Evening star., 1942-04-04


much to work on. In the past they
have done all right on such appar-
emily .unrackety things as poultry,
milk, broccoli and artichokes. Given
a national rubber shortage, it didn't
take them long to get to work.
From my own experience, and
from reports that have come to me
from others, know that bootlegging
Of tires is becoming a fairly big busi-
ness and figures to give this coun-
try black market" the equal of
anything in Europe.
Washington was where I first
heard Of the bootlegging of rubber.
A taxi driver told me that all he
needed was a 500 bill to put fodr
new, OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
ping tires on his hack any time of
day or night he wanted them. .r-
u
That's pretty rough price,
though" he said. The tires have
on here now cost me only about ST
apiece, but they are asking Is bucks
a throw for the same kind, and
they're getting it from a lot of
guys, too." 81
In Florida a friend told me that
on a motor trip between Miami and
Jacksonville he was offered tires at
half a dozen places.
And. are they holding you up!"
he said. The fiat price for FIVE
tires for my car was $3.50. 1t was
the same at every place, so guess
the boys must have gotten together
somewhere and set a standard fig
ure" 10
The mail has brought letters from
car owners in Is or 20 States telling
the same story-that all you needed
to put new shoes on your gasoline
baby was a handful of bills.
I talked to a member Of tire ra-
tioning board about the bootlegging
and inquired as to the penalty for
the dirty business.
II y
He read me about three typewrit-
ten sheets of whereases and where
fores and dos and don'ts and warn
ings and such, but he never did read
me fat, out-and-out statement as
to what would happen to a tire
bootlegger or his customer If caught.
ItSseems to me the Government
should eliminate all this legal fol-
derol and make a plain, honest-to-
goodness statement as to what the
bootlegger and his unpatrfotic buyer
will get if caught in the traffic IN
rubber. Make it the same for CALI
fornia as for Florida. Make it o
mean penalty. Come right out and
say that any one caught buying or
selling a tire on the side will get q
nice 10-year stay in what the Bali
nese so quantity call "the old
jugeroo," and the boys on the New
Hebrides term the calaboose."
! That's the way to stop the dirty
business. That's the best way to
instill patriotism in gents who don't
have it. <
A man will think long and hard
before going to a "tre-easy" and
| getting a nice new four-ply if he
knows that by doing so he is risking
a 10-year term in place where the
housekeeper is called warden" aAd
the bell captain answers to the title
of turnkey"
But, If this isn't done, tire boot
Logging will come to be accepted
just as the bootlegging of whisky
was accepted. Because the Govern
ment was lenient with bootleggefs,
no one ever thought Of them as law
breakers. They were accepted as
solid citizens in most communities,
and there is hardly a town now
where the big house on the hill isn't
owned by a man who got his money
by selling stuff that made his fell
low citizens too hoarse to complain.
Any time the Government wants
to stop a racket all it has to do9ts
to make the penalty plenty tough
and see that the penalty sticks.
With this country at war and
needing rubber, there is no excuse
for not getting out the hammer Tor
the tire bootlegger and his Gus
toners.
distributed By McNaught Syndicate, Ine,)