March 



i 9 o 4 ] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



209 



THE RUBBER TRADE IN CHICAGO. 



BY A RESIDENT CORRESPONDENT. 



"TT) the Editor of The India Rubber World : By com- 

 A mon consent February was a quiet month in the local 

 rubber goods market. January trade was exceedingly quiet, 

 in all lines except rubber footwear, and February has not been 

 much better. The only line showing an improved condition 

 has been tires. The Chicago automobile show, and the ap- 

 proach of what promises to be the best automobile season the 

 country has known, have kept the representatives of the tire 

 manufacturers exceedingly busy. 



There is now a feeling that general business conditions are 

 improving, and that March will show good results, and there is 

 a better undertone in the local rubber goods market than has 

 been felt for months. Particularly is a good trade anticipated 

 in the rubber footwear line. This has been a record winter for 

 snow in Chicago. There has been snow continuously since 

 Thanksgiving day, with the temperature below zero sixteen 

 times thus far, the extreme cold preventing a thaw, and thus 

 in a measure checking the demand for rubbers. But the thaw 

 will come soon, and it is likely that the month of March will 

 cause a revival of the demand for rubber footwear that will tax 

 the jobbers to keep up with the needs of the retailer. 



* * * 



Mr. T. F. Blanchard, who for many years has been general 

 manager of the Chicago Rubber Works of the Mechanical Rub- 

 ber Co., has resigned his position and retired from business. 

 He has been connected with the factory since its establishment 

 in 1882. His brother, D. C. Blanchard, who has been with the 

 company since 1887, and for several years has been superin- 

 tendent of the factory, succeeds to the position of general man- 

 ager. Mr. Blanchard is optimistic regarding the future, in 

 which he seems to be sustained by the present rate of receipt 

 of orders. The factory is being run with a full force, and he 

 states that there are now enough orders in hand to keep it run- 

 ning full time for some months. He is confident the demand 

 is going to keep up; the trouble is to get the goods out fast 

 enough. He says that many people held back from buying rub- 

 ber goods on the theory that there would be a reduction in 

 price as soon as the manipulation of the cotton market ceased, 

 but they have now been convinced that a cotton shortage ex- 

 ists which will keep prices up until a new cotton crop comes 

 in. Even then the price of cotton duck and sheetings will not 

 be effected immediately so as to bring about a reduction in 



prices of mechanical rubber goods. 



» # * 



Morgan & Wright have decided to open a sales branch 

 downtown, in the automobile district. Hitherto they have 

 never had any selling depot in Chicago, not connected with 

 their factory. When the bicycle business was at its height the 

 firm were often importuned to take this step, but in spite of all 

 inducements they continued to look after their city trade from 

 the factory salesrooms. This new move will doubtless result 

 in other tire manufacturers opening branch stores in the vicin- 

 ity of the automobile mart. Most of these branch stores are 

 in Lake street, in the heart of the downtown district, but with 

 Morgan & Wright so much nearer " automobile row " they will 

 feel they are at a disadvantage. 



» • * 



The Chicago automobile show (on February 6-13) was a 

 great success, measured by the amount of business done. 

 While the total number of visitors was much less than at the 

 New York show in January, the volume of sales ran ahead of 

 that reported for New York. In this evidence of prosperity 



the rubber tire companies are understood to have had a good 

 share. The space allotted to exhibitors in the big Coliseum 

 was more liberal than in Madison Square Garden and afforded 

 the best possible opportunity for the display of machines and 

 sundries. The demand seemed to be for the heavier classes of 

 vehicles, such as the powerful touring cars and, as a consequence, 

 when the tire men recorded a sale the amount was larger than 

 the average sale of a year ago. There were no exhibits of rub- 

 ber goods at the automobile show at Chicago which were not 

 seen at the New York show. The various tire exhibits, and 

 the men in charge, were : 



The Diamond Rubber Co. (Akron, Ohio) — O. S. Tweedy, man- 

 ager, and S. G. Frost and F. H. Ilotchkiss of the Chicago office ; W. 

 H. Robey, Minneapolis. 



Fisk Rubber Co. (Chicopee Falls, Mass. ) — H. T. Dunn, general 

 manager; B. H. Pratt, Chicago; D. T. Keenan, Buffalo; Edward 

 Broadwell, Detroit ; Richard Belt, Omaha ; Frank Kerner, Minneapolis. 



G & J Tire Co. (Indianapolis, Ind.) — H. O. Smith, president ; J. B. 

 Anderson, general manager; H. A. Githens, sales manager; C. H. 

 Semple, Chicago office ; A. E. Vinton, Indianapolis. 



The B. F. Goodrich Co (Akron, Ohio)— W. H. Mason, Chicago 

 office ; O. R. Cook, C. B. Tellis, general representatives. 



The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. (Akron, Ohio)— B. J. Hen- 

 ning, A. F Osterloh, Fred Campbell, P. J. Konz, and K. A. Hastings, 

 Chicago office. 



The Hartiord Rubber Works Co. (Hartford, Conn .)— J. W. Gil- 

 son, secretary ; S. E. Gillard Chicago office ; W. H. Dowdy, Minne- 

 apolis. 



India Rubber Co. (New Brunswick, N. J.) — Claude Piatt, general 

 representative. 



Morgan & WRIGHT (Chicago) — Arthur Phelps, sales manager ; J. J. 

 Alexander, Chicago ; J. C. Weston, Detroit ; L. J. Ccoper, R. H. 

 Campbell, J. D. Burton, C. S. Marshall. E. P. White, J. C. Clinton, 

 Chicago. 



Exhibits were made also by the Firestone Tire and Rubber 

 Co. (Akron, Ohio); the Continental Caoutchouc Co. (New 

 York) ; the Tennant Auto-Tire Co. (Springfield, Ohio) ; the 

 Fawkes Rubber Co. (Denver and New York); and the B-OK 

 Tire Co. (Chicago). 



* » » 



Salesmen who have been in the South for various tire con- 

 cerns report a great improvement in that section during the last 

 year. The advance in the price of cotton, which has proved 

 so inconvenient to the mechanical rubber industry through the 

 increased cost of cotton duck and sheetings, has made the 

 South more prosperous than it has been in years. As a result 

 these traveling salesmen say there is an unprecedented demand 

 for automobiles and tires for that section. One salesman said 

 that when he wentthrough the South a year ago on his initial 

 trip he had hard work to interest any one in automobiles or 

 tires. This year he said that there was scarcely a city that did 

 not have representatives of from one to half a dozen automobile 

 manufacturers. He said that an agent opened a store in Sa- 

 vannah, Georgia, the day before Thanksgiving for a well known 

 automobile and in two days he had made three sales and or- 

 dered the machines. He says the prospects are bright for a 



good year all through the South. 



* * * 



A recent decision of the Illinois appellate court is of inter- 

 est to the tire men as well as the automobile owners. A year 

 ago the Chicago city council passed an ordinance reqiring auto- 

 mobile owners to take out a license to operate an automobile 

 and the city electrician issued this license, bearing a consecu- 

 tive number. The automobilist was required to provide a tag 

 bearing this number in figures 3 inches high, in white, upon a 

 black background. This was done under the police power of 

 the city as a means of identification in case of an accident. The 

 court, when the catter was brought before it on appeal by A. 

 C. Banker, declared that the city had no power to compel the 



