February 10. 1917 



Pertinent Convention Quotations 



W. H. Parker, C/ncinnati, O. 



There never has been a discovery made which has tended to human- 

 ize men more, to socialize men to a greater degree, than the discovery 

 of the possibility of sane, intelligent cooperation. 



* * * 



We aU, as business men, therefore should remember that just to the 

 same degree that we believe ourselves honest and well intentioned, 

 we should credit the same qualities to the other feUow. 



* * * 



Cooperation, gentlemen, in conclusion, was the dream of the past, 

 it is the ideal of the present; and just as sure as God is God, coopera- 

 tion will be the method of the future. 



* * * 



The principle of cooperative activity constantly sought to express 

 itself in every single phase of human life, yet men thought they had 

 found a substitute for it in competition, which was wi-ong in principle, 

 had been discarded in practice, and which tended to separate men, 

 to make them enemies and strangers, to create distress, and to keep 

 men from really getting acquainted with each other's good qualities. 



* * * 



Gentlemen, this is not mushy sentimentality; this is not talk; it is 

 not iridescent, unreliable idealism; it is the most practical thing on 

 God's green earth. It is a thing which has been tried out and tested 

 in the school of actual experience, and the value of cooperation has 

 been proved by the experience of the world. 



L. C. Boyle, Kansas City, Mo. 



The only thing that your state or your national law prohibits is the 

 getting together and artificially fixing prices. 



* * * 



The only way, the only relief of this industry is what? Better mer- 

 chandising, more scientific distribution of your products, elimination 



of waste motion. 



* * * 



Cut-throat competition is immoral; it is a sin. The man who is 

 guilty of it is ashamed to tell it; and no man will be a cut-throat com- 

 petitor if he has to put his cards on top of the table. 



* # * 



But the pioneer atmosphere is passed, and we are now in a more 

 settled social order, when aU men are looking about them to determine 

 how we can put our house in better order. 



» » » 



"Ah," then, somebody says, "That does not sound right; that 

 is not being loyal to the grand old flag." Gentlemen, we are more 

 loyal to that flag when we teU the truth than we are at any other time. 



* * * 



The Federal Trade Commission has discovered that the basic fault 

 of this industry is over-production, lack of cooperation, and an utter 

 absence of all the economies that are necessary if the business is to 

 truly prosper. 



* * * 



But now the leaven is working; you are getting together; and men 

 more and more are getting to understand on the outside that instead 

 of your being a trust, instead of your being a close organization, that 

 what you most need is organization. 



* * * 



Gentlemen, things here are suggested that are above mere dollars 

 and cents. There are here things suggested that go beyond the home 

 of the saw. There is something here involved, my friends, that touches 

 the visions of our souls, something that is reflected in the glory of that 

 flag. 



* * * 



Gentlemen, we have got to forget about the past, not only for our 

 own sakes, but because it is the order of the day. Every other indus- 

 try is marching forward on the highway of efiiciency, and that is for 



the nation's good. The government makes challenge to you to do it. 

 Your conscience approves of that course. "Why can't you do it? 



* * « 



I am amazed to learn, gentlemen, that in this great essential indus- 

 try there should be any question about the fact that the men who 

 make the lumber should not indeed control and have the f uU say as to 

 the grades. I wonder how long such an absurd and cross-vrise propo- 

 sition would exist in any other industry in our country other than the 

 lumber industry? 



* * * 



Let me teU you that there is not a man iji the lumber industry that 

 is not interested in the export trade, because an effective and well 

 organized program for the exploitation of our foreign commerce in 

 the lumber industry will relieve the tension in your domestic markets 

 and aid every man that owns a tree or has a saw, or who is distributing 



lumber products. 



* # * 



When you think of that great empire on that European continent, 

 less in area than one of our states, yet that by the might, not of her 

 military arm alone, but of her industrial efiiciency, is able to challenge 

 the world to compete, you can get some conception of what could be 

 achieved by organization — organization. And if we do not achieve it, 



we fail, and we fail in a great race. 



* • * 



In your various units of activity, ■nithout cooperation, without un- 

 derstanding, without any habit of mind that helps the other fellow 

 or helps yourselves, you are putting your lumber on the market regard- 

 less of conditions, thereby breaking the market, thereby selling your 

 I'roduct and making the other feUow sell his at less than cost. Is that 

 the kind of competition that the law meant should be conserved? 



* » * 



We have been going about in this country with our chest out preen- 

 ing ourselves that we were the cocks of the national walk, that there 

 was nobody quite so smart as we Americans, that we were the whole 

 thing ; and we looked with more or less pity upon the people who hailed 

 from foreign climes. Gentlemen, the only thing in God's world that 

 has saved us from ourselves is the fact that God gave us so much 

 wealth, such a broad and fertile land, that we could not destroy our- 

 selves, could not entirely disorganize ourselves. 



* * * 



There never was any value in the price-fixing progi'ani. It stops 

 all progress, and it put a premiimi upon inefiBciency. The careless and 

 the wasteful man, the laggard, through such an agreement, would get 

 just as much for the product as the efScient, economic and progres- 

 sive man. That should not be the case. Price agreements are wrong; 

 they are morally wrong. They are a stimibling block to progress. But 

 price stability is right, is essential, is necessary. 



» » * 



Here you have an industry that has a capacity of 117,000,000,000 

 feet per annum, with a consumption of 40,000,000,000 feet. Here you 

 have an industry one-third of the saws of which lie silent because men 

 invested their money in it without an understanding of the condi- 

 tions. We cannot seem to realize that this great industry has settled 

 down to orderly processes; that no longer can money be made in it 

 in a speculative way. 



(Contitiued from page ile) 

 common and better X realization No. 2 common and better) -j- (per 

 cent No. 3 common X realization per M Xo. 3 common). 



The gain or loss per M net lumber tally is thus the difference be- 

 tween the realization and the total costs. The gain or loss per thou- 

 sand feet, Doyle scale, is greater or less than the cost net lumber tally 

 depending on the overrun; that is,— 



Gain or loss per M, Doyle scaler (gain or loss per M net lumber 

 tally) + (per cent overruji X gain or loss per M net lumber tally). 



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