Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

THE NEED OF THE HOUR IS COURAGE.

*:8*

If all of us could forget for a few days how hard times are, and go out and hit the ball just as though times were good -THEY WOULD BE.

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We all know that a man can start down the street feeling like a million dollars; and let three men take turns telling him how ill he looks and he'll probably be laid up for a week. That's what has happened to this country of late. We have all been so busy feeding each other pessimism that it's made us all sick. The old Devil FEAR-the daddy of all dangerous germs-h""*tolaul hold of us.

A friend who just returned from a long cross-country drive over several states, was amazed at the pessimism he found when he got back to the big city. In the counfty, and in the small towns, he found everyone busy, everyone interested in the crop situation, everyone intent on their own affairs, and he just decided that everything was all right. It was when he got back to where too many people rub elbows and exchange dubio,us opinions that he discovered that business -"r O"*U. * *

We need a national tonic of minding our own business, keeping our mouths shut, and working like HellenBellappy, We tell each other how dangerous conditions a!e, and we scare each other into hanging onto every nickle. So we don't spend anything, and naturally when no one spends, no one sells. And when no one buys or sells, there is no need for anyone to make anything, and the industrial wheels stop turning. That's the sort o,f fix we're getting this country into with our mouths. A little less talk, and a lot more work, and we'd soon be climbing*the hill.

Every run on a bank is caused by loose tongues. Every business depression starts that same way. The Stippich Lumber Company, of Wichita, Kansas, has a splendid idea. They have been mailing out pledge cards. You make the pledge to yourself. You agree with yourself that you will not talk pessimism of any kind to anyone, for a week. If the nation would take and keep such a pledge, the business sun would soon be shining. * *

Cheer up ! Console yo'urself with the thought that some of these fine days there will again be a good lumber market, normalcy will prevail in buying and selling, timber will a-ain be in demand, and the "good old days" will come back. They WILL. Don't doubt it. You can't stop them. The pendulum always swings. It's the result of inexorable law. The lumber business will live, and smile, and go on its way. And-doubtless-we will be so sure that the Lord takes care of us that we will make as little preparation for the next depression as we have for this one.

A letter from a very keen lumbermpn, R. W. Wetmore, Secretary of the Shevlin, Carpenter & Ctarke Company, one of the biggest milling concdrns in the nation, says: "The law of the survival of the fittest is the order of the day, as it has been since the beginning of time, and I think that the law is functioning today, throughout the industfial world, a lot more severely and heartlessly than it ever has before in the history of our industrial progress." Yes, the 'law of tooth and fang, the competition of the jungle, is with us today as never before.

I am somewrrat stepticlt "lo,L an", word ..fittes t,', anyway. If times of business stress served to eliminate the less useiul specimens of the species, and to strengthen those of useful and admirable qualities, a panic now and then would be welcomed. But it seems that "fittest" doesn't mean "best". It means "toughest" in many cases. When these business storms blow over the institutiong and personalities we could get along well without, are generally found still on the job. It's the "good that die young", with business as well as humans. it would seem. :t rt :8

The retailer who believes that his business consists of stocking building materials and selling them to people who ask for them; and the manufacturer who considers that when he has turned his trees into lumber and then shipped it to some dealer hd has done all that should be expected of him; both are in the same class. Both are liabilities to the industry.

)k :k :k rl**

In times like these you hear plenty of recriminations. The majority seem to get their exercisc by jumping on the other fellow-energy that could well be used to help along the situation. By mail, and by the spoken word, there come to me criticisms of lumber people, from lumber people. The buck passing still goes on. This is still the buck passing industry.

Dealers tell me that lumber catches more Hell than other industries in times like these because the manufacturers do so little constructive work for their own busine_ss. Mill men tell me that the weak spotl in the whole situation is that the dealer doesn't try to sell lumber, and, since lumber can only be sold through the dealer, lumber sales are slow. And mill men tell me the weaknesses of the manufacturing department; while dealers tell me the frailties of other dealers. The file before me today is an interestin-g one.

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