Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

There was a surplus of power. and a plenitude of truth in the address which Dr. Wilson Cornpton, Secretary and Manager of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, made to the Board of Dit'ectors of that organization assembled in Chicago recently. Numerotrs practical and timely warnings and suggestions were offered in the course of his remarks.

But we can't agree with our learned friend, Dr. Compton, in his fundamental assumption that "The Lumber fndust{y is at the Cross-Roads." The lumber industry reached the cross-roads of which Dr. Compton speaks, many years ago. And it took the wrong road. It was the same old choice of roads that comes to every industry as it does to every man. The road to the right bore the sign-"Take this road and work out youl own salvation." It was uphill, rocky, winding, difficult.

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The road to the left looked wider, straighter, downhill, easier to travel. It was plainly marked in large letters"Take this road, for with the rapidly dwindling forests it is cet'tain to lead to abiding prosperity." And the lumber industry took the left hand road, Doctor Compton, and has been on it ever since.

And now, on the lumber association horizon, we find for the first time the word-RESEARCH. For several years this column has been continually driving away at the dire need for research, eqgineering and architectural development in the lumber industry. For several years the writer has been uttering that thought in every public lumber addness. Welcome-research ! You're not playing the part of the Prodigal, for you never were here before. To the lumber industry you are a brand new recruit-although a tried and seasoned veteran in other industrial armies.

But there is still .nn"*"n, 1", n"*" variation of opinion as to what research work for the lumber industry means, and on that rock our ship may still crumble, even though we may have agreed upon the necessity and desirability of research activities. A couple of years ago when I cried aloud in this column because of the utter dearth of research work in the lumber industry, an officer of a lumber organization hurled the "short and ugly" in my teeth, reminding me of the U. S. Forest Products Laboratory at Madison,Wisconsin. * * *

The Forest Products Laboratory is a splendid institution that has done and is doing admirtable work along its chosen lines. Butthatis NOT the line of work that we have in mind when we talk of the need of research and engineering; that is NOT the kind of work the auto industry, the steel industry, the electrical industry, the radio industry, and others, mean, when they talk of creating business through research and engineeding' And it is NOT the thing for need of which this great lumber industry, wanting wisdom, has drained to the deepest dregs the chalice of business bitterness.

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When we say that the lumber industry cries to high heaven for the help of research, we mean for such work as brought to the auto industry in the past few years such saving, rejuvenating, rehabilitating innovations as: balloon tires; shock absorbers; weather and sun-proof paint; stainless metal finishings; four-wheel brakes; immeasurably imprroved carburetion, ignition, and compression; hundreds upon hundreds of improvements and refinements to body building, motor building, steeriqg, stopping, starting, protecting - - - in fact, everything. No single spot or phase of auto construction today isnot amazingly in advance of a few short years ago.

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You can go into the other big industries and cite practically the same type of advancement. All because of the coordinated intelligence back of the industry as we see it, that does nothing but seek and seek and search eternally for new thoughts, new things, new methods, new ways' of interesting and serving the public to the end that the public will exchange its dollars for their goods.

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,tO of waging relentless warfare against the continually downward progress of the lumber industry, this column sounds solemn warlring that the road it has been following leads only to oblivion; that it faces the imperative necessity of back-tracking up the hill to the cross-road that it mis-chose so long ago, and turning finally toward that signboard that still reads-and always shall-"Take this road and work out your own salvation.t'

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