The Black Market: “Chiseled Gas”
Consumers, gasoline dealers, and
distributors gave the black market a tacit approval. Beyond approval, many
American consumers purchased from the black market. In 1943, Colliers writer Mike Miller traveled on “chiseled gas,” from the Mexican border at
Brownsville, Texas to the Canadian boundary at International Falls, Minnesota.
A chiseler, defined during the war, was one who drove to gas stations and
attempted to ‘finagle’ a tank of gas. Some gas stations refused Miller service,
but many were willing to sell gasoline at the regular market price. He also
discovered that truckers reported they used gas, but still had gas in the tank,
and received more tickets to sell. Miller noted that retailers were permitted
to build surplus in their tanks. He wrote, “No one had stopped me to ask if the
trip was necessary or to examine my ration books. There was an A card sticker
on the windshield.”74 Miller’s trip might have been more difficult
if he traveled from Florida to Maine, but his journey exposed the OPA’s
inability to prevent a black market.
By 1943, the black market threatened
America’s successful prosecution of the war. The Senior Scholastic, in a call to “Smash the Black Market Menace,”
wrote “the general public has been too tolerant, or ignorant, of the activities
of the black market.”75 The article blamed ignorance and called for
teamwork. It linked American’s driving directly with the war: “The Nazis know
that a breakdown in our gasoline rationing program would seriously hamper the
American war effort.”76
By 1944, the Office of Price
Administration recognized the black market as a serious threat to the American
war effort. Chester Bowles, an OPA administrator wrote, “every gallon of gasoline
bought in the black market is an overdraft on our precious war stock: gas that
is diverted from legitimate users.”77 In 1944, even with limited
manpower, the OPA began to thwart the black market. First the OPA launched a
public information campaign to warn the American people of ‘black gasoline.’
Second, the OPA appealed to car owners to endorse their coupons. Beginning in
March 1, all “B” and “C” stamps were issued with serial numbers to make stolen
and counterfeit coupons easier to trace.78 The Petroleum Industry
War Council created a Black Market Committee and that paid for $500,000 in
newspaper ads. By the summer of 1944, a majority of the American public was
informed of ‘black gasoline.’
In 1943 the OPA cracked down on the
black market. Chester Bowles declared, “We must smash the racketeers, if we are
to save soldiers’ lives.”79 Before the war ended, more than 4,000
stations had lost their selling licenses, and 32,500 drivers lost their ration
coupons due to illegal gasoline transactions.80 In 1944, Congress
convened to address the problem.81 Despite a diminished black
market, more oil was dedicated to military use. In the latter years of the war,
Americans hoped for more gasoline, but the prospects were bleak. A September
1943, Business Week article noted
that the “PAW considers civilian supply seventh on its list of important jobs.”82
Business
Week explained that rationing was more of a problem than a solution,
because, “car owners turned out to be rugged individualists.”83 In
June 1943, more gas came to America by barge, but the Army and Navy demanded
more gasoline,84 so much so that, “Good Humor’s jingling ice cream
trucks were swept off the streets,” and made stationary outlets.85
By summer 1943, rationing became more stringent. Gasoline supplies for civilian
use were pressured between military demands for both aviation gasoline and
all-purpose gasoline.86 The
Nation declared, “Maybe We’ll Get More Gasoline, but Outook’s None Too
Bright.” Civilian supply remained lowest on the PAW’s triage even with crude
production oil reaching a peak in 1944. Americans supported the war effort and
wanted to defeat the Nazis and Japanese empire abroad, but the war revealed an
American dependency on gasoline for the operations of daily life and a car
culture of individual anonymity that permitted ease of theft and widespread
complicity in a black market. Gas rationing also revealed the masterful effort
of various government agencies to control automobile travel. In his final
analysis, Bradley Flamm asserted that “had the American public been able, they
would have used the money they were finally earning after the lean years of the
1930s to get in a car and go,” and thus the efforts of the ODT to control
American desires was “a remarkable accomplishment.”87
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