Three More Wars

Tuesday afternoon the President asked Congress to declare war on three more countries--Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania. Mildly surprised, Congress allowed it would.

Skid

Franklin Roosevelt last week let a wishful cat out of a hypothetical bag. Said the President casually, in answer to a question at his press conference: he was not excited about tires; things would work out; already under study were two or three tire substitutes which did not require rubber; if they would just permit a man to drive 30 miles an hour, he could get to work and back.

His words were a bombshell of hope. From coast to coast newspapers broke out the big type: HOPE HELD FOR CIVILIAN TIRES SOON; PRESIDENT OPTIMISTIC OVER TIRES ; RUBBERLESS TIRE NEAR, SAYS F.D.R.; PRESIDENT TAKES ISSUE WITH OWN WAR-AGENCY HEADS ON RUBBER CRISIS.

A publicity man burst into a War Production Board meeting to give Donald Nelson the news that, just when Nelson had finally succeeded in killing all civilian hopes for rubber, the President had resurrected them. Unbelieving Donald Nelson called the White House, learned that the President had indeed uttered the roseate words. Quickly Nelson called a press conference of his own. There he tried, without flatly contradicting his chief, to puncture the fond new hope. But good news travels faster than bad; many a citizen still believed, at week's end, that his present well-worn tires were not his last.

This belief was dead wrong. Nobody has yet made a decent tire without rubber. The United Nations are so desperate for rubber that gasoline rationing will soon be extended everywhere in the U.S., just to keep the present tires from wearing out. Even the treasure trove of scrap rubber which has been uncovered but uncollected in the U.S. is entirely needed for war uses. There is no chance that any civilian will be able to buy a new tire until 1944--at the soonest. Positively.

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