Don't Spit on the Floor

The subject was appetizing and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg made the most of it. Did his fellow Senators know, he inquired, that the U.S. Army was going to ask for bids on 1,000 rubber cuspidor mats--which would use up a ton and a half of badly needed rubber? Well, sir, he'd learned precisely that from one of his constituents. His adviser had proposed that "a little drilling of the officers in straight spitting might be a good suggestion."

The unhappy War Department pointed out that the cuspidor mats were to be used in hospitals, had been ordered as a routine refill by the San Antonio Quartermaster Depot. They were to be made of reclaimed rubber in combination with alloys, would not require more than 750 lb. even of reclaimed material. Furthermore, said the War Department, the San Antonio Depot had no authority to award contracts, had simply asked for bids. Somebody in Washington (the Department wasn't quite sure who) would certainly have vetoed any contract calling for rubber. So there.

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