MODERN TRADE ASSOCIATION

By Sylvester L. Veaver President, Veaver-Ffenry Manufacturing Co. Los Angeles, Califotnia

Address prepared for the Annual Convention of the Lumbermen's Club of Arizona, held at Nog'lo, Arizona, lfvlay 17-19, 1929

IfI were able to be rvith you, 'vvhich I cannot, much to my regret, I could speak to you much more intimately, and discuss some of the present-day business problems, than I can through the written word.

I have enjoyed my visits in the past to the Arizona Lumbermen's Club so much, that it was a real personal loss this year that my several duties kept me alvay irom the convention. This year it would be my special wish to be with you as I have just returned from a month's trip in the Ebst, and would like to tell you in a conversational way of some of the deliberations attd conclusions of the national convention, which I attended at Washington, D. C., of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. I had the good fortune to be elected a member of the Resolutions Committee, and on that account was in the midst of a discussion on nearly all the larger problems that face American business.

I do not mean that you would necessarily be so much interested in chamber of commerce work, but as the keynote of the convention this year was "The Growing Responsibilities of Business," I feel that this responsibility is part- ly yours, and r,r'hile you were not at the ionvention, nivertheless a part of this great responsibility is on your shoulders and on your industry, in the splendid State of Arizona.

Greater industrial co-operation in a modern way was expressed as the saving grace of the commercial fabric of the United States. Manufacturing processes have become so proficient, and mass production so great, and the ambitious, vigorous and efficient management so keen, in their various positions, that without trade organization carrying a certain code of ethics, within the law and public interest, that no phase of modern industry could survive, but would break down from ill-considered and unfair competition.

A number of the most important contributions to the best American thought on the subject, was brought forward at Washington, where by the way I had the pleasure of meeting your national chief, President of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, who served on the Resolutions Committee with me, together with nine other men from various parts of the United States, whose duty it was to express the wisdom of the gathering in proper words, chosen to fit the occasion, and which met the approval of the threb thousand business men gathered at Washington, representing a total of sixteen hundred chambers of c-ommerce, and some ten thousand individual members. or a total of approximate,ly two million business men.

This gentleman, Mr. E. L. Carpenter, President, Shevlin, Carpenter & Clarke Company, Minneapolis, Minn., was elected the week before last to his second term as president of the National Lurmber Manufacturers Association, and it was a pleasure to meet Mr. Carpenter, and he and I became friends. I told him of my work with the lumbermen in the West, and particularly my pleasure in being a member o..{ lhe Lumbermen's Club of Arizona, and having the ac: quaintance of most of the men in the lumber business in Arizona, as well as the Pacific Coast States.

From some of the keynotes of this convention, which should appeal to each one of you men engaged in the lumber business in Arizona, one was emphasized by Julius H. Barnes, which I take the liberty of quoting:

"Organized business is today possessed of a larger measure of public confidence than ever before, largely as the result of such evidences of a growing confidence in business responsibility. It is for business leadership to maintain these standards; to make them a living and vital force in the field of business. In this field looms the future vast in possibilities of individual human welfare."

Paraphrasing Mr. Barnes, it is equally necessary for you men in your business life to maintain the prestige and the respect which the general public has for business, and not to lose even in the slightest way the prestige which business nationally holds in the public mind.

While much was said at Washington that was a r€fection of the views of the great national concerns, many of the problems and much of the wisdom can be applied to my own concern, the 'Weaver-Henry Corporation, and many others throughout the country, including Arizona.

It is estimated there are 1,300,000 retail outlets in the Qnited States. Invested in these enterprises. is approximately fifteen billions of dollars, which the annual sales approximate sixty billions of dollars per year. Engaged in these enterprises are some seven millioirs of people, and with their families and dependents, provide incomes for approximately thirty million of our population.

From these tremendous figures it is easy for each one of us here to see the importance of our part in the social and economic structure of the nation's business, and that no industry, not even a small part of it, can be out of step without in a sense jeopardizing the entire business mechanism. The retail field already feels the awakening which has come over American business in the last decade, and it islikely the necessity for better organized business in the next ten years, and the changes that will come upon us in the next decade, will be even mote keenly required than during the past generation.

There is more demand now, and it will continue even more keenly, for economy, efficiency and merchandising ability, and every policy in the past, whether it has been successful or not, should be scanned now in the light of modern methods and modern ideas, as to the value of such a policy, and regardless of the length of time of its service, if it does not measure with present ideas and code of ethics, it should be promptly discarded.

In many instances competitors do not respect each other or the activities of their separate establishments, notwithstanding that there is a truism that should become a part

(Continued on Page 16)