherently, he put the show on the road.

There was another embarrassing delay when Pauling started his medal address. He was about to explain an "eigen function," the key to the nature of the chemical bond. He called for the first slide and the lights went out. Either the darned projector was out of kilter, or his slides wouldn't fit. Sitting in the dark, the audience grew audiblv restive. Finally PauIing gave up, called for the lights, and went on with his talk the best he could. But words were not adequate substitutes for the slides, and his listeners were baffled as to what an eigen function really looked like. The ladies present thought it must have curly hair.

Meantime the Guido Chorus was waiting backstage and bitching over the half-hour delay. Being a member of the chorus, I did my best to steady their nerves. When the curtain rose at ten o'clock, we opened with a less than brilliant rendition of McDowell's "From the Sea." Brahm's lullaby was better, and by the time we sang Whiting's "Hundred Pipers," all was forgotten as roused the audience with this stirring Scottish call to arms. Our guest soloist was the charming Geraldine Ayers Ulrich, contralto. Thus, our evening at the Consistory came to a most happy conclusion.

HIGHLIGHTS, THURSDAY

The outdoor festival in Victoria Park was a welcome change of pace for our 2,000 conventioneers. Cedric Vincent-Daviss was in charge. He staged a burlesque baseball game between the "Has-beens" and the "Might-bes." Here is the lineup:

HAS-BEENs MIGHT-BEs

Scheele P Langmuir

Priestly C Gomberg

Davy I Backeland

Lavoisier 2 Norris

Dumas 3 Parsons

Avogadro SS Howe

Fischer RF Crane

Perkins CF Lamb

Vant Hoff LF Noyes

Umpire, Al Capone

Scorekeeper, Roger Babson

Water Boy Wickersham

The contrived errors and slapstick antics performed by our local clowns in the Electrons were worthy of P. T. Barnum.

Sylphlike maidens danced on the greensward, as advertised, but contrary to rumor, not "au naturelle." They wore filmy veils.

The Canadian Niagara Kiltie Band was spectacular and stirred our blood with the wail of bagpipes and drums. At quarter of six, it started to rain, so Cedric ordered them to march to the dining room of the old Clifton House. We followed the band and had our picnic supper indoors instead of outdoors in the park. Cedric had anticipated this contingency and had taken out rain insurance. The hotel bill was paid by Lloyds of London!