A Thank-You-Ma'am

Swelling synthetic rubber production lulled many a U.S. citizen into the pleasant belief that the rubber-tired nation had rolled safely past the crisis point (TIME, Oct. 18). Last week, OPA's Tire Ration Chief, Sparks Bonnett, jolted them as roughly as a blowout on a curve. Said he: the vise-tight pinch in tires is just beginning.

OPAster Bonnett made his ominous prediction before the rubber conservation conference of 2,000 tire dealers in Manhattan. His unstretchable rubber facts: U.S. passenger-tire stocks, new & used, shrank from 14,400,000 last January to 4,200,000 on Sept. 1. To assure adequate distribution, the U.S. cannot permit stocks to fall below this rock-bottom level. Thus it can no longer dip into the stockpile which kept the U.S. rolling for two years. From now on, civilian tire needs must be supplied from new tire manufacture. Estimated needs for the last four months of this year: 9,400,000. Estimated synthetic-tire production: 3,000,000. Deficit: 6,400,000, along with an equally grave truck-tire shortage of 1,500,000. For next year, the prospects are equally black. Until synthetic-tire manufacture catches up with backed-up demand, OPAster Bonnett probably can stretch the skimpy tire supply only by returning to the drastic rationing that followed Pearl Harbor.

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