The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-19
RUBBER TOWN
Akron. o.. jolly 1s.-The people OF
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By Frederic j. Haskin, Director.
washing ID. C.

estly claim that this is the most pros
porous city in the world; and there is
little doubt but that they are right. A
city could not be much more pros
porous than Akron and still function
as a city. For Akron is outgrow1ng
everything it owns. 1t has outgroWn
it's houses, and men are sleeping in
shifts and living in tents in vacant
lots, in barns and lofts. 1t has out
grown it's streets and is SPRAYING all
over the county in a line of suburbs
twenty miles long, while the commits
sioners strive in vain to extend the
paving and keep it in repair as fast
as the town grows. In 1910 there were
$1,000 people here and now there are
$4,000 in the city limits and a large
population that has run over into the
surrounding country. For time
Akron outgrew it's water supply and
some people turned the tap in vain.
One of the most important things
it has outgroWn is its woman supply.
Akron ought to apply to a matri-
monial agency. For men of all races
have been pouring into the town by
the thousand for several years past
while the immigration of women has
been much smaller. There are not as
many jobs for women as for men, and
besides, it is very hard for an unat-
tached woman to find a place to live.
The majority of men over women is
indicated by the registration figures.
Akron registered forty thousand men.
and altho the sixth city in Ohio in
size, she was third in the number of
men registered. The women that are
here like Akron. They admit it is not
beautiful, but they say they have
good time.
Her most ardent admirers would
have to admit that Akron is not
beautiful; but she is impressive. There
is more smoke, more work and more
money here than in any similar area
in the United States. Akron is
money town. All sorts of men are
gathering wealth here faster than
ever before-men who work with
their hands, men who work with their
brains, and men whose money works
for them. There are no labor trou-
bles, there is no outcry against the
high cost of living. not much discus
sion of the war. Money and rubber
are the first concerns of all men.
There are people here who bought
stock in rubber concerns not SO many
years ago and were laughed at by all
their friends, who are now wealthy.
There is crop of brand-new million
aires equal to any produced by
''war-bride'' town. And the toilers
are just as prosperous in proportion.
One Italian was discovered to be
making thirteen dollars a day by
working two shifts. His wife was
making a hundred and sixty-five dol
lars month by renting rooms and
taking in boarders. Unskilled labor is
making as much as five dollars day
here, and clever men are turned into
skilled laborers in a few weeks.
1t is surely a strange fact that two
thirds of all the rubber used in the
United States should be manufac-
tured in Akron, and that one-third of
all the rubber produced In the world
should find its way to this Ohio town.
From Sumatra and Java and Ceylon
most of it comes. Singapore is the
market for all that produced in the
Akron manufactures travels almost
halfway around the world to reach
the factories, and some of it travels
all the way back to be used. sup
ply of raw materials close at hand
certainly was not much of a factor in
the growth of Akron as the rubber
center of the world.
AS far as anyone can see it was the
tickle goddess Chance who made
Akron what she is today. A certain
chemist happened to live here who
had an idea that rubber could be hard
ened, SO that it would be useful for
a great many purposes which soft rub
Der would not serve. The story of
how he discovered the vulcanizing
process has been told often and va
r1OuS1Y, DuI the TOIHdnlIC FtISlOn
seems to be that his wife wanted him
to quit fooling with the stuff and go
to work at something remunerative.
So he had to perform his experiments
on the sly. One day the good wife
came home unexpectedly and he
chucked the whole mess into the
stove, thereby discovering the process
which makes tires possible. Soon
thereafter a small factory was estab-
lished in Akron for the making of
rubber surgical appliances. 1t grew
and others grew up around it. The
automobiles came along with their in
satiable hunger for tires. And Akron
grew just as fast as the automobile
business. Rubber workers and rub
Der experts gathered here; Akron be-
came the greatest rubber town in the
world-and all, apparently, because a
certain impecunious inventor hap
pened to live here and to stand in awe
of his spouse.
In the early days of Akron nearly
wild plants in the valley of the Anna
zon. 1t was only about fifteen years
ago that seeds of one of the best rub
Der plants were taken to Ceylon, and
the cultivation of rubber began. There
are now several million acres under
cultivation, and with tremendous
areas of the tropics still uncultivated
the worlds potential rubber supply
seems almost inexhaustible. At time
when SO many of the materials of in
dustry are threatened with depletion,
this fact has a large significance
Wood is becoming scarce and costly,
so is leather. Rubber can for some
uses take the place of both. Rubber
heels have won a place in the world,
and now they are manufacturing rub
Der soles as well in Akron. 1t is prob
able that in the next few years we
will wear more rubber, that rubber
will find a multitude of new uses
1t is for this reason that Akron is
not frightened at the rumor that the
automobile has reached its height.
and is in for a decline. 1t is true that
the price of gasoline is soaring, and
that word has gone forth that war
may make 1t necessary to regulate the
use of all petroleum products by law.
But rubber is finding peW uSes "a ster.