It was decidedly humiliating for our
Government to have to beg Germany to sell us enough colors to print our
stamps and greenbacks and then have to beg Great Britain for permission
to bring them over by Dutch ships.
The raw material for the production of coal-tar products we have in
abundance if we will only take the trouble to save it. In 1914 the crude
light oil collected from the coke-ovens would have produced only about
4,500,000 gallons of benzol and 1,500,000 gallons of toluol, but in 1917
this output was raised to 40,200,000 gallons of benzol and 10,200,000 of
toluol. The toluol was used mostly in the manufacture of trinitrotoluol
for use in Europe. When the war broke out in 1914 it shut off our supply
of phenol (carbolic acid) for which we were dependent upon foreign
sources. This threatened not only to afflict us with headaches by
depriving us of aspirin but also to removed the consolation of music,
for phenol is used in making phonographic records. Mr. Edison with his
accustomed energy put up a factory within a few weeks for the
manufacture of synthetic phenol.
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