Vagabond Editorials

By JackDionne

I get a whale of a kick out of the things I hear about this lumber industry, even in times like these. The other day a lumber manufacturer talked to me about the poor merchandising of the average lumber dealer. He was very critical of dealer salesmanship. This mill man lives in a grand home. There is very little wood used in its construction. He couldn't sell himself wood for his own home, but he gave the dealer Hell because he doesn't sell lumber to all his to.wnspeople.

***

What is that good old Biblical quotation about the bird that could see so plainly the mote in the eye of his neighbor, but couldn't even see the beam in his own? Or the other fellow who strained at a gnat, but swallowed a camel? Some day when the entire lurnber industry gathers to. gether to hear me tell them how to sav€ their business, I am going to start in with suggestion No. One, as follows: ..TRY USING YOUR PRODUCT YOURSELVES.'' wouldn't it be great ; ;; lumberman's home and place of business were so built and arranged as to be a show windo,w for his business and his industry, so that all the world might see" and consider doing likewise? If f were going to make suggestions for saving this industry, I would start THERE. And, if the lumber industry wouldn't accept that suggestion, I would also STOP there. Because using youf, own goods, like charity, should BEGIN AT HOMF^

Let your imagination "rl"o.n"lu for a minute around. the thought of what great things might be if every lum.berman, everywhere, before building anything for himself, said to himself-"This building is the show window by which my business and my industry is to be judged."

I wrote a lumber au"turlr,l "lra"," town, whose name r won't mention, and asked how building conditions and prospects were. fle answered-"Building is practically at a standstill, and prospects very poor." Then I turned to a neq'spaper published in that little city and found that in exactly seven weeks' time $400,000 worth of automobiles had been sold there.

)8:k*

What f want to know is, is building material being undersold, or are automobiles being over-sold in that town? It would likewise be interesting to know what effort has been made to secure repairing, and remodeling busingss among the building owners of that town. I am very much afraid that the average lumber dealer is doing no more to make his business good now than he was when business was automatically good.

Recently, as previously related in this column, a prominent lumber manufacturer told the National Lumber Manufacturers Association convention in Chicago that the small dealer is the bulwark of all lurnber distribution and that his maintenance and protection is vital to the industry. Almost at the same time a lurnber journal in the Pacific Northwest comes out with a big editorial declaring that the present program and method of merchandising lumber is hopeless, and that the only salvation of the industry is for the mills to put in their own yards and merchandise their own lumber to the consumer. * tF {< rk

That journal declares that the great trouble with the industry is that the mill under the present system is forced to depend enlirely upon the dealer for the distribution and sale of his product, and that the average dealer is so reactionary and listless a merchant that lurnber is NOT being sold in anything like the volume that it could be, and the mill suffers in consequence. The mills are stoutly urged by that journal to save themselves before it is too late by forcing better distribution*of their products.

Of course, such suggestions, from a practical standpoint, are just an attenuated variety of wind pudding. There will be no dramatic change made in the distribution of our lumber. That there will be great changes made in the MERCHANDISING of our lumber, is something to be sincerely hoped and prayed for. We need to plan sonie way to keep the buildings of this land as up-to-date as its motor cars. When we do that, business will be good.

Speaking of the wonderful things that can be donp with wood brings to mind the co,rnrnon room in the Isadore Stralrss Memorial Dormitory at Harvard University. This is entirely a White Pine room, and the wood carvings in the room alone cost $aU,O!O. * *

Much has been printed of late concerning a motor car manufacturer who announces wood-less auto bodies to help save the forests. Things far from kindly have been said about him. A4d, if we are to cuss our enemies, why not praise our friends? The other day I saw a detailed display of Henry Ford's Lincoln car, showing the congtruction of the bodies. Never in my life have I seen good lumber more wonderfully used than in one of those closed bodies. A lover of wood can spend hours studying that demonstration, and the way in which wood has been cut and fitted to make a body that can turn over several times at high speed without squashing. More power to Henry. He knows how to make quality goods.

(Continued on Page 41)