No Time to Re-Tire

Jesse Jones was apparently not worried. He talked blithely of stepping up synthetic rubber production, which ran around 12,000 tons last year, to 400,000 tons a year by the middle of 1943.* But he was almost alone in his optimism. Leon Henderson bluntly advised a House Committee, considering a suggestion to exempt Washington taxis from tire restrictions, that the nation's largest rubber stockpile in history (600,000 tons) would not stretch more than seven months if normal consumption were permitted. Harsh were his facts on tires: in the face of a normal demand for 35,000,000 annually, the U.S. could provide 9,000,000 or fewer.

Tire restrictions were being felt all over the nation last week. Milk companies abandoned daily deliveries, began to send their trucks out every other day. Department and grocery stores encouraged patrons to tote their purchases themselves. Black bourses for tires sprang up everywhere, and many an unwary motorist found himself missing a spare. "Do we have to go bankrupt?" wailed tire dealers.

"Do we have to go into the bread lines?" wailed truckmen and taximen.

The Army had some advice to give its men on the care and upkeep of tires. In a manual issued by the Office of the Quartermaster General, it summarized the findings of rubber manufacturers.

"Tires that must remain outdoors should be coated with a synthetic rubber paint as a protective covering. Heavy canvas, or a similar material, may be used for the same purpose. . . . New or dismounted tires can be protected against light, air and dirt [all of which are harmful to rubber] by covering them with a tarpaulin or other heavy, tightly woven fabric. The darker the storage place the better. Heat and air have a very destructive effect on casings. Seventy or 80 degrees Fahrenheit should be the maximum storage temperature. Drafts and moving air replenish the supply of oxygen, causing the casing to deteriorate more rapidly."

The U.S. last week began to feel other shortages on which the U.S. Army could not conceivably offer any advice. The shortage of wool inspired the Hickey-Freeman Co.. of Rochester to query its customers on their reaction to the elimination of vests in spring suits. A shutdown on private radio sets was expected within 90 days. On the West Coast and in Hawaii there was a shortage of Japanese chicken-sex-determiners, who used to help U.S. poultrymen by deciding which chick was a pullet and which a cockerel.

*Germany, after years of trying, has a top production annually of some 50,000 tons of synthetic rubber made from petroleum or coal; Russia, also a veteran in the field, is presumed to do about the same, with a rubber substitute made from grain and potatoes. Substitutes can be made from almost any vegetable material with a hydrocarbon content, from petroleum and grass to molasses and dandelions.

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