Research Factory

In Pittsburgh last week Andrew William Mellon--with the help of three Nobel Prize winners, 200 chemists, physicists and engineers most of whom hope to become factory executives, and some 1,500 bystanders-dedicated a project which he conceived when he tried to improve his French 28 years ago. His French, he told the throng last week, "is still what it was originally." But his conception has become a huge, new, nine-story, splendidly equipped factory for research.

The stark purpose of the Mellon Institute has been, since its origin in 1911, the hiring out of skilled chemists, physicists and engineers to industrialists who want to learn how 1) to cheapen their manufacturing costs, 2) to improve the attractiveness of their goods in quality, appearance or price, 3) to utilize waste products, 4) to invent new things.

A manufacturer who wants to accomplish anything within this frame gives a sum of money to the Mellon Institute. This finances what, in euphemistic imitation of university custom, is called a "fellowship." Director Edward Ray Weidlein of the Institute then hires one or more expert "fellows," tells them to get to work with any of the equipment in the $6,000,000 aluminum-trimmed establishment which Andrew Mellon and his late brother Richard provided. All the worker is bound to do is to give Mr. Weidlein a weekly report of progress. If a Mellon "research" ends profitably, the worker is apt to get a good job with the manufacturer who paid the bills. If the worker is also clever he can get the University of Pittsburgh to award him a doctorate on the strength of the research he performed at the Mellon Institute to earn his living.

The Mellon "industrial fellowship" has worked extraordinarily well. Last year "donors" gave $816,315. This financed 69 fellowships. Since 1911 almost 4,000 U. S. companies including Aluminum Company of America, Pennsylvania Railroad, Simmons Company (beds), Koppers Gas & Coke Company, Ward Baking Com pany, Cluett, Peabody & Company, Inc. (shirts, collars), Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, have paid the Mellon Institute $11,478,406 for research. Said Director Weidlein last week: "Most of the problems have been solved satisfactorily." Workers have produced 19 books, 143 bulletins, 744 research reports, 1,117 miscellaneous papers as a result of their work.

Sponsors have been able to take out 669 U. S. patents.

Last week Mellon fellows were working on subjects ranging from air pollution to textile finishings, shoes to shaving, smoke abatement to cigaret technology.

One research completed just in time for cheering at the dedicatory exercises last week was a new derivative of quinine which relieves pneumonia. While Mr. Mellon listened attentively, Dr. William Watt Graham MacLachlan, physician-in-chief of Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital where the stuff was given to patients last year, reported that the use of hydroxy-ethyl-apocupreine cut his pneumonia death rate in half. Only 27% of his patients died as compared with the 45% Pittsburgh mortality rate. It is given like quinine in capsules by mouth.

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