"Whose Ox Gored" Is

By Jack Dionne

Doesn't it make a lot of difference in this world "tvhose ox is gored ?"

On July 15th we published in this journal an editorial concerning the effects of the terrible quake at Santa Barbara, and we remarked with pardonable pride that "The wooden buildings stood."

That editorial was not intended as a knock for any other building material, and said so. But wood had done yeoman service at Santa Barbara, and it was nothing but just that we should say so.

Had we failed to do so rve rvould have failed in our duty towards the industry we serve and rvhich supports us, and to the lumbeimen to rvhose loyalty we owe our existence.

We received one letter protesting against that editorial. The writer of that letter said that he was NOT a maker of bricks, but protested against our implied suggestion that bricks did not do very well in the Santa Barbara terror.

It was NOT an unkind letter. nor a mean letter. It was a kindly and gentlemanly letter, and we replied to it in kind, of course. But the writer expressed his surprise and regret that"The California Lumber Merchant" had seen fit to apparently raise a cry of commercialism concerning the Santa Barbara smash.

THAT thought impressed us very much.

We remember so well when Berkeley began rebuilding from that terrific conflagration of flame several years ago, how full page advertisements in the newspapers in that stricken city attacked the use of wooden construction. We remember the pictures they ran of the smoking ruins of wooden homes, and rve remember that caption,-"Qnty the brick chimneys stood."

And the writer remembers many other fires within his memory, every one of which was followed immediately by an open attack of that same character, on wooden construction.

IN FACT WE NEVER KNEW IT TO FAIL IN A SINGLE INSTANCE.

Dozens upon dozens of times in the past twenty years the rvriter has seen attacks upon wooden buildings come in the shape of rates, restrictions, proscriptions, etc., and in every single case when we had run it down, we found one of the same gang sitting at the end of the trail.

Really, it would have been less than human had the lumber interests spoken no word onthe subject, when the shoe appeared on the other foot in such manner that all men might see, and when the other fellow's ox was the one that was gored.

So, remembering those ads at Berkeley, we said with regard to Santa Barbara, "Only the brick chimneys fell down in the wooden houses." And that rvas true. in hundreds o.f cases.

And when we got that letter which we are now referring to, we wondered down in our hearts what the other side would have said had the tables been reversed, had the brick buildings stood, and the wooden buildings fallen, at Santa Barbara.

In the light of past experiences in California and everyrvhere else, there is little chance to wonder.

With the tremendous affair at Santa Barbara as a living illustration, we said far,far less against brick, than the brick people, without any provocative of any sort, have been saying in their California literature this year.

The "California Lumber Merchant" has no quarrel with brick. Nor with any other sort of building material that is striving to help the human race solve their building problems.

But it likewise believes in the lumber industry, in the usefulness of wood, and in its right to exist. It knows that rvood minds its own business better than any other bullding material, and only asks to be let alone.

And it only asks a square deal for lumber, and promises every other material as fair a deal in the columns as it gives wood, and as those materials give wood.

Jusf the golden rule is all.

Mernber Mills:

Albton Lumber Company

Caspar Lumber Company

Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Co.

Glen Blalr Redwood Co.

Hammond Lumber Company

J. R. Hanify Company

Hobbs, Wall & Company

Holmes Eureka Lumber Co.

Llttle River Redwood Co.

Mendocino Lumber Co.

Northwestern Redwood Co.

Redwood Manufacturers Co.

The Paclftc Lumber Co.

Unlon Lumber Qompany