What the Lumber Industry Can Do With Its Trade Promotion Funds to Make Business Good

By Jack Dionne

On January 25th I spoke to about two thousand retail lumbermen at Kansas City on the self-selected subject, "\i[/'hat the lumber industry can do with its trade promotion fuqds to make business good."

Since some of my remarks have been quoted in the Associated Press, and, having spoken without manuscript and with no short-hand reporter present, it is likely that some of the reports may not have reproduced my thoughts as I stated them, I want to state tersely the ideas that I tried to promulgate on that platform: first, to keep the record straight; second, because I intend to give those ideas all the publicity I can in the hope that they may take root. So what I said at Kansas City was this: fs the lumber industry keeping up with that race? It is NOT !

That the selling end is not only the most important de. partment of the lumber business, but that it is.the ONLY important department; it is the only reason why a business exists. All other departments may be weak, and the business continue. When the sales end fails, the business ceases to exist.

The selling and merchandising department is and has always been the deplorably weak end of the lumber business -56 q7g3l in its character that it is looked upon with noth, ing less than pity by the merchandising industries of the country.

The lumber industry, while it HAS made some progress in the past ten years, has, by comparison with the tremendous progress of most other industries, actually gone backward, because it has not kept up with the rapid pace of the rest of the world.

Compared with the candy, gum, cosmetic, automobile, radio, furniture, insurance, railroad, paint, travel, decoration, clothing, dry goods, shoe, talking machine, and various other active merchandising industries which have been catering to the rapidly changing public appetite, the lumber industry has failed by comparison.

The world has changed with tremendous rapidity in the last ten years. Our ways of living, our entertainment, our dress, our appetites generally, have all changed immoderately. We have evidenced a drunkard's thirst for variety, for change and yet more change, for newer and more'attractive things, for new ideas, new luxuries, new thoughts, new colorq irew conveniences, new everything. In all the world's history no such change has ever before taken place.

We have evidenced a desire to be SHOWN all these new things, and we have demonstrated that we are willing to PAY FOR THEM IF \^/E LIKE THEM.

But the world wants something different-rdifferent-different all the time, and the industries we mentioned, and others, are devoting their every mental and physical effort to supplying that demand. It is more than a demand-it is a CRAVING that the public is displaying.

Is it satisfying that appetite for the new, the changing, the different, the more beautiful, the more useful, the more luxurious, the more inleresting things? It is NOT.

Can the lumber industry get into the game and meet this other competition, and successfully create a market for its products by appealing to these new public appetites? It unquestionabty CAN ! How?

I want to make a suggestion along one single line, which alone embodies possibilities that would rebuild the lumber industry, bring prosperity to the producing and distributing departments, both, and give the millions of American people the.service they have been getting along other lines (and paying for with money that the lumber industry has been suffering for want of). f want to suggest that in the past a'great part of the trade promotion funds of the lumber manufacturers associations has been wasted.

This year there are several big funds in existence, created for the purpose of boosting and helping the lumber industry.That money could be used this year in large part to modernize the small homes of America in such a way that it would do enormous service to the public, and bring enormous good to the industry.

There are in America about 24,000,000 homes. I should say dwellings. ft is homes that we want to transform them into. Of this number, about 8,000,000 have been built in the last ten years. The remaining 16,000,0@ dwellings are more than ten years old. Look out the train window as you go through the United States (with only one locality excepted-Southern California), north or south, east or west, and your eve everywhere lights upon the old-timey, drab, discolored, hopeless looking dwelling, with old fashioned roofs, old fashioned windows, old fashioned porches, and with practically nothing inside of the modern conveniences that would make them homelike.

There are at least 10,000,000 such homes in the United States. fn every single case the tenant would like to' live in a better, more attractive, more convenient, more homelike dwelling. In at least 75 per cent of those dwellings there is a potential demand for improvements that would mean huge quantities of lumber if that desire could be transformed into actual orders.

We all talk nowadays of home building, of the home being the citadel of civilization, that every man should own his own home, that people should live in attractive homes, etc. You hear that ever5rwhere.

Beautiful, indeed ! But glittering generalities, all of them. The question is, who is to bring it about, and how.

I heard mangfacturers say on this same program that the dealer should get out and sell these improvements. Is the dealer equipped with the proper materials, the proper ideas, the proper weapons to do this? f say that he is NOT.

Is there an5rwhere he can turn today for such equipment ! I don't know of any. Ffe can get good home plan books, and he can get partial assistance here and there for helping m4e improvements, but there does not exist today thai which is necessary if this great transformation is to be wrought.

Who should furnish it? I think the manufacturq: should devote a large part of these trade promotion funds to that end. I

Hou'? He should create a department of eqgineering, research, architecture, photography and printing, just as General Motors has, and for the same purpose.

This department should take every detail of the most modern thought in wood using, transform them into prac- tical and attractive plans, pictures, ideas, that will show just exactly what may be done to make an old box car house into a home.

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