Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) the coming of the depression. And what it has got to do is just take up where it left off, BUT WITH SUCH ENERGY AND SPEED AND ENTHUSIASM AS TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME. That's what I'm hoping the lumber industry will do NOW.

The other day I was n"",", " l,rrra with a friend of mine, and in the course of conversation he remarked that his wife had some surplus money in the bank and wanted him to advise her what to invest it in, and he said to save his life he had not been able to make up his mind what to tell her. I asked him if it had not occurred to him that a first mortgage on a good home was the best place in the world he could put his money? **{<

He replied by telling me what the famous old Southern revivalist, the late Sam Jones once said in a sermon against the (to him) great evil of the dance hall. He said, .,I don,t say a man couldn't get a good wife in a dance hall; but I know a whole lot who didn't." And my friend said first mortgages might be wonderful security for investment, but he knew a lot of people in the past five years that hadn't found them so.

{<**

Dirty reply, wasn't it? Yet to my mind the safest, wisest, best-paying investment on earth is a first mortgage on an honestly built and financed home. The stone wall of opinion built on sad experience in the depression years still militates against home building investments to a great extent. Yet I see signs of disintegration of that opinion, those signs being a tendency everywhere to look with favor on such paper in cities and towns where things are plainly "picking up." Not everyone still thinks as does the friend I just quoted. And I made a valiant effort to straighten him out in the matter. ***

The lumber folks have got to go to work in every district, every hamlet, every town, and every city, to sell the building idea to their people. For the selling time, f believe, has come again. Folks are coming out, to some extent, from the huddle they went into in the years 1931, 1932, and 1933. And as they come out, they demand housirg. Now, if the building industry can induce the hoarded money and finances of each community to come out of its huddle at the same time, the two together will start something worth while. People who want homes and other people who have money they are wifling to loan to finance those hornes, are the two parties we need to bring together on common ground.

The land is filled with shacks. It is filled with obsolete eye-sores in the shape of human habitations. And even counting all of these, it is still far behind in our shelter needs. If the worth-while people who would like to build and own homes, could make a deal with the mile-high stored cash of the nation, most of the worth-while and employable unemployed would go to work. What this country needs is to have the normal supply of needed homes furnished and financed by private capital. We've got the need for the homes; and we've got the stored-up capital. When they get together, the depression will REALLy be over. If the building industry were doing just half as much business as the motor car industry they would drag all other industries up the hill with them.

Individual effort is the answer. The lumber industry c6vers this land with its places of business. It has the men in the field. It has the raw rnaterial in plenty. It has got to go out into the highways and the byways, and sell the building idea, backed up by the building materials. It needs IDEAS. Needs them sorely. Now, Iess than ever before, will a pile of boards meet the competition of the beautiful and completed things which the many other industries dangle before the human eye, to tickle the human desire of possession.

In several boom town" , n*" lrr"tr"U lately I see marvelous homes being built. It is my honest conviction that the modern home of the fall of 1935 is the loveliest home ever built. Home building HAS improved. A combination of architect and material-man is generally the answer. The small-town and rural builder must be likewise equipped. How? The answer must be found as quickly as possible. Every lumber dealer should be able to recommend better homes than ever before-and deliver them. All things improve. Shall the home stand still? Or shall the city dealer and the builder who can afford an architect be the only ones to swing into the tide? Manifestly not.

"Think fast, Captain ! Think fast !" said Sergeant euirt to Captain Flagg. Think fast, lumbermen! Think fast! would be good advice to the lumber and building industry. Think, prepare, hustle ! Other industries are getting the money. Will home building tag behind?

Joseph F. Holmes

Joseph F. Holmes, who was in charge of the Mt. Diablo CCC camp, died Sunday evening, October 27,lrom injuries received that afternoon while attempting to stop a truck' said to have been stolen and manned by four CCC workers. According to authorities the men had been drinking. A telephone call from the camp was sent to Mr. Holmes, who was stationed with his family at the south gate of the Park, to halt the truck which was traveling at high speed and at great risk to other motorists on the narrow mountain road. As it approached he signalled to stop and as the truck slowed down he jumped on the running board. As he attempted to stop it the machine plunged onward at full speed and he was hurled off, the rear wheels of the vehicle passing over him. IIe was rushed to the hospital at Berkeley where X-ray pictures showed fractures in the pelvis and spinal column.

Mr. Holmes was born at Phoenix, Arizona, in 1898, and was a son of J. H. Holmes, president of the Holmes Eureka Lumber Co. IIe was a graduate of the Forestry School at Oregon State College, and after graduation spent some time as logging engineer for the Holmes Eureka Lumber Co. in their wood's operations in Humboldt County. He then worked for several retail lumber concerns in Southern California, after which he was manager of the Woodland Lumber Co. at Woodland. IIe was a past president of the Sacramento Valley Lumbermen's Club.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret Holmes; a son, Folger, 15 years, and a daughter, P.ggy, 10 years; his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Holmes; a brother, Fred V. llolmes, vice-president and sales manager of the Holmes Eureka Lumber Co., and a sister, Mrs. A. E. Wieslander of Oakland. Funeral services were conducted at Berkeley, Tuesday afternoon, October 29, and were attended by a large number of lumbermen.

CALLING ON COMPANY'S REPRESENTATIVES

James E. "Jimmy" Atkinson, Portland, Ore., manager of the rail department for the Chas. R. McCormick Lumber Co., is on a six weeks' trip calling on the company's sales representatives. He will go as far east as New York and on his return trip to the Pacific Coast will visit the South and Southwest territories.

Useful Advertising Novelty

Many lumber dealers throughout the country use yard sticks as an economical advertising novelty, according to B. J. Boorman, of the Boorman Lumber Co., Oakland, Calif., operators of the only yard stick printery west of Michigan.

"We know of no good-will advertising articles so useful, so appreciated and so extremely inexpensive as a yard stick costing about two cents eaih," Mr. Boorman says.

"The average life of a yard stick is several years. During those years the name of the dealer, attractively printed on this useful household article, is a constant and pleasant reminder of the dealer's compliment to his customer. you cannot beat-or equal-yard stick advertising."

' BACK FROM OREGON TRIP

Carl R. Moore, in charge of the San Francisco office of Moore Mill & Lumber Company, returned October 29 f.rom a visit to the company's sawmill at Bandon, Ore. Carl reports that their mill is operating continuously, and that he never saw the Roosevelt Highway in better condition than at present.

EARL BOWE VISITS S. F.

Earl E. Bowe, Reilly Tar & Chemical Cqrp., Los Angeles, made a business trip to San Francisco at the end of last month, making a number of stops in the San Joaquin Valley on the way.