THE WTICOME MAT IS OUT

MASONITE IS HOITDING "OPEN HOUSE" at their newly enlarged Warehouse

72I East 62nd Street, Los Angeles

SATURDAY r february 8, 1941

Luncheon starts at 12 o'clock and continues all through the afternoon.

Come and meet your friends and fellow dealers, and see next to the finest stock of board in the Country - (the finest being in our plant at Lraurel, Mississippi).

W. P. Frarnbes WesternManager

If you want to live in the kind of a town, Like the kind of a town you like, You needn't slip your clothes in a grip And start on a long, long hike, For you'll only find what you've left behind, There's nothing that's really new, ft's a knock at yourself when you lorock your town, It isrt't your town-it's YOU. ,F*t

So wrote a man named W. T. Denniston, about twentyfive years ago. Denniston was publicity man at Spokane, Washington, for, the West Coast Lumbermen's Association. Then he went to Houston, Texas, where he was Associate Editor of The GULF COAST LUMBERMAN for a time. When he first wrote "It fsn't Yor-r Town-ft's You," the thing caught and spread. Recognizing the little poem as the cleverest city-boosting rhyme that had ever come down the pike, Chambers of Commerce and other townboosting and city-building organizations all over the country, began quoting it. There were two stanzas, the first, the one above, the second going like this:

**rf

Real towns are not made by merr afraid That somebody else gets ahead, When everyone works and nobody shirks You can raise a town from the dead. And so, while you make your personal stake, If your neighbor should make one too, Then your town will be what you want it to be, For it isn't your town-it's YOU. ***

Denniston's little poem was printed and reprinted literally thousands of times. I have no recollection of anything of the kind that got such general reproduction. They changed the word town to club, and civic clubs use it to boost their organizations. Other use of much the same sort was made of it. The little poem swept backward and forward over the country. For a time Denniston's name would appear with it. That did not last long. The name of the author was soon lost; but the little poem continued to do yeoman service for city boosters up to this very day. ***

This is Chamber of Commerce annual meeting time all over the country. Lumbermen generally are members of their local Chambers. Any lumberman who isn't, should join. Lumbermen are naturally cooperators with other good men, and they are naturally civic minded. The Chamber of Commerce is the only method by which civic minded p€ople can group themselves together to think and act cooperatively for the benefit of their home town. No town of any size should be without its Chamber I and no Chamber should be without its strong lumber members. Aside from the civic importance of such membership, no man benefits more from successful association and citybuilding activity than the builders of the city. So lumbermen have selfish as well as unselfish motives for helping strengthen their local Chamber of Commerce. ***

Tom Dreier says that strong and live citizens do not "get behind" their Chambers of Commerce; that it is the other way, the Chamber of Commerce following behind strong leadership in its citizenship. "Fortunately" said Dreier, "there are Chambers with a damn-the-torpedoes-go-ahead spirit. Their leaders have social vision. They are fearless." This kind of Chamber of Commerce plays a definite part in the life and growth of the city.

The famous Kansas ":r.;, l"urr"* Allen white, who expresses himself strongly, forcefully, but interestingly whenever he speaks, used to make a Chamber of Commerce speech that contained one paragraph that is worth 'knowing and quoting. I am not certain that the average Chamber of Commerce can use it without taking a chance of offending some thin-skinned member, but it's good. Here 'tis: "The Chamber of Commerce modifies the innate cussedness of the average selfish, hard-boiled, picayunish, pennypinching, narron/-gauge human porker; lifts up his snout, makes him see farther than his home, his business, or his personal interest, and starts him rooting for his community. A man, no matter how greedy or squint-eyed he may be, cannot work a year on a committee of his town's Chamber of Commerce without being a better father, a better husband, and a better citizen." That paragraph needs no elucidating. It speaks for itself. And I have no doubt that it speaks the truth. Time and again I have noticed men

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