Show This Way WayBy o Q By LYLE SPENCER D C Western Newspaper Union The Man Who Made Rubber HAVE H A AVE VF you ever thought how dif dif- different different dif dif- different ferent our world would be if rubber did not exist How could we possibly get along without rub rub- rubber rubber rubber ber tires erasers garters golf balls balIs or any other of a thousand necessities necessities necessities made of rubber we use every everyday everyday everyday day Yet only a hundred years ago not one of these things existed in modern form because no one kj 10 ew ev how to vulcanize rubber Charles Goodyear one of the most eccentric men the world has ever known was the inventor of the rub rub- rubber rubber rubber ber vulcanization process He had hada a track one-track mind a mind that spent its whole life tracking down a process for vulcanizing rubber It Itis Itis Itis is to his undying credit that he finally found the thing he was after and gave the world one of its most important industrial processes Goodyears Goodyear's discovery came ac ac- accidentally ac- ac accidentally one day when he dropped a piece of raw rubber smeared with sulphur on a hot stove From this lucky experiment he soon de de- developed developed developed his famous process Almost overnight he was catapulted to worldwide fame and for a time it even seemed as if he might make some money But Goodyear was no business man He was tricked out of every every- everything everything everything thing he owned and when he died he left over in debts The final irony of Goodyears Goodyear's highly ironic career was that although he took out patents on almost every conceivable use of rubber he left out the one which in later years became by all odds oddE most important the the automobile tire |