Accusations
During the shortage, many people began to suspect that Du Pont was deliberately delaying production. Reporters suggested the company was being greedy and unpatriotic for maintaining exclusive patent and production rights to a substance in such popular demand. Du Pont’s factories were actually operating at full capacity but nonetheless, public discontent remained high. In 1945, an ad appeared in Knit Goods Weekly that called on readers and other retailers to write to their congressmen in protest.
In light of the public scandal, Du Pont tried to shift the blame to selfish housewives who had nothing better to do than stand in line and hoard stock. The public remained unconvinced. In 1951, after the riots had long subsided, Du Pont was finally threatened with an antitrust suit. In response, they agreed to share Nylon licensing with the Chemstrand Corporation. They soon allowed other licenses as well.
Read more about this topic: Nylon Riots
Famous quotes containing the word accusations:
“In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again.... We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.”
—Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)