32 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



agg.'essivc campaign and today find our membership approximately the 

 same as a year ago. This question of increasing the membership leads 

 me to call to your attention the need for our association covering a 

 much broader field than formerly, if it is to continue to grow and pros- 

 per in the future as In the past. If our association is to be national in 

 character as well as in name it must recognize the changed conditions 

 In the lumber business since the time of its inception. We must recog- 

 nize that the great lumber Interests of the country are now located 

 south of the Mason and Dixon line, and west of the Missouri river, and 

 it is these localities that need our good services as much as our eastern 

 members. The opening of the Panama canal this year will bring the 

 Pacific coast lumbermen Into much closer touch with the eastern whole- 

 sale lumber trade, and as my worthy predecessor wisely pointed out in 

 his address at Louisville a year ago, it is necessary for us to turn our 

 thought toward the great Pacific coast in order that the great lumber 

 industry in that immense territory may be familiar with the many 

 benefits to be derived by afiiliation with us. I re-echo these thoughts to 

 you this year, and ask your careful consideration as to whether it would 

 not be wisdom on our part to consider holding one of our future con- 

 ventions in that far distant land. 



» Our executive committee meetings and also our board of trustees meet- 

 ings during the past year have been well attended^ and I desire at this 

 time to personally thank l>oth the executive committee and the board of 

 trustees for the loyal support they have given me, and also the chairman 

 and members of the various committees, who have promptly disposed of 

 what business has been referred to them, in a most satisfactory and 

 businesslike manner. 



In laying down my mantle this year I feel under obligations to each 

 and every one of you. and I wish to thank our members and friends who 

 have helped in the arrangements and details of this annual meeting, 

 thus making my burdens lighter than I could have asked. 



In conclusion I feel that it is a great honor and a great pleasure to 

 have served as the executive head of this association, and after being 

 closely associated in various capacities with its workings for a period 

 of over fifteen years. I feel that I am putting it none too strongly when 

 I say that the efforts of this association have always been to make the 

 lumber industry better, cleaner and more harmonious, and I believe the 

 whole lumber trade is today better for the work this association has 

 done. 



Every member within our ranks appreciates the truth of this state- 

 ment, but there are many outside of our ranks who, while participating 

 in the Indirect benefits this association brings, are not bearing their 

 share of the burden ; and I appeal to every loyal member of our associ- 

 ation to use bis best efforts to bring these outsiders into our body ; and 

 if this could be brought about our meml)ership could be easily doubled, 

 and the power of the association for doing good for the lumber trade 

 could be trebled. Is it not worth the effort considering the possibilities 

 of the future from what the association has done in the past? 



The annual address of Secretary E. F. Perry theu followed. 



Secretary's Report 



This being the twenty-first annual meeting it may be said that the 

 association is of age, and, if a man, entitled to speak for itself, but 

 being only a corporation its annual report or statement must be made 

 by someone else, and not only to record its past but to make clear the 

 present and grease the ways for the future. My report will not be 

 statistical but will be more a memorandum of the year's work plus some 

 comment on our methods, also a suggestion for the future. 



The details of the association work the past year have been very 

 little different from those of years gone before. The general scope and 

 character of the work remains substantially the same even though 

 methods of merchandising and distributing lumber have changed very 

 materially since we first started, twenty odd years ago. The change, 

 however, has been gradual, and we believe we have kept pace with these 

 changes. The work, however, so overlaps each year that it is difljcult 

 to find a common starting point. 



You have undoubtedly noticed that our committees also are usually 

 partly made up of members who have been prominent workers, and who 

 have by their long connection become proficient in the work of the asso- 

 ciation, thereby giving their committee work the benefit of an accumulated 

 practical experience. It has often been remarked that we have been 

 fortunate in having such a large portion of our members continue in- 

 terested each year, thereby enabling us to find so many eflicient men to 

 make up our working committees, a help which is greatly needed in an 

 expanding organization and business. We lumbermen are finding a wider 

 source of supply and a broader distributing field, requiring the greatest 

 possible co-operation to keep pace and informed. It is a common occur- 

 rence these days to find Xew York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati 

 and Boston and southern city members selling lumber manufactured in 

 the extreme West or South to be shipped to Canada. Chicago, Buffalo, 

 Albany — twenty-five years ago recognized as the lumber centers. Twenty 

 years ago Canada was a great lumber-producing country and is to-day, but 

 our southern members also find Canada a big buyer of American lumber. (In 

 1912, 519,781.000 ft., value .$11,8.31,115.) The fact is that there is no 

 longer any section known primarily as a lumber section — Canada and the 

 United States are all one great lumber producing and lumber consuming 

 market. Nova Scotia sends spruce to St. Louis ; Tacoma sends spruce to 

 Pennsylvania: Georgia .sends yellow pine to Ottawa; Memphis sends oak 



to California and Montreal — all of this within the last decade. 



Our association comes in vital contact with every phase of the lumber 

 business as a merchandising proposition, and while defined more particu- 

 larly as a wholesale association, and while our direct interests are with 

 the wholesaling of lumber, it remains true that every wholesaler is, in 

 proportion to his necessity to distribute his lumber, particularly interested 

 in what this organization does or may do to minimize waste or cost in 

 such distribution. 



.411 business quickly finds the line of least resistance, and our efforts 

 to better conditions and conserve to our members and the people at large 

 the best possible methods of delivering to the ultimate consumer our 

 product, is the underlying principle of this great association work. 



W. H. Hotchkiss of New York state sends a warning when he says he 

 "believes that the businesses to feel the change first would be those in 

 which the waste was greatest, and all who stand between the producing 

 farmer and the shopworker and the ultimate consumer would be subject 

 to the pressure of elimination." If this is true it emphasizes the neces- 

 sity of our using our best efforts to study the theories and practices of 

 distributing lumber from the sawmill man who is in the position of a 

 farmer to the ultimate consumer. We all know that it would be imprac- 

 ticable to make these studies individually, therefore it seems to me that 

 they must be done by the greatest possible co-operation and by concerted 

 action through those associations which have been organized primarily 

 tor this purpose. 



Those of you who have served on our board of trustees, standing or 

 special committees, and Iiave kept in touch with what we have been 

 doing will testify that only the best motive has been our aim. I have 

 never, in all my connection with the association, heard any small or 

 mean proposition presented : in fact, we always have considered all 

 matters in the light of not as to how our own members may benefit to 

 the exclusion of others, but what is the best action for the good of all 

 the trade in the broadest possible method. 



While in the past couple of years the lumber business has been much 

 maligned by some hidden force and often classed with the "trust" idea, 

 this has all been so vague, and so much unfounded in fact, that there is 

 sure to be in time a good healthy reaction, and we will find less talk of 

 necessity of law and more of the spirit of fair business dealing. And 

 right here it will interest you to know that with the single exception of 

 our initial corporation needs this association has never had or needed the 

 advice of a lawyer to tell us how to act. No organization of my knowl- 

 edge has adhered to its first principles as persisently as has ours, and 

 when we consider the diversified interests of our large membership, this 

 means much. 



I do not wish to moralize too much. It might be unseemly, and I may 

 infringe on some of the reports of our committee chairmen, but I believe 

 I am justified in calling particular attention to two or three of the 

 special matters which liave been in the past, and still are, the funda- 

 mental parts of this body. I refer to the bureau of information or credit 

 department, the trade relations, the terms of sale, arbitration, etc. 



Much has been said in recent years about conservation. I believe we 

 have done as much for the principles of general conservation as any 

 other voluntary commercial organization in this country. 



We. however, are weak at one very important practice, and that is in 

 our extension of credits. Some of us close our eyes to experiences of 

 others and try to win out by taking our credit insurance, but, gentlemen, 

 we can never win out by this subterfuge, as the failures of hundreds of 

 unsuccessful merchants prove, and while a few seem to have profited by 

 this plan it is a false economy. We must in the future give more con- 

 certed study and support to putting our credit system on a proper basis. 

 Entirely too much money has been lost, almost foolishly, during the 

 past few years in liad debts. Credit all along is too cheap, and while we 

 observe a greater interest in this subject it is getting to mean much to 

 your success in business. Possibly the excessive losses of lumbermen in 

 the past couple of years may not have attracted your attention. They 

 have, nevertheless, been heavy. The banking interests have not failed 

 to notice it. We must save at this end if we would lower the cost of 

 doing business, and too much of our time and energy is wasted through 

 failures of those with whom we do business, and who are not entitled to 

 the credit and confidence we extend them. We must learn that extending 

 credit is equal to loaning money, and every sale should be made secure 

 for a proper return to you of your principal plus your legitimate trade 

 proiit. 



Our bureau of information is well equipped to disseminate the informa- 

 tion which comes to it from you, and if you keep us informed we will 

 do our part to give out this information in the most practical form 

 possible, and with this knowledge properly before you, and proper methods 

 on your part, a great waste may be stopped. 



Recent government suits against retail associations have been mis- 

 understood by many, and the principles of right trade relations should be 

 given careful consideration. Careful study has been given these phases 

 of business, and probably we may find it desirable to make this subject 

 a basis of future careful study by our committees. So much depends 

 upon a solution of this problem, as it relates to credit, economy and fair 

 trading, that we cannot afford to overlook it, and the rule of reason aa 

 laid down by the Supreme court of the United States applies to the 

 lumber business, as it applies to every other br:nicb of trade. 



