Why Bite the Hand That Feeds You?

By Kenneth Smith' Secretary-Manager, The Lumber Dede$' Association of Los Angeles.

If y,ou are a retail lumber merchant why not confine your purchases to wholesale sources which you are sure are playing ball with y.ou? If you sell to retail lumber merchants why not confine your solicitation and sale to sound, well financed, reputable retail operators who are endeavoring to maintain profitable conditions in the distribution end of the business?

One continually hears retailers copplaining about the wholesale fraternity soliciting and selling the outright outlaw who will not piay ball with his fellows, makes no effort whatever to cooplraie with his neighbors and does everything possible to destroy profits for the industry. What the retail fraternity needs to recognize is that there are two sides to every question and that by looking at the other side he will find that the great majority of the wholesale fraternity have the good sense and business vision to realize that their division of the industry cannot enjoy sustained prosperity unless sound and profitable conditions are maintained in the distribution end of the business. Such men never sell the outlaw but they complain just as vociferously that the retail fraternity renders them no

Major Griggs Visits Bay

Major Evereti Griggs, president of the St. Paul & Tacoma-Lumber Co.. Ticoma, was in San Francisco recently on his way back from an Eastern trip.

thanks for doing all that they can to play ball with them and instead readily place their business with the very wholesaler of whose actions in selling the disturbing retailers they complain, whenever he may offer lumber at two-bits, four-bits or a dollar less than the going market.

I think that both the retail and the wholesale fraternities "grouse" more than isolated cases of a failure to play ball with one another justifies and that there is gradually developing a very fine spirit between these two divisions of the business in Southern California. I believe the great majority of the wholesale fraternity realize that when they seli the cutter they are sawing off the limb on which they are sitting and contributing to the ruination of the industry. On the oiher hand I believe that the great majority of the retail fraternity realize that when they buy from the wholesaler who does not play ball with them that they are themselves furnishing the means of supporting the ou'tlaw for the very simple reason that such wholesalers could not live without the business of the retailer who pays his bills on the due date.

The need is only for more constructive thinking and ac' tion. Why bite the hand that feeds you?

North Bend Mill Increases Production

Coos Bay Logging Co., North Bend, recently added a new edger to their equipment, and have increased their cut to 165,000 feet a day.