CONANT TELLS OF SHORTAGES

"The total program for the production of synthetic rubber has fulfilled its purpose in time of war and presumably can in time of peace," President Conant told the Harvard Chapter of Sigma Xi fraternity last night at the Fogg Museum.

As chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, President Conant has been in close touch with the nation's wartime rubber needs and with the program that "created an industry out of nothing." The people of America do not realize, said President Conant, "just how close a squeak this rubber shortage was."

Although immediately after Pearl Harbor the government began to expand its plans for synthetic rubber, President Conant asserted that without gasoline rationing the country would have met with disaster in its tire supply for civilian necessities.