North Andover High School - Knight Yearbook (North Andover, MA)

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL SALUTATORY The Chemist: Molder of a Better Destiny PM HEN we, the American People, on the seventh day of December, 1941, 5 J I found ourselves again at war on a global scale, we were living on a plane that bore but little resemblance to the pre-war period of a quarter-century earlier. Our clothes, our foods, our homes, were different. The character of our work was changed. Our environment and thinking were those of a new age. Millions of dollars had become hundreds of millions in our national planning. Private industry risked tens of millions on ventures that earlier would have commanded hardly a tenth as much. Hosiery and furniture alike were being made from coal, water, and air; dresses from wood; farm fertilizers from the atmosphere; camphor from pine stumps. These and many other achievements of chemical synthesis had altered or made obsolete trade practices and customs as old as the race. Moreover, the scientist was just getting started. Tens of thousands of new chemical compounds and metallic alloys awaited his full exploration. We were speculating on the eventual conquest of disease. The elimination of poverty, at least as a social problem, was considered a goal that well might be realized. And, as organic chemistry was the source spring of a major share of the infini¬ tude of changes that inspired such hopes, the influences of the First World War could be very definitely traced here also. Our organic chemistry industry in the United States grew directly in answer to needs violently made evident by the war. It is unnecessary to detail to chemists what has happened in chemistry since 1914. That year a mere handful of 528 workers made up the nation’s total em¬ ployment in the production of coal-tar chemicals. American-made dyes were not even listed in the official census reports. Our farmers had to buy German potash and Chilean nitrate. Our physicians looked to Europe for important drugs and optical glass. All science looked to Europe for leadership. The bitter lessons of the First World War brought about the establishment of an organic chemical industry in the United States. For this, we have much to be thankful. I am not implying that chemistry provides the one Aladdin’s lamp which all scientists must rub. However, let chemistry be ignored and the other lamps become lifeless ' brass. Perhaps the greatest benefit that has come to America from our chemical awakenings is the renascence of all science that has accom¬ panied it. The chemical synthesis of vitamins, for example, to say nothing of hormones and the sulfa drugs, not only is revolutionizing medicine and diet¬ etics but putting these sciences on incomparably higher planes of performance and future promise. The famous tribute paid Washington—first in peace and first in war—might be paid with equal justice to chemistry. Its record during the First World War is history. Its contribution to the nation’s progress during the peaceful years of the 20’s and 30’s while the organic chemical industry grew to maturity, 19

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL BARBARA J. COCHRANE “An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow.” Band 1, 2, 3 Glee Club 3, 4 Girl Reserves 1, 2 Journal 3 Gobbler 4 No matter what is going on, Barb will appear sooner or later. It’s amaz¬ ing how one person can get so much done. MARTHA E. GLIDDEN “Better be small and shine, than be great and cast a shadow .” Girl Reserves 1, 3, 4 Martha is a little lass with blond hair and hazel eyes. Good luck to you, Martha. ANTHONY C. LAURENZA “ Home is the sailor, home from the seas.” Tony is a Naval dischargee who left Johnson in 1943 and now has returned to complete his education. Tony has brown eyes, dark hair, and is a smooth dancer. He likes to get up at dawn and go hunting. While in the Navy he attended Wisconsin Univer¬ sity for a radio course, and he plans to make radio engineering his career. DONALD J. C. PHAIR “. . . and the hunter is home from the hill” Band 1, 2 Orchestra 1, 2 Don has hunter’s blood in him. He says he had rather hunt than eat. A quiet sort, Don will get by in what¬ ever work he chooses. RITA A. MULCHAHEY “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Class Secretary 1 Journal 1, 2, 3, 4 (Editor) Gobbler 4 (Editor) Lunch Room With Rita goes her little black bag. Give her a pen and a few words and you have a budding Shakespeare. Good luck, Rita. You’re sure to make the grade. THOMAS J. GIAQUINTA “ No terms but unconditional sur¬ render ” Football 3, 4 Basketball 1, 2, 3, 4 Play 4 Tom was last year’s sharp shooter in Room 6, and also on the basketball floor. His curly hair and smooth dancing put him tops with all the girls. Becoming an aviation mechanic in the Navy is his intention for next year. SHIRLEY M. PENDLEBURY “And happy will my nature be.” Prom Committee 4 Journal 4 Glee Club 3, 4 Shirl has always been the first one to speak up whenever things get out of hand. Her friendly personality will be an asset to her in future years. 18

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL helped crowd into those years many of the most notable advances that mankind has gained since civilization began. The nation emerged from the Second World War with capacities for making plastics, synthetic fibers, nitrates, hydro-carbons, high octane gasolines, and literally scores of chemical and other raw materials on a large scale that only a few years ago was beyond our comprehension. The changes that have taken place in our thinking and planning approach the unbelievable when one detaches himself from the present long enough to regain the viewpoint of only the recent past. During the last war, the epic fight of the Royal Air Force to save England, raging month upon month against odds, was also a chemists’ fight to produce better fuels—fuels that would get planes into the air in a fraction of the former time, that would give greater speed, longer, and yet longer ranges. The Ameri¬ can chemist was in that fight because he knew more about motor fuels than any chemist on earth. The Battle of Britain became a testing development and laboratory in which a nation’s life was the stake. In the First World War, Germany’s early mastery and world monopoly of the production of benzene and other coal-tar crudes and intermediates—her then “secret weapon”—brought her armies almost to victory. It was only by prodigious effort and at huge cost that private industry in the United States was able, during and after that war, to win independence in these chemicals, which are part and parcel of the nation’s economic life-blood both in war and peace. Today, we are doubly independent. Our coal-tar chemical industry is se¬ curely established. In addition, the possible output of benzene and toluene from petroleum is many times their peak output from coal-tar. Furthermore, in super motor fuels, which were the last war’s deciding weapons, we excelled the enemy’s best in quantity and quality alike. Where Germany stood in 1914 with coal-tar, the United States stands today with petroleum. During the war, we produced to destroy. In the future, we shall produce to build and we shall continue to invent and thus to multiply our chemical possessions. Now that peace reigns once more, the stream of production com¬ pared with its volume in the past, will be as a great river is to one of its tributary creeks. We shall have at our command ten, fifty, a hundred times what we had before, chiefly of new materials. The course of the American chemist will be a bold course—a course toward a better destiny. And all science will set its course by the same compass. William E. Torrey, Jr. CLASS ESSAY Forgotten Heroes FMAR is brutal. War with its carnage, ruin and bloodshed is best forgotten. I I I Peace is heaven. Peace is tranquility. But peace with all its pleasures and comforts is not truly ours until we provide security for our wounded vet¬ erans. I mean real security, not the parsimonious dole offered to our veterans 20