Vagabond Editorials

By JackDionne

Everybody is asking everybody else how long this business depression is going to last, and what the lumber in_ dustry has to expect for the next week, month, and year. ft's all they think about, naturally.. Which reminds me of a story that Ray Wiess, Sales Manager for The Kirby Lumber Company, has been teLling for many years. It,s easily the best story of its kind I ever heard, and very frequently when some lumber friend insists on knowing what I think of the immediate future of the industry, I tell them Ray's story.

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He was at Saratoga one season, taking in the races, in company with a big, smiling, jovial Texan. They played the races, and got acquainted with a certain bookie whom they liked, and to whom ,they gave their business. One day there was a Whitney horse in a certain race that was coming up. To this bookie the two Texans went, and the big, smiling one said to him, confidentially: .,Listen, old fellow, is this Whitney horse going to win this race?" And a look of great longing came over the wise face of the gambling man, as he answered: "Friend-THAT'S ALL I'D EVER WANT TO KNOW.''

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However, it looks like we'll all have to wait and see what will develop, and do the best we can in the meantime. Let us hope that from the bitterness of the situation thej lumber industry learns something about helping itself. Unless it does, the lesson will have been in vain. perhaps you've heard the story of the farmer who had the three big hound dogs. Times got hard, the farmer got very poor, and he called the three dogs in, and taid the facts before them. They were named Merchant, Lawyer, and Lumberman. He told them how things were, and that from then on they would*have to rustle for their grub.

Immediately Merchant rushed out the door, and in five minutes he came trotting proudly back into the yard with a big rabbit in his mouth. When Lawyer saw this, he rushed at Merchant and tore a big half of the rabbit away from him, and fell to dwouring it. "Andr what," a friend ast<ed the Farmer, "did Lumberrnan do?" "Oh," replied the Farmer, "He just sat o'n his tail and howled."

*tF:F ff f were in the retail lumber business right now, and there was anything in the lin-e of building materials that I didn't se[, f'd start selling them right now. If there ever was a time when the lumber dealer needed to get every possible drop of business out of his territory, it's NOW.

The Lumber dealer who doesn't sell white and green paint-if no other colors-in the springtime of the year, is simply flying in the face of Providertce, and refusing help where help is easy to get. Because spring and early summer is white and green paint tirne. Those are the two great colors that make wooden things look bright, and fresh, and clean, and nerr, and this is the time to be bright- ening up. The dealer who is trynng to help himself through a time of depressio..* by improving, and repairing, and remodeling the buildings of his territory, just can't do it successfully without PAINT. For paint is absolutely a fundamental of the thought o;,f renair and improve.

So, if you haven't some paint,'Mr. Dealer, and yotr earnestly desire to continue eating through this year, go out and get you some paint, and go to selling it. Thp fellow with the old home may not be a possible prospect for a new one this year, but almost any kind of a salesmgtr can sell him a gallon or two of fresh paint to take the dinginess off. And the small order is the thing that's going to take the lumber dealer through ant: t:rt;"nd don't you forget it.

To hear a lot of lumber manufacturers talk in times like these you would think the lumber industry was the only basic business that was being crowded in its particular field by the substitutes. Such men should talk to some smart man who makes bread for a living, and they will find that when i,t comes to substitution and. mod"ernized competition, lumber is getting off very, very lightly. The good old "staff of life" is sure getting a run for its money. Thousands of modern articles and fashions of food have , come in to compete.for the business of the human appe- tite. And diet has come, which generally forbids bread. And abstenance has come, with the millions of people who are trying to cut down on their eating. When you get to thinking that the world has turned against lumber (as you sometimes will in times like these) think of the bread business. And there will always be plenty of bread, just as there will always O" Ot;."y of lumber. Don't doubt it.

"There are too many lumber yards', is a remark you frequently hear, when the lumber business is discussed. I never heard anyone say yet that there were too many gas filling stations, and yet, by comparison with gas stations retail lumber yards ale mighty scarce articles.

There is a lumber yard in the United States for each 4,000 people. There is a gas station for each 360 peo-

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