The Alaska daily empire., 1923-06-06
For the Father of Rubber Industry.
{ (Boston News Burcau.)


 A monument Charles Goodyear" Why not? Do not the men who found vast industries deserve as well of the the who command it's armies? If Millet earned his fame by painting "The Man with the Hoe hard at work wrestling a living from the soil, does not the who made the reaper deserve the gratitude of the he delivered from fear of famine? The pioneers merit the monuments erected in their names, be they statesmen writers, architects, explorers scientists the and ndustal geniuses who made the way for the conquest of nature James Watt one of the founders of modern civlizations he deserves many memorials yet the majority do not think of him of the great benefaetors Of mankind Goodyear deserves his ment; he did for the rubber industry what Edison did fer electric lighting, what the Wrights did for aviation, what William H Perkn did for aniline dyes
 A century ago rubber was sticky and bad smell ing in hot weather. The fastidious would have noh- ing to do with the unpleasant stuff. tended to melt at anything ebove very moderate temperature and to lose all it's spring. Even the heat of an ordinary August day made it fabby and inert Men dimly saw the commercial possibilities of rubber these draw backs seemed fatal. Get rid of the odor keep the elasticity harden the stuff preserve piability and then what marves might be wrought with what men called India rubber because chunk of it was good for rubbing out pencil marks.
 Charles Goodyear Connecticut Yankee, solved that problem German chemist discovered in 1892 that the could be hardened by treating it with sulphur dissolved in turpentne Goodyear adoped that hint. Ten years in all he toiled over the puzzle He had no money. His fathers business went to smash in 1880. In 1886 he found that nitric acid would take away the exterior stickiness That helped tie Iounu real demand the rubber shoes he to manufacture in Rhode Island But under the sur face of the Goodyear rubber the old trouble re- mained.
 Then lucky accident beell him On day in le39 ne happened to drop mixture of rubber and sulphur on hot stove in his kitchen laboratory In amazement he watched while the two things fused into new thing He had tough elastic solid thlhg the very thing that has abolished much of the ciamor of the world, made mans footing safe and made possible the motor industry He had found Vuican1zed rubber. And he could vary it at will py addlng l1ttle more little less of the sulphur
 lie died too soon to realize what great boon ne had conferred on the That the possibilities Of rubber were almost endless he knew but he eould not have dreamed of the swift and silent wheeling ol today Probably the greatest thing he ever saw was a hospital car fitted for Civil War use witb three tiers of pallets suspended at the corners bv stout rings Of rubber to neutralize the jots of and deliver hte bonespnered patients from the for lures they must otherwise have endured
 monument for Charles Goodyear?" Certainly Perhaps in Boston, for here he made his discovery. or m Akron, the city founded on his discovery. ar Tn New York, which feels itself to have a clai,, because Goodyear there discovered nitric acid pro cess The news comes from London of the sugges ton or Goodyear monument there also He did ihuch Tor the race; he deserves to be remembered ana honored by such memorial.