EDITORIAL

Competition for More Than Markets A successful big industry in an affluent

society faces a hard battle for public understanding

The new and useful are the stock-in-trade of the chemical industry. The public has

become accustomed to a constant flow of new and better products from its installations. But the same public is upset when a chemical plant pollutes water, or a pesticide kills birds. And the disfavor is seldom proportioned, balanced, or fixed precisely on the specific example of harm and its specific cause. That is one of the biggest problems of the chemical industry.

On that subject Charles H. Sommer, president of Monsanto Co., recently said some things that needed saying and he said them in a fashion that deserves admiration. He was accepting, for Monsanto, Chemical Week's Kirkpatrick Award. Speaking in a festive atmosphere before a gath­ering of his chemical industry friends and associ­ates, he had the courage to tell them that the industry is neglecting its best interests. Mr. Sommer said that while the industry rises to its own defense on demand, it has not risen to the challenge of winning an informed public's enthu­siasm for the good it does. "As a result," he declared, "I see an unpersuaded public and our busily preoccupied industry as mutually indif­ferent to a degree which is hazardous to our futures.,,

'The public needs and demands assurance of our loyalty to its best interests," Mr. Sommer observed later in his talk. "This requirement is implicit in our public franchise: our freedom to operate. I believe that it is fulfilled only by those actions which we clearly initiate in the

public interest. We are judged by how far we are willing to go on our own to insure the relia­bility and safety of our products, the ethical conduct of our business, and the minimum of public hazard or nuisance in our operations."

Mr. Sommer is right. Reaching the goals he implies won't be easy, but it ought to be worth a big effort. The chemical industry puts its main efforts into competition for markets, perhaps to the extent that it partially overlooks the implica­tions of its growth. The favorable accomplish­ments of the whole industry have a competitor for public opinion. That competitor is an amorphous mixture of limited examples of mis­takes, carelessness, and occasionally unethical practices. That competitor has on its side the powerful force of public misunderstanding and lack of understanding.

The chemical industry has made and continues to make great contributions to our economy, our health and welfare, and our comfort. But as a society gains the level of affluence and material well-being ours enjoys, such contributions are expected, even taken for granted. At the same time, socially unfavorable actions or happenings are more quickly and severely criticized. Thus the need for attention to public understanding grows with the success of the chemical industry.

DEC. 14, 1964 C&EN 7