Marston Taylor Bogert

Marston T. Bogert graduated from Columbia in 1890, and he joined the faculty there as an assistant in the organic chemistry department in 1894. He became a full professor in 1904, and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1939. He was internationally known and honored for his researches in synthetic organic chemistry, and besides his employment at Columbia he was continually involved in various important enterprises for the Government and for private chemists.

Dr. Bogert was one of the first to see that synthetic-dye plants are the source of all poison gases and that atmospheric nitrogen is the mother of all explosives. He was the nation’s outstanding authority on synthetic perfumes, and his experiments on artificial violet perfume opened the way to the laboratory manufacture of synthetic vitamins.

To work with the crucibles that regroup the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen is to face each day the possibility that some new wonder will be disclosed, some new servant found for mankind. This is more exciting than any ancient alchemist ever dreamed, and it necessarily involves concomitant responsibilities. In a 1936 speech—a decade before the dawn of the atomic age—he said, “Man must face the possibility of the extinction of life on earth by the reckless release of devastating forces.” He did not seem particularly perturbed at this prospect. Indeed, we are not here by any choice of our own and it is not plain what particular merit there is in the prolonged continuance of our stay.

In any case, Dr. Bogert followed truth and taught it as he was able to find it, regardless of where it led. When his country called him to be head of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War I, he went; and when Columbia called him to the arts of peace and healing, likewise he responded. He was a good and faithful servant, and he used his great talents in the service of all of us.

George W. Martin
1955 Century Association Yearbook