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CHAPTER 3
FIRESTONE- 1926 - 19 77
Historical Background
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The production and export of rubber in Liberia started in the
late 1880's with the collection of wild rubber by a British
company, and was marked by the establishment of a rubber plantation
in the early 1900's by the Liberian Rubber Corporation,
also a British company (see chapter 2). During the administration
of President Arthur Barclay (1904-1912), it gained new
impetus during the second decade of the present century.
After the First World War, rubber prices on the international
markets dropped sharply and the Government of Great Britain,
the country which at the time dominated the world production
of rubber, introduced measures which restricted the supply of
rubber on the world market. This resulted in a higher price of
this commodity. These measures, known as the Stevenson Plan,
came into force on January 1, 1922.
U.S. interests, however, were adversely affected by this protectionist
scheme as a p,enny per pound increase in the price
of rubber meant a financial loss of $8 million for the U.S.
industry. The American economy at this- time absorbed approximately
two thirds of the world's rubber output, and the U.S.
industries, notably the automobile industry, required increasing
quantities of this raw material ( i1 )i What the U.S.A. needed,
therefore, was a supply of rubber Which would be cheap,
independent, and guaranteed. One of the rubber manufacturers
from Akron, Ohio, Harvey S. Firestone became indignant with
the British Government which effectively, manipulated the rubber
price that he introduced the slogan "America must grow its
own rubber" (2). He obtained the support of President Harding
and of the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, started lobbying
in the U.S. Congress, and after ^pending some thousands
of dollars had a law passed appropriating $500,000 for the financing
of a survey of rubber producing'countries (3).
After refraining from the establishment of a rubber plantation
in nearby Mexico because of its political instability and inadequate
labour supply, after also having failed to obtain a
concession in the Philippines where the trauma over the American
domination in the preceding century prevented a large
American investment, and after having been rejected in the
Dutch East Indies where the Dutch authorities gave in to the
British pressure not to co-operate with Firestone (4), the
latter turned towards West Africa. In the only independent
country in that region, Liberia, he found a tropical a^d very
humid climate - ideal for the growing of rubber -, a seemingly
abundant and cheap labour force, and a Government which was
eager to offer a concession in exchange for U.S. protection
against colonial neighbours who were impatient for expansion
and were looking for a pretext to annex the tiny republic (see
Chapter 2).