GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1015 



for 43 years now absolutely refuse to grant a support price, particu- 

 larly as one was granted in 1947 when the price of tung oil was higher 

 and more particularly when it grants tung's competitors, linseed and 

 soybean oils, support prices far above the prices of these commodities 

 during the wartime years? 



WHY THE CHANGE IN ATTITUDE? 



The change of heart of the American paint and varnish industry 

 toward the American tung industry is a comparatively simple one 

 to understand. Our paint and varnish manufacturers are business- 

 men and as businessmen and users of raw materials they are cjuite 

 understandably out to get their raw materials at the cheapest possible 

 price. The matter of ethics, of simple justice in a situation where 

 theh industry promoted and encouraged the establishment of a 

 domestic industry primarily to take care of their own needs and now 

 turns its back on it, is one which no paint and varnish manufacturer 

 can defend successfully. There would have l)een no American tung 

 industry if the paint manufacturers had not demonstrated in a very 

 concrete way that they needed and wanted an American supply of 

 tung oil. 



I was asked to appear before the American Paint, Varnish, and 

 Lacqiier Association in the early days, at a meeting of its board of 

 directors, to make a statement with regard to thS possibility of the 

 growth of tung oil in the United States. 



At that time I was starting a planting and had planted 8,600 

 acres, to stimulate the industry down there. They were very, very 

 fine to me. They thought it was a wonderfid thing and urged us 

 to go ahead. 



Dr. Harry Gardmer gave me letters to all of the large paint manu- 

 facturers in the United States and I visited two by appointment that 

 they had made for me. Mr. LaMott duPont was one, who was very 

 interested. He gave me an hour and a quarter. I told him what 

 we were doing and he said, ""VAe certainly do need a domestic industry 

 that we can depend upon so that we can get pure oil." 



I went over to see Mr. Patton, who was the president of the Pitts- 

 burgh Plate Glass Co. He turned me over to his chemist. He told 

 me that undoubtedh' there was need for an American-produced tung 

 oil, because it was pure and unadulterated and they could depend 

 upon it. I said to him, "I hear a lot of talk about substitutes; what 

 about that?" And he said, "Well, I do not think you will have to 

 wprry, because no matter what synthetic resins or other synthetic 

 products come out of the paint industry, you can always be sure they 

 will always have to use tung oil with them." 



That was the type of encouragement that we received all through 

 when we were visiting the paint manufacturers. I knew that there 

 was a need for some new industry in the South to stabilize our econ- 

 omy. I gave away thousands of trees, gave them to farmers to plant 

 tung trees around their cow rows and try them out. I covered all 

 the waj from Texas to Florida and made talks to chambers of com- 

 merce and to farmers assembled in schoolhouscs, in order to get them 

 interested in this industry. Now, retm'iiing to my brief: 



Theu' excuse in opposing the desperate effort of the American tung 

 oil industry to halt indiscriminate dimiping and cutthroat practices 

 of the Chinese tung oil trust is based entirely on the matter of price. 



