October 1. 1912.) 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



OVERALLS ON TOP OF HARVARD. 



\Y/'"""'^ young Roswell Colt, son of President S. P. 

 ''^ Colt, of the United States Rubber Co., landod in 

 Xew ^'ork recently on his uncompleted wedding tour, he, 

 jointly with hi> distinguished father, was interviewed by 

 rejire^entatives of the Xew York daily press: and in 

 reply to the questions of one of his interviewers as to 

 what his future plans were, he is reported to ha\e re- 

 plied: "We will travel about a while, and I'll show my 

 bride my college — Harvard. Then we go to .Montreal. 

 where I'll buckle down to hard work, don overalls and 

 become ac(juainted witli every phase of the rubber busi- 

 ness." 



Tiiat reply of the xoung man that he would first \'isit 

 his .Ulna Mater and then get into overalls, while in- 

 tended only to throw light on his own |)ersonal jjlans, as 

 a matter of fact flashed an illuminating shaft on a 

 modern commercial situation of great significance, to 

 wit: the etfieacy of a liberal education — plus a pair of 

 overalls. 



A few years ago college men were looked upi>n with 



rubber biscuit into the washing machine, go from that 

 into tlic mi.xing nxim, thence to the calender room, and 

 thus work his wa\- up, his progress obviously ought to 

 be much more rapid than that of his factory comrade 

 wiiose wlujle .schooling has been that of the shoj), and 

 whose outlook in life has always been closed in by the 

 four walls of the factory. 



The college, where it has the right material to work on, 

 gi\es breadth of view, and range of vision, and (|uickens 

 the imagination ; and when range of vision and quickened 

 imagination put on overalls — there ought to be some 

 excellent work lUmc. 



SYNTHETIC TIRES HAVE ARRIVED. 



O 



X the e\ening of September 9, .Americans took 

 ilicir first view of actual automobile tires made 

 from genuine synlhctic rulibcr. It was on the occasion 

 of Dr. Duisberg's lecture before the chemists, and he 

 illustrated the progress the Germans had made in the pro- 

 duction of synthetic rubber bv rolling out before the audi- 



ence a set of tires consiructed of rubl)cr made in (jer- 

 considerable su.spicion in manufacturing circles. A ,„anv-rul.ber which was inn.,cent alike of phintatior, 



college education was considered all well enough, as a 

 preparation for the so-called liberal professions. Uni- 

 versity culture was thought to be quite the proper founda- 

 tion for a, career of theological argumentation, for the 

 efficient, or at least for the harmless, administration of 

 medicinb, and for dealing in the shifty subtleties of the 

 law; i)ut when it came to commercial life — and particu- 

 larly to tlie din and dust of the factory — four years spent 

 amid the classic shades were currently believed to have a 

 thoroughly incapacitating effect. 



P>ut now all this is changed. It has been discovered 

 that a trained mind is preferable to an untrained mind. 



parentage and .\mazonian ancestry. Moreover, these 

 tires had not only Ijeen on actual wheels, but had car- 

 ried an auto of weit;ht and proportions 4,000 miles, and 

 were still intact and irnpunctured, and in fact apjiar- 

 ently little worn, and full of promise for a few thou- 

 sand miles more. 



r>ut the makers using the orthodox material that 

 Climes from Para need not feel undue alarm, for there 

 are only two sets of these synthetic tires in existence — 

 the set the doctor exhibits and another set that were 

 presented not long since to the Kaiser. Just what 

 these two sets of tires cost, probably not even Dr. Duis- 



whether the work to be done is the inditing of sermons, berg himself could accurately state, hut reflecting that 

 the elucidating of an argument, or the rumiing of a mix- the ( ierman chemists started out five years ago on tliis 

 ing machine; and companies that twenty years ago em- synthetic (piest, and purposed to spend 1,000,000 marks 

 ployed only "practical" men— those who had grown up a year on it, and further reflecting that these eight tires 

 m overalls— are nuw filling their impnrtant jilaces with represent i^ractically the only tangible and utilizable 

 the possessors of sheep.skins. As an illustration of that fruits nf their efl'orts- apart of course from their great 

 point, one of the large Akron factories recently applied scientific xalue- it is obvious that they have come 

 to a Western college for a list of promising young rather high. The Doctor does not expect to see syn- 

 graduates, and took five out of the last graduating class, thetic tires on next year's output of autos. He is 

 to place in positions of prospective importance, modest, and inclined to be i)atient. "Synthetic rub- 

 To be sure, not every college man is willing to don her." he says, "will surely not api)ear on the market in 

 overalls. If he isn't, the factory is no place for him. But the itnmediate future: but 1. for one, hope to live long 

 where is he willing t<~i start at the very bottom, put on enough to see art triumph over nature also in this 

 his working clothes with the other workmen, feed crude industrv." 



