ODAY Caoutchouc is your servant, mastered, trained to a thousand tasks.

Caoutchouc is always with you -in private and public, in sickness and health, through pleasures and trials, in work and play, from infancy to age-a daily help, comfort and necessity.

So perfect a servant is Caoutchouc that you barely realize the magnitude of the service; so accustomed a companion as rarely to cause notice. Yet were Caoutchouc to be suddenly taken from the world, the world would be suddenly set back to your great-grandfather's time-the time when Caoutchouc was still one of the wild, mysterious, unmanageable things of the Amazon jungles. For Caoutchouc, though old as the trees, is very young in service.

The taming of Caoutchouc is a romance of achievement-no less a romance because Caoutchouc's other name is Rubber.

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. Of which this is an instance: back in the dark ages men fought with steel, fed themselves with bread and covered themselves with cloth, while rubber, made fit to use, has only been given to the last two or three generations.

Today rubber is one of the great necessities of life. It is a commodity, like any other, and calmly accepted as our rightful heritage. Yet by what a narrow margin of time is rubber ours! Through all the centuries it waited for the needs of a complex civilization and the ability of such a civilization to master it. That mastery came less than eighty years ago.

PROMISING, BUT

When white men first saw South America, they saw the natives playing with balls made of rubber.

Not long after, like children fascinated by a plaything of which they could only half sense the possibilities, other white men brought rubber home with them. Its qualities and properties were obvious. But it had a fault. Shoes made of rubber were soft and sticky in hot weather, and in cold weather grew hard and easy to crack. It was this fault that had to be overcome, and it was in this particular that rubber long remained as untamed and unmanageable as ever.

In spite of its shortcoming, however, rubber was not unused, even in the old, crude state. From our present viewpoint, living in an age when rubber has come into its own, some of the old-time uses are most amusing. It would be absurd, nowadays, to think of sending shoes to South America to have them waterproofed, but that was actually done, and not infrequently. Folks sent their shoes on that long journey by sailors, who had them dipped in rubber to the end that their owners could walk dry and more comfortably.

MASTERED BY GOODYEAR

Charles Goodyear tamed rubber-halter-broke it, as it were. He had been trying for years to process it in some way so that it would stand extremes of cold and heat. After many failures success came, as success sometimes does, by accident. He happened to drop some rubber mixed with sulphur on a hot stove. And thus vulcanization was discovered.

That was in 1839. It took Goodyear three years to perfect the process and to find anybody who would invest money in it. On such a slender thread-accident and a man's persistence in spite of disappointment-hung the development of the material that has since so vitally affected civilization.

It was Goodyear's unfortunate lot that his labors

were not rewarded in material riches. He was never connected with a single successful company which manufactured vulcanized rubber. In England he was unable to interest capital. In France a company which he organized soon failed, and he was imprisoned for debt. In America he was content to license others to manufacture under his patents.

Charles Goodyear's reward is fame, written indelibly in history. So great has been the appreciation of the rubber industry for his wonderful invention, that a number of individual rubber goods manufacturers have incorporated his name in theirs. Thus there are today, for instance, "Goodyear's India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Co." and "Goodyear's Metallic Rubber Shoe Co.," both manufacturing rubber boots and shoes, and both integral parts of the United States Rubber Company.

Rubber is

IMAGINE A RUBBERLESS WORLD

Without rubber overshoes and raincoats, the first rainy day would find us all unprotected against the wet. The lawn would wait for showers and the garden would have to be watered with a sprinkling can. The body's chill would no longer know the solace of the rubber spine bag or hot water bottle; the fever, the blessing of an ice bag.

The automobile would stand unused, for nobody has yet found a satisfactory substitute for rubber tires. Mother, at home, without jar rings, would no longer be able to preserve fruits and vegetables. Father, at the office, could no longer snap a rubber band around his papers. Jimmy's stockings would always be down around his ankles, for there would be no elastic bands to make garters of-and Jimmy wouldn't stand the pressure of bands that were not elastic. Little Susie would never know the ecstacy of mothering a rubber doll, and the baby would have to take nourishment every three hours from a spoon. Without rubber for the laundry wringer rolls, the weekly wash would grow from a problem to a calamity.

L. CANDEE & CO. FIRST LICENSED In 1842 Goodyear granted to Leverett Candee, of New Haven, a license to manufacture under his newly perfected process of vulcanization. With Henry and Lucius Hotchkiss, the firm of L. Candee & Co. was formed to manufacture rubber shoes. This was the first license Goodyear granted-74 years ago. The firm of L. Candee & Co. is still in existence as one of the large units of the United States Rubber Company, and the descendants of Henry and Lucius Hotchkiss are now active in the affairs of the latter

company.

So Goodyear gave rubber, halter-broken, to the world. That in itself was a wonderful gift and a great achievement. And not less great has been the ingenuity, the planning and the toil by which industry has harnessed rubber and trained it to perform the multitude of tasks you know of. Not only were the problems of adaptation and manufacturing tremendous; the public was at first suspicious.

The first rubber shoes made by L. Candee & Co. were made over straight lasts-there were neither rights nor lefts. Mr. Downs, their salesman, used to carry these shoes around from store to store in baskets, and the doubting retail dealers would only accept them to be sold on commission.

How far the development and the acceptance of rubber have traveled in the short, fast-moving three-quarters of a century since then! To what an extent it has become part of our lives! To be deprived of rubber now would turn our existences upside down. Picture such condition of affairs.

How sport would suffer! Without rubber-soled tennis and sport shoes, without tennis and golf balls, and without rubber bladders for footballs and punching bags, the world would be a drab place, indeed. Even the good old game of jackstones would be nothing but a memory. Imagine a child without a rubber ball!

THE COMMUNITY LOSS

The functions of rubber goods in medicine and surgery are vitally important. Infection and suffering would increase enormously with its loss. Rubber fire hose is still the mainstay of the fire department, and the fire department is one of our last lines of defense. Rubber gaskets, washers and packings in pumps and valves play an essential part in supplying you water and all power which turns all wheels which produce all things. You have hardly a manufactured article, these days, in the production of which rubber does not take a hand. Man-made harbors are opened and kept open by the grace of rubber sleeves on dredging pipes. The world's business correspondence is conducted on typewriters with rubber platens. The world's news is proclaimed in newspapers, in the printing of which a rubber blanket could not be replaced. Air and steam drills eat into the earth that great tunnels and

40

building foundations may be made; air and steam riveters clinch the rivets that hold together the vast skeletons on which skyscrapers are built-and to all of these air and steam is conducted through rubber hose. Electricity can be conducted in many places only because wire can be insulated with rubber. An immense proportion of the belts that carry power from source to point of use are made of rubber over canvas.

The list grows long, yet it is but partly representative of the dependence our modern civilization has learned to place on rubber.

It is not uncommon for some one to wonder what is going to happen in rubber. There have been violent fluctuations in the prices of crude rubber, and there have been rumors of rubber shortages. Will such things seriously affect the public in the future?

That question finds its answer in the size, scope, activities and integrity of the United States Rubber Company. This great System is not only to be known as a manufacturer, but as an organization operating in every department to provide the best rubber products at uniform prices-a large contract, but one which is already being fulfilled.

To meet all these demands there has grown up a tremendous industry, dedicated to the purpose of supplying every need for rubber. Into the taming and training of Caoutchouc, the universal servant, have gone millions on millions of dollars and some of the best brains of modern times. In the very beginnings of rubber as a commodity, a little rubber eraser cost seventy-five cents. Today you can buy one anywhere for a nickel. And in that comparison you have the measure of efficiency which the importers and manufacturers of rubber have applied.

Even before Goodyear's discovery of vulcanization, companies had been organized to make rubber shoes, carriage cloth and other products in which rubber occupied a conspicuous place. Following straightway on the heels of the granting of patents on Goodyear's process, several of these and other newly organized firms obtained licenses to manufacture under that process.

OLDEST MANUFACTURERS OF RUBBER GOODS Among these were, in 1840, the National India Rubber Co., of Providence, a firm which at first bought molded rubber shoes that came from Para stuffed with rice hulls, and stretched them over lasts to cure; in 1842, L. Candee & Co.; in 1843, Goodyear's Metallic Rubber Shoe Co.; in 1844, the Meyer Rubber Co. and the Goodyear's India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Co.; in 1853, the Malden Mfg. Co., later the Boston Rubber Shoe Co.; in 1874, The American Rubber Co. These firms have grown, added to their lines, perfected their methods of manufacture, and have joined together along with the Banigan Rubber Co., the Lycoming Rubber Co., the Woonsocket Rubber Co., the Fabric Fire Hose Co., the G and J Tire Co., the Hartford Rubber Works Co., the Mechanical Rubber Co., Morgan & Wright, the New York Belting & Packing Co., Limited, the Peerless Rubber Manufacturing Co., the Revere Rubber Co., the Sawyer

THE GREATEST PLANTATION Fluctuations in rubber supply and price have, in the past, been due fundamentally to the source. As long as rubber is procured through native sources from South America, such fluctuations may be expected. But the United States Rubber System has provided for a future secure against these conditions. Six years ago it purchased over 90,000 acres in Sumatra, and has devoted this extensive plantation to the cultivation of the best quality rubber. Commensurate with the size of the Company itself, this is the largest plantation in existence. It represents an investment to date of approximately nine millions of dollars-invested that the quality, the price and the supply of rubber may be stabilized.

Nearly half of this plantation, 43,500 acres, is already planted to 5,600,000 rubber trees. Over a million of these trees are already being tapped. The great enterprise is moving forward with the utmost precision-a vast project in which 14,000 Coolies are employed, and in which the rate of planting is 5,200 trees per day.

Such a plantation is a work of time. Trees cannot produce rubber until they are five years old, and do not come into full bearing until still later. The United States Rubber System is building for future generations.

AN IMMENSE, WELL-BALANCED MACHINE

The prosperity of the United States Rubber Company, and hence its ability to continue serv

ing the public well, does not depend on the continued demand for automobile tires or any other one product. It is active in every field where rubber is a factor. And to each it carries the same measure of efficiency.

The products of the United States Rubber Company are divided into these principal classesclothing (raincoats of rubber, rubberized fabrics and cravenette goods), footwear (rubber shoes and boots, overshoes, tennis and outing shoes), tires, druggist sundries, and mechanical and molded rubber goods (which include practically everything not included in the other classifications).

These products are sold by the Company in practically every part of the civilized world. To make them and sell them, more than 35,000 people are given employment, exclusive of the labor on the Sumatra plantation. Forty-seven factories in all make U. S. Rubber goods-a floor space of over 8,300,000 square feet, equivalent to 191 acres.

It requires more than 58,000 horse power, exclusive of water power, to produce the U. S. Rubber goods to supply the earth's demands; and to transport a year's production of these goods needs more than 15,000 freight cars, or a train over 112 miles long. The members of the selling organization of the United States Rubber System travel 15,000,000 miles in a single year. And the result of their traveling is this: one hundred and eighty-nine U. S. Rubber branches (a hundred and seventy-five of them in this country) and

thousands upon thousands of stores have U. S. Rubber goods to supply a waiting world.

The Company deals in more than rubber. In many of its products are cotton ducks, drills, sheetings, etc., and of these it consumes over 55,000,000 yards a year-a yardage that would cover 31,250 miles.

AN IMMENSE OUTFLOW

A single figure will visualize for you the volume of the torrent of finished goods that pour constantly out of the United States rubber factories. In one year, recently, these factories made over 50,000,000 pairs of shoes-a pair for every other person in the United States.

From time to time you will see new uses made of rubber. The Development Department of the United States Rubber Company is constantly working toward that end. And there are chemists and other technical men in each factory, safeguarding the buyers of U. S. Rubber goods by the most critical chemical and physical tests of materials.

Throughout, from the operating and executive heads in New York to the men in the various plants and branches, is a spirit of sincere resolve. They have grown up in the rubber industry. Their world is rubber. Their problem is rubber.

The United States Rubber Company has grown to be great because the people have willed that it be great, and this they have willed because the service of the United States Rubber Company shines out through the services of Caoutchouc, the servant.