Confident Exit

The Union Pacific’s red-faced, confident president William M. Jeffers, who went to Washington a year ago as U.S. rubber czar, last week confidently resigned. Wrote he to Franklin Roosevelt: “The big job … is done. . . . The greatest contribution that I can make … is to return to an on-the-job handling of the operations of the Union Pacific Railroad.”

Tough, bulky Bill Jeffers, who took over his job knowing nothing about rubber, proved that he knew how to get things done. Two-thirds of the proposed synthetic-rubber plants, his office announced, are already in operation or ready for operation. The rest will have been completed by late October. Two-fisted Bill Jeffers, railroad man for 53 of his 67 years, carefully explained that he was not leaving Washington in a huff. The Union Pacific, said he, “is a hell of a big railroad which needs my attention.”