Certified Materials

By Mr. F.

Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen: I object to that word used by- President Templeton when he said that I would address you. I am going to talk to you just as I would talk to the head of the depa.rt- ments in my.office when we customarily get together to discuss how we can best improve my business at home.

When your Secretary, Mr. Porter, wrotc to me and asked me to take part on this program and to deliver an address to you" I promptly replied to him and told him that I could not deliver an address: that I wanted to come here and listcn to what the other fellows had to say. I told him I would help hirn in any way I might be able to, and thal I could come and talk. and so hc wrote me and told me he wanted me to come and lead in the discussion of this subject. And, therefore, I choee to make this an hour of discussion, and in order to get the subject before the housc I want to make myself clear so that we can gct the benefit, one from the other of any exchange of ideas which we may be able to bring abouL So, we will have a discussion, as it was suggested this morning, in order that ideas may be exchanged.

When I received the program I found that Al Porter had slipped in fivc aces in ihe deck. Whcn he rprote to rr1e he gave me the topic that I should lead in the discussion of and it was to be "Delivering of Certified Materials," but he left off the word "Delivering" on the

Dean Prescott, Fresno, before the Western Retail Lumbermen's Association, Portland program, and there is quite a difierencc between those two topics, as you can readily determine by a careful analysis of them in your own mind. Delivering Certified Materials is a subject that has been up for discusslon before the California Retail Lumbermen's Association, and I want to get your minds clear on this topic just now, before we proceed any further.

While delivering of certified materials is clearly linked with grade marking, I want you to distinguish the difference between grade marking and the delivering of cc*ified materials.

Let us go back a bit. They say that there is notiing new under the sun. While that is probably true, neverthelcss, Abraharn Lincoln had never seen an airplane, and we can carry such illustrations of exceptions like that to infinity-and so on. \f,/e can pass along over many things of that nature and we are forced to admit that there have been many changes,-and they have been wonderful changes, within the memory of all of you who are sitting herc this afternoon. The lumber business has changcd, and I trust that it has changed for thc better. I trust that our standard of doing business has been elevated. I trust that in the m'nd of thc dealcr who is selling lumber ttrere has come a conviction that he should be a bcttcr merchant today than he was yesterday.

Now, lumber is a dry subject at least, it should be a dry subject,-especially since some of our manufacturers have announced that they are going to kiln-dry Common, as well as Clear,-and I think that without question we will all concede that lumber is a ver5r dry subject. The retailers will accede to this proposition. Now, what is there that we can do to establish our busincss on a higher standard or basis or level? We talk about service and qnalily, but if that is all that we have to talk about,...-changes and betterments along thesc lines only, we do not have very much to be proud of.

If you have something to sell, your first thought in mind is "How. useful is this article?" and if you can answer that, that it is a useful article,-"Is it worthy of consideration?" Then thc question ariscs as to what does it cost thc dealer and what can he get for it? The inducement for any man to engage in busincss is his rcturn frorn his efrort and invested capital. Thc thought crosses my mind. "\ilfhat arc w€, as retail lumbermen, doing to improve our methods and our way of service,our standards of doing business?" The question of certified materials has been up, as I have said beforg beforc the directors of thc California Retail Lumbcrrnen's Associiation. We have expcrienced, in our district, a compe- tition that is probably not unusual, but it is very active. and particularly is it active in Southern California and dealers have com-

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(Continued from Page f4) plaincd of the type of competidon that they havc bccn up against.

The substitution of the quality of lumber, -a lower grade than thc original yard furnishing the figurcs had fieured on, so as to undcr:bid thc original figure, and the furnishingl of ttris substitute material, finally, shich finds its way on to thc job through, perhaps, an unscrupulous contractor, who passes the inferior materlal on,-there thc fault and the responsibility rests both on the contractor and dcalers, and the consumcr is induced to pay a price for which he thinks he is gctting a standard grade or a high gradc article.

As I say, this is a discuss'on which has comc up beforc the California Retailers' Association,-.-before the directors firsg and we were thinLing along these line6,-se \rere grouping, as it wcre, to find somc means of dcfend'ng ourselves against cutting a bill and cutting quality to securc business, and out of our thinking ha6 come a suggestion,-that of ccrtifying thc matcrials that are delivered on a job. Now, this docs not necessarily mean that thc dealer, in attenrpting the plan of sclling certified matcrials rnust necessar'ly havc thc matcrials gradc marked. flowcver, it ie vcry esscntial that the consumer shall know that he is getting what his money is supposd to pay for. And, it naturally follows tlut grade rnarked matcrids,-marked in plain figures,-wifl assist thc plan of the dcaler who is selling certified matcrials.

Noq in order to show the consgmer, or, in order to convince the consurncr that you are delivering what he thinks he,is pay'ng for, rc have evolved the idea of a ccrtificatc. Now, back of any certificate must bc somc standard, and there must be sanne guarantee. The guarantee is just as good as thc name of the man who signs it In ordcr to strcngthcn the guarantce on certified mater-

F. Dean Prescott

ials our State Associat'on decidcd that wc would work out a forn which covers practically all of t}c lumber products wh'ch go into a building. I hold in my hand onc,of the forms which has been worked out. Unfortunatcly, duc to a misundcrstanding, I havc not a loJ of copics of this grade ccrtificate with mc. This is only a mimcographed copy, but I think I can give you the idea bv cxplaining it to you. The idea of this certificate iJthat when a dealer figures with a ccintractor that he can furnish thc contractor th's certificate signed by the dealer, and hcre is listed the grades and the qualities and. thc Hnd of lumber which the dcalcr has figured on this particular bill. The contracto-r can furnish ihis certificate to the owner, -hc can furnish it to the architect and to the Loan cornpany. Now, for t-he purpose of strcngthenintr the value of this certificate, o,r" State Alsociation has determined that they will have a copyr'ghted monogram on the- grade certificate. No one else can use this copyrightcd monogram, and wc havc madc this monogram pcculiar to the statc of California. Wc have a map of California, and wc havc somc trccs, and I think I sec oranges and Eunshinc and poppics and various things like that in thc backgrorurd, such as are pcculiar to California, and of coursg a detail of this kind can bc workcd out by and with any group or state association, and the largcr the association, thc stronger the backing,-the. stronger thc backing your organization and ccrtificatc will have. Of coursc, as thc association increases in size and strength and the certificate becomes morc valuable it will bccomc more attractive and necessary. In other words, it garns mo,tnentum. As I say, this trademark is the only thing that is novcl about a gradc ccrtificatc.

In fiUing thc items,-for instance, thc first itcrn showl bascment timbers. Whilc they might be four by fours,-thcy might bc different again, and it leavcs a spacc for what thcy arc and a space for thc numbcr. It might be No. I Common, and so forth. AU th; items down the line covering material, that the committee could think of, have been inscrted here,-all lumber products. Then, they left quitc a long space for substitute lumbcr material. Thc luurbcr men in California arc primarily intcreetcd in lumbcr products, although a good many of thcm sell ccrnent and wall board and so forth.

Now, wc want to gct sonc ideas along this line that will hclp us define our position against the unscrupulous dealer. We want to havc and call for a showdown,-a showing of the hands of every dcder, for all of us have felt the nccd of thie kind of th'ng, having mct that type of co'mpctition I have mentioned. I think if I werc to call upon you to raisc your hands,-drose who arc familiar with that type of unscrupulous conduct,-that I would havb one hundred per

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