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N0KFQ > TODAY 27.12.13 17:12l 56 Lines 2731 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 27
Path: IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<VE3UIL<GB7MAX<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 131227/1555Z 9375@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.57
Dec 27, 1941:
Office of Price Administration begins to ration automobile tires
On this day in 1941, the federal Office of Price Administration
initiates its first rationing program in support of the American
effort in World War II: It mandates that from that day on, no
driver will be permitted to own more than five automobile tires.
President Roosevelt established the Office of Price
Administration and Civilian Supply in April 1941 to "stabilize
prices and rents and prevent unwarranted increases in them; to
prevent profiteering, hoarding and speculation; to assure that
defense appropriations were not dissipated by excessive prices;
to protect those with fixed incomes from undue impairment of
their living standards; to assist in securing adequate
production; and to prevent a post-emergency collapse of values."
The OPA (its name was streamlined in August 1941) was responsible
for two types of rationing programs. The first limited the
purchase of certain commodities (tires, cars, metal typewriters,
bicycles, stoves and rubber shoes) to people who had demonstrated
an especial need for them. The second limited the quantity of
things--like butter, coffee, sugar, cooking fat, gasoline and
non-rubber shoes--which every citizen was allowed to buy. (As a
result, of course, the black market flourished--studies estimated
that 25 percent of all purchases during the war were illegal.)
Japanese occupations in the Far East had made it impossible to
get rubber from plantations in the Dutch East Indies, and what
little rubber was available went straight to airplane and
munitions factories. Because no one had yet figured out how to
make really high-quality artificial rubber, the OPA especially
wanted to encourage people to care for the automobile tires they
already had. Ads urged people to put less wear on their tires by
driving in carpools. ("When You Ride Alone You Ride With Hitler!"
said one poster; another announced, "To win this war...more
people have got to enjoy riding in fewer cars.") To conserve
rubber (and gasoline), the national "Victory Speed Limit" was 35
miles per hour. Meanwhile, scrap-rubber drives collected old
raincoats, garden hoses and bathing caps.
Rationing and recycling--collecting items like tin cans and used
cooking fat for reuse--was a way to make ordinary citizens feel
like they were part of what one ad called a "fighting unit on the
home front." During the war, the OPA rationed almost every
commodity it could think of, but by the end of 1945 only two
rationing programs--for sugar and for rubber tires--remained in
place. Tire rationing finally ended on December 31, 1945.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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