V.sabond Editoriafs

Bv Jack Dionne

'Here is ihe most appreciated New year's present I re_ ceived. It is an excerpt from a letter written by a well known retail lumbennan named Will Cavin away off in Sturgis, Michigan, on the subject of my December 15th Vagabond Editorial. He says: ,.ft ls doubtful if you ever wrote a finer thing than your last Vagabond Editorial. Would that I had command of the English language to do Something at least once in my life as fine as your last Vaga"pond. You have given me encouragement. I have heard your editorial spoken of repeatedly in our organization dur_ ing the last few days. I hope it pleased everyone and rneant.as much to everyone else as it did to us. In thanking you for this wonderful bit of inspiration f want to also wisii you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.,, t,*'*{t ,i I'- B-oiqg to start the New year right by doing very ,fittle profhecfing.' What 'saith the Good Book, that a ,firophet is. not without honor save in his own country?

, Now isn't such a letter full repayment for all the disappointments of the year? To me it surely IS. And it starts e" p{ on my New Year'5 journey over the Vagabond route with a much lighter heart, and filled with the determination and hope that sometime during the year to come I will be bbie to-writ€ something else good enough to draw such fine jpraise from men,of worth and usefulness. I had a whole :iaft of fine letters concerning that Christmas editorial, but ,tt u o"" from my friend in Michigan I really got a great thrill out of.

;MayUe thit's'wiiy the finesi afpreciation of my Christmas icditorial came from far away? Anyway, the past five years ,have helped teach plenty of prophets that prophecying is dangerous. Only very recently have I allowed myself in ,pJr nublic speeches to' do: any prophecying of any char.acter except,thg 5n9gt generpl. I HAVE felt recently that .ft was safe to do a little optimistic predicting, and I have 'indulged myself stigtrtty iir some word picture painting of petter t\ings. just ahead. i.,**{.

:; And I therefore venture the opinion now that 1935 is 'going to be a better year than any in the last five; and it rvould not surprise me at all if it proved to be better for the :turnliorbusiness than.any in the last TEN. Because it ,Wouldn't have, to. be so very hot to surpass anything the Iumber industry tias known since 1925. The lumber indus_ ltry was slumping TIIEN, and the market crash of the fall of.'29 only accelerated the troubles of the lumber industry. ,!S{.*

IF this proves to be the year when relaxed credit and various other accelerants get thdir grip on tfie building in_ dustry-then look out for a honey. I say IF this proves to be that year. I refuse to prophecy far enough to declare that this WILL be that momentous year. But if you will go out behind the smokehouse with me and promise on your word of honor you won't tell, I'll whisper in your shell-like ear that right down deep in my heart f am convinced that this WILL BE THAT YEAR. But that's on the Q.T. see, and NOT for open prophecying. t3*{.

When things are anything like NORMAL, peopte build. That is just as fundamental as it is that they eat, {rink, and wear clothes. They DO build. When for a single season people cease their building, they pile up an accumulation of building that must be done later. And when they fail to do their normal buitding for an entire year; a very definite and imposing building vacuum is created that must later on be added to the norrnal volume of that later time. rl. !F *

Picture then, if you can, what happens when year aftcr year passes with practically no building. Add that to an almost complete lack of REPAIRING, REMODELING, IMPROVING of all building character such as is normally done by one hundred and twenty-five millions of pcople, for year after year and year after year, and what have you? An accumulation that staggers the imagination. you cannot look around you, take inventory of this great lack, and translate it into figures. Such inventory is utterly hopeless and impossible. But the vacuum is there, and its total is the grand total of all the building that should have been done through those years of building famine, and donrt you doubt it. And when this nation comes forth from its building huddle, and from its long period of building do-nothingness, and begins to fill in the gaps-look out ! rrt*

There is really every reason why that should happen THIS year. There is the great NEED for buildings and building improvements; there is the growing governmental determination that a great building program can and WILL strike sledge-hammer blows at the very roots of the depression; there is the ever-growing pile of private capi. tal still unused and unemployed that could so naturalry take this building credit route; and there is the irnproved mordre