Letters, Jun. 10, 1935

(4 of 5)

Your excellent review of Dearborn Conference of Agriculture, Industry and Science [TIME, May 20]—which I attended—in ascribing political intentions to it, missed the point. . . .

The broad idea was that all new wealth comes from the soil which is the foundation of all prosperity, and that the farmers have to be prosperous before others may prosper. It was shown that there has been a perpetual permanent ratio between agricultural income and wages paid by industry—both being constantly about equal.

Hence, with foreign markets largely evaporated for U. S. agricultural products, with a normal surplus annually produced, it is necessary to find a new domestic market for that surplus. . . .

Slash pine for paper, Tung oil for varnishes, soy beans for oils and plastics were all mentioned; but the big new proposed market—which might pull us out of the Depression, as did the automobile in 1920—21—is power alcohol.

One billion, six hundred million gallons of 199 proof anhydrous alcohol would be needed to make a 10% blend with the approximate 16,000,000,000 annual U. S. gasoline consumption. That this would relieve the problem of the agricultural surplus is indicated by the fact that to make it would consume all of the wheat raised in the U. S.; or on the other hand all of the oats, barley, rye and white potatoes; or on the other hand from one-third to one-half of the corn.

The House of Gurney, of Yankton, operating 500 filling stations over five western States, has pioneered with a. 2 ½% alcohol, 97 % gasoline blend, selling at the same price as the ordinary gas. . . . I have used it entirely since February, without any carburetor adjustments. It gives a sweet running motor. The alcohol has splendid antiknock properties. By keeping the engine carbon free it permits the use of third run gasoline, hence giving greater mileage.

The South Dakota legislature, lately adjourned, enacted a law permitting the blend to be sold in the State as legal gas; the Nebraska legislature has relieved the alcohol content of a blend from payment of the State gasoline tax. . . .

HARRY A. ROBINSON Lawyer

Yankton, S. Dak.

Sirs:

As the solitary speaker at the Dearborn Conference of Industry, Science and Agriculture who did not see the practicality of alcohol-gasoline blending as a panacea for farmers' ills, let me congratulate you on your discerning report on the general proceedings there. A joint impartial study of the project, proposed through me by the American Petroleum Institute, if accepted by the Chemical Foundation, will reveal the fallacy of the project on the basis of present conditions and costs and the hopelessness of future manufacture of alcohol at prices of 7¢ per gallon, such as are predicted by enthusiastic protagonists of the scheme. Note that Mr. Henry Ford made no commitment on this scheme, that the prominent representatives of the automobile industry who were officially announced as speakers actually neither spoke nor attended and that Mr. Irénée du Pont described alcohol blending with gasoline as an economic waste.

G. G. BROWN

Professor of Chemical Engineering University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich.

Lindbergh's Eight

Sirs: