Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

The liquidation of the stock market continues. The world watches, agape, at the thing that is happening. And naturalfy, while the world watches, the world does not build. So the demand for building materials continues to be ver5r, very inert. Every time the market goes to a lower level the wiseheimers tell you that it ca4't go any lower because of its book value, earning capacity, etc., etc., etc. In days gone by I have heard lumber manufacturers make that same argument. Lumber couldn't go down because the price had reached cost levels. As though that made any difference. And all the arguments that are being made mean nothing in this case. The birds that rushed in with their cashiers' checks to buy stocks and stop the first break, have been under the millstone ever since.

'we're not interest"a r" Ll rl"nn"r,, to the suckers that have been bucking the get-rich-quick route except for the fact that they comprise a large part of our buying' building, investing population. The fact is, it's our best customers that are taking this whipping. And we are interested in their return to normal business, and no'rmal buying and investing. This thing is like the great war. We need to get back to normal, and get there quickly. Let us trust that thc reaction will be as rapid as it was after the former greatconfict.

Salesmen for the Fisher Body Company, the famous 'Body by Fisher" folks of General Motors fame, are instructed how to boost for the wood they use in their frames. They ask a prospect-who may wonder at tho large amount of wood they employ in ttre construction of their framesif he ever saw a metal handle on an axe, a hoe, a shovel, a hammer, or any manual tool that is subjected to heavy strain or shock. And they are taught that the combination of wood and metal which Fisher uses in their bodies, re turns to normal after being subjected to tremendous strain, eight times more easily tTm in all metal body.

The same thing is true of airplane construction. And while metal is outselling wood for this use, because there are powerful forces selling metal and wood is selling itself' in the long run wood is going to come MORE into use in planes, instead of less. Wood is a shock absorber, and metal is not. Wood is a non-conductor of heat, and metal is not. A wooden plane may crash, and thc immates be saved by the shock-absorbi'ag qualities of the wood. People inside a metal cabin over which the gasoline flames are roaring are roasted alive long before the fames reach their limbs; inside a wooden cabin the wood protects them from the heat until it is actually burned through-and there is an infinitely greater chance for them to break through to safety. Wise men tell me these things are true, and that all plane builders know it.

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Everyone in business can learn by observing the service at the modern gasoline stations. In the old days a motorist apologized when he asked for a bucket of water, and often did the filling himself. Some thoughtful man decided it would be a good plan to furnish that service for him. Another, not to be outdonp, went a step fart*rer. Others outsfepped them. Today the prompt and smiling gervice rendered the autoist at the modern filling station, furnishing him water, air, a clean windshield, and even more particular services that may be needed, is the epitome of modernized service. All other liries of business could copy them with good results.

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Here's something new in built-ins. Patents have peen recently secured by an individual inventor on a built-in, fold-up physical culture cabinet. Sounds like a mighty keen idea to me. The patentee says that while the cabinet is built into the wall like breakfast room furniture, it contains a rowing device, parallel bars, horizorltal bars, ptutching bag platform, and a couple of other exercisers. The thing sounds like it might be useful, and shows the trend toward folding, built-in equipment in this day of space utilization.

There are few people who are not attracted by bargains, and while bargain boxes in retail lumber yards are not as easily arranged and displayed as in retail stores, yct it can be done, and is being done by many active merchants. Instead of letting odds and ends accumulate and deteriorate, why not have a well marhed department where such things are ofrered for sale at special bargain prices? A little cash in the till has got a lot of trash and junk beat a mile.

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"It's wrapped,'i is the new advertising slogan of one of the big and successful lumber advertisers, the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau, adding another to the rapidly grorning list of producers and distributors of lumber products who are encasing and protecting certain of their stock The Arkansas Soft Pine folks, one of the femr groups of American lumber producers who have made a success of group advertising, are wrapping and enpasing their soft pine trim, which their advertising has made famous.

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