V.gabond Editoriafs

By Jack Dionne

A man who started life as a bootblack has just been made an editor. ft goes to show that it doesn't pay to start life as a bootblack.

Business success today depends on getting a sufficient number of people to believing you have something they want. But just how to do that is the thing.

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' ft's hard to get through some people's heads just what is going on in this country in a business way. The world is liquidating. The man who is sitting tight and waiting for conditions of 1928 to come back is blocking to the best of his ability the very thing he is hoping for.

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There are a number of lines of business that have already emerged from the slough of despond and are beating back up the hill. And in every instance they are those that first saw the handwriting on the wall, realized what had to be done, assumed their liquidation, took their licking, got their feet on the ground, and began working like the Devil on the new level. r|.*{.

Those that have tried sitting on the high shelf and waiting for things to come back Up to them, will still be on that same shelf when this cruel war is over for most peo- ple. Good times will come back when every man has a job, and when the buying power of the dollar has lit somewhere.

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The request of the railroads for increased freight rates to take care of decreased revenue, is very interesting. Personally f don't believe the railroads want or expect to get, an increase in freight rates. My guess is that they want to be turned down on this increased rate request, so that they can demand the much wiser course of cutting expenses. Everyone else on earth has cut expenses to the bone. But the railroads have to pay their union employees the same rate as they did before the depression. And, since every dollar is worth considerably more in buying value than it was at that time, these men are getting a lot more pay than they used to, while the rest of the en_ tire world is getting a lot less.

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The railroads and railroad men must take their liquida- tion the same as the rest of the world. Nothing more serious could happen to the railroads than increased freight rates in times like these. I'm for the railroads. They are part of the solid foundation of our national life. And the way truck competition has been coming, increased freight rates would 6imply mean turning additional business over to the trucks. Give the railroads that rate increase and the truck factories would immediately put on a night run.

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Termites seem to be everywhere-their menace a gen_ eral and not a restricted thing. I asked an engineer where all these termites came from, and he said that they used to live in the woods and do their work on dead and fallen timber, and that they have simply followed the ,example of most of our people, and moved into town. Anyway, the termite menace has in the past very few years become a very real and genuine threat in almost every city; village and hamlet in this nation. Termite fighting has become a business in itself.

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The lumber industry is directly and vitally interested in this termite problem. It is OUR product that these tiny buzzards destroy. Our stewardship in the matter is undeniable. And it will grow more so every day, for the termite menace is rapidly spreading, and the menace to wood spreads with it. Those who fight the termites can do no more than destroy a colony where they find it localized, and then treat the building against a return of the Pestilence'

In the case of termites. an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. The interest of the lumber dealer is to be able to furnish the prevention when buildings in termite-infested districts are constructed, bv offering for sale materials so treated as to be immune from the attacks of the parasite. At the rate the termite danger is spreading, the time seems to be at hand when lumber and timbeis chemically treated for perfect prevention against this pest, must be available everywhere. Drety lumber yard will carry them. ***

Lots of faking is being done aready in the fight against the termites. Men have sold their services in termiteproofing who knew nothing about it. Buildings have been treated for termite prevention with paints and chemicals that offered no more resistance to termites than stick candy to a hungry child. The lumber dealer, in defense of his own business, will be called upon to inform himself on the

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