Conant Asks for Private Ownership of Industry

Without private ownership of industry, future American technological development will be impeded, President Conant said this week. This important fact, Conant said, is what advocates of public control over basic industry neglect to take into consideration.

Conant spoke at a dedication dinner for Procter and Gamble's new Miami Valley Research Laboratory.

"If you desire technical progress in the practical arts, you must stimulate ingenious men to view with one another to improve the practical art in question," Conant said.

"The advocates of public ownership of the means of production have rarely faced up to this aspect of the history of modern industry."

He continued by saying that one of the most significant developments in the twentieth century was the rising tide of scientists who are becoming inventors.

"What we are celebrating tonight is one more step forward in the intrusion of science into a technical art of long standing and of first importance. We can signalize it by giving fancy names to old procedures. Time was when the soapmaker improved his soap by trial and error procedures. Now we say the manufacturer of detergents progresses by scientific research."

In stressing the importance of scientific research in modern industry, Conant cited the great increase in technical employees in the country's research laboratories over the past thirty years. Twenty thousand such workers were employed in 1922, Conant said. There are over 250,000 today.

Play the Game

"Hard work, imagination, initiative eventually pay off," he continned. "Science as one facet of such human activities can be intruded into the ancient technical arts, however complete, and given time and patience, improvements will result. But hardly ever the exact improvement that were expected. The hits in pure and applied science are usually made with a crooked ball. But the game must be played if hits are to be made at all." Conant concluded.

The new Procter and Gamble Laboratories are located outside of Cincinatti. They were built for research in soaps, synthetic detergents, shortenings, toiletries, and improvement of already existing projects.

When President Conant returns from his speaking four he will begin to teach a new course, Philosophy 150, dealing with a philosophy of modern scientific development.