If the average U.S. citizen said the hell with it and went for a long, tire-consuming joyride last week, it was small wonder. As the week wore on, he was subjected to more confusion than ever about the rubber shortage. Some moderately good news of ersatz tire prospects was perverted into a miracle like the loaves and fishes.
This time, the chief responsibility for confusion was clear: the fault lay with the U.S. press, about whose handling of the week's rubber news the kindest comment would be that the news itself came too fast for predeadline digestion. Even the sober New York Times headlined a sober report to Congress by Jesse Jones: AMPLE NEW RUBBER IN '43 SAYS JONES.
What was the real rubber score, asked the rubber-shy nation? Had the worst U.S. shortage of all suddenly turned into another New Deal mirage? The answer was No.
There was some good news about rubber last week, but—as the careful newspaper reader could see—it went no further than a new hope of meeting really essential needs during the year and a half before the 800,000-ton synthetic program can get going full blast. Last month the President warned car owners that before long the police might come around to jack up their cars, remove their tires, and put them on some war worker's jalopy. Last week's news—if it pans out—said that, one way and another, essential civilian needs (trucks, busses, ambulances, cars for war workers) could be kept rolling without resorting to wholesale confiscations.
The reason for even that much good news was a lesson in how war can change an industry's mental processes. Before Pearl Harbor no profit-minded synthetic producer in his right mind was working on anything but how to make a product enough better than natural rubber to justify its higher cost. After Pearl Harbor the industry suddenly saw that anything better than a wooden wheel was worth going after. Two major events last week illuminated that change in direction:
≫ The tire industry told WPB that with only 4,500 tons of crude (less than 1% of the remaining U.S. stockpile) and 234,000 tons of reclaim (about one-third of U.S. two-year capacity) it can recap enough old tires, make enough new ones of reclaimed rubber to meet the irreducible minimum-replacement demand to keep all present cars on the road. But the press underplayed the industry's quid pro quo for the miracle: To achieve it, said the tiremen, every car, truck and bus in the U.S. will have to cut its usual mileage an average of 25% (which means much more than a 25% cut for a lot of nonessential mileage). Moreover, nobody at all can drive more than 40 m.p.h.
≫ Standard Oil (N.J.) President William Parish went down to Washington to give a House subcommittee some big news from the synthetic front: 1) Butyl rubber has been so improved by better compounding methods that butyl tires have stood up under 16,000 miles of grueling road tests. So the 60,000 tons of butyl capacity now under way spells serviceable light tires instead of just specialty rubber.