Actually the WW2 “Rubber Czar” was a man named Jeffers, head of the Northern Pacific Railroad who took on Ickes and others regarding the problems with the Synthetic Rubber/Natural Rubber conflicting programs.
Jeffers was “old school”. He demanded from FDR that if he took over as “Rubber Czar” he could do the following.
1. Make the final decisions about priorities. He got it.
2. Run his railroad at night from his hotel room. He got it.
3. Get paid breakfasts, etc. He did not get this.
America got both a successful rubber program and synthetic rubber program so vital to the war effort (tires for planes, trucks, etc).
One of America’s great unsung heroes (A Dollar A Year Man) of WW2.
Ickes was sometimes right on setting priorities but he was a bastard to work with and alienated many hardworking subordinates.
In times of war extreme measures are often called for and in times of peace they should evaporate. Unfortunately we’ve become a nation perpetually at war with an ever expanding definition of someone or something and the dictators/czars have become permanent unelected bureaucratic fixtures that perpetuate themselves.
We now have redundant czars not doing the job the original czar wasn’t doing. We have a great lakes czar who is supposed to have jurisdiction over invasive species in the great lakes AND a carp czar who has the same jurisdiction.
BTW Great lakes czar Cameron Davis is another radical environmentalist who has spent his life “freeing” the rivers from man’s stewardship. (removing dams and restricting access to water.)