A Dissertation on Philippine Mahogany--Why lt Looks so Different From the Walnut Viewpoint Than From the Mahogany--With Various Side Remarks Both Pertinent and lmpertinent

By Jack Dionne

"All that glistens is not gold," said that highly touted bard of another day, one William Shakespeare.

"It may look like Mahogany, and act like Mahogany, and folks may like it as well as they ever did Mahogany but it just isn't Mahogany," is a chorus we seem to be hearing nowadays, but from a considerably less notable source than the Bard of Avon.

I wouldn't have missed getting mixed up in this new Philippine Mahogany fracas; not for "nuthin'." That's most of the fun I've always had about running a lumber journal. I like to get out where the current runs the fastest. It's a little unusual in lumber journalism; which makes it all the more fun.

I learned that Philippine Mahogany had been the butt of a lot of mighty uncomplimentary propaganda emanating from its hereditary enemy, and feeling as I do that here is one of the grandest cabinet wood supplies on "yearth," I hauled off and said my little say about Philippine. I reviewed Philippine's fight for life of seven or eight years ago, and dug up some of the interesting developments of that day.

I recalled Very distinctly and pleasurably that when the battle was going on at that time mine was the only lumber journal that took off the coat and vest and got out there fighting for Philippine. The other boys occupied their accustomed places; sitting on the sidelines to see who won.

Anyway, be that as it may, the ink was hardly cool on the paper until I got myself "called." The "caller" was Mr. G. N. Lamb, Secretary of the Mahogany Association, Inc., of the free-shooting City of Chicago. He didn't get rough. His letter was couched in courteous terms. He even spoke highly of my writing qualities, and admitted he thought f was honest in my convictions. It was my facts that were a little off the straight and narrow, he thought; my botanical facts. And he proceeded to tell me where. I had said that Philippine Mahogany was just as much Mahogany as African. He said "Nix." I said no fraud was perpetrated by calling these wonderful Philippine woods "Philippine Mahogany," and no public interest was served when the effort was made to restrain the use of that term; that the attack was purely commercial. He disagreed with me on those points. His discourse was highly botanical, and entirely gentlemanly. I enjoyed the letter.

And I was getting ready to answer it according to my lights and without recourse to my liv€r, when it was answered for me. The Philippine Mahogany Manfacturers' Import Association, fnc., of Los Angeles, issued a circular that was more illuminating than a blazing sun in a cloud- less sky. It proceeded to give Mr. Lamb several terrific swats across the well known cranium, using a no less deadly weapon than excerpts from some of that gentleman's own letters, written long since, and mayhap forgotten.

What sayeth the sage: "Do right and fear no rnan; don't write and fear no woman?"

Letter writing is indeed a treacherous occupation, unless the writer has the power of divination, as well as copious quantities of the gift of prophecy. How often, sitting on one side of the fence, we write our adverse opinions of things that happen on tother side; and later on, finding ourselves located on that well-maligned other side, we would fain recall those utterances, and pray that they be erased from the mind of man.

According to the Philippine Mahogany folks, years ago when this same Mr. Lamb of the Mahogany Association was NOT a Mahogany man but rather a Walnut booster, the famous Philippine fight for existence took place. And Mr. Lamb, having no axes to be brought to a fine edge in behalf of the importers and proponents of that delightful Meliacae family tree, sat down and wrote some letters anent the controversy then raging. The Philippine Mahogany folks, so they say, highly pized, these letters of which there were a series, because this neutral party and a highly accredited botanist came to their defense in no uncertain terms.

But PRIZING these letters was not the important thing they did. What was much mofe to the point, they KEPT them. And now, in this circular I have mentioned and which lies before me as I white-heat the typewriter in driving home these facts, they print excerpts from these letters of the Walnut Mr. Lamb, to show the really tremendous, colossal difference between the Walnut and the Mahogany viewpoint. For the position I took in my recent editorial, and the position the Philippine Mahogany folks have long sustained, is practically the same position that Mr. Lamb took before he left the Walnut employment to join the Mahogany gang, and began spreading the glad news that "there is no Mahogany but our Mahogany," etc., etc., etc.

The Philippine Association circular uses excerpts from several letters they allege to have been written during the Philippine fight by Mr. Lamb, then Secretary of the Walnut Association. One of those quotations is sufficient for my use at this time. Here 'tis:

"By every test that establishes the use of a common name, the name 'Philppine Mahogany' has been thoroughly established in this country. In the long run it is always much better to have the common names of plants as accurate as the scientific name, and in horticultural and agricultural practice the tendency is to eliminate confusing names and to have accurate common names.

"In the lumber business the accuracy of the common names is very mqch less than in agriculture or horticulture. The Philippine Mahogany case is absolutely none of our business, but the writer, with his training and experience in botany, can't help but be interested and to hope for consistency in whatever ruling is made. Any rule that would throw out Philippine Mahogany would also take with it African Mahogany. Any rule that allows African to continue as a common name must also admit Philippine. From a practical standpoint we can see no possible reason why both names cannot be continued."

Ho. Hum !

And now this same young man who wrote that opinion and various others of similar character, maintains that African IS Mahogany, that Philippine is NOT, that the Philippine woods should not be allowed the use of the name, etc.

Some wise man said that "mountain shall not meet with mountain, but in the morning, or perhaps at the eventide, man shall meet again with man." And, I would add, "and letters written in the morning sometimes sho'iv up in the evening and cause us great embarrassment."

Let us join together in prayer.

San Francisco Lumbermen Tour Lumber Producing Centers

Frank H. Harris, vicearesident, and R. C. "Dick" Jones, of the Van Arsdale-Harris Lumber Co., San Francisco, recently completed a combination business and pleasure automobile tour of the lumber sources of supply in the Sierra, Redwood, Douglas Fir and Port Orford Cedar producing regions.

In the two weeks they were away they visited Ponderosa fine and Sugar Pine mills in the Sierra region, then traveled through Mt. Lassen National Park to Redding, and north by way of Yreka, Medford and Eugene to Portland. From there they went to Longview, Wash., where they visited the great Weyerhaeuser plants.

They then paid visits to Aberdeen and Raymond, Wash., and heading south drove down the Roosevelt Highway through Astoria, Toledo, Marshfield, Coquille and Bandon. They stopped to call on some mills in the Redwood Empire and came home over the Redwood Highway.

Commenting on the trip, Mr. Harlis said that both he and Mr. Jones found it most interesting and enjoyable. They went through many manufacturing plants and were received everywhere with the greatest courtesy. They found the mills busy and the market on clears very strong in the Northwest, and noted that most of the mills had good order files.

ALEX GORDON VISITS L. A.

E. A. "Alex" Gordon, salesman for Strable Hardwood Company, Oakland, is back from a business trip to Los Angeles, in connection with sales of laminated kraft paper, of which his firm is a large distributor.