Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

There's an old story about the doctor who told his patient to take a tablet after each meal, followed by a little whiskey. The doc asked the patient's wife one day if the prescription was being followed, and she said her husband was a few meals behind on the tablets, but a month ahead on the whiskey.

It's the same way -ri ;". of the loans the Goverilment has been making. There is one definite and shining exception to the rule-the R. F. C. situation. Jesse H. Jones has loaned a little over six billions of dollars to the banks, railroads, and insurance companies, and has a'lready collected more than four billions of it, the remainder being all in mighty good shape and will probably all be collected. Something of a record.

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The boy who started life hustling lumber in a retail yard at Dallas, Texas, knows more about finance than most of the other financiers put together. A natural trader who loves to trade, he has had the fun of his life meeting the smart guys who went to Washington for money, and outtrading them in the name of the Government. His worst enemies admit that he has made a marvelous success of his R. F. C. job, and probably actually saved the Government of the United States a billion dollars., And a billion dollars is MONEY.

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Every now and then in all lines of human endeavor there arises a man who is properly called a "natural." ff ever there was a "natural" fo,r a job, it was Jesse H. Jones for the R. F. C. job. President Hoover went down into solid Democratic Texas and lifted Jesse Jones into the newly created R. F. C. Jones went to Washington with one aim in view; to head R. F. C. Soon he succeeded the original Chairman of that Corporation, and began showing how good he was. President Roosevelt never hesitated about reappointing him.

Jesse Jones has lots of "stuff" besides financial brains. He has courage in abundance; he has lived a life that has required that type of intestinal fortitude. He is a natural gambler. His mind works like a combination between a Corliss engine and a steel trap. The biggest "bust" written about him was by Raymond Moley in his magazine "Today." He said Jesse Jones cared nothing for gambling. On the contrary, he gambled from the day he was born. That's the secret of his success. He can beat almost anybody playing anything; he always has, anything from bridge to high finance. And he'Il play anybody for anything. He's a stout fella, that Jesse Jones. As stated before, he's probably made a billion dollars for this country gambling for R. F. C.

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They opened the new San Francisco-Oakland suspension bridge the other day. That was a world event. It was a conspicuous lumber event, and cement event, and paint event. There are thirty million feet of lumber in that steel bridge, moeity used for railroad ties and timbers. And this lumber is fireproofed.

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That bridge contains 1,300,000 barrels of cement; 1,000,000 cubic yards of concrete; 200,000 gallons of paint; 200,000 tpns o{ steel; 77,800 miles of cable wire. It is eight and 'iine-half miles long, the piers go 242 feet below the water and 519 feet above the water' rt cost $77,000'000 to build' The R. F. C. furnished the cash to build it, and the auto traffic across pays 65 cents per car toll for crossing each time, and the toll will continue until the bridge is paid for.

The bridge is double-decked, and is the longest ever built over a navigable body of water. It makes all other great bridges look like play-toys by comparison. It covers four and one-half miles of water, and four miles of approaches. It took fifteen years to build Brooklyn Bridge, the next greatest suspension bridge on earth, and the San Francisco.Oakland Brtdge was completed in three years. Yet you can take Brooklyn Bridge, George Washington Bridge, Queensboro Bridge, Delaware River Bridge, the Quebec Bridge, and the Ambassador Bridge, all famous in their time, apd put them end to end, and they will fall short of the new colossus of the West.

There is no foot traffic over this bridge, and autos must move not less than 45 miles per hour to keep traf;Ec clear. No slowing down or stopping is allowed. Keep moving and moving fast in every lane is the rule of the new bridge. Sad to relate, twenty-three men were killd in its construction. *** ritrF

The maritime strike is spreading and enlarging, costing five million dollars a day on the Pacific Coast alone. It is a major catastrophe just as things were beginning to look so much better throughout the West. As this is written there is not the slightest indication that the end is in sight.

Innumerable sawmills and logging camps on the Pacific Coast are shut down. From San Diego to Seattle thousands o{ workers in all lines have been laid off because of the strike paralysis. A foreign radical in San Francisco seems entirely to control the sitgation.

It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. While the water-located lumber mills are shut out of practically all their markets on the Pacific Cotrst, their competitors are reaping something of a harvest. Much lumber is being consumed in California. Usually most of it comes in by water. Now there is no water-borne lumber corning in, but inland mills are doing a land office business to California and Arizona territory. And mills ftom other territories will soon be reaping a harvest on the Atlantic seaboard where waterborne lumber from the Pacific Coast has been enjoying a splendid business. Likewise other hardwoods will soon be profiting by the inability of the importers of Philippine Mahogany to bring in their products while the strike is in progress. There is no present shortage of Philippine because the importers were getting ready fof several months. But the stocks won't last long. *,F

In the meantime the building industry is having a fine time throughout the country. Small buildings such as homes, etc., goes on at high speed. Which is "duck soup"