Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) follow-IS following-that same example. Panics are strange things. We go into them so overwhelmingly and irresistably; and come out of them with such vigor and unexpected agility.

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Right now every business man is entangled mentally in the meshes of the new federal recovery act. How to interpret it; what to do about it; how to appy it; how to understand the legal side of it. If these editorial efforts show symptoms of unusual dizziness, just charge it to the fact that I've been trying to understand this new act and its practical application. Don't understand that I'm opposed to it, or criticizing it. Far from it. I'm for everything that is being done to pull this nation out of the mire; and this recovery act has already done a great deal in that direction.

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In fact, deep down in my heart my personal conviction in the matter is that the greatest good-perhaps ALL the good-that is to come from the pronouncement of, preparation for, and effort to apply the provisions of this act to our business life, is the sort of good that is already being accomplished; the automatic, instinctive process of stimulation that the very passage of the act has had upon the public mind. You can see the efrects of it already upon every worth-while department of our industrial and commercial life; and it hasn't even begun to go into active effect yet.

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Everyone is now trying to decide the effect of the recovery act on intrastate business; how federal and state authority will blend or may clash, etc. So far, THIS much is certain. Nothing that the federal recovery act can provide will exempt you from compliance with the trust laws of your own state, wherever that state may be; and nowhere will the recovery act work abundantly except where the state legislatures have passed laws of emergency character, matching the federal act. In New York, for example, it is understood that the Attorney General's department has told business to go ahead and comply with the federal prograrn. But even this, so we are warned, is not safe immunity without legislative action. The best advice any business man can take in this matter is to keep in touch with developments, attend the meetings and listen to the discussions of your own kind, do the best you can to help things along, but do not traflsgress the laws of your own state. In THAT directfon alone lies safety.

Look at lumber! On March 15th, in the midst of the deepest doldrums American business history has any record of, I decided to be either a man or a monkey, and I announced the immediate coming of a greatly improved demand for lumber. It cam+quickly. - Thirty days later it was developing so rapidly that I vulgarly cried-"I told you so !" But I didn't khow the half of it, dearie ! Today we have one of the warmest lumber markets on record. From every direction, from every avenue of demand, has come the call for lumber. Nothing huge in any direction, but a decided improvement in every direction. And, with low mill stocks, low yard stocks, low industrial stockseverywhere, the thing happened. ***

Lumber has been going up. And as it goes up, the de. mand increases. And as the demand increases, lumber goes up."It is very temporary; it just goes to the assortment of stocks," came the cry. Far from it, old dear, far from it ! It is going into use. It is being sawed up and nailed up. AND, naturally, it is going to assort stocks. But I want to state that if you think it has just gone to filling in stock gaps and will soon be over, you're kidding yourself. The assortment of stocks, the filling in of stock gaps, hasn't even decently started. You naturally couldn't accomplish that purpose today if everyone who is short of lumber bought freely; we haven't the lumber to furnish. 't**

That is true of hardwoods as well as softwoods; it is true in the North, the East, and South, and the West. It is a general condition. Take hardwood flooring. The oak lumber from which hardwood flooring is made must be seasoned at least four months before being put into a dry kiln, to get quality results. The supply of that sort of oak is the smallest in history. The mills are cutting it now, of course, but it will be months before they can make flooring out of it. And by that time things will have hapPened' * * *

Another little prediction, friends. Watch out for a REAL lumber market in the coming fall ! Production is .{ being increased. Men are being put to work. By fall the wave of business, industrial, commercial, and financial improvemertt that is now started will have become a thing of size. Buying power will increase every day. Millions of men will have gone back to work. Other millions will have to work to supply the needs of those that are put to

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