V.sabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

If at any time since he took office there has been in my mind any faint doubt as to the true greatness of Franklin Roosevelt, that doubt disappeared as a mist-cloud before the glare oJ the noonday sun when he appeared before the American Legion convention and made that heroic speech. For it'WAS heroic. He had the courage, the understanding, and the magnificent appeal to put that message over. I doubt if any other President since George Washington could have accomplished it. The charm, and the convincing greatness of the man, alone made such a demonstration possible.

I long for good things for the lumber industry as unsel'fishly as the young lady who was saying her prayers before retiring at night. She said: "Oh Lord, I don't ask anything for myself, but please send father a good son-in-law."

For when the lumber irrl.rJrr-."ts-r eat; when it prospers-I prosper; and when it starves-I take up another notch in the old belt, too. And, Oh Lord, it doesn't seem like just four years; it seems like four centuries since those "poke chops an'candied yam days."

!f rf :f

Which reminds me of the following determination I have made, from which I shall NOT be turned: That when this depression is over there shall be printed and framed under glass and given a permanent place upon the walls of the offices of this publication a list of those devoted friends whose continued patronage through times of doubt and despair have made the continued life of this publication possible; and without whom this journal would long since have passed into the discard. Yes sir ! And with that list there shall be shown a declaration of my gratitude. And a copy of same shall be done in order that in the halcyon days that are to follow, I shall not be in danger of committing the too human sin of forgetting. Ingrate I am NOT ! And that fact I propose to demonstrate in very public fashion, when the time comes. You shall see. **,1.

Regardless of your opinion as to what the condition of business generally may be at this time, you will have to admit that the strike business is booming. ***

"Whatr" I asked a wise man, "is a 'parlor socialist'?" "I am not certain that I know," he replied. "But I imagine that a parlor socialist is a man who would plow under ripe cotton in a world where millions of people are naked, and destroy young hogs and sows in a world where millions are hungry." "That," said I, "has all the earmarks of a dirty dig." :r ,.< :N<

I have never seen a time when the publicly and privately expressed opinions of all men on the pertinent things of the hour seemed so widely at variance. You know what I mean. *rr*

Well, folks, looks like we've got pretty near everything we need right now in the lumber business. We've got a code, we've got rules and regulations, we've got allowables, we've got minimum prices, and we've got the Government in partnership with us in business. Now all on earth we need to make us happy and our business prosper is a few million people with a desire to buy lumber, and the money to pay for it. That's really all we need.

Naturally there comes to mind the famous remark of General Sherman to the effect that a better population and more rain was all that Hell needed. Which reminds me of what a famous old Southern stage actor said to General Sherman once. Years after the civil war ended this actor, playing in a Southern city, was told that General Sherman was in the audience. When he appeared for a curtain talk he called attention to the distinguished visitor. "I am proud to have General Sherman here tonight," he said. "We Southern folks think General Sherman is a mighty fins rnsn-s little careless with fire, perhaps, but a fine man.t'

I'll tell you now how to end the depression-pronto. Offer prospective and desirous home owners homes on the same terms the Government is offering to finance public works, that is, thirty years to pay at 4 per cent interest. You wouldn't need that length of time. Sell them homes at 4 per cent interest with fifteen years to pay, and two million people will accept the proposition. It wiU take ten million people a year to build these homes, and countless other millions to produce and deliver the materials. And the Government would get most of its money back. How about it? Wouldn't it work?

Heard a grand selling story the other day. Two farm

Business MUST be improving. Every day we read of strikers walking ofr their iobs. A year ago they had no jobs to walk off of. And many of these same strikers were saying to themselves a year ago-"If I ever DO get an- wagons, each presided over by a farm woman' were side by other job I'rn going to stick to it the rest of my life." The side in a farmers' market. Both wagons were loaded with memory of man is short. new potatoes. A shopper approached'and asked the near- est farm wornan the price of potatoes. She answered that they were a dollar and a quarter a bag. ,,Goodness !,' exclaimed the shopper, "that's awfully high, isn't it?" ,.potatoes have gone up," replied the farm woman. The shopper passed on. {.*:F

But she stopped at the next wagon, and asked the price of potatoes. The farm woman had heard the other conversation, and she was ready. "These are specially fine potatoes, ma'am," she said. "They are the best potatoes for all sorts of eating that I know of. They're the small-eye type that save a lot of waste in peeling. The skin is unusually thin. A bag of these potatoes is a bag of food, not of potato skin and waste. In each bag you will find two sizes, large ones for boiling and smaller ones for baking. The baking size must not be too large, so that they will bake all the way through, quickly, and save gas. We wash all our potatoes before sacking them. They are ready to cook when they come out of the sack. And you don't buy any dirt. I am askirrg a dollar and a half a bag for themand thby're worth it." Now don't tell me that shopper didn't buy those potatoes.

When I first met Dick J".:J in the otd Arkansas days, he used to tell a story just like that about two apple raisers in Arkansas. One threw an apple to a prospect, and said, "Try it." The other polished the apple, and made a delightful sales talk about its quality, its color, its taste. and its usefulness, before handing it in distinctive manner to the prospect to bite.

Funny how an idea will worry some intelligent men ! I know men who almost have a fit every time they get hold of a new and interesting idea. They worry it like a cat worries a captured rnouse. They won't grab it and shake the living lights out of it. They just nibble it to death; nag it to pieces.

"Nobody ever got a wrecked truck out of a ditch by citing precedents," is credited to H. I. phillips. Right enough. Nor did anyone ever get one out by repeating over and over "Everything's going to be all right." I'm often reminded of the big league baseball pitcher whose splendid ability was continually impeded by a high state of nervousness in time of stress. So he took a course of in_ struction in how to cure nervousness. The next time he was pitching and felt the high tension pressure coming on him, he began repeating his formula: .,I WILL be calm; I MUST be calm; I AM calm; GREAT GOD HOW CALM I AM !'' l€**

Public opinion is largely a matter of prejudice, rather than fact. During the world war we raised our hands in horror at tales of German atrocities. Following the war that feeling dimmed. Many stories were denied. Many contradicted. Time heals wounds-softens memories. \Me have got to thinking we must have been mistaken about Germany. Today our suspicions are re-awakened. Germany is reported guilty of as deep hellaciousness today as during the world war. Most of us have decided that France was right when, at the making of the treaty of Versailles it was protested that France was too severe on Germany, France replied-..You don't know Germany." Today, as following the war, Germany denies many things. But the civilized people of the world reply-,.How can we believe what you SAY, when what you DO thunders in our ears?"

*{.*

Heard a great line the other day. We were discussing a certain man who has been developing a constantly growing ego, which he manifests in his business affairs by making himself difficult to approach, etc. You have to contact him through a series of secretaries, and other middle men and women. That's his idea of acting the big man. I re_ marked, in this conversation, that f had never met a really big man who was hard to get at; that it is the little man trying to act big that always pulls that stunt. Whereat one of my companions, an old railroad man, remarked: "Sure ! It's always that way. The smaller the station. the bigger the agent !"