Vagabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

"A man can start talking to himself," said a lonesome rancher to a friend of mine, "and still be all right. But when he starts ANSWERING HIMSELF, it's time for him to go to town." *** ft's that way with the world. We got to where we were talking to ourselves, and it didn't particularly frighten us. But when we started answering ourselves, we knew something had to be done about it. So we started to town. And it looks to me like we're going to town right now; the lumber business, the building business, and every other worth-while line of effort. d<**

We are facing a New ;"r: Jr"t out the files just now and went to reading some of the New Year editorials I have written since the first of January, 1930. I'd really rather not say too much about those predictions. Each successive New Year seemed to certainly be the end of the Depression and the gateway into better things. What a long, long time these last five years have been, haven't they?

And what a lousy guesser I have proved rnyself to be. At least, however, I'm not like the well known New York business prognosticator who continues to advertise himself as "the man who predicted the Depression," but fails utterly to report that when the Depression was just a few months old he came out and advised everyone to get in the market and buy good securities because the trouble was over. What a nerve | ' r freery and frankly "urlr.la"l , hadn't the faintest idea what I was talking about; that the wish was father to the thought; and every year seemed to my short vision to be definitely the end of the trouble. I didn't see how it could last because I didn't see how WE could last. If the last five years have proven one thing beyond chance of argument, it is the lasting qualities of human beings.

*:k* f am reminded again of one I told in this column not so long ago, about the inscription on the wall of a steel cell in the Los Angeles jail that reads: "There'll be days, in here, when you think you just can't stand it-BUT YOU WILL.' That's the way all of us have felt thousands of times in the last five years. You think you just can't stand it; but you DO. Of course, the shores of the business sea are littered with the wrecks of those who COULDN'T. But there are a whole lot of us left.

And most of us have:;;, rernarked innumerable times that "We'll see some great times if we live through this." NOW we are going to find out. It looks as though those who are still here have survived the Depressioh, because truly we are definitely emerging from the fog. Definitely and provably emerging. And what a grand and glorious feeling it is. For the next year we are going to hear and read little else except the dramatic argument as to whether we are getting better because of the things that have been done to cure depression, or in spite of them. That argument will never be settled, however, and those of us who really get out in the sunlight of the after-times, won't really care very much. Getting out is the thing.

Walter Lippmann wrote the other day that all that is left of the Depression is some unemployed resources and some unemployed men. The unemployed capital is unquestionably reducing every day. Money is growing continually, more available for worthy purposes. Where three months ago private capital for financing building was weak and halting, general reports show a great change. Money is peeking out of its closet and looking about for good mortgages that it may devour. You just let that continue a few months, and see how much the present noted improvement will accelerate'

'We've got a chance for a great lumber year in 1936. I'm just sticking out my neck as I've done on this date for the past five dreary years and making another prediction. But this time the prediction is based on the physical and actud things we see around us. Business IS better. All sorts of business, everywhere. The lumber business was the first to feel the depression and it is among the last to climb out of it by reason of the very nature of things; but when it comes out it will come out with a bang that closely borders on an explosion. I think it's at our doorstep.

Everywhere building r" nr*r* up, new building, building improvements, and building repairs. Af,a wnat a sales opportunity the building and lumber man has, here, there, and everywhere. We have spoken often of the huge gap of unbuilt things that six years of practically no building

(Continued on Page 8)