Newspapers / The Waynesville Mountaineer (Waynesville, … / June 7, 1945, edition 1 / Page 14
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(One Day Nearer . Victory) THURSDAY r Section TVo Pafe $ THE WAYNESVILLE MOUNTAINEER Discovery -Development Of Rubber Reads Like b ictio Discovery Of Rubber Has Hard, Bloody History i States. Its cultivation is being I tried out but since it takes four years for a crop and large acreage ' is necessary, development of gua I yule is not practical on a large scale The government has ahnn- Salvage Saves Precious Rubber oonea most ()r Dayton Dollars Going Into War Bonds for dandel ion i-ui,i. . from a shrub, and.,,-" thp lihn.K "n s' "win nrl mii-i. '"UM " nine a ( r") is Buy War honds Rubber Was Discover ed In South America fH i About 150 Years Ago. The discovery and development of natural rubber was fully as ex citing and interesting as is today's development of synthetic rubber Over centuries it has caused mas sacres, hardships, scandals, ach ievement, adventure, and fabulous wealth. When Spanish Conqulstadores followed Columbus and fought their way through the South Ameri can jungle into its fabulous cities, they found the Indians playing with rubber balls. Samples of the la tex were sent to Europe. Nothing was done about this strange ma terial, however, until the beginning of the 19th century after South American countries had opened their barriers to European traders. Rubber, then, was shipped in small quantities to manufacttti ers to make rubber shoes, cements, .slippers. Machintosh, a Scotsman, invented a fair waterproof raincoat named after himself. In those days, no one knew why rubber was sticky, would often soften in sum mer, yet become as stiff as linolium in winter until Charles Goodyear after years of heart-breaking strug gle, discovered vulcanization in 183!) lie had accidentally left i slab of rubber dusted with sul phur on his kitchen stove. What was left in the charred, leatherly ash did not melt. Goodyear, after some experimentation, eventually obtained a reliable vulcanization process. To this day, rubber experts don't know the exact chemical structure of rubber. liubber grows in a belt roughly SOW to lTiOO miles on either side of the Equator. In most of these areas, rainfall is 250 inches a year with intermittent, long, dry seas ons Kubber is taken from a tree The rubber sap is in the bark and is obtained by tapping. The tapping wounds close quickly and can be tapped every day or two to give a high yield The latex will pour out a pint of fluid a day per tree which, when collected and coagu lated, gives two to five pounds per tree per year. America's gold rushes to Cali fornia and the Yukon were tame in comparison to the brutal and bloody history of rubber collect ing in the Amazon and the Belgian Congo. Native rubber gatherers exploited, half-starved, whip-lashed slaves, worked under overseers who were, in turn responsible for rub ber output to national and inter national monopolistic cartels. In the Congo, the atrocities committed reached such violence that an in ternational commission investigat ed conditions. Plantation Rubber Until 1876, Brazilian inspectors watched with eagle eye all outgoing ships from their borders. What they wanted to do was control the wild rubber so that no one else could develop it. And thus, of course, control the price per pound In 1876, a ship lay in the Amazon Iliver about 500 miles from Para lalso called Belem An English man named Henry Wickham had loaded the British boat with 70.000 seeds of rubber trees packed in banana leaves and hung them in small baskets from the beams He managed to slip past the Brazilian inspectors and arrived in England Thus Wickham made history. From his smuggled seeds about 2300 seedlings germinated in heat rontrolled Kew Gardens. Some of the seedlings were shipped to Ceylon and later to the Malay States. From such a start, the plantation rubber industry develop ed. First notable shipment from Far East plantations was thirty years later in 1905 when 174 tons were exported. It takes five years for rubber trees to mature enough to tap and they reach their maximum sap or latex output about the 12th or 13th year and remain at high yield for years About 100 trees to the acre rv Bond buyers on the 3rd shift line up with their dollars on Dayton Ituhbers recent Silver Dollar Day. A good percentage of Dayton liubber employees' pay, goes into War Bonds cvcr week to help pay for the products they make will produce, today, about 4011 pounds an acre Prewar planta tion planting was around seven to ight million acres By 1910 English companies had more than otto million dollars in vested in active plantation com panies. And some I line later the Dutch planted rubber trees in Sumatra and .lava Hud grattiug. first begun bv the Dutch in lillti brought good results ii until World War II Their selection and grafting of certain types ol rub ber trees brought higher laic yield- in Hi-th I .lion ooo tons However, if it had not been tin greater automobile production from 1910 on and the resultant treinen dous use of rubber to tires and tubes, plantation plus wild rtihhct production would have su. imped till' world w it h rubber Price Wars During all l his development per iod. and. indeed, up until the Inrth of our synthetic rubber industry, the United Stales could do little about lubber prices We paid out hundreds of millions of dollars for wild and plantation rubber because we didn't have our own sources of rubber. With the first tonnage shipment of plantation rubber in 1905. the price wars began. Capitalists, gamblers anil speculators saw then chance to make quick and ready money. Quotes on rubber stock fluctuated on the London Exchange as widely as steel and railroad shares in our own country. Ovei a period of three decades, rubbei prices dropped' to a low ol :te and hit a high of S3 .00 To offset the new competitor - .iitation rubber. Brazil jacked up her price of wild rubber to over ""I! 00 in 1910 Eng lish interests answered with further plantation acreage and in 1912 sur passed the output of wild rubber Some attempts were made to control price fluctuations In 1923. the Stevenson Itcst rict urn Plan was introduced by England to control production The plan laded chief ly because it did not include Dutch and native growers and antagoniz ed American manufacturers whose demands for" rubber were increas ing tremendously The price of lubber fluctuated much as it had before and alteeled both English and Dutch rubbei in terests to such an extent thai in 1934 a more clastic international restriction scheme was set up by, them. The L'nited States was per mitted an observer on the Commit tee but no membership even though we bought half the world's rubber What the Committee wanted from us. was mainly a forecast on pos sible future consumption The plan worked fairly well and has helped cut down wide price spreads but has provoked criticism as an "artificial device' to control lub ber prices Rubber could be laid down in New York prior to World War II for about 10c to 11c a pound and we have been paying 16c to 22c The difference represented, largely, the payment for restricted output We used 785.000 long tons in 194 1 and 04H OHO Ions in 1940 tinted States Independence The ad u.d loss of our hemis pheric independence began when Wiekh.uo -.hipped wild rubber Mir i " M bJU- Everv possible bit of scrap rubber is saved at Dayton Hubhei Here girls are sorting fabric from rubber so that it can he reprocessed j for use in other products. seeds to England. Many Americans foresaw what would happen. In 1899, President McKinley recom mended to Congress that we start plantations in our own possessions including the Philippines, just acquired. Eater, the question of rubber plantations in the Philip pines came up again. The land laws prohibiting an American cor poration from owning more than 2. 500 acres prevented this country from growing its own rubber there. In the late thirties, the law was presented for revision and the Philippine Senate created such a riot that the question was hurriedly dropped Some plantations were started in Haiti but weren't too successful Mexico. Ion. hied it but because of lack ol Know-how. climate conditions and other dil Acuities, the project was abandon ed. Then came Pearl Harbor and the loss of our Middle East supply Desperately we looked to an rubber source wt could possibly i exploit We tried to increase all possible production in the Amazon Valley Today we get about 25.0UO to 30. 000 tons a year at a cost of from 80c to $1 .00 a pound ' Hubber types other than the rub ber trees were cultivated One ol these is (Juavule native to north ern Mexico and several soul hern Congratulations To All At DAYTON RUBBER On Your Achievement m i - tiff bmoKy Mountain Trailvays Stations At Witvnesville and Haelwood I CoBigratniBatD(DiiDS SCOH'S SCRAP BOOK Ey R J SCOTT ' t ill. I , ii -.j i . i I jl i mr f 1A ' WXS MAINE. IMCtUPEP AS OHl OF ft I ORICIKAL OL& Mohroe Pauacl or -ftiE W0RLD4 Columbian 1893, IS MOW HE SEMArfoRt At. CHAMBER. OF BRAZIL, SouM AMtRiiA WAS PISMANT1.E.P itiiPPtP By Boat", ah p REBU1L IK KIO DtJAXElRO NoLABt WROft iU MAny Poems 1H AT A LIS f of tt; NAMES riLI 14 POAL OCfAVO VOLUMtS 'frit AMERKTArt Blfff RH CAM MOVE. EACM EYE For Passing THie Faster WE salute the men and women of the Dayton Rubber Company for winning the coveted Army-Navy E. This achievement of yours was won by hard work inspired by a deep realization of duty to our men on the fighting fronts. When you read that armament saves mens lives, that the materials'of war can be substituted for human beings, it must be a satisfying feeling for you to realize that through your efforts, the sacrifice of men may be lessened. The flag that flies above your plant, the bright badges you wear are more than symbols of achievement. They are reminders of a pledge to better production today and tomor row . . . and all the tomorrows that follow until victory is won. Haywood County John Hipps, Commissioner George A. Brown, County Manager : D. J. Noland, Commissioner HO-J.1NI WA.S PARI 1 IMDEPEHPEH-fLy Of MASSMuSCffS Of TUtOlHUl I K
The Waynesville Mountaineer (Waynesville, N.C.)
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June 7, 1945, edition 1
14
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