\(/hat the Port of Stockton Means to the Lumber Industry

Address Given bv A. J. "Gus"

Lumber Co., San Francisco, at the Opening of the Port of

Auditorium, Stockton, Calif., April 5, 1933

Your Excellency, Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Port of Stockton means a very great deal to the lumber business and by the same token, the lumber business means a very great deal to the Port of Stockton which is in every way as it should be.

There is no ,commodity of a more expensive, cumbersome and unwieldy nature in handling, loading, transporting and delivering to the ultimate consumer than lumber.

Coal, grain, cement, salt and numberless ,commodities may be handled by the application of the law of gravitation thus reducing labor costs but lumber remains a stubborn article and is handled today almost as it was thirty years ago.

Pullman ,car rvindows and lumber resist modern methods to a very great extent.

The principal cost of refined lumber delivered to a building site in Stockton is made up of labor and transportation for the stumpage value, that is the value of the standing tree, is only a very small portion of the delivered cost of the finished article at Stockton.

In establishing the Port of Stockton you have made possible the elimination of extra handling, extra transportation and when proper rates are accorded to the port and when familiarity u'ith the work of discharging and re-handling lumber from vessels have reduced labor costs, there will be a substantial saving to every consumer of forest products in that vast territory ,contiguous to the Port of Stockton.

And that territory is in no rvay a meager area for on the steamer "I{. F. McCORMICK" due here April 20, lumber rvill be dis,charged for points as far north as Sacramento, as far south as Bakersfield, as far west as Pittsburg and east to the Mother Lode.

The inland movement of forest products is largely by truck. In establishing your port you have made possible due to the congested metropolitan conditions that maintain, the irossibility of much cheaper truck transportation from Stockton than the larger and more 'congested ports.

A truck and a trailer, as an illustration, leaving Oakland must proceed for a long distance at a most careful and slow rate of speed; large quantities of fuel and lubricant are consumed in stops at boulevard crossings and in awaiting safety signals, rvhile to reach San Joaquin Valley points, two ranges of hills that rvould be deemed m,ountains in many countries, nrust be negotiated.

As compared to this, the truck haul from Stockton escapes traffic congestion and is accomplished with practic- ally no costly grades, and a lower insurance basis is enjoyed and applies than where trucks are used in metropolitan districts.

When rivers seek new channels there is bound to be a disturbance to the old and existing order of things.

The re-location of transportation routes brings about the same result. Damage is done in both cases and certain opposition must naturally be expected but as time goes on and conditions generally improve you may be assured lumber will play its full part in the upbuilding of Port Stockton.

Perhaps, however, too much thought has been centered on the inbound lumber tonnage and not sufficient consideration given to the tremendous movement of outbound forest products.

Within 100 miles of this auditorium it is estimated that the stand of growing timber tributary to Port Stockton is the equivalent of 400,000 cars or enough to fully load 6,000 steamers of ordinary capacity should all of this move out of the Golden Gate.

Eighty per cent of this stand is Sugar and White Pine.

Within 300 miles of Stockton there is normally manufactured 12,000,cars of lumber per year. Of this, 6,000 cars is of a species and grade which may ordinarily be expected to move through the Golden Gate to Atlantic Coast and foreign ports.

These figures will give you some idea of what ,Port Stockton means to the lumber industry and what the lumber industry means to Port Stockton, and I cannot help but feel that our good friend, the represent?tive of the Chas. R. McCormick Steamship Company is perhaps unduly alarmed in his estimate of tonnage possibilities.

On this first fine freighter of the McCormick Line there is an appreciable lumber tonnage for Atlantic ports and I believe there is no port in the world, certainly none in America, where the different species of native woods lend themselves to so gigantic a movement both inbound and outbound as may be ,confidently anticipated at Stockton.

I have mentioned that the stumpage value of lumber is negligible as compared to the refined value at destination. I might add that the timberman no matter how many years he may pay taxes on his crop, harvests it but once.

A number of years ago in speaking before the Rotary Club of Bakersfield, in August, and no one other than a young and inexperienced performer would undertake a trip to Bakersfield in August, I used this same phrase.

After I had finished. the chairman stated that the state- ment in question struck a sympatheti,c cord in his breast as his business labored under precisely the same handicap as he also harvested his crop but once.

The ,chairman's remarks caused a very great deal of laughter, the ,cause of which was utterly unknown to me until I was advised that he was Bakersfield's leading undertaker.

We can therefore see that many of the deficiencies and abuses which we think are'confined entirely to our own line of business are in manv ,cases common to other lines as well.

I thank you.

Many California Cities Show Advance in March Building

Seventy-four cities of Southern California ended the month of March with an aggregate building volume of $4,000,761, a total ol$2,186,287 above their February totals. Long Beach leads the Southern California cities for the month with a total of $1,101,435. Los Angeles' building operations for March totaled $958,441, a gain of $256,862 over its February figures. Other Southern California cities showing strong gains over the February totals were Torrance, Santa Ana, Huntington Park, Beverly Hills, Redlands, Visalia, South Gate, Compton, Ifuntington Beach, Whittier, Lynwood, Fullerton and Upland.

Torrance showed a big gain during the month of March as compared to the previous month, the March building figires totaling $565,365 as against $14,300 in February. This advance was due to the construction of refinery units by the General Petroleum Company, the job exceeding $500,000.

San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley recorded substantial gains in building for the month of Mar'ch as compared to their February totals. The San Francisco building permits for Mar.ch totaled $548,231, a gain of $225,574 over the month of February. San Fran,cisco with a total of $15,428,443 for the first quarter of 1933, due to the San Francisco bay bridge projects, leads all other California cities in building thus far in the year.

Sales Manager Resigns

Frank McNulty, sales manager of Hobbs, Wall & Co., San Francisco, resigned his position effective March 31, and has assumed the management of his own yard, McNulty Lumber Co., at San Bruno.

Editorials a "Knock Out"

Dear Jack

Your editorials-pages 6 and 8, April 1st issue, are a "knock out'l-it should be in every paper and trade journal in the U. S. A.

Thanks for your brains and gift of expression-

Sincerely,

Sylvester 'Weaver, Los Angeles, California.