HARDWOOD RECORD 



43 



of our association to tine attention of so many splendid concerns in this 

 great and prosperous section, believing that our interests can best be 

 <;onservod by an intimate knowledge of the workings of our organization. 



It has been suggested that the time is not far distant when it will be 

 ■necessary for us to hold one convention on the Pacific coast in order that 

 the great lumber interests in that immense territory may be made familiar 

 with the many benefits to be derived by an afliliation with us. Such a 

 course would place our facilities at the disposal of those who will naturally 

 seek to invade the great eastern marliet. which is bound to be the result 

 ■of the completion and use of the Panama canal. I desire to throw out this 

 suggestion that it may be given due thought and consideration. 



Our thanks are due to our members and friends who have helped to 

 make this meeting possible, and it is to be desired that we may leave 

 many new friends behind and welcome many of them as members at our 

 next annual meeting. 



In conclusion may I suggest that controversy is generally the child of 

 anisconception. The desire for quick, easy wealth is the source of half our 

 troubles. The truth is that wealth is the cheapest of all possessions It 

 has destroyed more careers than it ever made. The man who starts with it 

 is more apt to land in the ditch than one who never had it. Financial ease 

 to youth is a drawback : few labor unless they have to. Competence should 

 <'ome with age and as the result of effort. The world, they say, owes every 

 man a living. I believe that; but he is l>ound to get out and collect it. 

 Nature is generous but slow : she never repudiates a debt and always pays 

 in the currency agreed upon. For energy, she pays in wealth and comfort : 

 for integrity, in respect and honor ; for ability, in fame ; for folly, in dis- 

 tress; for loyalty, she returns the same supreme quality multiplied a 

 hundred fold, which then becomes affection ; therefore, let us spread this 

 ihond of affection and all profit by this gathering as never before. 



Folloi\'ing, Secretary Perry made his annual report covering the 

 liistory of the organization and its achievements, making a special 

 leeital of its present standing and accomplishments. 



On motion of A. L. Stone, it tvas decided that all resolutions 

 presented at the meeting be referred to the committee on resolu- 

 tions, and be subject to its approval before being presented to the 

 association for final action. 



Frederick W. Cole then presented the report of the treasurer 

 and of the audit and finance committee, which indicated that the 

 total avails of the organization during the past year had been 

 $.36,494.27 with disbursements of $34,597.79, leaving a working 

 balance on February 27 of $1,896.46. 



Alexander Willsou, chairman of the board of managers of the 

 bureau of information, then read his report, which gave detailed 

 information concerning the splendid financial report system carried 

 on by the organization. 



Department ilanager W. W. Schupner, superintendent of the 

 bureau of information, then delivered a circumstantial and detailed 

 report giving the details of the tremendous amount of work han- 

 dled through his department, indicating the fact that the associa- 

 tion now had reports covering the financial history and standing 

 of more than thirty thousand lumber buyers. 



The report of Chairman R. W. Sehofield of the committee on 

 trade relations, in his absence, was read by Secretary Perry. The 

 report recited that amicable relations existed between the National 

 Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association and all sister organizations. 



The president then appointed a committee on nominations for 

 trustees, and a committee on resolutions, after which the morning 

 session was adjourned. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON SESSION 



George W. Holt, ehainriHu of the committee on fire insurance, 

 delivered a fine report on the subject to which he has devoted so 

 much of his life, and with which he is so familiar. It is regretted 

 that this splendid paper can not be presented in full, but following 

 are important excerpts: 



It is the larger view which must be grasped and emphasized by lumber- 

 men if they are to protect themselves against the great peril which now 

 threatens the lumber industry, as a result of the widespread and mislead- 

 ing agitation against the use of lumber in the construction or finish or 

 furnishing of buildings. 



The lumberman faces a more serious problem than most lumbermen 

 realize. It is a case of creeping paralysis — insidious, slow, but deadly. The 

 hazy emotionalism which under a hundred heads calls itself conservation, 

 the hysterical unreason which controls the press and the public in the pres- 

 ence of fire calamities, the self-interest of the men and classes of men who 

 make money out of fire insurance and who seek to divert the attention of 

 the public from wasteful costs of administration by a hue and cry over 

 •'fire waste." the propaganda which is being carried on by the producers 

 and dealers in materials which compete with and supplant lumber, the 



activity of the commercial and trade press which is building up circulation 

 and advertising for the profit that there is in it to them regardless of the 

 community interests — all these and many other infiuences are operating 

 with increasing momentum to restrict the use of wood and wood products. 



Wood is a name which has come to mean fire with the crowd. Established 

 insurance journals are publishing special supplements or magazines which 

 under the banner of "Fire Prevention" or "Fire Protection" are playing 

 upon the pre.judices and fears and the unreasoning impulse of the crowd. 

 Chief Croker. Secretary Wentworth and every "Tom, Dick and Harry" can 

 get the public attention by attacking and condemning the use of every form 

 of wood, from matches to furniture. Magazines are being started all over 

 the country for the purpose of exploiting this sentiment under titles of 

 conservation of life and property, insurance, engineering, fire-proofing, and 

 advertising the use of cement and reinforced concrete construction, of metal 

 trim and furniture, frames and sash, and so on through the list. 



'J'his specter of fire waste which is being exploited is conslructed in 

 imagination of every kind of wood. 



Legitimate competition and development or evolution in economic ad- 

 vancement is a fair field for competition. We can not and do not object 

 when competing materials urge their claims to recognition. We can meet 

 them on the score of availability, economy, efficiency and general useful- 

 ness. When somebody cries "fire," nobody will listen to our claims. It is, 

 therefore, the cry of "fire" that we must reckon with. We have been chiefly 

 concerned, as lumbermen, with the cost of protecting our own properties 

 and with the cost of insuring them against loss by fire. We have failed to 

 understand that the fire insurance man and company are responsible for 

 the greater part of the fire waste. We have thoughtlessly supposed that the 

 fire insurance man was as anxious to prevent fire as we are, when we ought 

 to have recognized that it is his business to make a profit out of fire, and 

 if there were no fires he would have no business. We were astonished when 

 we heard Mr. Milligan, vice-president of the Phoenix of Hartford, say. 

 ■The business of fire insurance is conducted with greater satisfaction when 

 fires are burning briskly." 



We have failed to grasp the idea that as long as the fire insurance com- 

 panies control the making of the rates, and the rules under which the 

 rates are applied or violated, the fire insurance man has the same interest 

 in fires that the coal dealer has. He wants a great number of fires, but none 

 of them outside of the stove, or the furnace, or the fireplace, which corre- 

 sponds to the risk that he based his figures upon. 



The fear of the underwriter is that the fire will break out of the fire- 

 place and burn a great deal more of the adjoining property than he cal- 

 culated upon when he made the rate. The problem of loss of life, of inter- 

 ruption of business and employment or of the peril of the community has 

 received almost no consideration in the making up of his rules and rates. 

 He has concerned himself chiefly and almost exclusively with the problem 

 of selling indemnity at a profit. 



This tact was brought out with great clearness by the New York Fac- 

 tories Investigating Committee last October, in its examination of under- 

 writers and others growing out of the Triangle shirtwaist factory disaster. 



No single business or organization, other than insurance organizations, 

 has as much at stake in this problem as lumbermen. The community as a 

 whole, and any separate community, whether it recognizes the fact or not, 

 is vitally concirned with the proper solution of these problems. Banish 

 all lumber and all other combustible material and you certainly banish fire 

 waste. That is one way. but is it the same way? 



This nation is richer than any other in its lumber resources, matured 

 and ready for market and made available by the industry, capital and in- 

 telligence of lumbermen. There is no industry which equals it in mag- 

 nitude and in its widespread distribution throughout the states. Agricul- 

 ture assembles larger figures under one heading, but they cover diversified 

 crops and secondary products, such as li%'e stock, eggs. etc. 



Lumber is an enormous traffic producer, probably outranking any single 

 item of transportation. It is the familiar and most available material of 

 the largest class of workmen and artisans and owners of homes and other 

 structures. Not only the producer and builder but the hardware man, the 

 tool manufacturer, the painter, the cabinet worker and the merchant of 

 every form of products of wood are vitally interested in the correct solu- 

 tion of this problem. Building codes and restrictions may be so excessive 

 as greatly to hamper or prevent the development of industry and commerce 

 in a given community, and the nation is made up in that sense of com- 

 munities. 



Lumbermen need not expect the merchants and exploiters of competing 

 materials to foster the lumber industry. They need not expect the com- 

 munity to take the initiative. The community is not that kind of a per- 

 son or that kind of a machine. It is not a coordinated intelligence, but flocks 

 and herds and clans of people with conflicting interests, too much engaged 

 in making a living to give more than casual and sporadic attention to com- 

 munit.v problems. 



Lumbermen (which is a word that includes "from the stump to the con- 

 sumer") have the strongest motive of self-interest, as well as the motive 

 of public interest, to command their attention to this subject. 



On invitation, A. T. Gerrans, chairman of the advertising com- 

 mittee of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, pre- 

 sented a forceful and interesting address showing the inroads of 

 wood substitutes quite similar in general character, but new in 



