HARDWOOD RECORD 



23 



posed to represent. He believes the time and expense attached to 

 this branding would be more than saved in the elimination of unsat- 

 isfactory transactions. 



This matter of branding the grade and fcetage of lumber has 

 been discussed many times, and while quite a number of leading 

 manufacturers are very favorable to doing so, and at one time the 

 Hardwood Manufacturers' Association passed resolutions commend- 

 ing this method, it has had little usage in the trade. The average 

 jobber and retailer of lumber objects to having the grade branded 

 on lumber, and while many sterling reasons could be presented that 

 every board should be branded for grade and measurement, trade 

 custom seems to be against this procedure. 



Hardwood Record is a thorough believer in the ' ' trade mark. ' ' 

 It believes that every manufacturer, whether he be a maker of lum- 

 ber or of hats, should have pride enough in his line of production to 

 brand his goods, and not only with his name, but with the grade 

 and the quantity represented. 



The Proposed Lumber Publicity Campaign 



Over the signatures of the advertising committee of the National 

 Lumber Manufacturers' Association there has been issued a second 

 and supplemental report in pamphlet form, which involves a collec- 

 tion of reprints of considerable matter that is being circulated in 

 favor of various alleged wood substitutes. The pamphlet also con- 

 tains a series of cartoons which attempts to graphically analyze the 

 prevailing injuries and dangers to the lumber market; a second chart 

 of proposed restoratives, and a third pair entitled "Comparative Tac- 

 tics." There is still a fourth one entitled "Unresisting Market 

 Handicaps, ' ' and a fifth one illustrating the weight of argument in 

 favor of wood for many purposes. The general text of the pamphlet 

 is rather a commendable document, but the cartoons have compara- 

 tively little strength. 



The mass of reprint matter reproduced does not constitute ten per 

 cent of the editorial and advertising matter of a similar nature that 

 has been collected and collated by Hakdwood Eecord. In spite of 

 denials to the contrary, made by one member of this association's 

 committee, concerning the authorship of the original report made by 

 the committee, (which observation will doubtless apply with equal 

 force to this one,) there is prima facie evidence that the report was 

 prepared by a professional publicity promoter, and that the connec- 

 tion of the committee with the work is essentially vicarious. 



The editor of Hardwood Record wishes it distinctly understood 

 that he is absolutely and unqualifiedly a believer in the necessity of 

 a campaign of general publicity in favor of wood utilization, and in 

 showing up the fraudulent character of substitution for many pur- 

 poses tliat now prevails ; and furthermore the necessity of correcting 

 public opinion on the high value of wood as compared with the frail- 

 ties of many alleged wood substitutes. If in any wise criticising this 

 report, he wishes to be understood that it is not a criticism on the 

 members of this committee, but on the incompetent character of the 

 professional publicity promoter it has employed to voice its senti- 

 ments on this all-Lmportant subject. 



Hardwood Record contends that in order to secure a campaign of 

 general publicity, looking to increasing wood utilization, it is neces- 

 sary to a large extent to go outside of the lumber trade press. By 

 the very reason of the character and extent of lumber trade press cir- 

 culation, it can have comparatively little influence as a creator of 

 increased wood utilization. These publications go to present manu- 

 facturers, dealers and consumers of wood, and outside of Hardwood 

 Record, very largely bnly to the first two classes named. As adver- 

 tising factors for lumber, all they do for patrons is to assist them in 

 securing a proportion of existing business. Hence it is that other and 

 wider methods of publicity must lie employed to effect general pub- 

 licity. 



The crux of the argument of the supplemental report referred to 

 is that "if we help the retailer to sell faster, he won't need any help 

 to buy faster." Undeniably this is a logical argument to assist in 

 increasing the demands of retail lumbermen, of which there are many 

 thousands scattered throughout the United States. But from the fact 

 that h,^rdwood lumber is handled only to a very limited extent through 

 the medium of retail lumber yards, and in its larger proportion goes 



direct to wholesale factory consumers, the sort of exploitation that 

 would apply to the building wood trade will in no wise apply to the 

 hardwood industry. The distribution of building woods and that of 

 hardwoods are entirely different, and there is no one system of gen- 

 eral publicity that can be made to successfully apply to both. 



This is not the first lime that the hardwood element has been either 

 induced or invited to assist in pulling coals out of the fire for the 

 building wood trade. To a minor extent they were coaxed into the 

 last tariff fight and ' ' conned ' ' into accepting an alleged protective 

 duty of a dollar and a half a thousand on oak, poplar, Cottonwood, 

 gum, cypress, maple, birch, basswood and sundry other hardwoods 

 that do not exist in commercial quantities in any other place on earth 

 save in the United States. To be sure, much the larger element of 

 the hardwood industry was wise enough to keep out of this foolish- 

 ness. To this very tariff measure may be traced, to a large extent, 

 the present diiBculties that now encompass the building wood industry. 

 The building wood manufacturers secured to the entire industry the 

 reputation of lobbying at Washington, in getting congressmen to 

 trade votes on other schedules for the sake of preserving a duty on 

 lumber that is of absolutely no importance to the hardwood industry, 

 and of very little moment to the building wood trade. Representa- 

 tions made at Washington to get this duty over that were not war- 

 ranted by the facts, and about all that it has resulted in is the achiev- 

 ing of a reputation by the lumber industry of being a "trust" and 

 amenable to the Sherman anti-trust law. 



The hardwood trade has contributed with considerable generosity 

 to assisting the building wood interest (and it is almost entirely a 

 building wood affair), in the fight against the fiber and wood con- 

 tainers now employed so extensively in lieu of wooden boxes. The 

 hardwood element has financially co-operated in assisting in various 

 work of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, whose in- 

 terest, to a dominant extent (and whose work to a like extent), has 

 been carried on in the interest of the building wood trade. Very little 

 good result for the hardwood trade is traceable to any work that has 

 ever been done by the national organization. 



Now this association again asks the hardwood trade to contribute 

 to its bills for a general defense of the lumber industry. It may be 

 all right for the hardwood element to dig deep into its pockets and joinn 

 the national organization in this campaign, but would it not be of 

 essentially more promising value if hardwood producers should inaug- 

 urate a campaign of its own, and work on distinct lines of exploiting 

 its own woods in its own way? To a man up a tree it would look as 

 though this would be the logical way for the hardwood element to 

 spend its money in a campaign of general publicity, because in this 

 manner it would have the advantage of at least selecting competent 

 talent to carry on an intelligent campaign. 



The publicity promoter 's document is entirely of the ' ' glittering 

 generality type, ' ' but at least indirectly suggests the purchase of ad- 

 vertising space in magazines. This at least is the way his line of 

 effort for the cypress and gum people has been directed. It is pos- 

 sible to get fairly remunerative results out of an exploitation of this 

 kind, but the weakness of this class of advertising is manifest at 

 present from the fact that there is a reduction of advertising space 

 purchased in magazines in the November and December, 1911, issues 

 over that of a year ago of from twenty-five to fifty per cent. There 

 is a veritable panic among magazine publishers and their allies, pro- 

 fessional advertising agents. This indicates that what is known as 

 the general national advertiser, who by dint of long experience is able 

 to judge of financial returns of this sort of exploitation, has awak- 

 ened to the fact that he has been fooling away his money. These 

 advertisers are either retrenching on this line of extravagant expend- 

 iture or are taking some other method of spending their advertising 

 appropriation. 



As a guess, those interested in furthering steel passenger and sleep- 

 ing car use spent a lump sum of not less than twenty-five thousand 

 dollars for a one-time reading matter advertisement in hundreds of 

 daily newspapers during the last week of November. This is not a 

 new form of advertising but it is scientific. This subject is analyzed 

 in an article in this issue of Record. 



It is a big undertaking that the lumber trade has to go up against 



