Rayon Scrimmage

At first reading, it looked like the chance of a lifetime. A rayon mill took a one-column display ad in the new York Times to hunt a “person of exceptional ability” to sit on its board of directors. Starting salary: $25,000 a year. All anyone had to do to land the job was get the company 15,000 Ibs. a month of four different kinds of rayon yarn. Only the textile industry knew what that condition meant: an extreme improbability. By last week, rayon yarn was so scarce that the scramble for it made the 1946 nylon search look like an Easter-egg hunt.

There were several reasons for the shortage. War had all but knocked out the two top producers, Germany (1939 production: 601 million Ibs.) and Japan (540 million). The total world rayon production in 1946 was only 1.7 billion Ibs., compared to 1939’s 2.3 billion. Moreover, important new customers had arisen to compete with dress manufacturers for the supply; this year the U.S. rubber industry, which decided to continue its wartime substitution of rayon tire cord for cotton, will probably take about 26% of the total U.S. production, v. 2% in 1940. Although U.S. productive capacity had more than doubled since the war began, the 900 million Ibs. being spun this year was still far short of demand.

The result was a “premium” in rayon. The “official” price had risen steadily: from 55¢ a Ib. for 150-denier viscose filament in August 1946, to 67¢ last week. But the premium market price was around twice that.

To make matters worse, everybody along the line was adding on his own estimate of what the traffic would bear, and the pressure was pushing up the retail price of rayon goods. Not until next year, when production will be increased another 155 million Ibs., is the shortage likely to ease.