V.sabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

Looks like the biggest laugh nowadays comes from exaggerated depression gags. Here's the newest I've heard. The Optimist says-"We'll be begging next year." And the Pessimist answers-"Who from?"

"Is the Lumber Industry Worth Saving?" was the title of an address delivered before the lumber manufacturers of the Northwest the other day by Mr. I. N. Tate, General Manager of the Weyerhaeuser Sales Company. Congratulations, Mr. Tate ! It is the finest, the tersest, the truest, the frankest, and the bravest resume of the fix the lumber industry finds itself in today that has been attempted by any human. ***

Lumbermen one and all, read it ! Read it slowly, carefully, thoughtfully. It is a perfectly tremendous sum.ming up of the situation. If seventeen carefully selected clever men had collaborated to rprite it, it would still be a ma6terpiece. If Mr. Tate did it alone he is not only a Solomon for wisdom, but a Webster for presentation.

Fronrr the opening gun: "Industries come and go. They grow old and die as surely as do nations; much more surely than most of us realize; they die when their products are no longer needed, or when they do not adapt themselves to changed conditions; Lumber is at that point today;" to the close where he says; "we must believe in lumber; that it is the best product for so many uses that it is our duty and our privilege to perfect it and offer it at a profit, and with a lot of self-respect and self-assurance, to a world that needs it;"-this address is epochd in its amazing worth'

For Mr. Tate tears away all subterfuge and camoufage and tells the truth abo,ut lumber; the truth which is that if lumber is to be saved it must be by the organized, coordinated, consecrated, and intelligently directed efforts of those who make up this industry, and who have the brains and the bowels to fight for it. Lumber must see itself in its true light, must appraise its situation with the naked truth for a searchlight, and must go out to CREATE prosPeritY'

I imagine that the reason this address so powerfully affected me is because I have been trying to tell that same story, piece-meal, in this column over and over again for the past several years. Mr. Tate's appraisal of the tragic position in which lumber finds itself, is identically what I have considered it to be, and his suggestions of rem'edies are along parallel lines.

"Only along the hard road of change and readjustment lies even reasonable success," says Mr. Tate. Amen ! And more Amen's ! The old ways won't do. The old systems won't suffice. We've got to do something bigger and better and different and more far-reaching than has ever been attempted before in this industry. The medicine to cure this situation must cone out of a brand new bottle. No previous prescription will answer the purpose. I hope every lumber manufacturer in America will read and digest Mr. Tate's remarks. Something MUST be done. ft isn't five grain doses of aspirin this industry needs. It's a succession of major operations.* *

We'vi got a law in this country-and it's a good onethat will throw into jail any man who distributes slander against a bank, or who whispers around insinuations against the solvency of a bank, or does anything that might possibly start a run on a bank. That's a fine law, and one that should be vigorously upheld. I'm in favor of it. But get this:

I know a young architect who hasn't made a dime in nine months. The other day he convinced a man that this is a good time to build a home. The man had all the money in the bank to do it with. When this prospect found that materials, and .labor, and everything that go into a home were cheaper right now than they ever had any right to be, he agreed to build the home he needed. He accepted the plans. They were ready for the contract to be given out, and work to start.

But before he signed a contract the home builder decided to drop in and tell his banker about it. And the banker talked him out of it. So that idle money remained idle; idle building mechanics lost a badly needed job to buy food for their families; idle building material remained in the pile in the warehouse. And a man who needed and wanted a home and has the cash ready to pay for same, goes without.

Just between you and me, who deserves most to go breaking rocks; that banker, or the sneak who slips around whispering innuendos against the safety of a bank? We've got entirely too many of both.

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