Science and the National Welfare

I APPRECIATE deeply both the honor which has been conferred on me and Mr. Midgley's all too flattering words. Lest there be any misunderstanding in the minds of any of you, let me set the records straight. When, in June 1940, at the request of the President of the United States, Vannevar Bush organized the National Defense Research Committee, he asked me to be responsible for bringing together the chemists required in the work. Later, when Mr. Baruch needed a colleague who knew the difference between butylene and butadiene, my name was called. To those two somewhat fortuitous circumstances I owe in the last analysis the great honor which has just come to me. For I feel sure that it is in my representative capacity—indeed, I might say in my capacity as a chemical symbol—that I am the recipient of the Priestley Medal. And it is therefore not personally, but on behalf of the chemists of the United States who have contributed so greatly to the winning of the war, that I accept with pleasure and gratitude this

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• Pragmatic engagements

  Open Access•George A Reisch, George Reisch•Studies in East European Thought•2017

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