Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-17
COldenrOd Hailed as Source
OF Beauty, Sneezes, Rubber

Thomas A. Edisons latest achieve
ment of making rubber out of a weed
the goldenrod-after several years labor
in an effort to break the European
monopoly, is received with due appreci-
alton of the almost unfailing efficiency
of the inventors mental equipment.
Edison's Transformation of the gold
enrod from a decorative but other
wise useless weed into a source of
rubber brings new tributes to the
wizards genius, though it is realized
that results as yet are hardly practical.
Few can comment upon this prolific
plant without uttering the hope that
the sneezes it is supposed to produce
may be extracted along with the gutta-
percha.
Imagination roams high, wide and
handsome around the newly appointed
rubber plant" says the New York Eve
ming Post, Ito speculate in what man
ner it will be reincarnated in an auto
mobile tire or pair of shock absorbing
heels. Will Mr.. Edison boil and distill
the golden blossoms or will he raise
trees of goldenrod and tap the trunks
pulp of these yellow weeds and, by some
alchemy, inspire the result with the
stretch and snap and toughness of rub
Der? Will he emulate the pork packers,
who make use of all of pig save the
squeal, and find profit in everything
of goldenrod except the sneeze? Other
questions haunt the Imagination with
an anxious possibility. Is Mr.. Edison
about to establish great goldenrod
plantations. to become the Bad Lands
of the hay-fever season? Is there to be
Sneeze Belt across the country
wherever climate and soil are favorable
is not this too great price to pay for
progress and independence from the
British rubber trust?"
That our little Autumn friend, the
goldenrod. who has led merely decora-
tive existence all these centuries, is
potentially a producer of such
marketable commodity as rubber" is
hailed by the Minneapolis Star as lone
of the newest surprises sprung by
science and Thomas A. Edison" That
paper concludes: Thus the gay and
much-maligned August flower may IN
time find itself tranSplanted from Its
vagabond existence on the hillside to
the orderly confines of the plowed field,
where it may hold its head as high as
the wheat, the corn and the oats. Its
days of happy idling will be over when
it is put to work with the other plants
that serve man and his needs"
Years ago, the goldenrod was pro-
posed as this country'S national flower"
recalls the Martinsburg Journal. be
cause it grows plentifully in every State
of the Union, and If Mr.. Edison can
make rubber tires out of it, it will be-
come in a double sense national
flower. poisoning on every hard road
as well as in every more or less fertile
field OF course, there are
skepticS, but Mr.. Edison has achieved
so often and so greatly that the credu-
lous expectations of a large part OF the
public will follow his further expert
mentS."
For four years" says the Columbus
Ohio State Journal, "the sage OF West
Orange has been seeking to produce
rubber, either from some vegetation or
timber that grows in quantity in the
United States. His purpose was TO en-
able the United States to end the
foreign rubber monopoly to which
American motorists have been paying
tribute. Goldenrod is not
only cheap but abundant. 1t grows
readily. 1t is sometimes used for deco
rative purposes. but until now has been
a sort of outcaSt because of its effect
upon hay-feVer victims. Should the
Edison process prove to be commercially
feasible, the goldenrod. like humans
who are suddenly discovered to have
unsuspected talents or wealth, may at
tain social position never dreamed