Word: rubbers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Said Bill Jeffers, jumping into his rubber job last week: "What we need is action and we need it quickly. And we are going to get just that. I think that the American people are more confused about what to do than unwilling to do what is right. . . . I have all the authority I need. I am perfectly willing to assume all the responsibility to see that this work is done...
...Rather Be President. . . ." Bulky Bill Jeffers (5 ft. 11 in., 220 lb.) knows nothing about rubber but knows a lot about railroading, his only interest for 53 of his 66 years. His Irish immigrant father, William J. Jeffers, was earning $55 a month in the Union Pacific shops in North Platte, Neb. when Bill (one of nine children) was born. Bill finished a year of high school and went to work as a U.P. call boy at $5 a week (for seven days' work at up to twelve hours a day). "I can't remember when...
...appointment to be rubber dictator was due to the fact that WPBoss Donald Nelson, a U.P. director and longtime friend, submitted Bill's name to the President. Jeffers was at his Omaha desk when the President telephoned, saying he had a job for Bill Jeffers; Bill accepted then & there, went to Washington next...
Jeffers jumped into his job by digesting the report, going to Manhattan to meet Baruch for the first time, and laying out a campaign against rubber bumbling. His powers: i) to give orders for carrying out the rubber program to any appropriate government agencies; 2) to issue a nationwide order for gas rationing and tire-conserving speed limits; 3) to call on the Office of the Petroleum Coordinator and the Rubber Reserve Company for research and supervision of synthetic-rubber plant construction. He must work out a 100,000-ton increase in butadiene output within six months, build facilities...
Confident Bill Jeffers sounded off: "This means I have a tough job but it is also a job for all the people of the United States. The biggest stockpile of rubber we have is on the wheels of our automobiles. . . . It seems to me this situation is just as clear as crystal. We are going to do it; and the American people are going to accept.* I have no axes to grind, political or otherwise. We do not need talk, we need action...