THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



17 



The Me^n About Town. 



LUMBER ELOaUENCE. 



I just happened to think that I have a 

 grudge against lawyers and thought may- 

 be I'd better teU you about it. 



There is nothing personal about it, mind 

 you. No lawyer ever beat me out of any- 

 thing. Bless your heart! I never had any- 

 thing for a lawyer to beat me out of. 



I never had a law suit. Never had any- 

 thing to have a law suit about or with. 

 I came pretty near going into a law .suit 

 once, but I restrained myself. I consulted 

 a lawyer about it, Init he wanted me to pay 

 him .$10 before he would express an opinion 

 one way or another. As I didn't have the 

 $10, I became indignant and let the matter 

 drop. It takes moue.v to law people and 

 for that reason I have never lawed any- 

 body, and for the same reason no one has 

 ever lawed me. 



I was on a jury once, trying an insur- 

 ance case, and went sound asleep while 

 one of the lawyers was opening the case. 

 The judge excused me and I have never 

 been put on n jury since. 



I was a witness one time and a smart 

 Aleck of a lawyer got me tangled up in 

 my testimony until I swore all around the 

 case and the lawyer on our side asked the 

 judge to have my testimony stricken out. 



I have a soul aljove personal malice, 

 however, and allow no little thing to rankle 

 in my bosom. My objection to lawyers is 

 that as a class they have a way of getting 

 the best things in life without doing any 

 work to amount to anything. 



Nearly all our great men have been law- 

 yers. There are some honorable excep- 

 tions, to be sure, but most of our presi- 

 dents, senators, governors and members of 

 Congress have been and are lawyers. They 

 have a way of pushing themselves in, and 

 as they don't have to work for their money, 

 but just take it away from people, they 

 have lots of time. And, having the mak- 

 ing of the laws in their hands, they have 

 things arranged so that they can rob you 

 and you can't help yourself; but they ai-e 

 no better nor smarter than anybody else. 

 * * * 



The foregoing was suggested to me by 

 the amount of eloquence which has seethed 

 and bulil)U'd around the headquarters of 

 the hardwood lumbermen of Chicago dar- 

 ing the past week or two, upon the sub- 

 ject of the National Hardwood Lumber 

 Association. You'd think that the law- 

 yers, who claim to possess most of the 

 eloquence of the country, were not In it. 



"I think,'' said a lumberman from out of 

 town, "that the National association has 

 done more harm than good. What do I 

 mean? Well, to illustrate, I'll cite Just one 

 case. The latter part of last year I sold a 

 car of common oak to a firm of consumers 

 in Chicago. Several years ago we sold 



that firm right along and had no trouble. 

 Of late we hadn't sold them anything un- 

 til tliat last car. 



"Now. on that last oar we made them 

 tlio usual grade, such as they had always 

 been satisfied with. If anything, we mads 

 it a little better, but when it arrived in 

 Chicago, what happened? 



"When it arrived in Chicago the firm 

 wrote us, saying they had inspected it by 

 the National rules and found 20 per cent 

 of culls in it. So the consequence was 

 that I was euchered out of that much. It 

 didn't amount to much on that car, of 

 course, but that is just an illustration." 



"If you were getting the worst of it," 

 said someone, "why didn't you demand a 

 reinspection by a National inspector?" 



"A reinspection?' said the out-of-town 

 lumberman, scornfully, "I didn't want a 

 reinspection." 



"You mean that the 20 per cent of culls 

 was there." 



"Of course they were there: but it was 

 a grade that used to go. before National 

 rules were heard of, and no tronl)lo about 

 it." 



"Isn't it a fact that you came to Chi- 

 cago last fall, when orders were hard to 

 get, and took that order under the market, 

 expecting to make up by putting in the 20 

 l>er cent of lower grade?" 



"And what if I did? I made the grade 

 to fit the price, and the buyer was getting 

 his money's worth. It was a grade he 

 used to be satisfied with, and when things 

 are going all right, why not let them 

 alone? Since these National rules have 

 got scattered around you can't tell where 

 you are at. It's getting so it isn't safe to 

 quote on anything less than a National 

 grade. If you quote on that grade you 

 don't get the order, and if you fjuote low, 

 expecting to put in a small percentage 

 of tirst-class culls, the buyer is apt 

 to pull the National rules on you and 

 you will lose money on the shipment. It 

 is a blankety blank nuisance." 

 * * * 

 ''There are some mighty curious people 

 in the w-orld," said a prominent Chicago 

 lumberman. "Some time ago I wrote a 

 man who has been very prominent in 

 pusliing the National association for quo- 

 tations on a certain class of hardwood 

 lumber. He named me a price, which, 

 by the way, was too high, and then added 

 that his 'inspection and measurement was 

 to be final.' 



"I wouldn't buy lumber from my grand- 

 niotlier on such terms— that I should take 

 and pay for anything he saw fit to send 

 me. I wrote l;im to that effect and of- 

 fered to buy on National inspection, the 

 in-speetor in his market to do the work. 

 He replied, briefly, that he was not selling 

 on National inspection. 



"There are, I know, a good many promi- 

 nent members of the National association 

 who will not sell on National rules, for 

 they are opposed to the rules as they are, 

 but this man is one of the strongest op- 

 ponents to changing the rules at all. Had 

 I been a consumer he could have justified 

 himself in a measure by saying that the 

 National rules were only meant to apply 

 between lumbermen. In my case he had 

 no such excuse. He is in the position of 

 indorsing the rules as they are, and yet 

 refusing to do business on them. If there 

 is any sense or reason, wit or wisdom, in 

 such a position I fail to see it. 



"It is the most iuconsistont thing I ever 

 saw, except on the tlieory that he wants 

 to keep the rules where nobody will do 

 business on them, thereby rendering the 

 work of the National association inef- 

 fective.' 



* * * 



"The man you liave spoken of," said 

 another gentleman, "reminds me of a 

 neighbor of my father's when we used to 

 live on a farm. 



"He lived a good distance out and only 

 went to town occasionally. Going to town 

 was quite an event and he would spend a 

 good portion of two or three days making 

 preparations. He was a rather absent- 

 minded and forgetful chap, so he would 

 take great pains in preparing a list of 

 things to bring liome. 



"He went about preparing his list witJi 

 a great deal of system. First he would 

 write down all the things he could think of 

 that the family could possibly need. Then 

 he would go over the list, carefully cross- 

 ing^ out everything they could do without. 

 Then he would go over what he had left 

 and trim the list down to what he could 

 afford to buy. Finally he would go to 

 town with this list, which had cost so 

 much time and troulile. and nine times out 

 of ten he would lose it before he had made 

 half a dozen purchases, and have to guess 

 at the balance. 



"That reminds me of those men who 

 went to all the trouble to organize the Na- 

 tional association, and worked 'night and 

 day preparing a set of inspection rules— 

 and then, when they have the rules to 

 their satisfaction, refuse to do business 

 on them." 



"It is curious," said the Chicago man. 



"I see," said another gentleman, "that the 

 poplar manufacturers have formed a very 

 large and very strong association and have 

 put out a price list that will make your 

 whiskers curl. I don't know, though; it's 

 a mightj- strong organization and ought to 

 pretty nearly control the situation. They 

 can, I believe, if they can keep peace 

 among themselves and act reasonably with 

 the public. The present is a mighty good 



