32 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



June 25, 1919 



chairman: J. D. Maris, Indianapolis (Ind.) Sawed Veneer Com- 

 pany; J. T. Home, J. T. Home Veneer Company, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 

 AUDITING H. J. Barnard, Central Veneer Company, India- 

 napolis, Ind., chairman; Otto Steiner, Schoenlau-Steiner Trunk 

 Top & Veneer Company, St. Louis, Mo.; N. M. Willson, Pearl 

 City Veneer Company, Jamestown, N. Y. 



The report of Treasurer E. H. Defebaugh was read 

 by Secretary Howard S. Young, the record showing a 

 substantial balance in the treasury. The report was ac- 

 cepted and referred to the auditing committee. 



J. T. Home said that the manufacturer who co-operates 

 most will be most successful this year and the years to 

 come. He must co-operate not only with the men in his 

 employ, but w^ith the world as a whole. Cut-throat com- 

 petition is a thing of the past. There is room for every 

 veneer manufacturer in America today. 



A National Budget 



Secretary Young stated that the Chamber of Com- 

 merce of the United States at its meeting in St. Louis 

 recently brought up the question of a national budget, and 

 the chamber requested each individual member to take 

 some action on the matter. 



B. W. Lord of the Chicago Veneer Company said that 

 the sentiment of all the organizations and business men 

 of the country is strongly in favor of this national budget, 

 which means some systematic way of handling the finances 

 of the country. He thought the veneer association should 

 go on record in favor of this matter, and on his motion 

 a budget committee was appointed to co-operate with 

 national chamber of commerce. B. W. Lord, O. C. 

 Lemke, and D. E. Kline were appointed as the com- 

 mittee. 



Speaking on the subject of general business, E. E. 

 Hemmingway, Mattoon, Wis., said that the only thing 

 that veneer manufacturers seemed to be afraid of doing 

 was to ask a price warranted by the cost of their goods. 

 Mr. Lemke wanted to know what should be considered 

 a fair profit. H. E. Kline thought it should be twenty 

 per cent, and B. W. Preston's opinion was that fifteen 

 per cent is a fair profit. G. O. Worland suggested that 

 it might be wise for all veneer manufacturers to follow a 

 policy of refusing to quote prices when they have all the 

 business they can handle. 



Lessons from the War 



President Anderson then introduced John N. Van der 

 Vries of Chicago, central district secretary of the national 

 chamber of commerce, who addressed the meeting on 

 lessons learned from the war. He quoted Lloyd George 

 as saying that what England had learned during the war 

 would pay the cost in time, his reference being to the 

 industries that had been started during the war. We 

 have forgotten the small things and have learned to 

 work together on the big things through the war service 

 committees of the various industries. 



The speaker referred to certain things that need doing, 

 among them being a national budget, water transpor- 

 tation, organization of a merchant marine. 



J. H. Townshend of Memphis, secretary of the South- 



ern Hardwood Traffic Association, reported on Docket 

 8131, in which case the veneer association was repre- 

 sented by Attorney J. B. Norman of Louisville, Ky., 

 before the Interstate Commerce Commission. 



A motion was made that the traffic committee be con' 

 tinued. This was seconded and adopted, the personnel 

 of the committee being: D. E. Kline, chairman; O. C 

 Lemke, R. S. Bacon of Chicago, S. B. Anderson and C. H 

 Barnaby of Greencastle, ind. 



Adjournment was then taken at 12:30 p. m., an ap 

 petizing buffet lunch being served in the meeting room 



When the meeting was convened for the afternoon ses 

 sion, it listened to an address on "The Price Problem,' 

 by Louis Wallis of the U. S. Department of Labor. He 

 held that the war was not wholly responsible for the ad- 

 vance in prices, for the advance began in some lines before 

 the war. The government is no longer trying to fix prices, 

 but is leaving that to the law of supply and demand. A 

 considerable number of foreign laborers are preparing to 

 return to Europe. 



Safety Appliances 



R. T. Solensten, assistant secretary. National Safety 

 Council, Chicago, then addressed the members on "Safety 

 Engineering and Appliances," with particular reference 

 to veneer plants. He prefaced his address as follows- 



Veneer manufacturing is a hazardous industry. If accident 

 frequency and accident severity rates for the several woodworking 

 mdustries be compared, it would be found that the veneer factory 

 is in the same class as the saw-mill, which is usually regarded as 

 the most hazardous of all woodworking plants. The hazards of 

 veneer manufacturing are clearly reflected in the rate which is 

 charged for compensation insurance to employers in this industry. 

 This is generally just as high as the rate charged for saw-mills. 

 It IS a little higher than the rate for logging and quarrying, two and 

 a half times as high as the rate for a sash and door factory or a 

 planing mill, and over three and a half times as high as the rate 

 for an iron foundry. The method; to be employed in prevent- 

 ing accidents in veneer plants are not different from those which 

 by experience have been found to be the most effective in saving 

 life and limb in other industrial establishments. These are: I. 

 Safeguarding of the mechanical equipment. 2. A shop organiza- 

 tion for the purpose of promoting safety education among the 

 workmen, conducting systematic inspections of shop conditions, 

 and correcting unsafe practices. 



The speaker went into particulars at considerable de- 

 tail in his outline of the methods of safeguarding a plant, 

 specifymg the machines and parts of machines which 

 ought to be protected. He laid emphasis on the point that 

 no complete success is possible without an understanding 

 and co-operation between the employes and the em- 

 ployers. He added: 



No employer will get very far in his safety work if he does 

 not have the co-operation of his men. To get that co-operation 

 he must convince his workmen that he ir sincere in his efforts and 

 that he is willing to do his part. It is useless for the employer to 

 go before his men to mnke a fine speech about the importance of 

 preventing accidents and to tell them how they may avoid getting 

 hurt by being more careful, unless he is doing something himself 

 to make his factory as safe as possible, because workmen look 

 upon that as his moral obligation. But when they see the employer 

 spending good money for guards, repairing bad floors, building 

 oilers walks and runways, improving the lighting, putting in an 

 up-to-date system of heating and ventilation, and adding other 



