Calilornia Needs Home Loan Bank American Lumber Fih: Creates

By Floyd Dernier, Lumberrnen's Service Association, Los Angeles

A California Home Loan Bank would be just the medium we need to start business moving forward and such a bank could be created and maintained at no cost to the state or its people.

The 3 per cent certificates of a State Home Loan Bank would attract all the money needed to care for our home building and refinancing requirements.

With this money made available at 7 per cent interest, returnable in small monthly payments over a term of years -thousands of progressive deserving families would build moderate price homes at once, while present owners of 'old homes would start a campaign of remodeling and modernizing. Others who have substantial equities and whose horhes are threatened with foreclosure are desperately in need of the assistance such a bank could render.

Present conditions call for unselfish legislation that will protect the American home and create -work for the unemployed.

The creating of such a bank at this time would be for the purpose of meeting present emergencies with the understanding that our lending institutions would be privileged to absorb outstanding contracts any time in the future that they were in position to do s,o.

Many plans have been advanced to meet existing conditions, however, as most of them called for large appropriations or bond issues to be taken care of in future years through increased taxation, they met with the failure they justly deserved.

A State Home Loan Bank is the only logical and practical self-liquidating plan to adopt, as every dollar loaned for building, improving and protecting purposes would be returned with interest and the difference in interest rates of 3 per cent to the investor and 7 per cent to the borrower would more than take care of all organization and maintaining expenses.

We question seriously if there is any other movement or activity that can and will create more employment for dormant labor, restore confidence by starting a buying movement and,force dollars into all lines of trade with less effort than will an active construction and improvement program.

Right now modern, sanitary homes can be constructed more reasonably than at any time during the past fifteen years. This gives additional assurance of safe protection to building and improvement loans, and as it is the homes and home owners who supply most of the funds for general improvements and state expenses, everything that California can do to safeguard and encourage home ownership should be undertaken at this time.

If you are interested in having a California Home toan Bank Act adopted, get your service club and friends to join with you in writing your representative at Sacramento. Also hand this article and the one appearing on Page 24 of the January 15th issue of this Journal to your local editor.

Sensation in Europc

If there are any architects, engineers, or builders in Europe that do not know the advantages of American construction lumber it is not the fault of the National Committee on Wood Utilization. For the past three years this committee, in co-operation with commercial attaches of the Commerce Department, has arranged for the showing of the Long-Bell film depicting the felling of the gigantic Douglas fir timbers on the Pacific Coast, their conversion into. lumber in mamrnoth sawmills, and the application of this product to a variety of industrial and construction uses.

From all parts of Europe the National Committee on Wood Utilization has received grateful testimony from lumbermen, engineers, architects, builders, edugators and industrialists stating that this film has eaabled them to visualize the problems involved toa far greater extent than they could before with their scant knowledge of American conditions.

There are hardly any virgiri forests left in Europe, according to Axel H. Oxholm, Director of the National Committee on Wood Utilization, who on a recent visit in Europe supervised the showing of the film. The audiences were thunder-struck upon seeing trees 200 feet to 300 feet high falling before the axes of what seemed in the iricture to be pygmy lumbermen. Gigantic, electrically operated machines tumbled these huge logs as if they were match sticks. They were carried on trains.to the sawmills, and without the touch of human hands were cut up into lumber and timbers.

The greatest interest undoubtedly 'u/as shown in Germany, where the film was constantly on the go for more than a year and a half. Visitors from every corner of the globe heard of this film and requested to have it shown in their native couitries. Thus the film was shown before governmental bodies, important educational institutions, and professional societies in England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,' Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries.

The climax was a request from Oxford University where the film was shown before the student body of that worldrenowned institution of learning.

On a visit in the Netherlands, Mr. Oxholm witnessed the installation of heavy Douglas fir timbers in dock construction. The supervising engineer, a stranger to Mr. Oxholm, stepped up and pointed to the timbers, stating, "I have just seen the film showing where this lumber grows and ho-w it was produced, and it will always remain in my memory as the most spectacular thing I ever have seen."

On an official trip to the Panama Canal Zone requested by the Governor, Mr. Oxholm demonstrated this film before Canal engineers at a special meeting called for the purpose.

The film was placed at the disposal of the National Committee on Wood Utilization by the Long-Bell Lumber Company, showing the operation of their logging camps and sawmills in Longview, Washington.