Random Editorial Ramblin$s

By Jack Dionne

Good Morning Mr. Lumber Merchant ! All around you are the signs oispring. There's spring in the air, and in every human heart. Are you putting some "spring" into your business, to meet the situation? Are you catefing to ihat splendid human impulse that always cornes with this season to fix up, and clean up, ind brighten up, and paint up, and change up, and sort of do fhings up in fine style for the open season? Are you SHOWING your trade in particulal the beautiful built-in things that you are prepared to install in their homes to make them more liveable and more loveable? You've just got to SHOW these things, because they are like dresses and hats and .shoes-they've got to be sold through the eyes. 7.)lease, Mr. Lumber Merchant, don't put off*any longer this service to your trade and tti yourself ! Stock:and display and push and put into use theie many beautiful and useful things that thinking men have been devising and creating for YOUR trade. Get off the two-by-four wagon, friend, and make your town happy by improving its homes this spring.

Mrs. Asquith; the famous English stateswoman, tells a good story of an interview she once had with a- tramp on the moori. "You walk all day and get nowhere", she said, "when you wake up in the morning how do you shape your coursel' "I just turn my back to the wind and start walking," replied the tramp. There's sorne of that wind driven philosophy in entirely too many business people. The progress ol the world comes from those who turn their faces, not their backs, to the wind.

In t924it required ,r* nt"t, l, -"r, power to produce an automobile. Tn 1927 it required only 220 hours to produce that srune car. Grab that thought ! Hasn't the building game got to turn over sorne new leaves, and do Some newltepping to even begin to keep up with such progress? t< ,k

Too many lumber people have too much unnecessary red tape around their offices. They make it too hard for people to see those whom they seek. To show how great corporations have come to feel about such things, note this sign which appears in the ante-roorn of the general office of one of the great corporations of America, and signed by the President of that institution: "Throughout this organization we try to cooperate with ourfriends in saving their time. We dorl't like to be kept rvaiting ourselves'. Please do not hesitate to ask how long it will be before you can see your man, or to ask a second time if necessary. OUR INFORMATION DESK IS A r have always .a.rooL"a .n"l ,rr" rural lumber yard handle and merchandise a good line of paints. I always shall. The reason is a most practical one- A splendid board, with a rotten coat of paint, is far inferior to all practical purposes to a much poorer board -with a fine coat o{ paint. People nowadays want dressed-up things,.- Thel judge greatly by appearanpe. The man who sells good lumber, and good paint to cover it, feels sure that his stock will still looli good when in actual use. Either he should sell the paint himself, or he sho'uld interest himself to see that his Lustomer gets good paint and a good painter.

Gladstone once said: "One example is worth a thousand arguments." And there is an old Chinese saying that: "One piCture is worth a thousand words."

They say that character is what vou ARE, and reputation is what people think about you. And that's true about your businesJ aJ wetl as yourself. A business must not only have a good character-it must have good repute. Its nam-e must carry a favorable impression when heard or read. Given a good character, the gooil reputation of a business can be built upon good service and good publicity. But it sometimes happenJthat the business possessing good character fails of iti utmost possibilities because its good characteristics-goods, serviie, integrity, €tc.,-31" not sufficiently well known. There are cobwebs across many business doors where the character is the very best. It requires service and publicity to make your character known to the world.

The same thing applies to architecture in the rural com' munity. A house ba&y planned, and unsightly as to architecture, cannot be saved by good rnaterials;'while poor materials may be built into beautiful shapes and attractively finished in a way that will attract praise and admiration. The modern lumber merchant must go much farther than the mere sald of his lumber. He must invade the question of its iuse. His plans and building ideas must back up his raw materials,. Remember, The Standard Oil Company does: more than sell you gas and oil. It does everything else it can think of to make yotr want to come back for more. And that's what the building trade lnust do more and more every day.

Every now and then you still hear some business man .say: "You've got to sell the public what it wants." How ridiculous, and how utterly thoughtless. The public can only want what it knpws about. The new things bring new desires. Progress depends on showing the public the thiqgs it can get that it hasn't wanted because they were- unknown. If they had simply sold the public its wants the grocers wouldstill be selling groceries in bulk, instead of attractive, clean packages. George Washington didn't want an automobilC because he never heard of one. Don't sell the public what it wants. Educate the public in the way it should go. Only in that path lies Progress.