HARDWOOD RECORD 



23 



Pending Steel Passenger Car Legislation 



As Hardwuol) KtcoKD iiiupliosiod would be tlio case, agitation is 

 prevalent in Congi-ess, looking to the enactment of drastic laws 

 forcing railroads to purchase and employ steel passenger equipment 

 on all their trains. Representative Donohue of Philadelphia has 

 introduced another steel car bill, which provides that before January 

 1, 1914, it shall be unlawful for railroads engaged in interstate 

 transportation of passengers to use in their lines a passenger coach 

 which is not made of steel and which is not vestibuled. After a 

 railroad has complied with the law by replacing all or most of its 

 coaches with steel cars, it is siulhorized to refuse to accept from con- 

 necting lines coaches not built of steel. 



The bill further provides that railroads failing to comply with the 

 law by the specified time shall be fined five hundred dollars for each 

 offense. The Interstate Commerce Commission is empowered to see 

 that the law is enforced. 



In presenting this bill the eon 



gressmen indulged in the usual 



character of "running off at the 

 mouth" talk, by which similar 

 legislation is always accom- 

 j)anied, Mr, Donohue regards 

 the sacrifice of human lives 

 through railroad accidents every 

 year as one of the greatest 

 national scandals, and thinks the 

 federal government in its power 

 to regulate interstate commerce 

 should leave nothing undone to 

 tend to minimize the evil to 

 make railroad tra%el safer. His 

 panacea for this evil is to com- 

 pel railroads to replace their 

 wooden coaches with ' ' pressed 

 steel cars of a modern type, that 

 have proven their shock resisting 

 and fire-resisting qualities in 

 wrecks. ' ' 



No lumberman or association 

 of lumbermen can afford, for the 

 sake of stimulating increased 

 wood consumption, to stand in 

 the position of obstructionists to 

 progress. Especially, they can- 

 not afford to insist on the con- 

 tinued use of wood in railroad 

 car building, if by any chance 

 the steel car offers added protec- 

 tion to the lives, health and com- 

 fort of the traveling public. 



For more than four months 

 Hakdwood Eeoord has published 

 a series of articles, which have 

 constituted a thesis on the rela- 

 tive merits of steel cars vs. 



wooden cars built on reinforced steel platforms, which to the minds 

 of the unbiased, has demonstrated beyond peradventure that nothing 

 has yet been developed in steel car passenger construction that is in 

 any wise an improvement over the former type of wooden cars, 

 either in safety, healthfulness or comfort. On the contrary, it has 

 been clearly demonstrated that these new-fangled steel cars are 

 entirely experimental; that in a collision they are just as liable to 

 telescope as wooden cars; that owing to their rigidity they have 

 shown failure to take cross-overs and switches; that they are highly 

 extravagant in cost and haulage; that they are verj' uncomfortable 

 vehicles in which to ride, both in cold and hot weather; that the 

 occupants are almost invariably aflBicted with colds in winter 

 weather; that they are noisy and nerve-racking, and in no wise give 

 the same comfort to occupants as do wooden sleeping and passenger 

 cars. 



An Invitation 



to the 



Tenth Annual Convention 



HARDWOOD 



MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION 



of the ^ 



UNITED STATES, 



CINCINNATI, OHIO, JANUARY 30 AND 31 



Your attention is directed to tinis convention, which prom- 

 ises to be the most important meeting ever held by this asso- 

 ciation, and its deliberations should be of the utmost im- 

 portance to everyone interested in the manufacture, sale and 

 use of southern hardwoods. 



The condition of the trade during the past year, and the 

 outlook for the future will be carefully analyzed. 



The very important questions to be considered, and prob- 

 lems to be solved, are of themselves a sufficient reason for 

 any sacrifice that may be necessary to attend. 



The program will be of unusual interest, and will embrace 

 many subjects of vital importance to every division of hard- 

 wood production, distribution and utilization. 



Addresses will be made by people eminently qualified to 

 handle the various subjects in a masterful way. 



I believe this meeting will afford an opportunity for edu- 

 cation and logical plans being laid for the future that no one 

 interested in hardwoods can afford to miss. 



We want your presence, co-operation and advice, and as- 

 sure you of a hearty welcome. 



HARDWOOD MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION 

 OF THE UNITED STATES. 



W. B. Townsend, President. 



It must be borne iu mind that in spite of the general republication 

 of all, or considerable portions of these articles, in thousands of 

 newspapers and magazines throughout the United States, there has 

 been, with one exception, so far as the cUpping bureau of Hard- 

 wood Recokd reveals, no attempt made to defend steel cars. This 

 defense, published a few weeks ago in several trade papers, was a 

 very weak and unsatisfactory one, and was written by a man who 

 manufactures the steel doors employed in steel coaches, and there- 

 fore his opinion on this subject may be regarded as strictly ex parte. 

 No car building engineer has come to the defense of steel passenger 

 cars; no prominent railroad man has had the temerity to argue in 

 their favor; and even the steel trust magnates, who are responsible 

 for this monumental humbugging of the railroads and traveling pub- 

 lic, have put up but the one specious plea: "Increased safety to the 

 traveling pubUe." 



Leaving aside any selfish interest lumber manufacturers may have 



in securing a continuance of the 

 use of wood in passenger car 

 construction, it would look as 

 though they should join the rail- 

 roads in this case to put the true 

 facts concerning steel passenger 

 equipment before Congress, in 

 such a forceful way that the 

 Donohue and other pernicious 

 bills now pending, would be held 

 up indefinitely in committees, and 

 not even be given the oppor- 

 tunity of being presented for 

 vote. 



Efficiency and Profits 



Many students of industrial 

 affairs believe that the time is 

 past, never to return, when old- 

 fashioned fancy margins of profit 

 will be secured from any kind 

 of manufacturing pursuit. This 

 general belief finds no exception 

 in lumber manufacturing. 



The trend of the times is ap- 

 parently towards big business, 

 higher- eflSciency and a scaling 

 down of profits. The trend of 

 commercial affairs also is looking 

 to the extinction of intermediary 

 profits in many lines. What the 

 future will bring forth in both 

 manufacturing and sales methods 

 and resultant profits in the lum- 

 ber business is conjectural. 



Nothing has really been accom- 

 plished in years to make for 

 higher efSeiency and the lowering 

 of cost in lumber production. On 

 the contrary, leaving out of consideration constantly increasing 

 stumpage values and lowering quality of logs, there has been a 

 marked increase in lumber manufacturing cost, incident to higher 

 cost of all factors entering into it, including labor. 



Experience demonstrates that comprehensive operation in lumber 

 production does not mean lowering cost. The highest efSciency today 

 is secured in the personally conducted small sawmill operation. A 

 coffee-pot mill, sawing ten thousand feet a day, can actually produce 

 lumber at less actual cost than the most elaborately equipped big mill. 

 Manufacturers in all lines are seeking higher efficiency in an 

 attempt to lower the cost of production. This is a serious problem in 

 lumber manufacture, because there is no way of establishing basic 

 rules to accomplish this result, from the fact that every lumber 

 operation constitutes a new proposition, involving new problems 

 necessary of solution to accomplish these results. 



