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does not pay enough for it to pay all of the legitimate costs, plus the wastes of distribution and still leave a profit for all three or even one of these divisions of the business. The further fact is that the man who makes the lumber must shoulder a large part of the blame and a still greater share of the responsibility for changing these conditions' ,i :r ,i ,r ,r ,r

Nothing is going to change the complexion of profits in this industry so much as a thorough realization by every division of it that it has lost out because it has not merchandised its products.to the user; because it has treated its product as if neither the wholesaler, manufacturer nor retailer had any respect for them; because we have ourselves, by the manner in which we have conducted the business, created the impression in the mind of the consuming public that lumber was just lumber and that the only thing which mattered was who would sell it the cheapest. I know you can point out striking exceptions here and there but they have mostly been voices crying in the wilderness so far as the industry as a whole was concerned.

All that is changing and must change. Five years from today the preponderance of grade-marked lumber and dry lumber offered to the public will be so striking that ordinary lumber will be relegated to a back seat. Ten years from today the majority, in numbers, of retail yards will not be selling lumber at all but will be selling the home to the consumer and a tremendous percentage of yards will be selling a completely furnished home so that the buyer will have to do nothing except move in his clothes and make one payment per month to one seller for the complete home. And when homes are nerchandised in that manner there will be a tremendous increase in the use of lumber for home*buitdin9. * *

One thing that some genius will surely evolve within twenty years is a way to build a substantial house with less hand labor. Since 1910 the cost of a house has been doubled while the cost of an automobile (and a greatly improved one) has been cut in two.

Millions await the man vvho can cut the cost of home building in two and deliver a better home. And if the lumber and furniture industries belonged to the men who olvn General Motors they would lave C. F. Kettering and a research staff spending a few millions finding out horv to do it.

A great many of the problems with which we are now confronted in this lumber industry seem to me to have arisen out of the erroneous point of view on the part of the manufacturer that when lumber left his mill it was sold. I am convinced that the fact which is now coming to be universally recognized by the manufacturer that his product is not sold until it is purchased by a user is going to lead to a. mutuality of pnderstanding between the three great groups of the industry, the manufacturer, ihe wholesaler and th6 retailer. which will give new nreaning to the word co-operation and make possible a joint solution of the complex distribution problem5 of the industry. In no other way, in my opinion, can they iver be adequately solvei. Neither the retailer, nor the wholesaler, iror the manuficturers work- ing indep_endently of each other, can ever possibly do as well as they can by working together.

.-B-ut if this co-operation is going to be-anything more than a beau- tiful sentiment it will be because you manuiactur-ers take the respon-

WE ARE ABLE to care for your requirern€lrtr for aif cooled and brick lined refuse burtrers_ new and used boilen of all sizes and types. SEATTLE sibility upon ],ourself of seeing that it means what the dictionary says it means. It is up to you to deliberately set out to create the sort of co-operation that will be necessary to bring about these changedconditions.

The most interesting thing to study in the business world today is the development of creative merchandising. Imagination is the blue print of enterprise.

The National has employed Dr. Paul Ivey to devote six weeks speaking to retailers at conventions and making a study of the possibilities of creating a sales school for training retail salesmen. There is no reasoll ll'hy you should not give earnest, enthusiastic consideration to the possibilities of that sort of wqrk for yourselves, either in close collaboration with the National, or for yourselves alone if you can render a service to the retailers of your particular product that the National is not in position to render for you.

To point out just one iustance: You carr come down to Southern California; find out how to sell structural and industrial construction, find out how to sell oil rigs, dramatize them in a short series of sales lectures, get the dealers and salesmgn who handle timbers to come to school to you, and create absolutely new business and profits for the dealers and for yourselves that otherwis.e you will never see.

Another suggestion. If you nranufacturers can assist retail associations to function properly all over the United States you will tremendously inrprove the prosperity of the whole industry. Local Associations are the key to the merchandising situation in the retail lumber industry.

The greatest enenry of progress is the natural human reluctance to change. Our iustinctive reaction is to always stay with what we have for the fear that the new nlay not be. any better, but I believe that the fruits of success in tomorrow's battle o{ business are going to those who learn to THINK FOR THEMSELVES rather than those who know in advance what will and what will not work.

The fact that "it has always been done that way" is no longer a good reason for continuing things that do not fit the changing conditions. The nunufacturer or the industry which succeeds today must STEP UP ITS THINKING to meet the requirements of these exacting tinres.

Of course there are difficulties. There always is. There always will be. Yet if there were no difficulties to overcome most of the fun of business would be gone. Difficulties are what make life interesting. The point to get fixed in our minds is that the kind of difficulties that confront us today are not those of yesterday. Today's difficulties are problems of the whole industry. They are impossible of solution by the policy of individualism that has held back our industry for so 1ong. They can only be solved by group thinking and group action. We have to quit thinking aboui how things used to be, or ought to be, and START THINKING FROM WHERE WE ARE.

\v. E. COOPER RETURNS FROM EAST

W. E. Cooper, president of the W. E. Cooper Lumber Company. Los Angeies. and Mrs. Cooper retuined to Los Angeles Feltruary 2, af.ter an extended trip through the Fast, where Mr. Cooper visited his various lumbei yards in Michigan and Wisconsin. The return trip was made via New York and the Panama Canal on the "President Fillmore".

H. B. HEWES ARRIVES IN CALIFORNIA

H. B. Herves, nationally knorvn lumlterman, president of the Clover Valley Lumber Co., Loyalton, and director of the Pacific Spruie Corporation, ariived in San Francisco from the East on February 3 for an extended visit to the Pacific Coast. I\[r. Hewes rvill leave about Febrvarv 22 for a visit to Portland.

Hubert Schafer In Los Angeles

Hubert Schafer, secretarv and treasurer of Schafer Bros. L,umber & Door Company, Montesano, Wash., arrived in Los Angeles February 12 on the "point Loma,, where he is spending_several _d1y. or-t_business. While in Los Ange- les, he will make his headquarters at the offices of lhe Lawrence-Philips Lumber Co., their Southern California representatives.

Arthur Griswold Back At Desk

Arthur B. Griswold, manager of the San Francisco of_ fice of the C. D. Johnson Lumber Co.. returned to the of_ fice February 10. after a week's absence due to illness.