Word: silk
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...women, who are credited with having the shapeliest legs in the world, last week faced the horrifying knowledge that soon they would have to go silk-stockingless. Raw-silk imports from Japan had ended. 0PM had snatched up all available stocks (see p. 57). There was just no more silk for stockings...
...order affected other silk consumers as well. There would be no more silk for football pants, fringes, lamp shades, fish lines and flies, tennis-racket strings, waterproof tobacco pouches, typewriter ribbons, dental floss, surgical stitchings, violin strings, neckties, hats, lingerie, sheets, pajamas, or Mohammedan prayer rugs...
...mills tried frantically to add to their stocks, price of silk on the New York Commodity Exchange spiraled last week from $3.04 to $3.65 a pound. Then OPACS's Leon Henderson clamped down with a request to suspend trading, a tentative price ceiling of $3.04 (the Monday level). To Manhattan's Commodity Exchange (which suspended silk trading and deliveries this week) this meant loss of its last important item of trade. Copper and rubber trading had been suspended previously and hide trading is limited by a price ceiling...
...defense, silk is important in parachutes (which take 10 lb. each) and powder bags used to fire big guns. For parachutes, the U.S. could substitute synthetics such as nylon, but only silk (because it burns completely and leaves no residue) can be used for powder bags. Present U.S. stocks of silk are about 53,000 bales in warehouses. 35,000 bales held by mills, enough to satisfy civilian needs for nearly four months or defense needs (according to one Washington estimate) for about three years. To conserve this supply 0PM at week's end took control of all silk...
...total Japanese imports the U.S. normally supplies over 30%, the British Empire about 20%. Already Japan's industry has been slowed down by stoppage of U.S. shipments of scrap, machinery and scarce defense metals. Moreover, the biggest customers for raw silk (see p. 61) and other exports through which Japan gets foreign exchange are also the U.S. ($105,311,000 last year) and Great Britain. In the early part of World War II, Japan found a profitable customer in Germany, which sent its No. 1 traveling salesman, Helmuth Wohlthat, to Tokyo this spring to try to streamline Japanese industry...