Wood For \Var

This Article Discusses the Manner in \(/hich \ffood, \0hich Suffered Most from Substitutes, Has Become the \7ais Outstanding Substitute

By Jack Dionne

Can you, dear reader, remember back to those "good old days" when the lumber folks used to gather together on frequent occasions and, leaning against the wailing wall while the salt brine trickled down their manly cheeks and softened up their starched collars, screamed with pain as they exchanged experiences and opinions regarding what the dad-blamed "wood substitutes" were doing to the poor and needy lumber industry? Do you remember?

It doesn't really require much of a memory, because for twenty years prior to the starting of World War Second, that was part of the program of practically all lumbermen meetings. Yes Siree ! The substitutes for wood were blamed for all the innumerable ills the lumber industry fell heir to; and what an heir this industry always was. It was agreed at all times and upon all occasions that the manufacturers and distributors of wood substitutes were a bunch of snakes in the grass, lacking all the essentials of fair play in their business operations, who were continually insinuating their inferior wares upon buyers of building materials in place of good old reliable, but de{enseless wood.

I recall that often I would retire into a quiet corner where no lumber advertiser could possibly hear me, and would say to myself : "based on their own testimony, these lumber folks are allowing the substitute salesmen to replace wood with inferior stuff, so it must be simply a case of superior merchandising," I'd say to myself. Well, anyway, that's past history. I didn't start smacking this typewriter to chide my lumber friends about whether or not the substitute boys used to outsell them; I started it to relate in some rather brief fashion how wood, once the much substituted material for building purposes, has by dintof the war €mergencies, become the world's greatest, most powerful, most general, most elastic, and most useful substitute. Right now wood lays undisputed claim to being just that-and then some.

Talk about a substitute that IS a substitute. The lumber industry used to base its claim for damages against the substitute folks because they cut under wood for building purposes. But the time has now arrived when wood not only substitutes for other materials for building purposes, but in addition it substitutes for a thousand and three (I figured the total out myself) materials of that many different kinds and character, far removed from simply building and construction uses. Fact. Wood today, not only substitutes for all other possible building materials of normal times, but it substitutes for human food, animal food, clothing, motor fuel, motor lubricants, war explosives, surgical materials, coloring materials, rub- ber, flour, glass, photographic supplies, dyes, alcohol, etc., etc., and a thousand more and-so-forths. No exaggeration. Wood does. Wood is. Wood will. It has proven to be the most flexible, the most adaptable of all the materials entering into the preparation of this monster war effort.

When this here war is over the growers and makers and processors and manufacturers of wood will never again have to take a back seat in any company. Steel and oil must take the second row. Step back, men, don't crowd, but make room for the new champ war materialwood !

Where do I get my dope-my info? To start with, from thousands of newspapers and magazines all over the land which now devote so generous a quantity of their space and their news and editorial columns to the praise of wood. A pile of clippings of that sort face me as I write, the majority of which are reports of official statements of a thousand sorts that have to do with the use of wood in places where wood was never previously employed. Yotr've all seen and read them every day since we started our war effort; and they have, like rabbits, increased and multiplied as the tension of war production progressed. Particularly I am referring, as I tickle the typewriter, to a pair of manuscripts that sort of boil down into compact and impressive form all the other things that all the others have said.

One of them is the text of an address made recently at the Hoo-Hoo annual in Milwaukee by Mr. Carlisle P. Winslow, director of the United States Forest Products Laboratory, in Madison, 'Wisconsin, which, as you all know, is one of the greatest institutions of its kind in the world. Germany, in its scientific search for substitutes for almost everything, may have progressed farther in certain wood investigations than our Madison laboratory. But certainly no one else has. The other manuscript f refer to is an article that appeared in the September 5th issue of The Saturday Evening Post, entitled, "Nazi in the Wood Pile," and written by Dr. Egon Glesinger, a world renowned forestry expert. Mr. Winslow tells what we are doing in America to find new uses for wood, and the marvelous progress that has been made and is being made now, to substitute wood for thousands upon thousands of other commodities made scarce by the war. D.r. Glesinger tells what Germany thinks of wood, and what Germany was doing toward cornering the world's wood supply when the war started, and lastly, what Germany is doing wlth forest products now to help her win the war.

The things Mr. Winslow tells about are very wonderful things; not as startling as some of those in the German forestry story, but breath-taking nevertheless. All those who read lumber things know of the general uses to which unheard-of quantities of lumber and wood have been put during the last year or so, the army camps, navy bases, shipyards, ships, cantonments, hospitals, flying fields, storage buildings so big you couldn't get one of them into a picture without using a panoramic camera, planes, trucks, vehicles of every army sort, containers of shipping arms and ammunition (seven billion feet this year for that alone),, literally countless uses for wood, many of them places where wood always was used, many where wood was never used before. Also he tells of wood for new things, for replacing steel, iron, and other metals; wood for hangars, scaffolding, wharveS, bridges, pontoons, ties, poles, props, anti-tank barriers, shoring, shelters, blackout shutters, patterns, lockers, surgical dressings, cartridge wrappers, gas-mask filters; wood to replace cotton and wool, wood for clothing, wood for parachutes, for shrapnel, for flame throwers, for photographic film, wood for shatterproof glass, wood for molded articles of war construction; wood for insulation, for dynamite, wood alcohol for rubber, etc.

Mr. Winslow says they are treating, twisting, laminating, and otherwise controlling the shape and strength of wood in order to make it serve war purposes that were never dreamed of two years ago. Just to make these things of lumber is not even considered. The laboratory does it all. Sawdust properly processed makes a cheap black plastic that has innumerable war uses. The laboratory at Madison has perfected an improved paper-base plastic equaling aluminum in tensile strength,on a weight basis, that is doing wonders in airplane construction.

Mr. Winslow's talk opened up a new world for wood uses, to those who heard him, or who read his words. When this war is over, wood will have come into a place far removed from shiplap and dimension and the rest of the tree down the burner. The experiments they have been making and the things they have been developing are only a starter.

But the German forestry story is even more sensational, because the substitution of wood by the German, .o.,,.r, a more unexpected range of items and uses. This Dr. Glesinger says that Goering is the father of the universal use of wood in Germany, and that back in 1928 Germany began sewing up European forests for their own use. He says that the meat and vegetables and fats that the Nazis have been taking from the conquered nations and sending to Germany, is not as important as their wood importations; that all over Germany wood processing laboratories have been springing up, developing wood as a substitute for innumerable war needs that Germany cannot get otherwise. Here are some of the developments recited in this article as already accomplished by the Germans: they make wood flour that fattens their hogs and other stock; they have 500,000 trucks and cars operating on the highways on wood products, in some wood blocks being burned in special cylinders on the car, while in others they use gas made from wood; wood is being used to make high test alcohol for the preparation of explosives, and also of synthetic rubber; wood is being used to make heavy lubricants, raw sugar, cellulose for cattle fodder, fiber for clothing, and plastic for airplane construction. They make food, clothing, shelter, war essentials, and transportation essentials out of wood.

Dr. Glesinger says they consider wood so universal a commodity that they have a special name for it, "IJniversalrohstoff," which means a material that can produce anything. The forests of Europe, he says, are more essential to Germany's war effort than any other wealth Hitler has siezed from the conquered countries. An interesting deduction.

All of which, delivered as generalities only, seem to bear out our opening declaration that wood has become the greatest ofall substitutes; and that the end of its discovered usefulness is not in sight by any means.

Stuart Smith With OPA

Stuart Smith, Fountain-Smith, Los Angeles, left for Washington on October T2 where he will be with the Lumber Division of the Office of Price Administration for the duration.

Stuart has been connected with the lumber business in California for many years where he is widely known in lumber circles. He worked in the woods and in the mill for the Coos Bay Lumber Co. and was on the road for them in California a good many years before going into the business for himself, first as a retailer and later as a wholesaler.

He was associated with Ed Fountain for the past three years, who will carry on the business of Fountain-Smith as the Ed Fountain Lumber Co.

Effective November l, 1942, Schafer Bros, Lumber & Shingle Co. will be the exclusiye sales representative of the Aberdeen Plywood Corporation for the state of California.

The Aberdeen Plywood Corporation, of Aberdeen, Wash., was incorporated April 25, 1940, and the following served as officers : president, Albert Schafer, Montesano; vice-president and general manager, V. A. Nyman, Aberdeen ; treasurer, Roy K. Purkey, Aberdeen; secretary, Carl A. Schafer, Montesano.

The following comprised the board of directors: Albert Schafer, Montesano; V. A. Nyman, Aberdeen; Roy K. Purkey, Aberdeen; O. P. Lewellen, Woodland; F. H. McCready, Aberdeen; Ed Lundgren, Aberdeen; George Gauntlett, Aberdeen.

There were 30,000 shares of preferred stock authorized, par value $10.00 per share, and 20,000 shares of common stock authorized, par value $10.00 per share, all of which was subscribed by local residents.

Construction of the piant was started on June 12, 1940, and operations commenced on October 15, 1940. The plant is unique in its construction, due to the use of ArchTeco trusses which eliminate many posts inside the building, leaving more room for the operation of the machinery.

The mill is equipped with one large lathe and a small lathe for the re-peeling of cores to 5 inches in diameter, three Coe dryers, two hot presses, three saws, two 8-drum sanders, barking machine, taping machines, jointers, hot press patching machine, plugging machines, patch cutting machines, and all other machinery necessary.

Production is now averaging 6,500,000 feet per month on a fi-inch basis, and all efforts are being concentrated on the manufacture of XTERIOR outside plywood for

Appointed

California Sales Representative for Aberdeen Plywood Corporation

the United States Army, Navy and Engineers. There are approximately 330 persons employed in the mill. Schafer Bros. Lumber & Shingle Co, nationally known lumber and shingle manufacturers, had its beginning in

1893 as a logging operation only, and has since branched out into a large manufacturing concern.

Schafer Bros. Logging Co., which isstill the parent company, was founded by Peter, Albert and the late Hubert Schafer. Their first logging was on their own homestead in the Satsop Valley, and was done entirely by oxen. In l9D, they acquired 890,000,000 feet of Olympic National Forest timber in the Satsop River area, about forty miles north of Montesano, which consists of a mixture of Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Cedar, Spruce and White Fir, and there, in cooperation with the U. S. Forest Service, they are cutting under the "selective logging" system with the most modern type of machinery.

Schafer Bros. Logging Co. is one oI the principal peeler log suppliers of the Aberdeen Plywood Corporation. Their Olympic logging operation is one of the few remaining bodies of timber which produces a sizable volume of old growth lumber suitable for the type of lumber most needed for our present war effort. John Schafer is in charge of their logging.

Their sawmill, Mill No. 4 at Aberdeen, is running two shifts and producing approximately 8,000,@0 feet per month of Fir, Hemlock and Cedar. Carl Schafer is in charge of this operation.

Peter Schafer is president and Albert Schafer, secre- tary-treasurer, of Schafer Bros. Lumber & Shingle Co. The head office is at Aberdeen, 'Wash., where Ed. P. Schafer is in charge of all sales covering both manufactured and wholesaled products.

Wholesaling of forest products is an important part of their organization. In addition to handling the entire California output of Gardiner Lumber Co., Robert Gray Shingle Co., and Aberdeen Plywood Corporation, a large volume of business is done with other lumber companies. A buying office is at Reedsport, Oregon, which is managed by Ray Schaecher, who is in constant contact with the bulk of mills located along the Oregon Coast and Willamette Valley.

Schafer Bros. Lumber & Shingle Co. have been large shippers of lumber and shingles into the California market for many years, and they have sales offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. P. W. (Bill) Chantland is manager of the Los Angeles omce, assisted by J. R. Klots and M. R. Gill (the latter now in the armed service), and the San Francisco office is managed by Floyd W. Elliott, assisted by C. T. Gartin.

IJntil recently the company operated their own coastwise steam schooners-the SS Anna Schafer and SS Margaret Schafer-both of which are now in the service of the Government.

Hats off !

The Flag Goes By

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky; Hats off!

The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines, Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. Hats off !

The colors before us fly; But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea fights and land fights, grim and great, Fought to make and to save the state: Weary marches and sinking ships; Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace; March of a strong land's swift increase; Equal justice, right and law, Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong, To ward her people from foreign wrong: Pride and glory and honor-all Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off !

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums; And loyal hearts are beating high;

Hats off !

The flag is passing by !

Holcomb Bennett.

A LETTER FROM COUNTY CORK, IRELAND

Tom Dreier says the following letter actually came frorrr a friend in County Cork, Ireland, and while it may have been done by a professional humorist, it sounds genuine enough, and was addressed to a cousin in Canada:

"Your welcome letter received by me and your Aunt Bridget, thank you kindly for the money you sent. We have had seven masses said for your grandfather and grandmother, God rest their souls. You have gone high places in. Arnprica, God bless you. .I hope you'll not be pgtting on airs and forgetting your native land. Your cousin, Hughie O'Toole was hanged in Londonderry last week for killing a policeman. May God rest his soul and may God's curse be on Jimmie Rodgers, the informer, and may he burn in hell. God forgive me.

"'We had a grand time at Pat Muldoon's wake. He was an old blatherskite and it looked good to see him stretched out with his big mouth shut, at least he is better dead and he'll burn till the damn place freezes over. He had too many friends among the Orangemen, God curse the lot of them. Bless your heart, I almost forgot to tell you about your Uncle Dennis. He took a pot shot at a turn coat from in back of a hedge, but he had too much drink in him, and missed. God's curse be on the whiskey.

"f hope this letter finds you in good health and may God keep reminding you to keep sending money. Father O'Flaherty who baptized you is now feeble minded and sends his blessing. Nellie O'Brien, the brat you used to go to school with, has married an Englishman. She'll have no luck. May God take care of the lot of you and keep you from sudden death.

Your Devoted Cousin,

Timothy.

"P. S. Things look bright again. Every police barracks and every Protestant Church has been burned to the ground in County Cork. Thanks be to God.

"P. S. Keep sending money."

A Sermon For Speeders

Rev. L. C. Miller, of Manitou Springs, Colorado, is reported to have preached a safety sermon to his congregation, in which he said:

"Our highway traffic has become so unsafe that the moment a person drives ulrcn a public thoroughfare, if he has any regard for his future abode, he should sing softly and seriously as the speedometer climbs upward, the following h5rmns:

At 25 miles per hour-

"I am But a Stranger Here, fleaven fs My I{ome."

At 45 miles per hour-

"Nearer My God To Thee."

At 55 miles per hour-

"f Am Nearing the Port and Will Soon Be at Home."

At 65 miles per hour- iAt 75 miles per hour-

,, , ,l'When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There."

"Lord I Am Coming Ffome."