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Wood the JJnderwriter s Scapegoat Qj 



George H. Holt of Chicago summarized the attitude of the fire 

 underwriters very pithily some time ago when he said that refer- 

 ence to the use of wood in building construction was invariably 

 met with the cry of "Tire!" There is no doubt that the con- 

 sumption of lumber in buildings, especially those of great cost 

 and pretensions, has been reduced because of the impression which 

 has been created that wood is not only undesirable but positively 

 hazardous. 



In a recent issue Hardwood Eecord commented editorially on 

 an article appearing in Collier's Weekly analyzing the causes 

 resulting in an appalling annual fire loss. This article has been 

 followed by a number of others dealing with the same problem. 

 The series is called "The Business of Arson," and is the work 

 of Arthur E. McFarlane. Collier's Weekly has a leaning toward 

 the sensational, and is sometimes inclined to exaggerate; but it 

 can be said for the benefit of those who have not read the stories 

 that Mr. McParlane has demonstrated that he possesses an 

 intimate knowledge of the fire insurance business, and is writing 

 facts. The fire insurance men may not agree with his conclusions, 

 but they must of necessity acknowledge the truth of his 

 statements. 



In the very beginning of the series, we find these significant 

 remarks: 



"The authorities and the public alike have been going by a 

 set of predigested theories, picturesque and plausible, no doubt, 

 but put forward to hide the facts. We have been telling ourselves 

 that our tremendous, ever-increasing fire loss is due to bad building 

 construction; to carelessness, negligence and bad housekeeping; to 

 our 'unparalleled industrial activity'; to our 'climate.' Let us 

 take the first and most common objection — bad construction. Our 

 standards in that respect are in the main indefensible. Once the 

 fire starts, it is bad construction that burns an entire city. We 

 are not concerned with that point, however, but solely with the 

 question how the fire starts. Now wood is, by common consent, 

 the most inflammable of building materials. Norway, Sweden, and 

 South Germany are all wood builders, yet our ratio of loss aver- 

 ages from eight to thirteen times greater than theirs. This, too, 

 in spite of the fact that their fire departments, compared to ours, 

 are material for vaudeville. Again, New York and Chicago and 

 Boston, even small cities like Flagstaff, Ariz., now have their 

 'fire limits' — great central areas where frame construction is no 

 longer permitted, and in which for twenty years joisted brick 

 has steadily given way to steel, concrete and hollow tile. Has 

 this made itself felt? It is in the modern fireproof mercantile 

 buildings of America — buildings unequaled in Europe — that our 

 big cities' heaviest fire losses now occur!" 



Isn't that a splendid commentary on the situation? Wood has 

 been ruled out of building construction -as far as possible to make 

 room for so-called fireproof materials, and instead of the loss 

 ratio falling, it actually increases! The reason given by Collier's 

 writer is thatarson is responsible: organized, widespread, system- 

 atic burning of property for money, resulting in fifty per cent 

 or more of the payments made by the insurance companies being 

 on criminal fires. Europe can use wood and have a mere fraction 

 of our fire losses; but Europe has no arson trust. Instead of 

 driving the incendiaries out of business and putting a few score 

 of them in the penitentiary, America has chosen thus far to confine 

 her efforts to improving the physical condition of buildings, centering 

 her heaviest attack on the use of wood. 



The logic of the situation is all with the magazine writer, who 

 has analyzed the situation in great detail, and has shown how a 

 period of numerous commercial failures is always preceded or 

 accompanied by many fires; how changes of fashions result in 

 the destruction by fire of goods which have gone out of style and 

 •jonsequently become worthless, except to the insurance com- 

 panies, which are always ready to pay exorbitant prices for junk 

 of this kind; how the evil of overinsurance, fostered by the flat 



-32— 



commission system, has been developed by greedy brokers and 

 agents until every possible inducement is held out to the business 

 man in straits to burn his own property, and every opportunity 

 is offered the crook to go into a fake business and clean up a tidy 

 profit by an annual fire. 



Fire insurance men, in private, are constantly speaking of the 

 moral hazard, and constantly protesting against the payment of 

 losses on fires which they are certain are crooked, but which 

 cannot be shown to be so. And yet they meet the situation 

 publicly by appealing for better construction, ordinances limiting 

 the use of wood, improvements in the fire department and water- 

 works system. It is as though a patient suffering from appendicitis- 

 and needing the heroic remedy of the knife were to be approached 

 with a face lotion. The application is to the wrong spot. It 

 can't get results, because the essential factor has been disregarded. 



There is no telling what effect the Collier's series will hav& 

 on the insurance situation. Fire underwriters may insist that 

 while arson is a large item in the fire bill paid by Americans,, 

 loosening the regulations concerning construction and letting down 

 the bars to the lumbermen for the use of their products would 

 not help the situation. With some show of reason they might say 

 that present efforts should be extended, and not discontinued. 



But the lack of logic in their position is that "faulty construc- 

 tion," which has been made a synonymous term with "woodett 

 construction, ' ' has been alluded to as the chief cause of our 

 excessive fire losses. Now that it has been practically demon- 

 strated that this is not so, there is no longer any good reason 

 for discriminating against the third most important industry in. 

 the country in the regulations pertaining to building. As a neces- 

 sary precaution, required in order to protect the community, the- 

 rigorous laws affecting the consumption of forest products in 

 building might have been justified; but inasmuch as it has been 

 shown that this alleged necessity does not exist, and that the real 

 cause of the immense fire waste of the United States is due not so 

 much to poor construction as to arson, the justification for making 

 lumber the scapegoat of the entire situation disappears. 



Probably it will be difficulut, if not impossible, to extend the 

 use of lumber much further in the general construction of large- 

 buildings. Reinforced concrete and steel are of course needed iu 

 the structural work. But in the interior finish, including the 

 windows, doors, panels, moldings, floors, etc., and in the furni- 

 ture used in these buildings, wood should predominate, considering 

 every factor from beauty and utility to durability and cost. 

 Lumbermen ought to study the facts in this connection and pre- 

 pare themselves to oppose any statements of the wild-eyed variety 

 regarding the dire effects of putting wood into a building. A 

 little educational work along this line, undertaken by everybody 

 interested, would go a long way toward eliminating the some- 

 what unfavorable sentiment that is found in many quarters. Of 

 course the Collier's series is helping in that direction, and it 

 should be followed up by those directly interested. 



The extreme position taken by fire insurance authorities in. 

 the United States, along with the manufacturers of substitute- 

 building materials, to the effect that not a stick of lumber as big 

 as a match ought to be used in a city building, is in sharp contrast' 

 with the sane and efficient regulations of European countries. 

 They realize that for many purposes wood is better, as well as 

 cheaper, than other materials; that its production and manufac- 

 ture constitute an important industry, which should be encour- 

 aged as much as possible consistent with the general good; that 

 fires can be prevented to best advantage by rooting out incen- 

 diaries, investigating all fires and publishing the criminally negli- 

 gent as well as the incendiary himself; and consequently they 

 are holding their losses down, by the use of common every-day 

 horse sense, instead of radical and extreme measures at one end 

 and none at all at the other. 



