12 



THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



Louis. Mo. This coruuiittoe met at the 

 Southern Hotel in St. Louis, June G, 19u2, 

 and organized as above given. There was 

 also present Mr. W. A. Bonsack and F. H. 

 Smith. 



Motion was made by Mr. Upham of Chi- 

 cago and seconded by Mr. Possell of Cin- 

 cinnati, that we organize a traffic depart- 

 ment of the National Hardwood Lumber 

 Association to looli after the interests of 

 the nieniliers. This motion was carried 

 unanimously. 



Motion was made and carried that a 

 finance committee of three be appointed 

 by the chair to raise means to carry on 

 the traffic department. This committee 

 was appointed as follows: Fred W. Up- 

 ham, chairman; C. K. Mengel and F. -M. 

 Possell. 



After a thorough discussion as to the 

 merits and qualilcations of the different 

 (applicants for the position of trattic man- 

 ager, the board was unanimous in select- 

 ing Mr. W. D. Hurlbnt. This was done 

 after carefully considering his qualilica- 

 tions from all sides, lie was heartily en- 

 dorsed by the trade at large and also by 

 important railroad officials. 



Motion was made by Mr. IJpham and 

 seconded by Mr. Mengel that an assess- 

 ment be made on the members of the as- 

 sociation, or such of the members of the 

 association as wished to take advantage 

 and derive the benetits from this depart- 

 ment, on a basis of ]-lllth of 1 per cent of 

 their minimum ratings in I>un's .Agency to 

 provide funds for the use of the traffic de- 

 partment, provided, however, that the 

 maximum assessment should not be more 

 than .$250 and the minimum assessment 

 not less than $10. A guarantee fund was 

 immediately subscribed and advanced to 

 provide funds for the immediate use of 

 the department: tliis money to be used for 

 the starting of the department and re- 

 bating when the pro rata assessment was 

 completed, 



•Chicago was selected as the headquar- 

 ters of the traffic manager, and he, with 

 Mr. Upham's assistance, will at once lease 

 quarters for the furtherance of the busi- 

 ness. Mr. Hurlbnt will start his services 

 on Monday. June 9, 



li'rom the large number of letters which 

 have been received by the committee and 

 by the president of the association, I am 

 lead to believe that this will be one of the 

 most important actions ever taken by this 

 association. The good that will be accom- 

 plished in the way of classification, rout- 

 ing, rates, etc, cannot be calculated. The 

 man who is at the head of this depart- 

 ment is a post-graduate in transportation 

 matters, and takes hold of the schesne with 

 a great deal of faith and enthusiasm. One 

 of the managers of one of the largest rail- 

 road systems in this country was seen 

 after the meeting and promised to co- 

 operate with our traffic manager. We 

 have no doubt but that tlie railroads gen- 

 erally will take up all matters pertaining 

 as above and treat with Mr. Hurlbnt for 

 the general good of our association. 



It was the opinion of the committee 

 that a cheap attempt In a matter of such 

 importance as this would not do, and. 

 therefore, it was resolved to appeal to the 

 members of the association to support 

 financially this departure. The railroad 

 business has never been handled in a 

 commensurate way to which its value is 

 entitled. Our large membership anfl the 

 Interest that has been taken in this move- 

 ment led the members of this committee 

 to believe that it only had to be started 

 in a proper manner to show how much 

 good, and also monetary value, it would 

 have to the members of the National Hard- 

 wood liUmber Association. 



You will receive a notice from the chair- 



man of this committee of the proceedings, 

 and als!) a notice from the treasurer, to 

 \vhom checks should be maib^d, according 

 to the amount of capital invested in your 

 Iiusiness on the plan of payment as above 

 given. Yours very truly, 



F. II. SMITH, 



President. 



THE MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIA- 

 TION. 



The Hardwood Manufacturers' .Associa- 

 tion of the United States was formally or- 

 ganized at Louisville on .Tune 3, and the 

 Record wishes the new association suc- 

 cess. 



The Record cannot but believe, how 

 ever, that if it had been started in a 

 broader spirit, if the attempt to stir up 

 class feeling had not been so apparent, 

 the association would have had greater 

 chance of success. The lumbermen are 

 a broad gauge and liberal set of people 

 and the National association has brought 

 the dealers and manufacturers into such 

 close touch and has established such 

 friendly relations between them, that the 

 spirit of animosit.v so evident in the pro- 

 ceedings of the Manufacturers' Associa- 

 tion will not strengthen that association. 



The constant tendency of the National 

 association has been in the direction of 

 furthering the interests of the manufac- 

 turers. There has not been a revision of 

 the rules that has not been in the direc- 

 tion of making them more liberal, until at 

 the St. Louis meeting the manufacturers 

 were allowed to make the rules on all 

 kinds of lumber. The National associa- 

 tion has accepted the rules of the Yellow 

 Pine Association on yellow pine, of the 

 Cypress Association on cypress, of the 

 Michigan and Wisconsin people on the 

 northern hardwoods, and of the Indiana 

 and southern producers upon southern 

 hardwoods. 



The National association not only ac- 

 complished the lowering of the rules to 

 fit the views of the manufacturers, but it 

 brought the buyers to accept them. 



This was not done at one meeting. It 

 took several years to bring the ■ trade to 

 the state of mind where such action was 

 possible. The Poplar Association was the 

 only one that did not recognize that it 

 takes time to educate public sentiment 

 to accept a radical change in rules. They 

 presented their rules at the St. Louis 

 meeting and because the committee re- 

 jected those rules on account of certain 

 points in them with which the committee 

 could not agree, they took the high posi- 

 tion that they would not discuss the rules 

 with the National association. They ex- 

 pected their rules, which constituted a 

 very radical change from the old rules, 

 to be accepted without difficulty or debate. 

 This position it seems to us was not a fair 

 position. The poplar manufacturers, as a 

 whole, had lent but little support in the 

 National association. The faces of those 

 who were there to urge the adoption of the 

 poplar rules were most of them strange 



faces to the members of the National as- 

 sociation, and to expect that men of the 

 class and caliber of the members of the 

 National association would shut their eyes 

 ■and accept anything the poplar people of- 

 fered on behalf of an organization only 

 about a mouth old, without debate or con- 

 sideration, was asking a great deal. The 

 members of the National association had 

 spent a great deal of time and a great deal 

 of money endeavoring to perfect a set of 

 inspection rules, and to expect them to lay 

 aside the work of years to take up, at the 

 suggestion of comparative strangers, a set 

 of rules at variance with their own, with- 

 out giving those rules thorough considera- 

 tion, was to expect too much. 



It is true that the National association 

 has adopted the rules of the Yellow Pine 

 Association, but it did not do so without 

 a thorough discussion with the yellow pine 

 manulacturers and the gi-antiug of some 

 concessions on the part of the manufac- 

 turers. At the first annual meeting of the 

 association held in St, Louis a very strong 

 committee of yellow pine manufacturers 

 was in attendance and the greater part of 

 one whole day was taken up in discussing 

 the yellow pine rules from the standpoint 

 of the manufacturer and of the dealer. 

 There were certain points in the rules 

 to which the National assoelation could 

 not subscribe and the result of that meet- 

 ing was that the National association 

 refused to accept the rules in their en- 

 tirety. Between that meeting of the Na- 

 tional association and the next, the south- 

 ern manufacturers had a meeting and came 

 fully half way to meet the National asso- 

 ciation requirements, changing their rules 

 to meet the requirements of the hardwood 

 trade sufficiently that the hardwood trade 

 was satisfied, made some concessions to 

 the yellow pine manufacturers, and at the 

 next meeting adopted the yellow pine rules 

 in their entirety. It took several years for 

 the Michigan people to get their rules the 

 way they wanted them, and everyone 

 knows what a fight the Indiana lumber- 

 men had to get what they wanted. 



The Yellow Poplar Association refused 

 to follow the course of the other manu- 

 facturers' associations. If even scorned a 

 discussion with the National association. 



In another mattei', also, the p;ip!ar people 

 acted in a way which was, we regi-et to 

 say, scarcely consistent with business cour- 

 tesy. They took advantage of the meeting 

 of the National association, tx> which they 

 were all invited, to attempt to use the 

 meeting,- which the National association 

 had been at much trouble and expense to 

 promote, as a means to do the National as- 

 sociation all the injury possible. They 

 came to that meeting and did all in their 

 power to pull the members of the National 

 association into an organization of their 

 own and to weaken their allegiance in the 

 National association. This was discour- 

 teous at least, and they have, in attempt- 

 ing to promote their own organization, lost 



