Random Editorial Ramblings

By Jack Dionne

The endurance flight record of those St. Louis boys doesn't compare wittr thb record of .lots of the Mr. Pip's I know in the retail lumber business. They stay just like they are, without any change of any sort in their business,'and they stay that way year after year, while all the world around them moves forward. They just keep circling the field, and their powers of endurance is second only to those of the unfortunate people in their towns who are denied modern buildirig service because they keep live folks out.

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A writer in Collien's says that the residential construction for each person added to the population in 1913 was 149 square feet, and that this has grown today to 286 square feet, just as though we were increasing the floor space of each individual from a 12 by 12 toa 16 by 16 foot room. That's the rate we're fixing for our children, according to this writer. It's an interesting thought. He says that the slums are on their way out, which is one of the big reasons for the change.

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Speaking of changes that are taking place in our homes and in our home life, statistics show that the American home is consuming one million new electrically operated washing machines every year. *

We are spending ten times as much money every year now for high school buildings, as we were spending before the World War. In 1913 we spent $69,000,000 for new high schools, and in 1928 we sfnl $:98,000,000.

Twenty years ago there was one automobile in the United States for every 265 people. Today you can put every living human in the country into our motor cars, and take them for a ride' * :r )r

About one fourth of all the automobiles purchased in the United States today are bought by that class of our population designated as "laborers" and "artisans". "salesmen and clerks" buy about twenty per cent of the total. It isn't a rich man's game any more, this buying cars. About half of our cars are beinB paid*folo"j of wages and salaries.

This shows how wise are these automobile manufacturrrs. There are three million men working in the automobile business in the United States today, and other working men are keeping them in jobs by buying half of their production. Every. time the autornobile manufacturers raise wages of nrechanics they increase the purchasing power to buy cars, and thereby add to their sales, because they have learned that the more money you put into the pocket of the worker, the more cars he buys.* rt would appear that t; Jorlro,., influx of the icebox that makes its own ice would be destroying the people who manufacture ice and sell it to the public. On the contrary the ice business has been getting better, also. Why? People are just learning to use ice. In the old days it was a luxury, used by few. Today it is a necessity, used by nearly everyone. One of the most interesting business talks I have heard of late was by the operator of a string of ice plants, telling how he has greatly increased his business by a skillful and systematic campaign to teach people to use more ice.

Can yotr imagine the lumber people of the country working out a plan for continually boosting the wages of their workers so that the power to buy homes and other buildings wotrld be increased? Yet General Motors has found that the only wise way to cut costs is to raise wages. Just different ways of looking at it, isn't it?

In the industries-such as the automobil+that employ skilled mechanics, it is found that between 1919 and 1929, thanks to continually improved machinery and methods, each wage earner is producing 53.5 per cent more than he did at the beginning of the decade mentioned, and that there has been a decreased cost in his production per unit of. 24.5 per cent.

In 1913 only one home in every five in the United States, was electrically wired. Today only one home in every eight in the country isNOT wired. In 1913 two homes out of every three in the United States vyere without a bathtub; today only one home in seven lacks that great convenience.

You look about you at J" ;rr;, and everyone is creating something. Everyone is working out plans for making their business more interesting, more useful, more beneficial, to the end that more people will USE their products. Are we keeping up, we folks in the lumber business, and in its various branches? Are we learning new thoughts and new things, and putting them into practice? I wonder.

Americans are the world's big consumers of paper. The per capita consumption of paper among the leading

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