Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

Settlement, temporarily, at least, of the labor troubles affecting Pacific Coast shipping, relieves for the moment the darkest cloud hanging over the general lumber situation. Had the strike been called, tens of thousands of men would have been out of employment for an indefinite period and just at the starting of the winter season. **+ rf**

If labor troubles can be prevented from coming to a head on the Coast from now until spring, one of the most prospenous seasons in history should be recorded. The building tide swings high throughout the West. Should a shutdown of water shipping be inevitablg many mills and log camps will have to cease operations, and worlds of lumber that otherwise would be consumed on the Coast will seek other markets where they are not needed.

Bright though the prospect of avoidance of labor trouble may seem to be for the present moment, the conviction grows among shippers and the employing industry on the Pacific Coast, that sooner or later a show-down is inevitable. The continued encroachment of conditions they consider unfair and unbearable, the definite trend of efficiency downward in the loading, unloading, and handling of water-borne freight, and the apparent continuing loss of authority over their own affairs, business, and possessions, gives rise to the very general prediction that the time for a show-down can only be temporarily postponed. Sooner or later they must discover and determine just how much authority over the management of their own affairs and possessions they can retain.

***

Looking over the situation generally there is much reason to believe that the closing in of winter conditions will this year reduce building operations considerably less than is normally the case, and that we may in fact have a fine building volume right through the winter.

***

The building tide that has started will not permit the advent of cold and snow to severely retard operations. The nation, long without building activities, is going to build. *t*

The building industry may add to its winter selling possibilities by the use of intelligence and judgment in their building material offerings. No doubt it is easer to sell insulating materials in the winter building season than during the warm weather. The need is more visibly apParent. ***

Insulation is comparatively new, particularly in retail lumber yard merchandising. But it furnishes magnificent possibilities for income development. Your insulation manufacturers and distributors can help you with wise suggestions along that line. ***

The lumber industry is rapidly coming back to its own. And when lumber c(xnes back to a prosperous level, one of the great basic industries that plays a major role in employrment, will be back in the line of duty. ***

So ttrat you won't forget how important this recently reduced lumber industry used to be, let me remind you that in 1925 it produced in this country approximately 42 billion feet; its payroll was about 441 millions of dollars; it paid over 42 millions of dollars in state and county taxes; it bought more than 100 millions of dollars worth of supplies; it exported more than 100 millions of dollars worth of materials; it furnished the railroads more than oneseventh of all their freight; it had over five billions of dollars invested.

**'f

Those figures are worth remembering, for, as the colored brother said-"That ain't hay." ***

For untold centuries lumber housed man in life, and likewise in death. It is an industry upon which civilization has always depended, and on which it may lo'ng depend. {<**

Today this nation has automatically launched upon a great home building campaign. It is homes in particular and small homes more particularly, that is claiming the prodtrct of the thousands of American sawmills at this moment. Large construction, with the exception of Government projecfs-31s scattering and few. But on every street and corner from ocean to ocean, we are building modest homes. *** t<**

Can you think of a better way to rebuild a country that has been ravaged for years by economic pestilence? I cannot.

Of course, the lumber industry has never been particularly forward in its merchandising. But it is progressing. And I predict that it will see more merchandising progress in the next ten years than it has in the past fifty. I believe that.

The signs are all about us that the lumber industry is going to keep step with what is going to be one of the most progressive stages in human history. I believe that science and invention and human progress are going to see more forward and upward speed in the next few decades than ever before.

***

And the lumber business, partly of its own volition and partly because it will be caught in the whirlpool and swung along, is going to keep up with the parade. New products from wood, and new ways of using lumber will be the order of the day.

We're going to have " *ur", l".,ou. Nature and human instincts befriend the lumber industry. In spite of all that has been said and predicted in the past few years about the manner in which other materials are going to replace wood for home building, you will find that in the next ten years more lumbEr will be used in the construction of the average home, than was used during the past ten.

>f**

That situation is well developed right now, and it has been automatic and not the result of any definite campaign or program. Today the builders of homes are using more wooden siding, as an example, than they have used for may years. My opinion is that the entire lumber industry could well and profitably devote some very specific attention right now to the production of beautiful wooden coverings for side-walls, and to the boosting of same to the nation's builders.

*t<*

'When a man comes in to talk about building a home, don't show him some old-fashioned narrow beveled or drop siding. Don't even let him think of such things. Sell him' show him, something eye-catching and attractive in wide siding that will do as much as anything else to clinch the home idea in his head.

)k,k*

And siding, of course, is only one of a hundred specific items that the industry might successfully give definite attention to at this blessed moment. The hour of opportunity has come again. Do something about it !