While the chemurgic uses of hemp were being entangled in Treasury red-tape, the replacement of linoleum by vinyl, a petroleum product, was a further blow to the linseed industry, which was struggling to hold on as its other markets shifted to water-soluble paints, also made from petroleum sources. Flax and hemp were juxtaposed dominos in the general historic toppling to synthetic, petroleum-based materials. It appears that DuPont Chemical Company betrayed its cognizance of the meaning of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act when, that year, its Annual Report referred optimistically to "the extent to which the revenue-raising power of government can be converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization."152

As the US entered WW2, the traditional Wisconsin and Kentucky Hemp industries were in decline due to competition with synthetic fibers on the one side and flax straw and the imported fibers on the other. Then Japan's invasion of the Philippines cut off access to abacá and once again the strategic importance of hemp, recognized by Napoleon a century and a half earlier, was impressed upon the nation. Suddenly, it was necessary to set aside all the nasty things which had been said and mobilize for war. Unfortunately, seed stocks of "this drug plant" were very short. The government organized a private corporation, War Hemp Industries, Inc., with its headquarters at 208 South LaSalle Street in Chicago, which set about increasing seed stocks, planting 36,000 acres in Kentucky in 1942. Unfortunately, much of the seed was lost because of bad weather. Seventy one hemp mills were planned in several states, although only 42 were actually built, six in Wisconsin.153 Each mill cost about $290,000. They were designed by Andrew Wright. A film was produced and informational publications were issued by the USDA154 encouraging farmers to grow "Hemp for Victory," depicting the progress in mechanization of hemp production.155 Naval stores of fiber were extended by admixing ten percent hemp. Wisconsin farmers were raising 32,000 acres by 1943. In that year, an acre of hemp in Wisconsin averaged $110.59, while corn made $48.29.156 Overall, 60,000,000 pounds of fiber were produced in 1943 and 1944, combined, which covered the strategic requirement.157

Cotton was continuing to lose markets to new synthetic fibers. Technological progress was stimulated by the war and when it ended synthetic fiber had conquered cotton's biggest market:

Following the war, the South's hegemony in agricultural policy continued.168 So, while hemp and flax were desperate for markets, the USDA initiated a program in Florida, in 1943, to study the value of a native fiber-yielding grass, Sansevieria, also known as bow-string hemp. Programs investigating other long fiber plants were also begun with specific interest in papermaking potential. Although hemp was cited for tear-resistant paper, the selection of species for further research focused on two southern plants: ramie and kenaf. Efforts directed at these plants utilized hemp technology:

With the effort to identify new sources of long fibers at the USDA, it might seem that the hemp industry was already history by 1950. The "unorthodox" industry in Minnesota was gone before 1940, its very existence buried beneath the sands of time, as were the words of Billy Hale and Wheeler McMillan. But the "conventional" industry continued in Wisconsin and Kentucky. The Rens Hemp Company operated five mills in eastern Wisconsin. A scutching unit was capable of handling 6000 to 7000 pounds of dry stalks, yielding 800 to 1000 pounds of clean fiber per hour. Approximately a dozen men working two shifts throughout the year were capable of handling the production of 4000 acres,174 but actual acreages were much less than this capacity. This "conventional" industry, producing fiber for a small and dwindling demand, was not a threat to anyone.

The company still obtained seed from Kentucky which it distributed to growers. The equipment to harvest the crop was owned by the mill, alleviating the capital equipment burden on farmers. Matt Rens' son, Willard, kept the business going until the 1957 crop was sold out in 1958. He says, "I don't think I would have enjoyed being in the business another five years because of the marijuana problem." Mr. Rens says he never smoked any of the crop, his growers were surprised to learn they were growing marijuana, the heinous drug plant. Now retired and living in Arizona, he is the last man to grow hemp commercially in the US.

The tax, he says, was not a big deal to their operation. It cost each farmer $3.00, and the company had to buy a special license to be a seed distributor. There was some additional paperwork, but they were never visited by any FBN inspectors. However, he recalls hearing of a mill near St. Paul, Minnesota, that was forced to close. He thought it was in the early fifties. He recalls it was an autumn when there was insufficient moisture for dew-retting, so when the stems came into the mill, leaves were still attached. As has been noted, normally hemp returns to the field the bulk of the nutrients it uses for growth when the leaves fall off during the retting process. But, in this instance, the leaves came in and so did the FBN and halted operation for over a year, forcing the mill into insolvency.

The author has been unable to find any record of this event. It is possible Mr. Rens is mixing in his memory rumors he may have heard of what happened years earlier in Minnesota to the Chempco and Cannabis, Inc., ventures.

I found the Articles of Incorporation for these companies which identify the men who were involved. There were five at Cannabis, Inc.: Dr. J. T. Schlesselman, President, Harry Pribnow and F. E. Holten, all listed as being from Mankato, Minnesota; C. F. Witt of Winona and D. L. McDonald of Burt, Iowa. Dr. Schlesselman was an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist at the Mankato Clinic. A long-time resident of the area, he was for many years the only doctor available to the rural residents; a man active with the Boy Scouts, a pillar of the community. According to his son, Edmond, a doctor himself, now residing in California, Dr. Schlesselman got interested in the hemp idea from a fellow traveling through the area (Anslinger's "promoter?"). Edmond Schlesselman who still remembers the episode well, recognized Holten as the man's name. The man had an invention, he recalls, a decorticator. At Cannabis, Inc., they were making mops, and they were very interested in the hurds. When asked what he remembers about why the venture failed, he said it was because at every step it needed official approval from the narcotics people. Pressed as to whether he is saying, unequivocably, that the failure of this effort, as he witnessed it as a young man in his twenties, was a result of government anti-marijuana red tape, he said, "Yes." He elaborated further that an agent had to be called to okay every move of the operation: the planting, the harvest, movement of the crop from field to mill. He said it was unworkable because of the government's obstruction.175

This testimony confirms that the chemurgic effort to revivify hemp agriculture in Minnesota was the object of special scrutiny which the traditional industry in Wisconsin--we know from Willard Rens--did not receive. By the time the War Emergency called for increased hemp acreage, the Minnesota experiment had already failed. They did not participate in the short-lived War Hemp Industries expansion. The Marihuana Tax Act was the tool used to target and encumber this undertaking.

It was different in Wisconsin. According to Mr. Rens, the final demise of the Wisconsin hemp industry occurred because it was unable to beat its competition, not directly because of the drug issue. A local newspaper article revisiting the "Hemp King" explained that "Willard Rens operated the plant until 1957, when synthetic fibers took over the market."176 This industry was in slow decline already and it was not exploring new uses for the crop.

Moreover, the crop from the Wisconsin industry was shipped to the east coast to be made into cordage, an economic disadvantage since substantial transportation costs were incurred. This disadvantage undermined hemp's ability to compete with the tropical fibers delivered by ship, other markets having been lost to the synthetics (twines and carpet backing). Clearly, to be economical, the end-use of the crop needed to be located nearer the mills, such as in Wisconsin's paper industry. Mr. Rens says that there was some interest in the fiber for paper in his time, but not the hurds. But this use never developed since supplies of wood pulp in the state had not become limiting, and, in those years, sulfate pulping was developing.

The fresh vegetable canning industry in Wisconsin took over the hemp acreage when the industry was gone.

With the final, complete elimination of commercial hemp production, there remained no commercial interests to restrain anti-cannabis political action. Legislation tightened on cannabis with a death grip.177 In the United States, as a result of regulations enacted in the 1970s, a plant with any detectable THC is now classified as a Schedule One narcotic, joining a list of chemically synthesized substances that have no redeeming utility.