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Wall
Street Journal
Newspaper Articles
3 Different War Time Articles About Hemp
Dec 4, 1943
Home-Grown
Hemp
U.S.
Revives Industry Of Colonial Days to Assure Supply in War
Midwest
Prairies to Grow Rope Material Normally Imported From
Far East
Plan
71 Processing Plants
By Walter H.
Waggoner - Staff Correspondent of the Wall Street Journal
Washington
---Hemp, an almost forgotten American crop, is being revived by the nation's
farmers.
It
was grown in
Kentucky
before the Revolution. It was
fashioned into homespun garments, twine and sacking.
Twisted into rigging and cables, hemp saw service with Perry's fleet on
Lake Erie
in the War of 1812.
New England
shipbuilders sent American hemp over the seven seas aboard the Yankee Clippers.
Hangmen
preferred hemp to any other fiber, because of its strength.
Now,
after a 20th century decline from foreign competition, domestic hemp production
booms under government guidance, with 150,000 tons of fiber as the goal.
In a way, it will once again make a hangman's noose---for the Axis.
Was Imported From
Orient
Lack of cordage
fiber---still needed for U. S. ship---has been a big handicap since war seized
the Pacific. Sources of such
valuable hard fibers as abaca (Manila hemp), sisal and jute were cut off by
Japanese conquest of the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies.
"Imports from
the Orient are virtually stopped," the Government asserted last March,
"and there is no assurance that imports from Africa will continue."
The War Production
Board, as a result, began cutting down on the wasteful uses of these
now-critical fibers.
With
Imports down to a disheartening dribble, officials early this year decided a
domestic substitute would have to be found.
American hemp, though not as hard a fiber as abaca---better known as
Manila hemp---or sisal, would fill the breach.
New
"War Crop"
First official action
was devising a program for vastly increasing, quickly and effectively.
U.S. hemp resources Secretary of Agriculture Wickard straightaway
proclaimed it a "war crop."
Designation
as such has little significance other than the permission it grants growers of
wheat, cotton and other surplus farm products to turn their soil to hemp
without suffering penalties under the agricultural adjustment agency crop
allotment scheme. This new
distinction for hemp was conferred on February 24, 1942.
Since
that time, farmers have been asked to sow at least 300,000 acres for hemp fiber
and another 50,000 acres for hemp seed to assure 350,000 bushels of seed for
continuation of the project as long as it is needed.
The
extent to which farmers will have to switch to hemp is apparent in the
comparison between this year's program of 12,000 acres and the new one of
350,000
Many U.S. Agencies
Play a Part
Although primarily a
Department of Agriculture project. a number of other government agencies are
taking a hand in this biggest of all rope-making enterprises.
The
War Production Board assigned preference ratings to steel and machinery and
other necessary materials high enough, to assure construction in 1943 of 71
mills in the hemp-growing area for preparing the fiber for rope.
The
Defense Plant Corp. issued a letter of intent for the financing of the mills.
The
Commodity Credit Corp., sporting a new, division especially created for the
purpose, will operate the mills.
In
the background will be the Agriculture Department's Bureau of Agricultural
Chemistry and Engineering and Bureau of Plant Industry, ready for expert
consultation on any technical problems that might arise.
McCrory the Hemp
""Czar"
Selected as director
of the C.C.C. hemp division is genial, white-haired Samuel H. McCrory, a
department expert since 1907, and until his appointment, with the Bureau of
Agricultural Engineering and Chemistry.
Mr.
McCrory, clasping his hands casually behind his head, reckoned he'd be doing a
lot of traveling with his new job. It
will take him at least to Iowa, his home state.
Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Minnesota, since "good
corn land and the black prairie soils of the Middle West," are about all
that's needed to grow a good stand of hemp.=
Mills
will be situated at points throughout these states to service about 4.000 acres
of hemp each. Exact locations aren't
known in all cases, Mr. McCrory said, because farmer contracts haven't yet been
completed.
Hemp Processing
Plants
The, 71 new plants
won't consume as much critical material in their construction as the large
number might lead one to believe, according to the hemp director.
He protested against the popular Washington title of "Czar".
Driers, brcaks, scutching and hackling machinery are, about
all that is needed to prepare hemp for the rope plants, he said and they are of
a fairly simple structure.
For those ignorant of
hemp fiber-making, Mr. McCrory explains that:
Driers do what
their name implies to the damp hemp stalk after It has lain in the field to be
"dew-retted."
Breaks are
fluted rollers through which the dried stalk is forced, crumbling the hard fiber
outside away from the inside pulp and wood.
Scutches
brush off the unwanted wood and pulp and scrub up the fiber generally.
Hacklers
comb out the remaining fiber by tossing it over a row of rugged pins.
The mill's task Is
practically finished at this point. Fiber
then is graded, baled and shipped to a textile or rope plant for manufacture
into coast cordage, most vital need at the present times for next year's big
crop.
Click Photo To Watch The Movie
 Raymond
Evans Hemp for Victory (1942)
US government propaganda film made during WWII
touting the virtues of hemp.
The film was aimed at farmers at a time when the military was facing a shortage
of
hemp, it shows how hemp is grown and processed into rope and other products.
You can find more information regarding this film on its
IMDb page.
Director: Raymond Evans
Audio/Visual: sound, b&w
View It
64Kb
MPEG4 (dialup)
256Kb
MPEG4 (broadband)
Download It
64Kb
MPEG4 (15 MB)
256Kb
MPEG4 (30 MB)
MPEG1
(170 MB)
MPEG2
(776 MB)
Wall
Street Journal - July 9, 1943 page 1
Hemp
Harvest
Farmers Soon to Gather First Big Crop Since Before the Civil War
Isn't As Good As War-Lost Manila Variety But U.S. Subsidizes Big Program
Latin American Fibres Help
By Freeman Cleaves
In about two months American farmers will harvest their
first big native hemp crop since pre-Civil War days.
With
Japan's seizure of the Philippines, source of manila hemp, and the Netherlands
East Indies, which supplied much sisal, the Government undertook to revive the
American hemp industry.
This
year, under Government subsidy, 20,000 farmers have been raising hemp on 240,000
acres of land. Of this amount
185,000 acres are being grown for fibre, with an expected yield of 150 million
pounds.
The
other 55,000 acres will supply seed for next year.
The seed for this year's crop came from 50,000 acres planted especially
for that purpose last year. Two year
ago less than 10,000 acres of hemp were grown in this country; the last time the
crop aggregated 76,000 acres was in 1859.
A
year ago the planting goal for hemp in this country for 1943 was 400,000 acres.
By last fall it had dipped to 300,000 acres which was still well above
1943's actual acreage.
The
domestic hemp growing program is one part of a double barreled program aimed at
meeting America's wartime rope and cordage needs.
The other effort is the promotion of manila hemp and sisal growing in
Latin America and the import of as much fibre as possible from there and from
other Countries.
Manila Hemp Tougher
Manila hemp Is a much
tougher fibre and rope made from it long has been
the mainstay of the shipping industry which la the biggest user of rope.
To
restore growing and processing of American hemp is a costly operation, made
necessary by the dwindling Government stockpiles of manila hemp and other fibres,
and the expanding demands for cords, twine and ropes, the latter needed
particularly by ships. War Hemp Industries, Inc.,
a Government financed corporation, is in charge.
It is directing construction of 42 mills to process the harvested hemp at
a cost of $350,000 for each plant, including the cost of some 60 harvesting
machines to be rented to the growers. The
participating farmers will receive a return of slightly more per acre than they
would from corn, and will be paid from $30 to $.50 a ton (Please turn to page 4,
column 1) for hemp in the field. The
harvest will be in late August and during September.
Because
of lack of experience in large scale hemp, growing in this country recently and
because the Government is forced to spend millions of dollars--- for processing
mills and harvesters---to assure the crop this year it is not possible to tell
the cost of the hemp until after the harvest.
It is indicated, however, that it will be pretty expensive, compared with
normal imports of rope fibres and therefore will not outlive the war.
Hemp
Grows Best in Midwest
Most
of this year's acreage has been planted in Illinois.
Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the hemp doing beat in
the rich earth and temperate climate of the Middle West.
This type of hemp is also raised in Chile, with smaller plantings in
Argentina. It is used for fishing
nets and twines, all twines in general, and for small ropes on ships, such an
those used on ladders.
In
1940 the last year for which figures are available, this country imported
129,615,360 pounds of manila hemp, mainly from the Philippines where 90,000
acres were harvested before the war. This
in the most valuable of all fibres for cordage, and comes from the long leaves
of the plant called abaca. The next
best quality fibre, derived from sisal, came from the Netherlands East Indies,
115,652,640 pounds being imported in 1940, and from Mexico, which sent almost as
much.
The
Government is encouraging the production of needed fibres outside continental
United States. To get abaca it has
established fields under subsidy in Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala,
where displaced banana workers are harvesting the crops.
The goal in a harvest of 125,000 acres, required to supply the wartime
needs of this country. The abaca
fibre, tough and resilient, is especially prized for its flexibility combined
with great tensile strength (ability to withstand pull) and resistance to sea
water. The stretch capacity of
manila rope from abaca, for example, in as much as 20% of the original length of
the fibre, and when a ship must be towed in stormy weather or in swells, manila
makes the only reliable, steady-pulling towing rope.
No metal and no other cordage has sufficient "give" to keep
from breaking tinder the terrific stresses and strains of a rough sea.
The
replanting of abaca,. which is a member of the banana plant, fortunately was
begun in Panama 20 years ago. Then a
representative of the Department of Agriculture took some abaca plants to Panama
for cultivation in the hot lowlands. The
first plants died, but perseverance was rewarded with success 10 years later.
The United Fruit Co. then agreed to
sponsor the experiment at its own expense. It
expanded the planting to 1,000 acres, then to twice that figure.
After Pearl Harbor a seed plantation of 2,000 acres in Panama was the
only source of abaca planting stock available in the Western Hemisphere.
Plant
More Absca
With
the aid of funds from the Reconstruction Finance Corp.,
the United Fruit Co. has now planted 30,000 acres of abaca in four Central
American countries and will have expanded this to 40,000 acres by the end of
this year. Under cultivation the
yields of 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of manila hemp per acre are far better than the
500 to 1,000 pounds per acre obtained In the Philippines, where the plant was
given little attention. Next year,
the growers predict, there will be enough American-grown abaca to supply all the
shipping and military needs of the United States, with some in addition to go to
the Allies.
Mexico
and the West Indies are increasing the production of sisal to replace the loss
of the fibre from the Dutch East Indies. Mexican
henequen, a fibre almost identical with sisal, is also helping fill wartime
requirements. Restricted shipping
space is holding down imports of sisal from Africa, Cuba and Haiti, which ranked
behind the Dutch East Indies and Mexico in pre-war sources.
The British Government bought the entire sisal supply last year from
British East Africa, but allocated 145 million pounds to the United States.
A
replacement for manila hemp in certain uses, however, is nylon, which is said to
be tougher and less susceptible to water than manila or sisal.
The synthetic product is being used for rope for U. S. mountain troops
and for glider tow-ropes. Ropes of
sisal and jute, lubricated against internal friction and treated with a
water-repellent preparation, are also fulfilling new purposes.
A new use for resin-impregnated sisal fibres is for jettison fuel tanks
of airplanes: no essential metal is lost when they are dropped by planes In
flight.
The
jute comes from India, and another fibre usually combined In commercial twine,
istle comes from Mexico. Istle is a
short fibre, and in invariably used in combination with a fibre of better
quality. (Another type of istle is used for household scrubbing brushes).
Government
Controls Stockpiles
The
jute is imported mainly for burlap, upholstery webbing, for backing of linoleum,
and for twine. The Post Office
Department in one of the biggest users, the manufacturer of jute twine for this
Government department turning, out more than all other makers together.
Jute fibre is also used around the inner parts of telephone cables to
prevent corrosion and to impart flexibility.
Another use, prohibited under wartime regulations, is for yarn used in
the backing of carpets.
The
Government maintains firm control over all stockpiles of manila hemp and other
hard-working fibres essential for ship's buffers, caulkings, engine packings,
binder twine. bagging, tarpaulins, insulations
fire hose, embarkation nets. loading baskets. hawsers, barrage balloon
anchors, glider tows and landing lines. At
the same time, the Board of Economic Warfare is intensifying its activities in
British East Africa. Portuguese West
Africa, Portuguese East Africa, the Belgian Congo, Canada, and Latin America to
obtain greater stocks of all essential fibres.
Government agronomists, scientists and fibre experts are at work in South
American countries, observing, for example, the efforts of Argentina to raise
jute as well as American hemp.
The
Manila Cordage Recovery Section of the Metals Reserve Corp. (created by R.F.C.)
is working with the Materials Redistribution Division of the War Production
Board in a program devoted to redistribution of critical and strategic
materials. The agency has
accumulated or distributed several million pounds of manila hemp, obtained from
dealers throughout the country, and expects to buy up 8,000,000 pounds all told.
This
compares with pre-war rope sales of 250 million pounds a year in this country.
Shipping in the biggest of all customers, the average merchant ship
requiring 16,000 pounds of rope, ranging in diameter from one-fourth inch to
31/3 inches. In addition to the new
war uses, however, the construction industry, fishing. and oil drilling are all
heavy rope users. All these demands
contribute to the revival of American hemp, which rigged the Yankee clipper
ships in earlier days, formed the dark twine used by country grocers. and was
woven into the homespun worn by America's westward coursing pioneers.
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Wall
Street Journal -
Jan. 9, 1947
page 1
U.S.
, a "Latifundista" (Big Land Owner), Will Keep Latin Hemp
Farms"
RFC May Earn First Profit On Central American Crop: Prices High, Supply
Short
By Alan L. Otten - Staff Correspondent of the Wall Street
Journal
Washington
---Uncle Sam is going to remain a "Latifundista" for another Couple of
years.
In the Latin American nations that term describes the owner
of a large plantation. Top
Government officials here have just decided the United States should hold onto
its 27,000 acres of Central American hemp land at least until December 31, 1948.
Altogether, the Government holds title to five such fibre
farms---two in Costa Rica, and one each in Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.
They were started shortly after Pearl Harbor, when it became obvious it
was only a matter of time before U.S. textile weavers and rope makers would lose
their hemp sources in the Dutch East Indies.
The Reconstruction Finance Corp. owns the land, pays the costs of
operation, takes the losses, and will pocket the profits, if any appears.
Actual management is done by the United Fruit co.
$22.5 Million Spent:
$5 Million Recovered
The Government thus far has spent about $22.5 million on
the project and has recovered about $5 million from the sale of hemp.
If prices stay at current levels---between 20 cents and 25 cents a
pound---R.F.C. officials think operations over the next two years will bring in
another $5 million net.
The contracts with United Fruit run through 1948.
After a round-table pow-wow, big-wigs of the State Department, Army,
Navy, and R.F.C. have agreed to keep the pacts in force rather than try to
dispose of the plantations now as surplus war property.
These are the reasons given for the decision:
The need for hemp is as acute as ever.
Imports from pre-war supply sources are still far below pent-up demand.
The hemp crop from the Central American plantations this year and next, will be
the largest yet produced.
Temporarily high hemp prices will permit the Government to
make money for the first time in its five years as a landed proprietor.
What will happen after 1948 will be up to Congress.
The military services would like to retain a source of hemp in the
Western Hemisphere, and may ask legislation to continue the properties under
Government ownership. R.F.C. policy
makers hint they'd be happy to sell the land immediately if they could recover
costs and be assured that all hemp produced would continue to come to the U.S.
but United Fruit, considered the most likely purchaser, has given no sign it
wants to take over the plantations for itself.
"If the company saw long-range commercial possibilities," says
an R.F.C. official, "It certainly would have spoken by now."
Prices Expected to
Backslide
United Fruit's reluctance to exercise options it holds on
the plantations is undoubtedly due to belief hemp prices will slide back to
pre-war levels of around 5 cents a pound once supply catches up with demand---in
a matter of three or four years. Higher
labor costs in Latin America than in the Philippines would rule out the former
area as an economic producer unless the Government offered to subsidize the hemp
farms permanently.
The first hemp plantings were brought to this hemisphere by
United Fruit in 1925. The company
found that abaca, one of the banana plant species, flourished on land which had
to be abandoned for banana growing because of a blight.
At the time of Pearl Harbor, there were just 2,063 acres planted to hemp
in Central America, all on an experimental basis.
On January 3, 1942, the R.F.C. entered into contracts with
United Fruit to plant 20,000 acres, and later the total was expanded to more
than 27,000. The company manages the
plantations, recovers from the Government all costs including a pro rata
division of the overhead expenses, and gets a 1-cent-per-pound bonus for any
production above 1,200 pounds an acre in Guatemala and Honduras.
R.F.C. officials think the company is well entitled to this bonus, when
earned, since average hemp return in the Philippines prior to the war was 800 to
1,000 pounds per acre.
One official describes the venture as "the most speedy
introduction of a crop into a new area in world history."
Estimates are that if necessary, the acreage could be expanded to 30,000
acres---as much as is under normal cultivation in the Philippines.
State Tax Stamp To Grow Hemp
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