98 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November 1, 1916. 



tor of the Miller Rubber Co. is the first step in an extensive 

 advertising campaign about to be launched by the company. 



* * * 



A novel method of advertising mileage records is being carried 

 out by the Amazon Tire & Rubber Co., a Haynes racing car 

 traversing the streets of this city equipped with the company's 

 tires and bearing signs reading "Testing Amazon Anti-blowout 



Tires. Mileage to date ." A blank space is left for the 



figures, and each day the mileage is chalked on the sign. 



* * * 



The Kelly-Springfield Tire Co. is erecting a 50 by 50-foot, two- 

 story addition to its plant at Wooster. 



* * * 



The Rubber Products Co., of Barberton, has increased its 

 capital stock from $300,000 to $500,000, to care for increased 

 business in "Stronghold" tires and in the druggists' sundries line. 



* * * 



The Marathon Tire & Rubber Co., at Cuyahoga Falls, has 

 increased its capital stock from $500,000 to $1,000,000. This 

 company is progressing fast, the business for its fiscal year end- 

 ing August 31, showing an appro.ximate increase of 70 per cent 

 over the year previous. 



THE RUBBER TRADE IN BOSTON. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 

 DOSTON rubber manufacturers, and by that is meant that large 

 ■'-' list of manufacturers who market their goods here, or whose 

 factories are situated in eastern Massachusetts, are, without ex- 

 ception, busy. There is no branch of the trade which is languish- 

 ing because of lack of demand. On the contrary, many manufac- 

 turers have all the orders they can fill, and some have more — 

 much more — goods ordered than it will be possible for them to 

 make and ship before the season for their use has passed. 



* * * 



The present situation in the rubber footwear trade was ex- 

 plained to the members of the New England Shoe Wholesalers' 

 Association at a luncheon given in this city October 11, by George 

 Hutchinson, of the W. H. McElwain Co. He stated that to-day's 

 conditions are not due to any scarcity of crude rubber, nor to 

 any lack of adequate capita! or plant facilities on the part of 

 rubber companies. The principal trouble, he attributed to labor 

 scarcity, although this, of course, applies to practically all indus- 

 tries. In Connecticut, for example, rubber factory workmen who 

 formerly received from $2 to $2.25 a day, are now getting $3.50 

 to $4, and it is found also that parents whose daughters have 

 been working in rubber factories in order to help out the family 

 income, are not willing, in these prosperous times, that they 

 should work as many hours a week as formerly. As illustrating 

 the inability of some of the rubber companies to meet current 

 demands, Mr. Hutchinson stated that recently one of these con- 

 cerns had been obliged to refuse an attractive order for rubber 

 tires, amounting to $300,000, because it could not guarantee de- 

 liveries. 



"Some of our manufacturers," said Mr. Hutchinson, "are find- 

 ing it about as bad to have too much business as to have too 

 little." 



* * * 



.'\ccording to the balance sheet of the Boston Woven Hose 

 A Rubber Co., dated September 1, the volume of net business 

 for the year was $6,101,462. The surplus and guarantee is 

 $1,220,116, as compared with $1,684,411 on September 1, 1915. 

 During the year under consideration, the capital stock was in- 

 creased from $2,000,000 to $2,750,000 by a stock dividend repre- 

 senting a transfer from surplus earnings of $750,000. 



New buildings and machinery valued at $322,710 have been 

 added to the plant and charged to earnings for the past year. 



The assessed value of the land is $160,900, while value of 

 buildings is $1,761,219. a total of $1,922,119 from which there is 

 deducted the sum of $533,046 as a reserve for depreciation, leav- 



ing $1,389,072, which is the net figure carried in the balance 

 sheet. The .same policy is followed witli respect to the item of 

 macliinery and tools amounting to $1,664,282, from which $879,- 

 176 is deducted as a reserve for depreciation. 



* * * 



In a neat frame in the office of Vice-President Greene, of the 

 .•\merican Rubber Co., at the Essex street office in this city, is a 

 motto or sentiment reading: "The man who has the right to 

 criticize also has the privilege to com- 

 mend." This is signed with the initials 

 "N. L. G." Those who attended the 

 Iianquet given to the salesmen by the 

 United States Rubber Co. last December 

 will remember the slogan of that occa- 

 sion : "Are We Downhearted?" "No!" 

 "How Is Every Little Thing?" "Fine!" 

 The author of the slogan, the man 

 who put the questions and received the 

 thunderous answers, was N. Lincoln 

 Greene, whose whole business life, with 

 N. L. Greene. the exception of a few months, has 



liecn spent in the rubber trade. He was born in Boston in 1871 

 and educated in the public schools of that city. He attended 

 the Boston Latin School preparatory to entering Harvard Uni- 

 versity, but on account of illness relinquished that plan and in 

 .\ugust, 1889, became errand boy for Joseph W. Woods, a cotton 

 broker. This lasted but a short time, when he entered the em- 

 ploy of Houghton, Coolidge & Co., Boston, who were then 

 agents for the Para Rubber Shoe Co. He remained with that 

 firm until the death of A. L. Coolidge, its president, when he 

 resigned his position to go with the Boston Rubber Co., which 

 then manufactured clothing at Chelsea and footwear at Franklin, 

 Massachusetts. When this company was bought out by the 

 L'nited States Rubber Co. in 1892, the latter company continued 

 to manufacture the brands of clothing formerly made by the 

 Boston Rubber Co, having them made at the .American Rubber 

 Co.'s factory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, This factory was 

 under the management of S. Lewis Gillette. Mr. Greene be- 

 came his right-hand man, and in 1911 succeeded him as manager 

 iif the clothing department of the .A.merican Rubber Co. Under 

 Mr. Gillette's management there were but three clothing sales- 

 men. Since that time the number of salesmen handling that 

 specialty has increased to ten, with a 300 per cent increase in 

 tlie business. 



In January. 1916, the .American Rubber Co. and the Stoughton 

 Rubber Co. consolidated. Mr. Greene was made vice-president 

 of both companies and manager of the clothing department. In 

 his present position he not only attends to the manufacturing, 

 buying and selling of the American and Stoughton brands, but 

 also to the clothing manufactured at the Goodyear India Rubber 

 Glove Manufacturing Co., at Naugatuck, Connectitcut, the car- 

 riage cloth made at the Boston Rubber Shoe Co.'s factory at 

 Maiden, Massachusetts, and the topping manufactured at Good- 

 year's Metallic Rubber Shoe Co., at Naugatuck. 



Prior to assuming his present position, Mr. Greene had a wide 

 experience as a salesman, having sold clothing in every State in 

 the Union, in Canada and Mexico, and also traveling in Europe 

 as special representative of the United States Rubber Co. His 

 only business trips now are to the meetings of the clothing sales- 

 men in Chicago, IlHnois, and New York City in .\ugust and 

 February of each year. He is a member of several clubs, is fond 

 of out-door sports, is an enthusiastic golfer, and has a host of 

 friends and a wide-spread business and social acquaintance. 



* * * 



The more automobiles, the more tires. Therefore the traffic 

 census of the Massachusetts State Highway Commission is of 

 interest to the tire trade. In the last six years, this report says. 



