The Hardwood Record 



VOL. XVI. 



CHICAGO, AUGUST 25. W03. 



No. 9 



The Hardwood Record. 



PUBLISHED BY 



C. V. KIMBALL, 



ON THE 10H AND 25th OF EACH MONTH. 



134 MONROE STREET, - CHICAGO, ILL. 



ENTERED AT CHICAGO POST OFFICE AS 

 SECOND-CLASS MATTER. 



TtRMS OF subscreption: 



U. 8., Canada and Mexico $1.00 per year. 



Foreign Countries 2.00 per year. 



ADVERTISING RATES ON APPLICATION. 



»DVEHTlSI^G NCf X ON PA&f CO 



Contributions on sobjects of interest 

 to lumbermen are invited from any 

 person. Subscribers and others arc re- 

 quested to notify us of changes in per- 

 sonnel or organizations of hardwood 

 lumber firms. We desire especially to 

 receive particulars of installation of 

 new plants, transfers of property and 

 timber holdings and experiments in 

 new methods of manufacturing or the 

 utilization of by-products. New publi- 

 cations of interest to the trade, including 

 catalogues, stock lists and circulars will 

 receive attention if sent to this office. 

 Our columns are also available for 

 criticism and comment on any article 

 published or for news of any sort con- 

 cerning the hardwood trade. 



Our readers will confer a favor when 

 writing to advertisers if they will state 

 that they saw the advertisement in the 

 Hardwood Record. This is little 

 trouble and costs nothing, but it helps 

 us and is information wanted by the 

 advertiser. 



THE BUSINESS SITTIATION. 



\\"(> have a suggestion from ono of our 

 readers that in our articles upou tlie busi- 

 ness eonditious of tlie country we attacli 

 loo unu-li importance to the condition in 

 Wall street. We do not believe the criti- 

 cism .iustified and .lust as an indication of 

 how great minds differ, we have another 

 letter stating that in the writer's opinion 

 conditions at present "are almost identical 

 with those of 1803, when the panic was 

 in.ingnrated by just such an insistent and 

 uncheckable desire to sell securities of all 

 kinds and ttu'n them into cash." 



In our consideration of business condi- 

 tions we have endeavored not to give un- 

 due weight to the condition prevailing in 

 W.ill street, although recognizing that con- 

 dition to be a most serious one and boimd 

 to have a bad effect on business for years 

 to come. IJut there is a vast difference 

 between conditions as they are to-day and 

 those which prevailed in 1893. 



For six or seven years previous to 189.3 

 the farmers of the country, who are and 

 will always be the cornerstone of any pros- 

 perit.v we may eujo.v. had been going be- 

 liinil. or at least making no headway. 

 Huring those leati years the farmer in the 

 corn belt got from twenty to twenty-five 

 cents a bushel for his com and from three 

 to four cents a pound for his hogs and 

 cattle. We do not recall the prices obtain- 

 ing for cotton in that period, but they 

 were low, and the farmers of the North. 

 South, East and West were mortgage<l uji 

 to the hilt and hard up and despondent. 

 And when the strain of the panic came 

 I here was. no reserve of strength in the 

 cinintry to meet it. 



Things are different at this time. For 

 four or tive years the farmers of the corn 

 belt have Ijeeu getting prices for their 

 pi-oducts nearl.v doubl(> those prevailing 

 previous to 1893. And if they kept even at 

 the prices of the earlier period, they have 

 certainly accumulated rai>idly diu-ing the 

 later, for all tlie increase has been profit. 



.\nd we have nbtuidant evidence that 

 the farmer has prospered amazingly. The 

 mortgages have been p;iid and the amount 

 carried b.v the savings banks of the coun- 

 try has nearly trebled. And this access 

 I if prosperity has come also to the farmer 

 of the East, the ranchman of the West 

 and the planter of the South. 



So there is a tremendous difference be- 

 tween conditions as they exist to-day and 

 as they existed in 1893. The country has 

 at this lime a vast reserve of vitality to 



resist disease and throw it off, which it 

 did not have in 1893. 



lint while we do not believe that the 

 unprecedented conditions in Wall street 

 will have any inunwliately serious effect 

 upon business, we do believe that condi- 

 tion is not a temporary or passing evil, but 

 that it is due to a fundamental fault in 

 our industrial and commercial organiza- 

 tion—a fault which cannot be rectified 

 short of the slow process of evolution. It 

 is our belief that the present condition of 

 Wall street, coming as it does, in this 

 period of substantial and unexampled pros- 

 perity, is a surface indication of a deep- 

 seated ailment which will sap the founda- 

 tion of the country's prosperity for many 

 years and the effects of which will be felt 

 by the next generation. That such a con- 

 dition developed at a time when the coun- 

 try had such a reserve of vitality is a piece 

 of good luck for which we should all. be 

 thankful. 



The industries of our country have been 

 involved in too much wildcat speculation. 

 There has been overcapitalization and 

 o\-erorganization, and a general getting- 

 away from sound business principles. 

 And there is but one result possible, and 

 that is that the great structure of false 

 credit that has been erected must be 

 taken down and the industries of the coun- 

 try be re-erected on a sound and con- 

 servative foundation. There are no two 

 ways aliout that— ifs got to be done and 

 it will take time and malve trouble. 



We expect a good fall trade — no boom, 

 you understand, or anytJiing approaching 

 it. but a good, fair trade with a down- 

 ward t<'ndency to prices of most com- 

 modities. 



AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE. 



More than a year ago the Itocord pointed 

 out that the tendency of the times was 

 toward a settlement of the disputes be- 

 tween labor and capital and the making 

 of an alliance, offensive and defensive, 

 against the consumer. And to-day Chi- 

 cago, and especially the building trade of 

 Chicago, is suffering from such an alliance. 



Nothing is more natural than that such 

 an alliance should be made, and while it 

 will surprise the public for a while to 

 see the trusts and combiucs on the one 

 hand and the lalior unions on the other 

 standing shoulder lo shoulder in an at- 

 tempt to hold up the public, a little re- 

 flection will show that it is the most nat- 

 ural thing in the world. And to our way 



