AUGUST, 1956
MlWi
PAGE 7
Charles Love
Howard Love, Jr.
Brothers Serve In Air Force
S/Sgt. Charles W. Love, son
of Howard Love, plant mail serv
ice, recently spent a furlough at
home in Gastonia. He is a radar
technician stationed with the
340th Bombardment Wing, 340th
Armament and Electrical Squad
ron, Whiteman Air Force Base,
Sedalia, Mo.
The technician's more than
three years’ service has taken
him to Iceland, Newfoundland,
Bermuda, North Africa and
Tripoli.
He is a graduate of Highland
High School, Gastonia, and at
tended A and T College, Greens
boro. If, after his current enlist
ment, he decides to return to
civilian life, he will go back to
A and T, to finish his training
toward a career in electrical
engineering.
1/Lt. Howard Love, Jr., who
has been stationed for several
months at Lowery Air Force
Base, Denver, Col., will be trans
ferred sometime in August to a
base in Virginia. En route to his
new assignment, he and his fam
ily plan to stop in Gastonia for
a visit with his parents, Mr. and
Mrs. Howard Love.
Lt. Love is a graduate of High
land High School, Gastonia, and
N. C. College, Durham division.
At the Durham school he
majored in chemistry and was a
member of the Air ROTC. When
he volunteered for service in the
Air Force after his graduation,
he was commissioned a 2nd Lieu
tenant. He and Mrs. Love, a
native of Camden, S. C., have a
daughter seven months old.
Motorists Urged: ‘Slow Down-Live’
The summertime safe-driving campaign in North Carolina,
begun by Governor Luther Hodges’ proclamation on Memorial
Day, will continue through Labor Day, September 3.
According to “Tar Heel Safety Topics,” publication of the Gov
ernor’s Traffic Safety Council, motorists can look for sharper en
forcement of the traffic laws, and constant publicity reminders
against those with the “in-a-hurry” complex.
The 1956 Slow Down and Live campaign encompasses the
summer months, when traffic problems are centered on the open
road.
Assigned New Duties
—From page 1
During that time he has worked
as a speeder tender in Carding,
and for a time was a section man
in that department. He was later
promoted to second hand in
Carding. For the past three
years he has been a supervisor
in Quality Control.
The new Safety Director is
president of the Fellowship
Training Union at Loray Baptist
Church.
Riley is a member of Masonic
Lodge 369. Active in Boy Scout
ing, he is serving his second
term as neighborhood commis
sioner in Gastonia area scouting.
He is treasurer of the Recreation
Council at the plant.
CHARLES A. McARVER is
iiow in the assignment vacated
t>y the transfer of James Ramey
to Akron. In Cotton Scheduling
here, McArver is in his seventh
year with the Company. Before
Coming here he worked for a
local yarn and dye concern and
^as at one time a twister tender
in a Gastonia mill.
In his more than six years
here, he has been clerk and
checker in Sales Yarn.
A member of Holland Memori
al Masonic Lodge and the Ju
dean White Shrine, he is also
active in Boy Scout work. At
Olney Presbyterian Church he is
president of the John Calvin
(young couples’) Sunday school
class. His new assignment in
volves scheduling and produc
tion of cotton sales yarn.
JAMES L. RAMEY has been
transferred from Cotton Sched
uling at the Gastonia plant to
the Company’s home offices in
Akron, Textiles Division. Ramey
is working under Henry L.
Wilder, who was transferred
from the plant here several
months ago. In textiles schedul
ing there, Ramey deals with the
flow of fabrics to the tire plants
of the Company, and to outside
sales.
Ramey came to the Gastonia
plant in January of 1954. A na
tive of Clayton, Ga., he was
graduated from the high school
there, and received the B.S. de
gree in Textiles from Georgia
Tech. In Gastonia he was a
member of the Eagles Club and
the Masonic Order.
CHARLES M. FERGUSON,
who for the past 21 years has
been Plant Officer, has assumed
Report on Privately-Operated
Synthetic Rubber Industry
BY A. D. MILLER
After 12 months of operation of the synthetic
rubber industry by private companies, favorable
and complimentary reports have been issued by
President Eisenhower and by Attorney General
Herbert Brownell.
Even with last year’s unprecedented demands
for rubber, it was found that private ownership
has enabled the industry to operate faster and
more efficiently.
It was found that competition in the synthetic
rubber industry exists under private ownership,
that rubber businesses which do not own rubber-
producing facilities are receiving their fair share
of the synthetic rubber available, at fair prices,
and that defense needs are being provided for.
President Eisenhower made his report early in
May, in accordance with the provision in the
Rubber Producing Facilities Disposal Act of 1953
which required that “at the expiration of one
year after the transfer (from Government to
private ownership—in April of 1955) period or as
soon thereafter as the Congress is in session,
the President shall report to Congress concerning
the nation’s rubber requirements and resources,”
IN HIS MESSAGE to the Congress of April 14,
1953, recommending rubber-producing facilities
disposal legislation, the President pointed out
that such disposal must be consistent with three
objectives: First, that the Government should
realize their full fair value; second, that disposal
should be effected in such a way as to insure to
the consuming public, and to large and small rub
ber fabricators, the benefits of fair competition;
and, third, that to insure against the hazards of
unforeseeable contingencies, the facilities must
be sold on such terms as will guarantee their
ready availability for the production of synthetic
rubber in time of emergency.
“I am pleased to be able to report to the Con
gress that all three of the above objectives of the
disposal program appear to have been achieved
to a highly satisfactory degree,” said the Presi
dent in his report.
“From the all-important security angle, not
only have all sales been made with a national
security clause which guarantees availability for
rubber production in time of emergency, but the
plants, in general, are now operating intensively
and already have effected marked increases in
capacity,” he said.
“Government agencies have responsibilities
relative to this industry and its consuming public
laboratory synthesis to commercial production of
synthetic ‘natural’ rubber,” he said. “Pilot plants
are already being constructed on private initia-
have been alert to note any adverse effects of the
substitution of private for Government supply,”
he continued. “To date only two requests for
assistance have been received. Both of these were
handled with suppliers to the satisfaction of the
customers.”
CONCERNING REVIEWS of the nation’s rub
ber requirements and resources he said that, ac
cording to the estimates prepared by the Office
of Defense Mobilization’s Rubber Committee,
total United States’ requirements for new rub
ber (natural and synthetic) may by 1960 reach a
level of about 1,700,000 long tons annually. Re
ported planned expansions would bring synthetic
capacity to about 1,700,000 tons—equal to total
new rubber requirements, for both synthetic and
natural, as estimated for 1960.
In regard to the future, the President brought
out some of the findings of the National Science
Foundation’s Special Commission for Rubber Re
search. He said the Commission had observed that
three companies (including Firestone) have re
ported success in synthesizing material with com
position and properties similar to natural rubber.
“It is believed that we can rely upon the
private synthetic rubber industry to move from
General Manager of the Company's Synthetic
Rubber and Latex Division
laboratory synthesis to commercial production of
synthetic ‘natural’ rubber,” he said. “Pilot plants
are already being constructed on private initia
tive. The nature of the problems which may arise
when quantity production is contemplated is as
yet undefined.”
Attorney General Brownell’s Justice Depart
ment Anti-Trust Division report supplemented
the over-all report made earlier by President
Eisenhower. It was also issued early in May as
the first of 10 required by Congress when the
Government retired from the rubber business.
According to the report: “The Firestone Tire &
Rubber Company, with the largest share of ca
pacity at the time of disposal, ranked first during
the survey period in GR-S production with 19.1
per cent and second in sales with 19.9 per cent.”
The report showed that Firestone more than
fulfilled its commitments and did the best job
of supplying small business of all companies with
“captive” markets (markets within their own
organizations because of rubber products manu
facturing plants of their own). This was in line
with the Company’s policy of selling natural, syn
thetic and reclaim rubber to small business as
liberally as possible, even at an inconvenience to
the Company.
One table in the report which gave the distribu
tion of synthetic latex production by companies
showed that Firestone was the largest distributor,
producing 34.1 per cent of the total synthetic
latex production. Another table showed that of
all the companies producing synthetic rubber
with markets within their own organizations.
Firestone sold the largest percentage of GR-S to
small business—30.9 per cent of production.
THE REPORT stated that of the producers re
porting a shortage of GR-S only Firestone and
one other company “avoided the necessity for
allocation of production to their customers.”
“Firestone was able to satisfy the requirements
of its customers only by reducing the volume of
GR-S made available to the Company’s integrated
fabricating plants,” the report said.
Charts at the end of the report showed the
forward picture of the synthetic rubber industry
by listing changes in GR-S plant capacity by
company from May to December of 1955 and ex
pansion of capacity to be completed during 1956
and 1957. These charts showed that Firestone,
through its expansion program, is maintaining
the highest capacity in the industry.
Some of the other high points of Attorney
Brownell’s report were:
There are 10 “relatively strong” producers of
GR-S rubber, most important synthetics so far.
None of the 10 dominates the market, or has
“undue” influence.
Synthetic rubber is a “young and growing in
dustry” and a growing market, both in the U. S.
and abroad, plus technical advances, provide a
climate favorable to expansion.
To determine whether small companies were
being “frozen” out of the rubber business, the
Justice Department checked 55 representative
small business firms, employing from 16 to 2,000
workers.
DESPITE THE SHORTAGE of synthetic in
1955, the survey showed that practically all small
fabricators said they received “a fair share of
the synthetic available at a fair price.” Where
trouble was indicated, most of the trouble finding
rubber was experienced by firms that bought on
the open market. Those with contracts fared well.
Many fabricators said the quality of GR-S
improved under private ownership and a signifi
cant number said they preferred private industry
because they got more technical assistance from
the companies than they did from the Govern
ment.
duties as Employment Manager,
succeeding J. E. Spencer, who
retired May 31.
The new Employment Man
ager was a city policeman before
coming to Firestone in 1935.
Throughout his years of employ
ment here he has served in vari
ous capacities, including safety
inspector for the plant, and lead
ership in Boy Scout work. He
was instrumental in establishing
the Boy Patrol for traffic safety
in Gastonia city schools.
Ferguson is a Major in the
Civil Air Patrol, and is Com
munications Officer for North
Carolina Civil Defense. As a
widely-known ham radio op
erator, he has communicated
with every part of the world
through his station, W4CJQ.
As Communications Officer of
North Carolina Civil Defense, he
spent a portion of his recent va
cation testing new radio equip
ment on the North Carolina
Coast, in preparation for the
communications defense against
hurricanes this season.