Word: magnesium
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Needed: 300 More. Magnesium, Alcoa's competitor for light-metal markets, was not far behind. Dow Chemical's white-haired president, Dr. Willard Herbert Dow, had a showcase of 23 magnesium items ready for the market. Among them...
...Nazis. At home, besides its own plants, I.G. controlled another 380 German firms. As armorer for the Nazis, I.G. made all of Germany's synthetic rubber and lubricating oil; 95% of its poison gases (Farben tested them on concentration camp inmates); 90% of the nickel; 88% of the magnesium, most of the gasoline and explosives for the buzz-bombs...
This help for small businessmen on the part of Alcoa and Dow Chemical was not all pure altruism. They were both uncomfortably aware of the $1 billion in U.S.-owned aluminum and magnesium plants, and, in particular, the talk of government subsidies to keep the aluminum plants competing with Alcoa. To Alcoa's mind this talk could best be silenced by creating a demand big enough to use all the metal the plants could turn out. It could turn the trick, if it could find a few hundred gadgets like its clothespin...
...Made of magnesium (aluminum proved too costly), the new, non-splintering, un-warpable slat travels a hot 10% faster than hickory on a 20° slope, is just as flexible. In its strength lies the new ski's lone weakness: so easily does magnesium glide over snow that herringboning or side stepping is likely to be a backsliding proposition. Once on the market (next year perhaps), the magnesium ski promises new records for the expert, extra pratfalls for the novice...
There was small chance that the antitrust division would approve of this. But some decision has to be made soon. Until a policy is reached, plans for disposing of other war-born giants like Geneva Steel and the magnesium plants would also be stalled in their tracks...