SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



for trucks and planes, yet in the midst of war the South- 

 ern wing of the farm bloc crusaded for a law compelling 

 the Army to use the inferior material. The farm hulla- 

 baloo in Washington to continue the production of 

 butadiene from grain alcohol for synthetic rubber a 

 useful wartime expediency, but a more costly process 

 than from petroleum proves the same point. 



If we entrust to our Government the national research 

 that is to develop new products and processes and cre- 

 ate new industries, we court two disasters. We hand 

 over the key to our future prosperity to the politicians. 

 We subject our elected representatives to enormous 

 pressures from many different minority interests. The 

 first would be terrifically costly; the second, extremely 

 dangerous. Nothing in the recent record either of the 

 wartime governmental agencies or of the Congressional 

 blocs prompts us to encourage either of these too- 

 plain tendencies. 



The Southern Research Institute is a natural and 

 effective counter to the insidious proposal, so rabidly 

 supported by Senator Kilgore and all the Washington 

 bureaucrats, that the Government unify and direct all 

 research for the common good. The Institute encour- 

 ages cooperation, but it maintains individual initiative. 

 Since it is not a money-making organization, its staff 

 and scientific equipment offer effective means of re- 

 search at a cost within the reach of the smaller manu- 



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