The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-09-29


 rary offlce buildings - where desks are damned against each other and wires dangle from the ceilings l to phones whose numbers are con- stantly being changed. Anyway, on Plush Row the new rubber administrator, the ex-rail- road president, is learning, all about rubber. Only he isn't.
 All the time since his appoint ment, Jeffers has spent in Wash ington, wrestling with just one thing = the problem of rubber ra- tioning. How to conserve the rubber that is already rolling and ration the recaps is MT. Jeffers' first bot tleneck to break, and all his atten- tion has been centered on that one thing to the exclusion of the sym thetic program. butadyene, buna, butylene glycol, polymerization, grain alcohol vs petroleum alcohol, and all the other intricacies that had everyone going around in cir ceS.
 RATIONING WORD
 AWAITED
 As a result of this concentration i of interest, the word went out that the first public statement to be heard from MT. Jeffers would be aI1- nouncement of his gasoline rationing program. His conferences so far have practically all been with the governments rationing experts and ODT people who are supposed to know what has to be hauled in the nations 27 million passenger cars and five million trucks and busses. He acted as expected.
 As far as the Baruch committee report is concerned, MT. Jeffers apparently hasn't gotten beyond page two of the printed version, but he is working early and late. He's that kind.
 He has established residence at Washington,s Mayfiower hotel, but he goes there only to sleep. He left his family in the west, bring ing with him only his secretary, a pleasant young man named Cun- ningham who knows the Jeffers ways.
 All of WIPES old rubber division men are still around, from former Co., ordinator Arthur s. Newhall on down. But that is no aSsur- ance there won't be some changes made. Jeffers has been known to fire vice presidents on his railroad. BARUCH REPORT
 EYED
 | Now that the ink is dry on the Baruch report, 1t has had a much more careful appraisal in Washing ton. The more the report is read, the more the conviction grows that it is pattern for any other such reports that may have to be made in the future, whether on cargo planes, aluminium, steel, scrap metal sugar, coffee, meat or what haven't you.
 1 Carefully analysed. the Baruch report can be shown to find that the country's rubber program as it had been conducted up to the time the report was made was not as bad as the confusion indicated "Our committee is convinced that the governments present program is technically sound" "It is fortunate that the program for the needed plants is generally in the hands of as competent engineers as there are in the country" Present processes for manufac- turing synthetic rubber must not at this late date be changed '
 . Normally such a (rubber) development would require a dozen years" And so on.
 | The Baruch report text called fer the appointment of an experi- enced rubber man as administra. tor. MT. Jeffers is not. But may be, from his suite on Plush Row he doesn't have to be. If he car just keep in their proper places the Ickes oil faction, the Tender son rationers, the Jones financier! and rubber reservists, the Gillette grain alcohol enthusiasts and ths Eastman transportation defenders.