CHAPTER FIFTY SIX: WHOOPS, HERE COMES ANOTHER RUBBER TREE PLANT!

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX: WHOOPS, HERE COMES ANOTHER RUBBER TREE PLANT!

Ft. Myers became even more interesting after I discovered that we are just a few blocks from the Edison Ford Museum, as in Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford. These two guys became best buddies, even though Edison was 16 years older than Ford. By one account, Ford was working at Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit as an engineer, and in 1896 he went to New York for a company sponsored convention. Edison was the guest of honor at the convention. Ford was already a fan of Edison, and he gained an introduction to him. The friend who introduced him told Edison that Ford had made a gas car. According to Ford, Edison asked him a whole series of questions about the car. At the end of the discussion, Edison banged his fist down on a table and said: “Young man, that’s the thing! You have it! Your car is self-contained and carries its own power plant.” (Source: detnews.com -- Michigan History). Ford was thrilled by Edison’s enthusiastic response, because he claimed later that Edison was the first person to give him encouragement in his endeavor. He had already revered Edison as “the greatest inventive genius in the world”, and so Edison’s words of support put him in the stratosphere. He was also amazed by Edison’s words of praise for his gas car, because he knew, as the world did, that Edison had invented a car powered by electricity.

Just imagine for a moment what our world would be like today if Ford and Edison had put their brain power, money and mass production skills into further development and marketing of Edison’s electric car, rather than Ford’s gas-driven car. Clean air, anyone? Well, that didn’t happen, and Ford started kicking out millions of gas guzzlers a year. Think about more than a century of production of electric cars, had either one of these geniuses thought about the impact on the environment of Ford’s invention. But global warming was not a concern at the turn of the 19^th-20^th century, nor was there any worry about the United States becoming dependent on despots (read: the Saud family) and tyrants (read: the Shah) for oil and gas supplies.  Besides, another buddy of Mr. Ford, a man named Rockefeller, had a strong interest in supporting Ford’s gas and oil eating autos, as he built a little empire that grew into BIG OIL. Standard Oil – SO – Esso – stations cropped up everywhere to service the Model T’s and whatever other models came off Ford’s assembly line.

That’s funny too – funny in a strange way – because Ford was very, very concerned about becoming dependent on Asian countries for rubber for his car’s tires and the hoses under the hood. His buddy, Firestone, who made most of the tires for Ford, was also interested in developing an American rubber industry in order to gain independence from the vagaries of the Asian rubber markets. So Ford and Firestone turned to Edison for a solution. Each contributed the generous sum of $25,000 (not so generous, given their wealth at the time) to Edison to do research to find the best plant growing in America from which latex could be made. With that money, Edison built a research lab on his property at Ft. Myers and went to town growing plants known to produce various forms of latex. He also consulted Luther Burbank, the California seed guy, on the best plants to test for their latex richness. Edison’s property in Ft. Myers became a veritable botanical garden of latex producing plants that were indigenous to the United States or that would adapt to the climate in Florida and other agricultural states.

Edison was given a two foot tall banyan tree as one of his first test plants. That tiny tree now fills up a whole acre on the land of the Edison Ford Museum. But it was not the ideal solution for a local source of rubber. You’ll never guess what plant came in first in the native rubber contest – goldenrod – the weed that makes most of us sneeze. I am not kidding. There is a 12 foot tall framed dried goldenrod plant in Edison’s lab in Ft. Myers that still stands as a testament to the fruits of his labor. So why didn’t we just take off with the goldenrod into rubber production after Edison made this discovery? I was told by the guide that World War I intervened, and there was an immediate need for lots of rubber, so we went back to our Asian sources and kind of forgot about the goldenrod idea. THEN – tada – enter BIG OIL again – synthetic rubber was invented, based on, you guessed it, oil products. With that major change of events, we were able to create an even greater dependency on foreign countries for oil – to fuel our engines AND to make our tires. Alas, the poor goldenrod still makes us sneeze, but what greater glory she could have achieved as our primary source of rubber. Rumor has it that researchers are finally giving goldenrod another look as a source of latex and rubber, because, you know, it turns out that oil-based synthetic rubber is not so good for our environment. And it makes us even more dependent on despots and tyrants for the oil under their feet which has made them extremely rich despots and tyrants.

The moral to this story is to never give up on a great idea – bring on the goldenrod! Let’s get started with making our own rubber out of the latex gleaned from it. Make the United States the leading producer of natural rubber. At the same time, shut down the production of oil-based synthetic rubber. Move the rubber workers from synthetic to natural and increase their wages while we’re at it. Come on, we’re America, we dream big, and we can make this big change! One small step for the goldenrod, one giant leap for rubber AND energy independence. If it was good enough the Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, it’s good enough for the rest of us. So “we have high hopes, we have high hopes, high in the sky apple pie hopes.” Remember Frank Sinatra and that little red-headed kid elevating our mood with that song? “Whoops, there goes another rubber tree plant!” Let’s turn it around: “Whoops, Here comes another rubber tree plant!” We can do it! Si se puede!