SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE "Dr. George W. Carver, The Man Who Can Make 200 Products From the Peanut" [1929] Written by Mary Church Terrell - 1615 S St. NW Washington D.C. Dr. George W. Carver, the Man Who Can Make 200 Products from the Peanut. [1929] This is the story of a man who has been called the "Columbus of the Soil." It is a misnomer, it seems to me. He should be called the "Columbus of the Peanut." He found the lowly peanut a common plebeian and has made it a patrician. He has taken it from its age-old associations with circus tents, the monkeys and elephants thereunto pertaining and from the venders on the street corners who sell the little goobers to the public and has lifted it into the inner circles of those gentlemen of high finance who always welcome with open arms any product capable of putting more money into their already well-filled coffers. The name of the man who has done this is Dr. George W. Carver. For nearly forty years he has been a teacher at Tuskegee Institute which, as everybody knows, was founded by Booker T. Washington fifty years ago. In everything pertaining to plant life Dr. Carver is really "wondrous wise." Many years ago he jumped into the bramble bush of agricultural chemistry, so to speak, so as to open other people's eyes and not to scratch out his own, as the famous gentleman described in Mother Goose's rhymes is reputed to have done. Hearing Dr. Carver tell about his experiments and his work on general principles is like listening to a fairy tale. There is no better proof of this than an experience he once had in the House of Representatives in Washington. When the House Committee on Ways and Means was discussing the advisability of imposing a tariff upon the peanut Dr. Carver was invited to appear and throw some light on the subject. It was the consensus of opinion that he knew more more about that little nut than any other human being in the United States - and therefore, in the world. The brown scientist was told he would be allotted [given] exactly ten minutes by the clock to give the Committee the information for which he had been asked. He stopped promptly at the expiration of that time. But the Congressmen would not let Dr. Carver stop and they kept crying 2 for more until he had spoken for nearly two hours. It would be interesting to ascertain how many times in the history of this country a Congressional Committee has insisted upon having anybody speak that length of time. Prof. Carver has made almost everything from the peanut but dynamite. And those who have seen him at his work and know the wonders he has performed would not be surprised if he did that in a pinch. By the way, he helped to win the World War, not by manufacturing explosives to destroy the lives of human beings, but by converting sweet potatoes into flour, when our 4,000,000 soldiers needed nearly all the wheat the United States could grow. When Mr. Carver appeared before the Congressional Committee he told the members he had made 165 products from the peanut and that he expected to create more. He has faithfully kept his word. According to the latest reports available he credits the modest little goober with enough native creative power to produce more than 200 articles which human beings need. In addition to the familiar peanut butter under the magic of Dr. Carver's hands there lie wrapped up in the rough and brittle shell of the peanut ten varieties of milk, five kinds of breakfast food, two grades of flour, ice cream in all flavors, candy, salad oils, five different kinds of punches, bisque, "Worcestershire" sauce, Chili sauce, Oleomargarine, cheese- all for human food- and four kinds of cattle food, according to a list made by the Popular Science Monthly. From peanuts he has also made a variety of useful commercial byproducts including nine varieties of wood stains, nineteen shades of leather dyes, metal polishes, axle grease, toilet and laundry soaps, ink, tannic acid, glycerine, not to mention several medicines. For instance, he has made quinine from the red outside skins of the nut. And the end is not yet. If you go to his laboratory in Tuskegee, ( and may such a fortunate 3 fate be the lot of everybody who reads these lines) Prof, Carver will show you how to take a cupful of shelled peanuts and make a pint of rich milk which is just as good as our bovine friend could offer. In describing this milk its creator says: "It is rich, creamy and palatable and it contains three times as much carbohydrates, three times as much protein and twelve times as much fat as cow's milk and only one-tenth as much water. It is a distinct product in the dietary of the human family. For culinary purposes its possibilities are practically unlimited." This peanut milk may be used in cooking just like cow's milk, whether it is sweet or sour and the curds may be made into cheese. But that is not all this milk can do. It is any excellent beverage- a purely vegetable drink which forms a body-building nourishment for invalids and children. A pound of peanuts, he says, contains a little more body-building nutriment than a pound of sirloin steak and nearly twice as much heat and energy. The sweet potato has also been metamorphosed into a multitude of things by the Tuskegee wizard. But the most striking thing about Dr. Carver's association with the sweet "tater" is that he says it isn't a potato at all! No sir, it is more ethereal than that. It is a morning glory, if you please. But never in the history of this world did it occur to any human being to classify the sweet potato as a morning glory till Dr. Carver communed with a bushel of them one eventful morning in his laboratory and discovered that the family had been improperly introduced to society all down the ages. But, before we consider the various metamorphoses through which that delicious vegetable has passed under the dusky scientist's hands, let us see who the man is, whence he came and how he "got his start." It would be hard to find a man whose entrance into the world, whose boyhood and youth were more unpromising and discouraging than were George Washington Carver's. To begin with, he was born a slave in Missouri. As if that were not 4 handicap enough when he was scarcely more than a baby, he and his mother were stolen from their master's farm by a band of raiders in the last year of the Civil War. Moses Carver, the master, dispatched men on horseback who were well supplied with cash to try to induce the kidnappers to return his slaves. A negro baby desperately ill with whooping cough possessed little value for men who had stolen Moses Carver's slaves, so when they were offered a fine race horse in exchange for the sick child they jumped at the chance to dispose of the little dark liability and gladly gave him up, But the sick child's mother was never seen or heard of again and nobody knows unto this day what was her fate. Not until George was 10 years old did he have a chance to go to school, such as it was, and that was one ten miles away from the place he called home. Up to that time his dearest possession had been an old blue-backed speller, over which he pored every chance he got, learning every word in it from cover to cover. In this little school the eager pupil remained, until he felt he had extracted from the teacher all the knowledge he possessed and then the boy left. He decided to go to school in Kansas and began to walk to his destination. After he had trudged along about a day a mule team overtook him and gave him a lift to Fort Scott, Kansas. Here he began his education in earnest. He was alone in the world and there was nobody to whom he could look for assistance of any kind. Every cent spent for food, lodging, clothes, books and tuition he was obliged to earn himself. For nine years he supported himself by engaging in domestic service and doing any kind of work he could get, no matter how menial and hard, saving only as much time for his studies as he could manage to find. Leaving Fort Scott he went to Minneapolis, Kansas and graduated from the High School there. Here his appetite for knowledge was whetted more than it had ever been before, and he decided definitely to go to college. That was much easier said than done. But he would not let a little 5 thing like lack of funds swerve him from his course. After he had paid his tuition at Simpson College, Ia. and bought his books, he had only 10 cents left. Half of this sum was invested in corn meal and half in suet, upon which he feasted for a whole week. The boys had to have clean clothes and they soon discovered that the colored student could to them up to a T., so they cheerfully turn- ed their laundry work over to him. For George Carver the rest was easy. Having graduated from Simpson College he entered Iowa State Univer- sity, where he received both his bachelor's and his master's degrees. To such an extent had his ability been recognized during his course at the university that, as soon as he graduated, he was placed in charge of a greenhouse of the bacteriological laboratory and of the department of systematic botany. Then Booker T. Washington appear on the scene, discovered this genius and spirited him away to his own institution in Alabama, where Dr. Carver has remained ever since. Even when the great Thomas Edison offered the Tuskegee teacher the princely sum of $100,000 to work for five years in his laboratory at Orange, N.J., Mr. Carver declined this alluring invitation. This is the way Dr. Carver explains the reason he decided to reject Mr. Edison's offer: "You see, Mr. Washington put me here nearly thirty years ago and said 'Let down your bucket where you are'. I did as I was told and my bucket has always come up brimful and running over. Mr. Washington is not with us in person any more and I could not be faithless to his trust; now could I?" Reference has already been made to the flour which the Tuskegee wizard has manufactured from the sweet potato which is first cousin to the morn- ing glory. But flour from the sweet potato is only a drop in the buck- et, so to speak. One may smack his lips over a dish of delicious pud- ding made from the tapioca into which the sweet potato has been convert- ed by this master chemist. The crystalized ginger and the breakfast food which come from the sweet potato are highly recommended by those 6 who have sampled them. It does not require a great stretch of the imagination for those of us who like sweet potatoes to believe that things good to eat can be made out of them. But when Professor Carver shows you a piece of rubber and tells you that it was produced from a delicious yam, it really strains your credulity and puts your faith in his veracity to an awful test. Up to date 120 products have been created from the sweet pota- to and still there is more to follow. Then too, there are wonderful dyes and paints which Prof Carver has made out of common Alabama clay. The Egyptians must have used the dyes found in clay, he says, and those who know declare they are the same bright, soft colors found in King Tut's tomb. As you look at the blues, reds and yellows in Prof Carver's laboratory, it is very easy to believe that he has rediscovered that art lost for so many years which produced colors that have remained beautiful and unfaded for 30 centuries. And right here attention must be called to the fact that Dr. Car- ver has done something which a noted German scientist who recently visited this country declared could not be done. As Dr. Carver was showing my daughter and myself through his laboratory a short while ago he pointed out a curious dark blue mass of something in a huge glass jar. With a stick he stirred it up and explained that the pro- duct which we saw was the result of what is called fractional oxida- ion. At present Chemistry does not recognize such operations, he ex- plained and he declared that the German professor had every reason to feel skeptical. After the foreigner had looked carefully at Dr. Car- ver's dark blue mass in the glass jar, he simply shook his head and said it was the strangest product he had ever seen. But there it is to speak for itself. "So many new things are being discussed along all lines," said Dr. Carver, "it is not at all surprising that Chem- istray can furnish its quota." 7 Being conducted through his laboratory by Dr. Carver himself is a red letter day in anybody's life. After such an experience Will Rogers exclaimed enthusiastically "I wish it were possible for me to spend at least three weeks and sit at your feet as a pupil." From some ordinary weeds common in the State Prof Carver has made paper of various grades. Experts declare that some of it which comes from cotton stalks and from the palmetto, which is ubiquitous in Florida, might well be used as cloth. The newspapers of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and other Southern States have vied, with each other in singing Prof. Carver's praises. The Atlanta chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy sent the Tuskegee teacher a "written expression of their interest and appreciation of you in your efforts to exhibit the products and [the possibilities] possible industries of our South, and the chapter wishes you godspeed in any endeavor looking to the development of any project in which we are mutually interested." A Mississippi paper enthusiastically declared that if his methods are fully carried out he will add a hundred million dollars annually to the South. For instance, take the blue which is made from the red clay of Georgia by oxidizing it intermittently six times. (And this same blue when exidized a few more times becomes royal purple.) It is [describeds] described as being "70 times bluer than the bluest blue." Nearly fifteen years ago a church interior at Tuskegee was painted with this blue pigment made up [in] into paint form, and in the passing years it has lost none of its sheen and gloss. No evidence of cracking and drying out appears. A great scientist has declared that Dr. Carver has found the secret of the Ehyptians. If you ask the man who made these colors if they are really permanent, he will reply- "Why should they not be permanent? God made the clays in the hills. They have been there for countless centuries with colors unchanged. All I do is to compound what God has made for man's use and delight. It is the handiwork of God - not mine." Now this blue "which is 70 times richer than any other blue" can be [made for considerably less than any on the market.] 8 made for considerably less than any on the market. There is plenty of red clay in Georgia. No fear need be entertained that it will give out very soon. All that is [needed] necessary to start a pigment plant is a steam shovel plus a 10 ton truck and a simple little factory. It has been demonstrated that paint made in such a factory could easily undersell any pigment on the market to day. Those who know all about paint declare that the one made by Dr. Carver can be used profitably in water colors or oil paints or as pigment in combination with minerals and plastice, with very few restrictions. "Here", says Dr. Carver, "is an opportunity for some southern industry to go on with the work; to build the necessary laboratory, find out the properties of the soils of Macon County, or any of the southern counties, and then learn to make this pigment or whatever pigments are required by the paint manufacturer. Dr. Carver calls himself a trail blazer. He has shown the South wherein lies its wealth. He has taken southern raw material and has demonstrated a variety of uses for each one. He has sought and found the mine then left it to others to get the gold. Dr. Carver could not be expected to develop his vast researches, said one of our greatest thinkers, "It would take ten life times of one man to do that." Already certain industries are under way and others are bound to come as a result of the work done by this dusky trail blazer. From the pastures and the swamps of the South he has taken such material as clays, palmetto roots and wild weeds out of which he has shown how to make comforts and necessities for the world. Nor has he neglected the pecan. For he has found eighty ways to make that contribute to the needs of mankind. Dr. Carver is always in great demand as a speaker all over the South to audiences of both races. On several occasions when he has addressed institutions [ofr] for white youth the boys were so fascinated with the simple manner in which he explained what had seemed to them impossible before they had heard him it was difficult to drag them away from him. He exercises a grip and control over his audiences which are rare for a speaker who discusses 9 the subjects he presents. Especially do the farmers hear him gladly. His message to them is filled with information, inspiration and hope for those who will only use their brain and brawn upon the things which the Creator has placed within their reach. Wherever he goes he emphasizes the fact that "science, not the [tarif] tariff must find the solution for the South's agricultural problems." "One million dollars applied to chemical study of our agriculture," he says, "will do more for it ultimately than the $500,000,000 fund set aside by Congress to attempt to alleviate some of the ills from which it is now suffering." Dr. Carver has offered some very pointed suggestions concerning wheat. "The laboratory, rather than the Liverpool market or the Chicago Board of Trade, will solve the wheat problem", he says, "and insure the farmer a fair price for his products. Multiply the uses of wheat," he advises "Products from wheat certainly should equal those from the peanut. Bread is the principal article made from wheat to day. Its possibilities are limitless." "You can do it," declares the man who has made 200 or more articles from the peanut." You have your laboratories in your industrial institutions, in your schools, colleges and universities." He believes that young folks studying chemistry to day may be the saviors of the wheat situation tomorrow, and that the problem of surplus crops may be solved scientifically by the South. Somebody (Prof Carver has no idea who it was) proposed him for memship in the Royal Society of Great Britain because he has made so many remarkable chemical discoveries, and he now enjoys fellowship in it- an honor which has been conferred upon few Americans. During the World War the government recognized his genius by drafting him for investigational work in the Washington Laboratories. Among other things he entered upon a study of dye stuffs, formerly imported from Germany, and of which the country was in dire need, and he is given credit for having duplicated more of these dye stuffs than all of the other scientists engaged in the work. In addition to being a chemist and an agriculturist, The Tuskegee 10 wizard is a musician of distinction and James Wilson, once Secretary of Agriculture, declared that "Prof Carver is probably the finest painter in the State of Iowa." Few men have been called more names by the press of the country in reporting his speeches and describing his work than the colored scientist. "The Columbus of the Soil, the Wizard of Organized Chemistry, the Man of the Hour, the Hope of the South, the Discoverer of the Peanut and the Sweet Potato" are some of the titles which have been bestowed upon him. The modest simplicity [of the man] that marks Dr. Carver's genius endears him to all who meet him and he numbers among his friends some of the most distinguished and influential men of modern times. In the language of the Savanna Georgia Press "He belongs not to the Negro race, but to the world." Mary Church Terrell. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.