ITEM: carbon copy of letter sent by Willis R. Whitney to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on establishing the U.S. position on poison gas and warfare. 10x8 inches, on onion skin paper. RARE. $1000.
(Reference JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 981)
On 21 December 1917, thee years into the beginning of World War I and eight months after America entered the war, Willis R. Whitney composed this one-page letter composing the American response to the use of poison gas in warfare. Whitney was head of one the great research laboratories in America—run by General Electric, the GE Lab—and was one of the leaders of the U.S. Navy‘s Naval Review Board (along with Thomas Edison and Hudson Maxim, among others), and wrote to Josephus Daniels, who was at the time the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. [Image below clickable.]
Whitney was a chemist, a former instructor at MIT, and a Ph.D. under Ostwald, a brilliant, “bearish” intellect in many fields, an innovator, and a leader, a tactician. He summarized the state of affairs, and communicated quickly and with clarity and without hesitation what he thought must be done, and how America should respond to the German chemical threat.
The Germans had first used chemical weapons (shells containing xylyl bromide) against Russian troops in Bolimow, Poland. It was the first foray into a section of the war that caused more than one million casualties and 85,000 deaths. It would be another three months for the first full-scale use of a chemical weapon—in the form of chlorine gas—in the Second Battle of Ypres. But the time Whitney sent his letter, chemical warfare had been a deeply-established weapon.
Whitney recommends that the U.S. begin production; that several plants be established to produce the chemicals, and to get on the matter immediately, suggesting a man to head the work. As it turns out the work didn’t begin in earnest for a number of months later, the first large quantities becoming available just after the signing of the Armistice.
{I should note that I purchased this letter--rather, Whitney's carbon copy of the letter--many years ago from the estate of a Navy historian. I am pretty sure that it has never been published before.]
Notes:
From Physics Today, March 1958:
Willis R. Whitney, founder of the General Electric Research Laboratory, died on January 9 in Schenectady,
N. Y., after suffering a heart attack a week earlier. He was 89 years old. Born in Jamestown, N. Y., Dr.
Whitney was graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1890 and received his PhD from
the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 1896. In 1908, after having served as assistant and associate professor
of theoretical chemistry at MIT for 8 years, he was named nonresident professor of chemical research, a
title which he still held at the time of his death. In 1900, Dr. Whitney joined GE to work with Charles Steinmetz and from that year until 1932 he became the founder and active director of the GE Research Laboratory. During the last four years of this period he also served as vice president in charge of research for the company. In 1932 he retired from the directorship of the laboratory and, in 1941, from the vice presidency. Since that time he had continued research in the capacity of honorary vice president and consultant to the laboratory. Dr. Whitney held many awards and honorary degrees of international origin. He was a member of the American Physical Society.
And another, far more literary and scientific appraisal here, in the journal Nature. A delightful review of Whitney's career is presented in J.E. Brittain's long article "Electrical Engineering Hall of Fame: Willis R. Whitney", in the Proceedings of the IEEE, volume 95, issue 12, 2007--unfortunately I don't have te rights to reproduce it here.
See also: Willis R. Whitney, General Electric, and the origins of U.S. industrial research by George Wise, COlumbia University Press, 1985.
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