Shanks' Mare

The squeeze was on. Without gasoline to burn, the U.S. was getting back on to an older method of locomotion: shanks' mare. In 17 States the gas rationing had already sharply changed the lives of 8,500,000 motorists and the uncounted millions who rode with them. After July 1 the meager rations would probably be made more meager. And some time after July 1 the entire nation would go on rations. The reason was one word: rubber.

The rationing to come would probably give the great majority of U.S. drivers only enough gas to exercise their car and its tires--since both depreciate about as fast in disuse as with moderate use.

Fewer & fewer people asked why the U.S. had to ration gasoline, when it has plenty. Everyone knew by now that submarines had driven East Coast tankers into port, and that tankers had brought in 90% of the oil supply. The railroads were hauling valiantly, pipelines were slowly gurgling oil east at their three-mile-an-hour rate. But they brought east only 900,000 barrels of crude oil a day, when the daily need was some 1,265,000 barrels.

No Pipeline. Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, who has advocated for more than a year the construction of a 24-inch pipeline from Longview, Texas, to Salem, Ill., last week again took his proposal to the White House. Again the answer was No--steel is precious. The tragedy lay in the fact that Ickes had been right: if his pipeline had been built when the U.S. was wasting steel on race tracks, tricycles and asparagus tongs, the East would now have much more gas for driving and ample oil for home heating. But perhaps it was not a tragedy after all, because without gas the U.S. could not burn up its precious rubber so speedily.

Stop-gap arrangements were being hurried. The White House approved the building of wooden barges to carry crude oil on inland waterways from Florida. A House committee approved a bill for a pipeline from Florida's west coast to Jacksonville, another for improvement of a Florida barge canal. Harold Ickes announced that a beginning had been made on relocation of two existing pipelines, which would send an additional 25,000 barrels daily to the East by July 15. But real relief would be a major transportation operation--and that was out.

Gas Means Rubber. Rubber was inexpressibly precious. Citizens racked their brains for makeshifts: in New Jersey, Postman Charles Kaiser used dime-store shoe soles as recaps, got 1,200 miles from them (see cut). The Army had already begun shifting from rubber tank treads to steel treads, which are not as good, but replaceable. Drastic steps were necessary, and would certainly be invoked--such as commandeering tire stockpiles, the requisition of civilian cars, a further abandonment of duplicating bus lines.

Citizens had stopped most of their grumbling at each other's greed for gas. Price Boss Leon Henderson told President Roosevelt he was pleased with the "fairness" of the people, said the registration for gas cards had turned out to be in line with OPA estimates. The first tabulated returns: X cards (unlimited), 9.6%; A cards (the most limited), 30.8%; B-3 cards (for business use), 37.3%. Remainder were B18 and B25.

The citizens now could see in shanks' mare the shape of their future. The lowly pedestrian, who had been the funny figure of a man without a car, the man always getting in the way and getting killed, was coming to mean nearly everybody.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.