CAN OTHERS DO IT?

The following question was propounded to Mr. Bates, Page 127. Hearing, before the Interstate Commerce Committee:

Is it possible for any one else to produce corn sugar that you know of now, profitably, that is this crystallized dextrose sugar without using the process that was perfected.in your laboratory and subsequently patented by the men that represent you?" To which Mr. Bates answered, "Yes."

Another embarrassing question is found on page 130;

"Right here let me ask, was your study of dextrose instigated by the Corn Products Refining Company?" to which Mr. Bates replied, "Oh, no, they had nothing whatever to do with it."

Evidently, however, the first mass experiment made by the Bureau of Standards' process was not made in the Bureau at all. On the same page Mr. Bates said:

"Our contribution was to demonstrate to the world that a man could take ordinary sugar-making machinery and throw down pure crystallized dextrose on a factory scale. We made 4000 pounds on the first experiment."

On the same page the question was asked:

"The Corn Products Refining Company had been unable to do that?"

To which Mr. Bates replied:

"They.had spent about $6,000,000 in effort to make dextrose. They had built one factory in Chicago costing $1,500,000 and had abandoned it many years before, after attempting to operate it. for a year or two."

Mr. Bates finally acknowledged that dextrose is not a new sugar, and in answer to a question he said:

"There is nothing new in the product. It is a new sugar in the sense that after forty years of failure by the anufacturers who are interested in utilizing corn we have sueceeded in throwing down the material from water solutions."

The fact is that Kirchof in 1806 described the process and Dr. Arno Behr, in 1882, took out a patent for producing dextrose from water solution, and Dr; Wagner in 1906 described in detail the technique of crystallizing and how to secure anhydrous crystals.

According to the records of the Bureau of Standards, their experiment in creating this new industry was made in 1919. In 1923 Mr. Newkirk had already been in the service of the Corn Products Company for about two yeaxs. In. 1922 he filed his first application for patents which were assigned to the Corn Products Company. Mr. Bates informed the Committee that according to the best figures he had available, so-called corn sugar, that is dextrose, can be produced under present methods at about 2 cents per pound, when corn is a dollar a bushel. He told the Committtee that there is no pure corn sugar produced in the world today on a commercial scale except that produced by Americans, and that this fact is entirely due to the initiative of the Congress of the United States, which provided the funds to make this work possible. When asked to give some idea of the future of the industry, Mr. Bates replied:

"Experience has taught me that it is better to remami silent. But I leave it to your experience and knowledge as to what happens when any basic material of great stability, purity and cheapness can be produced."