The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-05-13


 Tn the course of this secret in- terrogation, w. s. Parish, presi- dent of the corporation, declared that plans for the production of synthetic rubber "were held in a state of suspended animation" for several months by the Recon struction Finance Corporation.
 The following are extracts of Farish's heretofore undisclosed tes- timony taken from the official transcript of this secret session.
 MIR. PARISH: "In June, 1940 to october, 1940, a committee of the Advisory Committee and the Council of National Defense were the government agency to consider and promote synthetic rubber. This committee soon found that it could make only suggestions which no one was authorized to carry out, so in the fall of 1940 the responsibility was turned over to the REC.
 ''This agency worked upon the rubber plans with Standard and other companies, which led to the completion of a definite pro- gram in January, 1941. These plans called for 75 per cent of the capital to come from the govern rnerit and 25 per cent from indus try. Trey were held in a state of suspended animation by the REC for several months, due pos- sibly to a desire to save taxpay- CTS money. Finally, on June g, 194l, Standard was authorized to go ahead with its part of 8 new and larger program financed largely by Defense Plant Corpor- ation."
 MIR. HOWARD (another Stand- ard officiaD: "Our attitude is perhaps best shown on this matter of plans in this way; in July, 194l, we were asked by REC to prepare plans for a 15,000 ton plant. That work was suspended by REC a little later. Despite that suspension we continued at our own exper~e on those plans in order that there might be no delay and w1en the war broke out in the Pacific and we were ordered to resume work on the plans, they were virtually com- plete."
 MYSTERIOUS INFLUENCE
 MR. PARISH: T would like to make just one comment on the general objective, as I understand it, that this subcommittee is deal- ing with, and that is, you are trying to find out. has there been any delay in the production of synthetic rubber? If there has been any delay, whose fault is it or what caused it? I simply want to reiterate that I can't find any logical reason why any rubber company or any oil company would be concerned with, or a party to. any delay.
 There has been some relucN tance. and I might say some slow movement, on the part of govern nent authorities. My thinking apparatus tells me there has been, perhaps, some influence at work that has caused some delay"
 SENATOR TRUAIANi we want to find out what that influence is and see if we can stop it,"
 MR, PARISH; T don't know what has caused the delay, There has been some reluctance on the part of the government to push this question and to put money into t, They might have thought nothing was going to happen to our supplies ln the Far East, They might not have the threat of Q shortage seriously, or they may have been influenced by OtlleT considerations"
 NOTE Tn his testimony before the Committee, 'REC Boss Jesse Jones yehemently denied that he was responsible for the synthetic rubber delay,
 IT'S ON TIEE CUFF
 The tailoring experts Df the euaFteFsnagter corps, using tape measure and slide rule, have flgS lRFed that by leaving the cuffs Aff seldlers' uniforms, they save enough wool to make lbe,0oo Addis ,iianal HBifeFlas,
 Tt takes thyas yards 70 make . uniform - without cuffs, To add .nd b IhIs ags Just g thsy Low