THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June i, 1909. 



PRESIDENT WALTER S. BALLOU. 



THE directors of the Woonsocket Rubber Co. ( Woonsocket. 

 Rhode Island), at the annual meeting on April 26, elected 

 Walter S. Ballou to the office of president, to succeed Colonel 

 Samuel P. Colt, who declined reelection. It is now 41 years 

 since Mr. Ballou, born in the neighboring town of Cumberland, 

 walked into the the office of the Woonsocket company and 

 asked for and obtained employment. That business had been 

 founded by the late Joseph Banigan, who was at that time 

 president of the company and its forceful, active head. The 

 new employe made continual progress, until in time he began 

 to be recognized as Mr. Banigan's "right hand man." He 

 became the company's selling agent, which position he filled 

 with great efficiency for 20 years, until 1896, after the acces- 

 sion of the Woonsocket company by the United States Rubber 

 Co. When Mr. Banigan formed the Joseph Banigan Rubber 

 Co., in the same year, Mr. Ballou was one of the incorporators 



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and business capacity he has accimiulated a very comfortable 

 fortune for himself. Mr. Ballou is widely known as an enthu- 

 siastic sportsman, being a skillful wielder of both rod and gun. 



At the annual meeting of the Woonsocket company, in ad- 

 dition to being elected president, Mr. Ballou was continued in 

 the position of general manager, which he had held for a 

 year. Charles H. Guild was reelected secretary and treasurer 

 and George Schlosser superintendent. 



t)n the same date the officers of the Joseph Banigan Rubber 

 Co. were reelected : Walter S. Ballou, president and general 

 manager and secretary, and John J. Watson, Jr., treasurer. 



Mr. Ballou also is president of the American Wringer Co., 

 with which he has been connected since the date of its forma- 

 tion by Mr. Banigan. 



Walter S. Ballou. 



and was elected secretary and treasurer of the new company, 

 which established a rubber footwear factory at Olneyville, near 

 Providence. Following the deafh of Mr. Banigan the company 

 last named came under the control of the United States Rubber 

 Co., with Mr. Ballou remaining in charge, filling the position 

 of president of the Banigan corporation. Since 1903 he has 

 been a director of the United States Rubber Co. A little later 

 he became a member of their executive committee, in which 

 position he has been an efficient factor in the management, 

 spending a part of every week in New York. Last year the 

 work of the Banigan and Woonsocket factories was combined, 

 which called for Mr. Ballou's attention to affairs at Woonsocket, 

 so that his election to the presidency of the Woonsocket cor- 

 poration is but another step in his steady advancement since 

 he first went to work as a boy in the employ of Mr. Banigan. 

 Mr. Ballou as a salesman not only was wonderfully successful, 

 but he made a host of friends in the trade. Later he proved 

 no less successful in an executive capacity, in promoting the 

 business with which he was connected, and through his foresight 



SHOOTING ON A RUBBER ESTATE. 



■ I 'HE newspapers of Mexico and the United States have con- 

 ■^ tained so much of late regarding an unfortunate incident 

 on an American-owned rubber plantation in the state of Vera 

 Cruz, Mexico, as a result of which Harold Sanborn, of Chicago, 

 has since lain in a hospital under police surveillance, that The 

 Mexican Herald, of Mexico City, has been led to make a 

 thorough investigation of the facts, a report on which, headed 

 "The Herald Probes Sanborn Shooting Affair," occupies ten 

 columns in the issue of that journal for May 19. The Herald's 

 report would seem to exonerate young Sanborn, whose father 

 and mother were with him on the rubber plantation at the 

 time of the occurrence. Six persons were shot fatally on the 

 evening of Sunday, April 25, of whom four were rubber tap 

 pers employed on the estate, another a young sister of one of 

 the tappers, and the sixth an unknown mo::o. Harold Sanborn 

 was wounded. The Herald's report indicates that the shooting 

 was the outgrowth of a sudden quarrel among a crowd of planta- 

 tion laborers, that the woman was in a nearby house, having 

 nothing to do with the affair, and that Sanborn was only at- 

 tempting to control the situation, in the absence of the police. 

 The Herald's report raises the question as to whether either of 

 two shots fired by Sanborn took effect, and suggests that the 

 first published stories had a political origin and were circulated 

 by enemies of the local jefe poUiico. 



RUBBER GOODS AT TWO EXHIBITIONS. 



THE exhibits at the second annual Clothing and Outfitting 

 Exhibition, held at the Royal Agricultural Hall, London, 

 April 19-20 included displays of waterproof goods by im- 

 portant British firms. North British Rubber Co., Limited 

 (Edinburgh) showed waterproof clothing for regular wear and 

 for motoring, household and druggists' sundries, sporting requi- 

 sites, ground sheets, billiard table covers, and so on. J. Mandel- 

 berg & Co., Limited (Manchester), William Currie & Co. (Edin- 

 burgh), also were among the prominent exhibitors of water- 

 proofs. 



At the Building Trades Exhibition of 1909 — devoted to the 

 House Beautiful — held at the Olympia, London, April 17-May I, 

 a handsome display of india-rubber tiling and stair nosing and 

 miscellaneous rubber goods was made by the India-Rubber, Gutta- 

 percha and Telegraph Works Co., Limited (Silvertown). 



The management of the two interesting exhibitions mentioned 

 here was in the hands of Mr. A. Staines Manders, who was the 

 organizing manager of the International Rubber and Allied 

 Trades Exhibition last year at Olympia. 



The flexible metal hose, in steel and copper, made by the 

 American Metal Hose Co. (New York), is now made for nearly 

 every purpose for which hose is used. When it comes to gas 

 tubing, however, the metal product requires to be rubber packed. 



