iS 



THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



chaiiKed. Had the French and Indian 

 war rcsiilti'd (lilTcrently, we might now 

 have been nnder a French government 

 and liave been a French people, and there 

 the (inestion arises, what wonld have been 

 tlie cliaracter of a l'"rench National Hard- 

 wood Lumber Associatinn, and wonld it 

 have been ])ossil)le to have expressed in 

 the FreM<-h language the rnles for grad- 

 ing lnnil)er witli the same precision and 

 force with whicli the "pi'eseiit rules of the 

 .National Hardwood Lumber Association 

 are expressed in English'.' -Vll of these 

 questions naturally arise in the mind of 

 a thoughtful man and there is no way of 

 answering them, except by vague conjec- 

 ture. 



lUit everything went well. The French 

 and Indian wars were decided in favor of 

 tlie English, Washington escaped the 

 l>erils of the wilderness, and the War ot 

 tlie Kevolution was brought to a trium- 

 phant close, and the time for the actual 

 foundation of the National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association drew nearer and 



nearer. 



* * * 



The result of all this hLstory shows how 

 little man ever knows what will be the 

 lestdt of his action. When Washington 

 was struggling against tremendous odds, 

 wlien tlie Continental soldiers were suf- 

 fering and dying in Valley Forge, when 

 Franklin was pleading with the French 

 king, none of them realized that they 

 were working directly in the interest of 

 the National Hardwood Lumber Associa- 

 tion. 



It seems to me it is often a pity that a 

 man wlio is struggling desperately on 

 cannot know the good that will result 

 from his efforts. Had those struggling 

 colonists known that one of the fruits 

 which would result from their self sacri- 

 lice and suffering would be the great and 

 glorious institution known as the National 

 Hardwood Lumber Association, how it 

 would have cheered them! But they did 

 not know what the result of their action 

 would be and no man ever knows. 

 "You shoot an, arrow into the air. 

 It conies to tlie gi-ound you know not 



where." 



* * * 



Events marched slowly and steadily for- 

 ward, the mills of the gods ground slowly 

 on, grinding out material for our great 

 association, until we come to the War 

 of the Itelicllion; and now we are getting 

 nearer and nearer to the momentous time 

 when the association should be launched 

 upon the world. Through thousands and 

 thousands of years the human race had 

 been growing up to it and being educated 

 and developed until it should be ready for 

 the great event. 



But suppose the War of the Rebellion 

 had ended differently. Suppose the Con- 

 federates had succeeded in setting up a 

 separate government, to include all that 

 fruitful and heavily timbered tract of 

 country lying south of the Ohio River. 

 Would it have been possible for such an 



event, even at that late day, to defeat the 

 manifest will of destiny and i«-event the 

 formation of the National Hardwood Lum- 

 ber Association? Would such an ending 

 of the War of the Rebellion have made it 

 necessary to have one National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association north of the Oliip 

 River and another one south? Who can 

 tell? 



Anyhow, the war ended favorably for 

 the T'niou and for the National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association, and in this case, as 

 in the case of Washington and others 

 previously mentioned, Grant, when he led 

 his victorious troops against Ft. Donelson 

 and Sherman, when he made his trium- 

 phant march to the sea, did not know 

 that they were directly promoting the in- 

 terests of our organization. 



W^hen the war was ended and the peo- 

 ple returned to peaceful pursuits, the at- 

 tention of the nation was turned more 

 and more to the manufacture of hardwood 

 lumber, and thus we come down to the 

 time when the National association be- 

 came necessary and a few bold and en- 

 terprising spirits conceived the idea of 

 launching it upon the world. 

 (To be continued.) 



CURRENT HISTORY. 



We appreciate the fact that the reader 

 of the trade Journal does not usually look 

 in it for comments on current events of 

 general interest, but when matters of grave 

 importance are transi>iring. matters in 

 ^^hieh all men take a deep interest, it 

 seems that for a trade paper to pass them 

 by without comment is unnatural. And 

 there are several events of importance 

 transpiring, events which are discussed in 

 every business oflBce, and it seems that a 

 discussion of them is not out of place in a 

 business paper. 



v.ne of the most notable events not only 

 in the history of this country, but in the 

 history of the world — an event unique and 

 interesting— was tlie creation within the 

 past month of the republic of Cuba. This 

 event shows better than almost anything 

 the gi'eat advance the civilization of the 

 present day has made over the civilization 

 of any other period in the world's history. 



Whenever and wherever in the history of 

 tlie world is there an account of a great 

 nation like the United States, interfering, 

 from purely humanitarian principles, to as- 

 sist a struggling people to throw off the 

 yoke of a despotic government, and when, 

 after having rendered such assistance and 

 overtlirown that despotic government, has 

 lent the newly freed people every assist- 

 ance toward establishing a free and inde- 

 pendent government? 



If there is a parallel case in history we 

 do not know of it. France helped the 

 T'nited States in its revolution against Eng- 

 land, but that help was rendered more to 

 injure England than through sympathy for 

 the United States. 



In the case of the United States and 

 ('ui)a no such charge can be made. We 



had no animosity against Spain; there was 

 no rivalry, either military or commercial, 

 lietween the two nations, and we were 

 moved in the matter entirely through sym- 

 pathy for an oppressed and struggling peo- 

 ple. Cuba is a rich and fertile island 

 which no other nation on the earth would 

 have given up, but freely and of our own 

 ."'ccord, with no pressure or compulsion 

 from anyone, the United States, after re- 

 storing law and order, teaching the natives 

 something of self-government, cleaning 

 >-ieir cities and stamping out warm pesti- 

 lence, the United States finally withdrew 

 her troops to satisfy the Cubans' desire for 

 a government of their own. 



Not only that, but the United States will 

 protect the Cubans in their experiment. 

 There are a number of nations of Eurone 

 tnat would seize tlie first opportunity to 

 gi'ab the rich and fei-tile j)ossession were 

 it not for the shadow of tlie mighty fist of 

 Uncle Sam. 



Whether that experiment or self-govern- 

 ment will be a success is another question, 

 but it is the sincere hope of this eoimti-y 

 that it' may so prove. 



Another matter of importance which is 

 engaging the attention of the people to-day 

 is the fight which the ITnited States gov- 

 ernment is conducting against the ti'usts. 

 All the machinei-y of its law department is 

 being used in an attempt to break down 

 the alleged food trust, which is said to be 

 advancing the cost of living to the citizens 

 of this country. 



That the cost of living has been vastly 

 increased during the last few years is be- 

 yond question, liut how much of that ad- 

 vance is due to other causes and how much 

 to trust manipulation is a question which 

 is diflBcult to ans^wer. 



It is impossible that the meat trust 

 siiould pay G cents for cattle and hogs on 

 the hoof and sell the finished product, so 

 (o speak, at the price they sold it at when 

 they onl.y paid half that amount. In fact, 

 we doubt if there is anything in the trust 

 prosecution at all.i It seems no more than 

 justifiable that meat which sold at 12 cents 

 a pound when live cattle brought onl.v 4 

 cents should sell at 15 cents a pound when 

 live cattle are liringing G cents. It is more 

 reasonable to suppose that the activity of 

 the administration is due to the fact that a 

 congressional election is due next fall. 



However it may be in this individual 

 case, the fact remains that the ti'usts are 

 acquiring a power which must give 

 thoughtful men reason for sei-ious consid- 

 eration. When the intent to organize the 

 ocean-carrying trust became apparent, 

 there was much talk about the impossibil- 

 ity of forming a trust on the ocean, be- 

 cause the highway of the sea is free to all, 

 whereas the right of wa.v on land Is a mat- 

 ter of great expense. Further considera- 

 tion and development, however, have 

 shown that the organizers of the ocean 

 trust knew what they were doing. 



It is true that the ocean highways .•'.re 

 Iree to all. but if the railroads that deliver 



