The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1942-08-27
SYNTHETIC RUBBER SCRAP
DISTURBS NATIONS UNITY.

I received letter from my secretary,
Henry Somsen, Jr., which I am using
as my news letter this week:
Everything is going o. k. down
here. The Secretary for the Minority
tells me there is nothing important
in prospect on the Senate floor in the
near future. You can continue to
stay in Minnesota until I advise you
of anything important coming up.
zone thing that disturbs me in the
mail is expressions of distrust of Off
Gals handling the synthetic rubber
program.
81 don't have any technical knowl-
edge regarding synthetic rubber pro-
duction. But there are two simple and
obvious reasons why I believe that,
while some delay and confusion may
well have been eliminated, on the
other hand, there is no JUSTIFICATION
whatsoever for implying bad faith on
the part of government officials in
this connection.
"Ffrst, while a government so large
as ours is not devoid of a certain
number of INSCRIPTIONS employees who
might conceivably place personal gain
above their country's best interests,
both the character and number of
responsible officials involved in de-
cisions on rubber negates charge
of favoritism or bad faith. Whatever
errors of judgment any of these men
may have ever been guilty of, con-
slider such men as Donald M. Nelson,
Jesse Jones, Arthur Newhall, Rubber
Coordinator, and Howard j. Klossner,
native of Minnesota and Chairman
of the Rubber Reserve Corporation, to
possess unquestioned integrity and
ability. In fact, a charge that our
government has acted in bad faith in
allotting the bulk of synthetic pro-
duction to the petroleum industry
cannot be made without involving the
President himself.
"Then there is a second reason.
The charge made is that the petrol
cum industry has sought to hog the
synthetic production program. I sug-
gest that on reflection that charge
becomes contradictory. The pet
roleum industry is one of the big
gest in the world. It's main customers
are the 80 million or so motor vehicle
owners in America. Obviously the
total receipts of the business of SELL
ing them petroleum products dwarf
the total that may be expected from
producing synthetic rubber. And those
30 million vehicles can't keep rolling
without rubber! If there is conclu-
sively proven a better, quicker, and
feasible means of producing rubber
other than from petroleum products
believe the petroleum industry, as
well as everyone that wants to win
his war, will Jump to its support.
81 am certainly not writing a brief |
Tor the petroleum interests. Some ele-
nents of its acted mighty stupidity in |
heir handling of patent agreements |
With representatives of foreign gov
'rnmentS now among our enemies, |
Ind some other elements in it have |
had a selfish attitude toward the
subject of gasoline rationing. But I
'egret to see people expressing dis
rust of some able and honorable men
n our government on the basis of
emarks tossed out by few individ-
lalS presenting only one side of
highly complicated, technical question
which is thoroughly understood by
My few people who have long and
intense study to it.
"We who are from Minnesota have
natural interest in the possibilities
# utilizing grain to produce syn
hetic rubber, through the grain
lcohol route. We are glad that some
10000 tons of the eventual annual
reduction capacity will be allotted to
rain alcohol.
The fact that a larger portion of
reduction will be from petroleum I
link Is due to the fact that the pet