Miff Prices of Lumber Reduced lOVo

Washington, D. C., July 16.-The Lumber Code Authority announced this afternoon that a new schedule of minimum cost protection prices will become effective next Friday. These prices will apply indefinitely and until modified by the Administrator. They are approximately 1O per cent less than hitherto prevailing mill and wholesale prices for all the lumber items ordi,narily used in house construction and cover 8O per cent of the lumber output.

Practically all grades of softwoods will be affected by the full amount of the reduction. Hardwoods, on the average, will not be so drastically reduced in prices as the softwoods, as a relatively small quantity of them is used in small.home building. Woodwork products are being reduced at least as much as lumber.

The prices to, be reduced are the carload, or wholesale, prices at the mill. The new schedules will carry price reductions in grades and sizes for most other purposes as well, such, for instance, as stock used in the manufacture of woocien packages.

"This action was taken by the Lumber Code Authority," according to John D. Tennant of Longview, Washington, Chairman of that body, "to aid the President in his efiort to stimulate construction activity by a revival of home building and modernization; lumber is the principal structural material of resideflces. The reduction was decided upon in principle a month ago, but effective decision was postponed until today, pending NRA approval."

New Prices Will Be Enforced

New price lists. it was stated, are now being printed and will be rushed with all possible dispatch to all Divi.sional'administrative agencies of the Authority.

The new prices are based upon an amendment to Article IX of the Lumber Code, which was approved today. Under that amendment the Administrator issued ar1 order declaring that the em€rg€ncli contemplated by the frmendment exists and promulgating and approving new: prices. This action is considered highly important, as it provides "a firm basis for the prosecution of price violators" and therefore insures general compliance with the new price schedules.

In brief, Article IX as amended authorizes the Administrator to declare an emergency in regard to the maintenance of the purposes and provisions. of the Lumber Code or of the National Industrial Recovery Act, whereupon he may "prescribe the f.o.b. mill and/or delivered reasonable costs and classifications of lumber and timber products" to be determined and established during the period of the emergency.

The emergency order issued today declares that the purposes and provisions of the Lumber Code and the Act are seriously endangered and directs the establishment and enforcement of the new prices. The Order directs that "no persons subject to the jurisdiction of said Code shall sell or offer to sell or othern'ise dispose of any products of the industries involved at less than the reasonable costs determined and today published by the Administrator."

Prices Entail Sacrifices

"This action by the Lumber Code Authority," said Mr. Tennant, "entails a great sacrifice by those operator's who are already selling their product at less than the cost of production on the present volume. The grades affected by the full amount of the reduction include approximately 80 per cent of all the lumber produced in the country. Our hope is that home-building will increase so rapidly that these new prices will be justified by the increased demand for lumber.

"The price reduction is particularly noteworthy when it is remembered that the lumber and timber products industries have suffered more than any other manufacturing group from financial difficulties arising out of th,e depression, which, incidentally, affected them long before industry in general felt the blow. ln I9D, when practically all manufacturing activity was carried on at a reasonable profit, the net income of the forest industries was only 2.2 per cent, approximately one-third of the general average. Our industry suffered a net loss of $120,00O,000 on gross business of $620,000,000 in 1931; and in 1932, f.or which vear exact statistics are not available, the losses were substantially greater.

"At the low point of the depression lumber prices dropped to 55 per cent of the 7926 level; today they are up by about the same percentage over the low, and are about the same as they were in 1930. Payrolls under the code have increased an average of about 115 per cent, and wages approximately 90 per cent over the pre-code period. The volume of business is about 5O per cent less now than in 1930.

Forest Conservation Required by Code

"On the first of June costs of production were increased by the incidence of rules of forest practice, written into the code to conserve the nation's forest resources. The industry took that momentous step without waiting for government to fulfill its complementary forestry obligations, and by this adventure in planned forest management does its part to assure to the people as a whole a perpetual supply of lumber and other forest products, continuous employment of the industry's hundreds of thousands of workers, and protection of the nation's water sources and watersheds. Permanence is contemplated for many communities which have looked forward to but a temporary existence, thereby saving millions of dollars in roads, schools, and other improvements r,r'hich would have been scrapped had population been forced to move elsewhere.

"The lumber and timber products industries, however, cordially make this further reduction of their cost protection minimum prices in their desire to help the President in his rvell-considered effort to stimulate th,e depressed heavy ir-rclustries through a revival of home building and modernization."

t

Oakland to Build One-Room Frame School Buildings

Plans have been approved by the Oakland board of education for the erection of 90 temporary one-room frame school buildings to house pupils of 11 city schools which have been declared either partly or rvholly unsafe as earthquake hazards. It is expected that the structures will be ready in time for the opening of the fall semester on September 4. The cost will be approximately $75,000.

The action of the board u'as taken as a result of a survey made of the city's schools, in accordance with a law enacted at the last session of the State Legislature, which increased the structural requirements of school buildings.

Housing Act Brings New Demands To Clean Up and Paint Up Bureau

Washington, July lo.-Despite midsummer heat, the recent signing of the National Housing Act by President Roosevelt, with the expectation that billions of dollars of private capital will be released for building, repair, modernizing, and construction purposes, and that millions of men in the building trades will be given work, has speeded up the activities of Clean Up and Paint Up Campaigners. Requests to the National Clean Up and Paint Up Campaign Bureau for service to local committees and to newspapers have been accelerated, and are increasing daily.

Already, during the first half of L934, prior to and without the aid of the National Housing Law, paint sales have reached the highest peak in several years, and results reported by Clean Up and Paint Up Campaigners have been uniformly enthusiastic. Now, with the added momentum of easier loans to property owners, it is logically anticipated that the curve of paint sales which normally trends downward in the last half of the year, rvill be fortified and elevated during the fall.

Installs Teletype

In order to give better service to its customers throughout the country, The Pacific Lumber Company has in. stalled teletype machines in its San Francisco, Scotia, Chicago and New York offices.

Because You Do Not Carry-BIG TIMBER3 PIy Wallboard-

A board that is low of cost, strong, and efrcient-A real help t6 many a horre owner to finish the attic, basement, gatage, childrents roomA good turn to him means PROFIT lo you.

THE SCHOLAR IN THE COUNTRY (New

York Herald-Tribune)

He never knew the world went by Outside his window. He was deep All day in things the Ancients said To men forgotten and long dead, And in his mind the quiet creep

Of present time lay down to sleep.

It was as though he found some spell Within those ancient books he read, That set his mind to musing on The people in the Parthenon; That made him cock his white old head To hear a sentence Plato read.

Folk sometimes saw him walking shy, At time of dusk along the street, But never spoke, as if they feared The words he whispered in his beard.

(Though like as not the words were meet

Enough when they were heard in Crete).

His nearest neighbors used to tell How driving past there late at night

After Grange meeting, they would see Against his window eerily

The flickering of the candlelight. They didn't think the man was right.

They had no doubt but he was well Enough in body for his years, But no one ought to live alone

Strange passages from dusty seers, Repeating in an undertone

Or hearing things nobody hears.

When May came dancing up the fields

One day, they saw him draw his chair

Out where the porch was white with sun

To sit and watch the orchard run

Down to the wall. Each tree was fair.

And blosso,ms drifted everywhere. And all the fragrant afternoon

They saw him dreaming, open-eyed, Where flickers flashed, and robins swung

In arcs whene snowy branches hung:

Until the grocer came, and cried, And woke him not. (The people tried

To say he fell into a swoon

That came to bring his eyes surcease

From too much beauty in one day

When Times Were Really Hard

"Don't talk to me about hard times. I was born 8 miles from a railroad, 5 miles from a school-house, 9 miles from a church, 885 miles from New York, 200 yards from a wash hole, and 15 feet from a cornfield.

tiOur nearest neighbors lived 2 miles away and they couldn't read or write. f never saw a suit of underwear until I was 17 years old and that revelation didn't belong to anybody in our family. The only books in the house were a Bible and a Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

"There were twelve members in our family, but you see we had three rooms to live in, including a dining room which was also the kitchen. Everybody worked at our house. We thought everybody else in the world had gravy and bread for breakfast, liver and cracklin' hoecake for dinner, buttermilk and corn pone for supper, because that was what we had.

"Some of us wore brogan shoes in the winter time. We had nice white shirts for summertime use. We slept on straw ticks, and pillows were not thought of nor required. I didn't know that money would rattle until f was nearly grown. Father got hold of two half dollars at the same time and let us hear them rattle. Taxes were no higher, but a lot harder to pay.

"We owned two kerosene lamps. Neither of them had a chimney. Our house wasn't ceiled, but two of our rooms had lofts in them. We had a glass window in our 'company room.' Otrr nicest piece of furniture was a homemade rocking chair. Our beds were of the slat or tightrope variety.

"We went to school two or three months in every year but not in a bus. We attended church every month, but not in a car. We used a two-mule wagon. We dressed up on Sunday, bnt not in silks and satins.

"We sapped our own molasses; \re ate our own meat; we considered rice a delicacy for only the preacher to eat; we had heard of cheese, but never saw any; we knew of some store-bought clothes but never hoped to wear any; we got a stick of candy and three raisins for Christmas and were happy; we loved Ma and Pa, and were never hungry, enjoyed going naked, didn't want much, expected nothing.

"And that's why our present so-called hard times ain't hard on me." (Author unknown.)

Of apple-blossoms, birds, and May.)

I think he died in thoughtful peace Walking an olive grove, in Greece.