Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-08
CLAIMS GOODYEAR WORTHY
OF HALL OF FAME PLACE

temperature changes that they were
usually total loss to the manufac-
turers. In cold weather they became
stiff and brittle. and in summer grew
soft and sticky and lost their shape.
and decomposition caused them to
give of an offensive odor.
Having discovered the proper meth
cd of treatment, Goodyear, instead Of
resting on his laurels. set to work to
put his discovery to practical use. In
his son. William H. Goodyear, who is
curator Of fine arts at the Brooklyn
Museum, said few years ago:
1T is a matter of record that. with
rare exceptions, all the extensive ap-
plications of rubber (and there are
launched and financed by Charles
Goodyear up to the point where any
other business man or manufacturer
could do the rest, and atsthat point
he invariably began to develop a new
application. He never was manu-
facturer in the strict sense. or be-
yond the early days when manufac-
ture was the only means OF earning
money for experiments. He was new
er a manufacturer for gain and never
belonged to any of the so-called
Goodyear companies in all OF which
his name was simply a trade mark.
Nor has any member of the Goodyear
family since his death ever been in
the india rubber business, in spite of
the wide diffusion of the name as a
trade mark.
Always Scofned Riches.
1T lay within Goodyear's power, at
any time after 1874, to identify him.
SELF with some one of the great in
dustries which he successfully
ity more largely in the enormous
profits which these industries pro-
duced under protection of the patent
laws. His greatest glory is not that
he discovered vulcanization, but that
having discovered it ne scorned the
wealth which the discovery created,
except in so far as it helped him in
the nobler task Of continuing to Gre
ate new industries"
The story Of Goodyear's discovery of
the secret THAI solved his problem is
told nowhere in more interesting
fashion than in John Martins recent
tooklet for children. Rubber a Won
der Story"
One day Charles Goodyear. a
Connecticut hardware merchant of
an inventive turn of mind, went to
store to buy a life preserver. The
RECT affairs, but they drew his atten-
ton to the study of rubber, and pres
emily he was thinking Of it by day
and dreaming of it by night. Rubber
became passion. He neglected his
business and grew poorer than the
turkey Job kept. He pawned his
goods and borrowed from his friends
until they dreaded to have him and
his rubber talk enter their doors. He
even pawned his children's books to
get money for his experiments. His
family hardly dared walk into a room
OF sit down at a table for fear they
would come upon some of his ever
present gum elastic as he called it.
with an inventors tireless patience
and endless hope, he tried one combi-
nation after another. but they all
failed. He had an entire suit of rub
Der clothes. and one of his friends
once said. Mr.. Goodyear Is the man
you will see walking about all dress
ed in rubber, carrying a rubber purse
with nothing in it, =
Makes Startling Discovery.
Finally, in 1889. when he was mix
ing some rubber and sulphur to-
gether, a thing he had often done be-
fore. he accidentally dropped a spoon
full on the hot stove. Rubber melts at
never thought Of applying great heat.
Instead of melting, as he expected it
would do, it fiattened out like a sill
yer dollar. It bent and stretched east
ly without cracking or breaking; it
always snapped back to it's original
shape. and, strapgest of all, it was
no longer sticky. Apparently half the
problem was solved. Whether his
new mixture would stand cold he had
yet to find out, So he called it on the
outside of the door and went to bed.
Probably he slept but little and was
up early to find his rubber quite un-
affected by the cold. Then he knew
that he had made a real discovery
and he named the process 'vulcaniz-
ing after the Roman god of fire.
Vulcanizing' simply means mixing
sulphur and pure rubber and then APP
plying heat"
Charles Goodyear is entitled to rec