¶ Copper Sequence
Index Entry
Copper Sequence:
"the scrap was coming in. The scrap of each year was really equalling the new production of 22½ years earlier. So I said I think that is really working here. That being so, I told Phelps-Dodge-- 22½ plus 1917-- that mid-July of 1939 you’re going to be overwhelmed with scrap. And I told them that in 1936. In 1938 I left and went over to Fortune magazine where I was science and technology editor for the next two years. In July of 1939, Bill Osborne called me, he was director of research at Phelps-Dodge and he said ‘Bucky, this happened.’
“And this really made some impression in that industry because I really had foretold that. In mid-1939 we went down to the New York docks in lower Manhattan-- and the lighters were every- where, just high with metal. Because whatever copper did, iron followed it; but copper is a sensitive lead. The mine group, realizing they were overwhelmed with this scrap-- and World War II was looming-- they literally sold it all to Germany and Japan to fire back at us, which wasn’t a very moral thing to do, but that’s exactly what taught Japan how to get along without mines. Their whole industry has been built on this ever since… Every time we run the same metals around, we load more perfomance on it, and that’s whatwe mean by wealth-- the ability to take care of more lives.”
