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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[M- 



o£ the concern, and told of the health methods used at the Hood 

 Rubber Co. plant, where some 10,000 men and women have a 

 very small sick rate. Every new employe is given a thorough 

 physical examination to discover defects that can be corrected. 

 When a worker is absent, a nurse calls at his home. If he con- 

 tinues ill, the foreman of the department calls and, upon his 

 report, a sick benefit is paid. 



Frank A. Vandcrlip, a director of the United States Rubber 

 Co., and former president of the National City Bank of New 

 York, will lecture on business economics at the Harvard grad- 

 uate school of business administration, beginning September 1. 



A conference of all the New England managers of the service 

 department of the United States Tire Co. was held at the Hotel 

 Thorndike, Boston, early last month. Factory representatives 

 were present to discuss technical features of tire construction. 

 R. R. Drake, of New York, at the head of the department, gave 

 a talk on courtesy and business correspondence. A banquet and 

 theatre party furnished the entertainment features. 



The Firestone "Ship by Truck" movement is rapidly gaining 

 ground in and about Boston, and despite the severe winter has 

 proved of material assistance to the railroads, especially during 

 the freight and express embargoes when terminals were badly 

 congested and the shortage of freight cars was particularly 

 acute. 



It was estimated that approximately 35 per cent of the freight 

 awaiting loading at the railway terminals during the embargoes 

 was intended for delivery at points not more than SO or 60 miles 

 distant from Boston. The vast bulk of that 35 per cent was 

 capable of being delivered by motor truck. 



Aside from the efficiency of delivery, the added service which 

 the motor truck can render, the motor express if more widely 

 used by shippers in New England would relieve a very real 

 burden under which the old-established systems of transportation 

 are laboring. 



More than 500 independent trucking operators are listed with 

 the bureau, and wholesalers, manufacturers and others are learn- 

 ing that they may call on the bureau at any time for help in 

 rushing cargoes to distant points or in bringing into the city 

 merchandise and produce from manufacturers in other cities 

 or from the farms. This service, it should be said, is given 

 without cost and without obligation. 



The annual costume party of The B. F. Goodrich Co. employes 

 was held on the evening of April IS at Hotel Hemenway, Boston. 

 The affair was a most enjoyable one, with about five hundred 

 in attendance. Prizes were awarded for the prettiest and fun- 

 niest costumes. The judges were District Manager F. T. Moore, 

 W. H. Hickey, E. E. Leach and Frank Keene. 



The Campbell Motors Corporation, 715 Beacon street, Boston, 

 has been appointed New England distributer for Stronghold tires 

 and tubes and is appointing local dealers throughout the territory. 

 Chester I. Campbell and A. N. Dodge will direct the sales organ- 

 ization. 



Green & Swett. 821 Boylston street, are Boston distributers 

 of Madison tires. 



The Simplex Rubber Co., 65 Broad street, Boston, has been 

 incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts with a capitaliza- 

 tion of $50,000 to manufacture and distribute the Marconi heel 

 rubber, a patent non-skid, tight edge, no-cement rubber heel. 

 Major William F. Killip is president of the company, and Will- 

 iam F. Donovan is secretary. The moving spirit in the organi- 

 zation is Gilbert F. Quinn, a man of long and varied experience 

 in the shoe and rubber heel and sole business with the Goodyear 

 and Firestone companies, and the Dryden Rubber Co., of Chi- 

 cago, Illinois. 



The Gillette Tire Co., 587 Boylston street, Boston, is a branch 

 of the Gillette Rubber Co., Eau Qaire, Wisconsin, and New 



York City, and has no coiuiection with the Gillette Rubber Co., 

 formerly at IIU Federal street, Boston, now out of business. 



GENERAL MANAGER OF FIRESTONE STEEL 

 PRODUCTS CO. 



LG. F.MRn.\N'K, newly elected vice-president and general 

 • manager of the Firestone Steel Products Co., Akron, 

 Ohio, brings to his office a varied business experience well fitting 

 him for his important duties, 

 and enabling him to view prob- 

 lems from the other man's 

 standpoint as well as his own. 

 Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Feb- 

 ruary 27, 1886, he was educated 

 in the West High School of 

 that city and in 1905 entered the 

 employ of the Struthers Furnace 

 Co. as a stenographer. Two 

 years later he entered the book- 

 keeping department and the 

 following year was made pur- 

 chasing agent. 



Attracted by the rubber in- 

 dustry, he obtained a position 

 in the dealers' helps department 

 of the Diamond Rubber Co. in 

 1910, and two years later went 

 to the Firestone Tire iSc Rubber Co. as assistant advertising 

 manager. From that time his advancement has been rapid, even 

 in a fast-growing organization conspicuous for constant pro- 

 motion of men of merit. In 1916 he was made an eastern dis- 

 trict manager ; in 1918 eastern sales manager, and assumed his 

 present duties the first of the present year. 



Mr. Fairbank is a member of all Masonic orders, including 

 the thirty-second degree. Knights Templar and Shrine. 



L. G. Fairbank. 



THE RUBBER TRADE IN AKRON. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE story of rubber in Akron this year will be the expansion 

 of the industry to the four quarters of the world. The 

 business has grown to such proportions that it is no longer 

 possible to confine it to the city itself. 



Although approximately $10,000,000 worth of new buildings 

 are now definitely under way, announcements have been made 

 of branches and factories in South America and in the Orient, 

 ifollowing the announcement that the Firestone Tire & Rubber 

 Co. will erect a plant in Los Angeles to compete with the 

 Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in its new field. 



As one means of offsetting mounting costs of raw materials, 

 particularly cotton for fabric, the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. 

 is sending American machinery into the Far East to replace 

 time-consuming methods of handling crude rubber. The ma- 

 chinery will go into a million-dollar plant the company is erect- 

 ing on the Kalang River at Singapore, Straits Settlements, the 

 center of the world's crude rubber market. The plant will be 

 operated by a Firestone subsidiary company — The Firestone Tire 

 & Rubber Co. (S. .S.), Limited — which was organized for the 

 purpose. 



In addition to replacing tedious manual labor with machinery, 

 the plant will clean, condition and compress the rubber in such 

 manner that it will occupy less space aboard ship, thereby saving 

 on freight charges. The cleaning process, carried on by coolie- 

 operated machines, will also effect a saving in that it will permit 

 the rubber to go to the skilled hand of the mill operator imme- 

 diately upon its arrival in Akron. 



