16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



January 25. 1917 



The Fiat of the Forest Service 



q^HE INVESTIGATION OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY by the 

 1 Forest Service has beea finished, and a news item sent from 

 Washington summarizes the conclusions reached, to the effect that 

 the country's timber supply should belong largely to the govern- 

 ment, for the reason that private holders are not strong enough 

 to take care of it. Another conclusion is that lumbermen cannot 

 be trusted to form combinations whereby to maintain a steady 

 market by limiting production and regulating selling. 



This is the fruit of a long investigation that has covered the 

 country. It discovers that too much timber is in private hands 

 and the government ought to get it back; that lumbering must be 

 supervised by tlie government, because companies and individuals 

 cannot be trusted to do it rightly. These may not be the precise 

 words, but the meaning is expressed in unmistakable terms, as 

 the fiat of the Forest Service. 



The plan lacks wisdom and is visionary. Government ownership 

 of the country's timber might be all right. Opinions differ as to 

 that; but, suppose the policy of the government's buying the 

 private timber be agreed to, how will it solve any lumber problems 

 until the government has actually bought the timber? There is 

 wherein the scheme is seen to be visionary. It suggests a remedy 

 which in practice cannot be applied, and therefore is a mere 

 dream. An enormous fund would be needed to buy the privately- 

 owned timber of the United States, and how is the money to be 

 raised, and how long will it take? The answer may be that 

 Congress will appropriate it; but would Congress do it? 



It has taken Congress about fifteen years to appropriate enough 

 money to buy 706,974% acres of Appalachian cut-over flats and 

 huckleberry ridges. It is cheap, waste land with little timber, 

 and yet it took fifteen years of agitation to get Congress to put 

 up money to buy it — and the money came so reluctantly that a 

 groan accompanied every dollar. 



What will happen if an attempt is made to buy hundreds of 

 millions of acres of real timberland at from four to forty times as 

 much an acre as the Appalachian bald knobs? At the pace set in 

 the Appalachian purchases, from four thousand to sixteen thou- 

 sand years will be required to get the money out of Congress, 

 and long before that time the plains of the South and the moun- 

 tains of the West will be as barren as Mesopotamia, and the 

 lumber industry will be beyond all need of help. 



There may be times for seeing visions and dreaming dreams; 

 "lut it is not the time during a serious discussion of the lumber 

 isiness, where some practical and sensible suggestion is wanted, 

 tst about how many years of investigation were required to 

 tvvrmulate that pipe-dream of government ownership as the rock of 

 salvation for the lumber business? A populist agitator, after an 

 hour of cogitation in his barn loft, could have hit that kind of 

 a bull's eye. 



That was a vicious slam at lumbermen which solemnly pro- 

 nounced the Forest Service's disapproval of efforts to form asso- 

 ciations and combinations whereby to get fair prices for lumber 

 by cheeking overproduction and regulating distribution. The 

 Forest Service says it "regards such development as involving 

 dangers to the public interest." Is the spirit of persecution never 

 to be appeased? That attitude on the part of the government, 

 but not heretofore of the Forest Service, has done more than any- 

 thing else to paralyze the lumber industry. Lumbermen have been 

 so intimidated by threats of punishment that they are afraid to 

 discuss prices, production, distribution and similar market matters. 

 Lumbermen of the United States have the ability to make their 

 business profitable, and at the same time give the public a per- 

 fectly square deal, if permitted to do so. They had hoped that 

 some action might be taken to enable them to do it; but when 

 they asked for bread, they have been offered the stone of govern- 

 ment ownership, with the additional statement regarding their wish 

 to organize their producing and selling forces, that the government 

 "regards such devlopment as involving dangers to the public 

 interest." 



And it has come to this. 



Specialization in Hardwoods Advantage to the 

 Consumer 



THE GENERAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE LUMBER field 

 must necessarily act exclusively in the interests of lumbermen. 

 These associations are intended entirely to handle those general 

 problems of wide interest which affect as a whole those branches 

 of the industry which they respectively represent. But in the past 

 two or three years a great change has cover over the whole trade, 

 particularly the hardwood end. In the hardwood business there are 

 a variety of interests even though the hardwood industry as a 

 whole has a common foundation of purpose. The manufacturers in 

 the North have their individual problems as differentiated from 

 the problems of the southern producers.' Within the northern 

 territory is a further subdivision of interests as between the 

 manufacturers of the different woods. In the South a similar 

 subdivision covers the various woods most common in that part 

 of the hardwood belt. There has dawned a realization that while 

 the general associations are absolutely essential to the welfare of 

 the industry, specialized organizations designed pre-eminently to 

 handle merchandizing problems are the only means whereby the 

 lumbermen can effect proper relationship with their respective 

 customers. 



As a producer of any commodity is thrown in contact with the 

 consumer only in the merchandizing end of his business, so it is only 

 through the specialized association that a definite contact is estab- 

 lished between the hardwood lumbermen and the hardwood users. 

 The whole trend of work in the specialized organizations, that are 

 just now fully finding themselves, is advancement in merchandizing 

 methods, and full cognizance is taken of the necessity for more 

 fully understanding the needs of consumers to the end that the most 

 modern and most scientific and effective merchandizing may be 

 generally adopted. It is obvious to the lumbermen as well as to 

 everybody else concerned that this complete understanding may be 

 accomplished only if the consumers will show their willingness to 

 help the lumbermen in their efforts to give better service and the 

 most fitting commodities to all customers. 



The woodworkers have a real opportunity and a real obligation 

 in the development of these specialized hardwood organizations. 

 Even in the short time they have existed it has been demonstrated 

 in an unmistakable manner that the more highly developed they 

 become the greater will bo their discernible and profitable benefit 

 to the bu3'ers of hardwood lumber. These specialized associations 

 are a means whereby the woodworkers can bring their lumber 

 problems to such bodies as will be of real help in solving them. 

 The new lumber associations, because they are merchandizing 

 organizations, offer a medium which has been more needed than 

 any other one thing in the utilization of hardwood lumber — a 

 common meeting ground for the sellers and the consumers. Both 

 sides should sec that the full possibilities of these organizations 

 from a modern merchandizing standpoint are made the most of. 



A Top Heavy List of Questions 



A PROPOSED LIST OF QUESTIONS HAS BEEN PREPARED 

 for the use of the commission which will visit Europe under 

 the auspices of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce 

 and the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association. These 

 questions are to be propounded to the European lumbermen in the 

 form of interviews, and they cover the operations of mills and 

 factories and touch upon matters of general industrial importance. 

 The schedule of questions provides also for numerous photographs 

 of mills, rivers, dumps, forests, factories, and machinery. 



The plan is elaborate. The danger is that it may be two elab- 

 orate and include too many and too diverse things, and will fall 

 short of complete success for that reason. Many of the questions 

 appear to be only remotely related to the subject of finding mar- 

 kets for American lumber in Europe and getting it to those 

 markets. Some of the questions appear to be put forward more as 

 an economic on social study than as an effort to ascertain the best 

 means of marketing our lumber across the sea. Some relate to 

 taxes, insurance, close-downs, labor unions, laws affecting busi- 



