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

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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

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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 under Public Law 144. Under this law, passed as an economy measure, disabled veterans who are single and without dependents, are offered a monthly pension of from eight to twenty dollars, an amount less than that received by Nazi and Jap prisoners of war. All through the war, millions of Americans made more money than ever before. Many knew not what to do with a part of their earnings. While all these high wages were being paid, our American soldiers were fighting on foreign territory. They dodged bullets, faced enemy fire, slept in fox holes, ate K-rations, and watched the last spark of life fade out of their buddies. Thousands of our boys made this supreme sacrifice, only to have their cold, lifeless forms placed in the foreign soil, a plain white cross on their graves. Oh, yes, we had millions of patriotic citizens, people who did all that was requested for the war effort. Our food was rationed, and many of us accepted it without griping. We had dim-outs and practice air-raids. A large number of citizens went regularly to the blood bank, bought bonds and stamps, planted victory gardens and devoted their spare time to the various patriotic organiza¬ tions. But with all these war-time activities, we were reaping large profits and saving for the future. We didn ' t have to endure any real hardships. We weren’t directly affected by the war except maybe by the absence of loved ones. For many of us the end of the war meant happier days ahead. No more rationing and plenty of money to spend. But for many of those who really fought, the future now offers little. Many will be scarred for life. Some were suffering with tropical diseases and battle fatigue, hundreds were mental cases, and far too many were returning with the loss of limbs. Through scientific research and development, some were supplied with artificial limbs, and they rejoiced over the fact that they were no longer handicapped. But what about the less fortunate? They must remain in government hospitals as cripples. Here they are sure of excellent medical care and the latest medical equipment. But in spite of these conveniences, who could enjoy an indefinite period or a lifetime in a hospital? We must remember that a large number of our disabled veterans were only boys fresh out of high school. In years they are young, but their experiences have made them more mature. They didn’t have a chance to go to college to learn a profession. They missed the real joys of adolescence. And now it is too late. Their plans are ended. They forfeited their earning capacity to fight for us, and because they did, many ended up in medical institutions. Yet the American people sat back while our legislators passed a law that can only pauperize our American heroes. Will the veterans remain in hospitals as helpless war victims whom fellow citizens failed to heed? Will their plans of someday marrying be fulfilled on twenty measly dollars a month? Will they leave the hospital against the advice of medical authorities and go to work because our legislators failed to recognize the value of their sacrifice? We all know that we must struggle to win a battle of health and sickness. We all know that encouragement is an absolute necessity for the heart-broken 21