Mr. Jeffers Calls a Spade

Good, strong talk—the kind of back talk Congress got from World War I’s tough Supplyman Charles G. Dawes—came this week from Rubber Czar William M. Jeffers. The Senate Agriculture Committee, loaded with cotton Senators, called him on the carpet. His crime was that he had planned to expand rayon production to get enough fabric for military tires—instead of substituting cotton, which is likely to overheat. Jeffers promptly threw the carpet over his hecklers’ heads.

“I don’t intend to be influenced by anybody, anywhere, any time,” he shouted.

“The whole damned thing has been muddled up for months and I’m going through with this or else.”

Southern Senators like South Carolina’s Cotton Ed Smith glared: Why not hold up the program until experiments could be made with cotton?

“Do I understand you gentlemen to say to me that I am to continue to hold up this program for 60 to 90 days while tests are made?”

Said Tennessee’s Senator Kenneth McKellar: “So far as I am concerned the answer is yes!”

“Well, somebody is going to have to do something to stop me,” cried angry William Jeffers. “Otherwise I am going to authorize rayon because I think it is the best thing to do and I am not being influenced by anyone.

“We have gambled too damned long already on the rubber situation. I’m not going to put myself in a position where it can be said that I haven’t the intelligence or guts to do a job.

“The trouble with this whole situation is that it has been a muddle of men who were afraid that some Congressional committee or pressure group wouldn’t like their decisions. I am going to make my decisions and I’ll stand by them.”