Recovery Administration Holds Lumber Code Hearings-Code Approval Expected Soon

Washington, July 27.-The Emergency National Committee of the lumber and timber products industries, now officially known as the Lumber Code Authority, has been almost continuously in session here since July 10, or in attendance at the lumber code hearing, which began before Deputy Administrator Cates on July 20. The Committee has had an infinite amo{rnt of business to attend to besides that of expounding and defending the lumber code, including alterations in the code proper, changes in rules and regulations under it. and adjustments of the Code of Fair Practices governing the relations among manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors. It has also had the tedious work of examining and passing upon the numerous division supplements. The Committee. virtually concluded its formal presentation on Jaly 22. j

On July 2l,lohn D. Tennant, chairman of the Committee, submitted on behalf of it a proposal that, without prejudice to final determination, the Administration order into effect the proposed wages and hours provisions of the code. Mr. Tennant said that forced production on a large scale was going on in many mills in order to accumulate large stocks before wages and hours schedules should become effective. This proposal was taken under consideration and was later denied. It is currently reported that the minimum wage rate will be fixed at 32 Cents an hour. President Roosevelt is expected to proclaim the code at an early date.

The hearings have been conducted by Deputy Recovery Administrator Dudley Cates, who has been assisted by M. W. Stark, Assistant to the Administrator; Laird Bell, Industry Advisor to the Administrator; Leo Wolman, Labor Advisor to the Administrator, and W. W. Cumberland, Economic Advisor to the Administrator. They have been held in the Auditorium of the Department of Commerce and have aroused much publi.c interest, the average attendance being from 300 to 500, including many lumbermen. Examination of witnesses has been sear,ching and detailed.

Mr. Cates'Statement

"I am informed that this ,code and preparation of it represents a degree of cooperation unprecedented in an industry", said Mr. Cates in ,calling the initial session to order, "which has been noted in the past for its high degree of individualism. It might be symbolized by the 'Lone Wolf.' This code is the first presented by one of the great natural resource industries and it proposes not only new standards of hours and wages for labor, but also the proposed control of production and price-protections. fhol: are very serious aspects of any plan for industrial selfgovernment because the control of produ,ction and price features under the plan proposed by the industry is left toit. The burden -of .proof is necessarily on the industry

Economic Background

C. Arthur Bru.ce, acting executive officer, outlined the program of the Committee's presentation of data bearing on the code. He then called on Dr. Compton to present the economic background of the code. Dr. Compton said that the fundamental economic condition of the lumber and timber products industries was perilous. "In timber ownership and in these industries and in the distribution of their products are invested 10 billion dollars. They ordinarily furnish employment to hundreds of thousands of men in regions which often furnish no other industry employment. Upon them largely depend the industrial de- velopment and the permanent productive use of a fourth of the land area of the United States. The national timber supply, not including the new growth, which is extensive and fast increasing, is sufficient to sustain for more than 100 years the averale rate of lumber-production during the past two years, and for half a century at the average rate of the past ten years." After remarking that national lumber consumption during the past five years has fallen Lrom 37 billion feet to less than 12 billion feet, and that wages to labor represent a substantially greater percentage of the price which the public pays for lumber than for the principal other materials, Compton added. "Our industries cannot pay higher labor costs without, concurrently, the increased means, through higher prices or more trade, of paying them. But prices sufficient to pay more wages cannot be established in the market merely because we so decree. They can be established only, if and as the public can pay."

In reference to employment, Dr. Compton pointed out that the number of men employed in the sawmills per thousand feet of lumber produced was 49 per cent greater in 1932 than in 1929. He estimated that the proposed wage and labor schedules would, rvhen in full effect, add 131, 000 men to the industry's pay rolls, including 57,000 in the South and 74,ffi in the West, North and East.

Sustained Yield Pro,posal

On a later occasion Dr. Compton (David T. Mason speaking for him) reviewed the correspondence between the National Lumber Manufacturers Association and Secretary of Agri'culture Wallace, in regard to Article X of the Code, dealing with conservation and sustained production of forest resources. This Article, slightly changed from its original form, is as follows:

"Art. X-The applicant industries undertake, in cooperation with the public and other agencies, to carry out such practicable measures as may be necessary for the declared purposes of this Code in respect of conservation and sustained production of forest resources. Such cooperation involves the assumption of substantial obligations by said public agencies and by said industries. The applicant industries shall forthwith request a conference with the Secretary of Agri'culture and such State and other public and other agencies as he may designate. Said conference shall be requested to make to the Secretary of Agriculture recommendations of public measures, with the request that he transmit them, with his recommendations, to the President; and to make recommendations for industrial action to the Lumber Code Authority, Inc., which shall promptly take' such action. and. shall submit to the President such supplements to this Code, as it determines to be necessary and feasible to give effect to said declared purpose. Such supplements shall provide for the initiation and administration of said measures necessary for the conservation and sustained production of foresl resources, by the industries within each Division, in cooperation with the appropriate State and Federal authorities; and shall provide steps necessary to secure prompt change of systems of local taxation of forest property as will aid in preventing the wasteful exploitation of timber."

This part of the code has been watched with intense interest by the various agencies and organizations interested in forest conservation; and that it is satisfactory to them is evidenced by the fact that no objection was taken to it during the hearings.

. General Johnson Speaks

When General Johnson was introduced to the meeting he was received with a loud applause, to which he grimly responded by saying: "Maybe you had better save that until you see what you get." The General described the depression as "a hellish thing" that was worse in physical suffering and material loss than anything the country experienced in the War. There seemed to be, he said, an emergence from the depression, but the rapid rise in retail prices-"more rapid than any we have svsl trad"-was far ahead of any similar rise in purchasing and consuming power. The purpose of the National Recovery Administration was to bring up purchasing power rapidly. Gen. Johnson described the plan of attack on the depression as peculiarly President Roosevelt's own personal concept.

"I am not here to talk to you", he said, "for the purpose of exhortation so far as this code is concerned, be,cause we will not permit exhortation and harangue from anybody. We have no right to indulge in exhortation and harangue on our part, and if this seems to fall in any such line as that it is because in the execution of this Act we feel so strongly the principles that are being developed that it seems to me almost a duty to come here and try to expose to the extent I can, not the details of the execution, but its capacity, the fundamentals that are being demonstrated almost hourly as to the possibilities and opportunities that are open here for industry and for the workers in industry. The primary purpose of the Act is to raise conditions of the workers for a social purpose in a degraded world (in an economic sense)-that purpose is the absolute aim of self-preservation.

"What I mean is this: There exists in the United States one hundred and twenty-five million people, all within one boundary so far as customs are concerned, and I mean by that tariffs, trade barriers; those people have been trained to the greatest consumptive capacity, man for man, of any people in the world, and the thing that has held us back has been disparities. If you could build up that purchasing and consuming power by the erasure of the principal disparities, then we would have an industrial prospcrity in this country such as we have never even seen or dreamed of.

"The principal disparities are not hard to seek. There are two principal ones; one is the condition of agri'culture, which for a variety of reasons has been a disparity with us for a great many years. The other is very obvious, this terrific condition of unemployment in this iountry, and the lack of adjustment of workers' income to the goods they are supposed to consume."

Restrictions qr New Mills

After formal presentation of the code by Mr. Tennant, Col. W. B. Greeley, secretary-manager of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, discussed "Proposed Methods of Production Control and Allocation." Following his presentation of the problem, Col. Greeley said:

"IJnless the aggregate production can be kept in balance with current demand the industry will be thrown back into chaos, and another wave of unemployment or dislocation of labor will set in. To meet this situation, the code", he said, "proposed to empower the Lumber Code Authority to authorize restrictions upon new mill installations in the various divisions where necessary, this power to cease whenever the Recovery Administrator may find that present capacity is insufficient to supply demand."

An "appalling record of idle sawmill capacity" was submitted as eviden'ce for the necessity for such authority. That authority will assign production quotas to the various divisions by suitable periods based upon anticipated consumption and substantially in the ratio of their former shipments, respectively, over representative periods. Within each division quotas will be allocated to the individual

(Continued on Page 22)

REDWOOD l"''ff""iP"Rfll

DURABLE ECONOMICAL EASY TO ERECT FIRE RETARDENT NO TASTE OR ODOR

Redwood possesseo characteristics unsurpassed by any other material for the construction of Mining Tmks, lVater Tanks, Oil Tanks, Beer and rtr7ine Tanls. Because of its durability and f,re retardance it will outlast any other tanL. The low cost price of Redwood tanks, the ease of erection and transpcrtation makes them an all around economical tanL and because Redwood has no taste or odor, it makes the most practical container for any liquid from milk to oil.

The handiest tool around the yard for-rippingt bevel-angle and cross cattting

Ta&e the tool to the lunbet pil+ Save that coctly handlingSave those ehort lengths-

See A Demonstration

Table Sawc - Jointers - Glue Pou

Band Sawc - Vood Lath€s - Shapers

Flexible Shafts - Grinders - Sanderc

Concrete Surfaces - Electric Drille