22 



THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



Northern Hotel by R. T. Witljeck. presi- 

 dent of the Chicago Hardii\-oort Lumber 

 Exchange, with about fifty lumbermen 

 present. Mr. Witbeck was chosen tem- 

 porary chairman and Mr. M. M. Marsh 

 temporarj- secretarj'. 



Mr. Witl>eck stated the object of the 

 meeting to he the formation of a uniform 

 set of inspection rulei\ 



After some discussion it was agreed that 

 a uniform set of insi)€Ction rules would 

 be of little avail without an organization 

 of. some kind to protect them, and Mr. 

 Russe, of Ru.sse & Burgess, at that time 

 of Cairo, moved that the convention pro- 

 ceed to form a national association of 

 hardwood lumbermen. This motion wa? 

 discussed pretty thoroughly, as but few, 

 if any, of the delegates came to Chicago 

 with any idea of forming such an asso- 

 ciation, and with no authority from their 

 various local organizations for entering 

 into such an an'angemeut. It was finally 

 agreed, however, to proceed, and a com- 

 mittee on permanent organization was ap- 

 pointed, and the meeting adjoui-ned to re- 

 assemlale at 2 o'clock p. ni. in one of the 

 parlors at Kinsley's, the room in the Great 

 Northern being too fmall. 



The committee on permanent organiza- 

 tion met immediately after the adjourn- 

 ment of the convention, and I went be- 

 fore them and submitted our plan of or- 

 ganization, stating that it was merely a 

 suggestion and was prepared to save the 

 time of the convention. This plan was 

 read and the only change made in it was 

 in the name. The name in the document 

 I submitted was the "National Hardwood 

 Lumbermen's Association." At the sug- 

 gestion of Mr. Bailey of Minneapolis, that 

 name was changed to the "National Hard- 

 wood Lumber Association." Otherwise 

 the document was approved as read, and 

 in less than thirty minutes the committee 

 on permanent organization was ready to 

 report. 



fhe convention reassembled at Kinsley'9 

 at 2:30 p. m., the report of the committee 

 on permanent organization was unani- 

 mously adopted and a committee was ap- 

 pointed to report nominations for perma- 

 nent officers. The report of that commit- 

 tee sliowy how much the National associa- 

 tion owes to good luck. Very few of the 

 delegates present personally knew either 

 Mr. W. A. Bennett of Cincinnati or Mr. 

 A. R. Vinnedge of Chicago, and it was 

 only a piece of good fortune that they 

 were elected to fill the offices of presi- 

 dent and secretary; and the success of 

 the association was very largely due to 

 that happy choice. 



The officers elected were as ■ follows: 

 President, W. A. Bennett of Cincinnati; 

 vice-president. F. H. Smith of St. Loui?; 

 secretary. A. R. Vinnedge of Chicago; 

 treasurer, AV. C. Bailey of Minneapolis, 

 and the directors, W. B. Button of Racine, 

 W. H. Russe of Cairo and J. W. Thomp- 

 son of Memphis. 



Upon taking the chair as president, Mr. 



Bennett made a speech prophetic of his 

 entire conduct as president. He said in 

 substance: 



"Gentlemen:— You probably expect me 

 to make a speech, but I am not a speech 

 maker. We haven't the time for speech 

 making, anyway. We will get down to 

 business." 



A committee of twenty on inspection 

 rules was immediately appointed, the con- 

 vention adjourned until Saturday morn- 

 ing and the committee got down to busi- 

 ness upon its apparently hopeless task of 

 agreeing on a set of inspection rules with-, 

 in twenty-four hours. The inspection com- 

 mittee met immediately after adjournment 

 and organized by electing F. H. Smith of 

 St. Louis', chairman. After a short dis- 

 cussion the committee was subdivided and 

 a certain amount of work given to each 

 subcommittee. 



When the meeting was called together 

 at 10 o'clock Saturlay morning it was 

 found that several of the subcommittees 

 had not yet agreed and the convention ad- 

 journed to 2 p. m., Saturday afternoon. 

 By noon all the subcommittees were 

 ready to report, and promptly at 2 p. m. 

 the convention was reassembled to hear 

 the report of the committee. Being 

 pressed for time, the committee was' un- 

 able to present a completed report, so the 

 subcommittees reported directly to the con- 

 vention and with slight amendments their 

 reports were adopted, and by 3 o'clock the 

 convention had agi'eed upon a S'et of in- 

 spection rules. Another hour was then 

 devoted to a general discussion of the 

 work of the convention and the future of 

 the association. 



It was decided that, admitting the work 

 on the inspection rules' as being imperfect 

 and incomplete, another meeting should 

 be held at the earliest possible date. So 

 a meeting was called for the first Monday 

 in the following month, namely the 5th pf 

 May, to be held at St. Louis, and the meet- 

 ing adjourned. 



* * * 



I have devoted a good deal of time 

 and space to this first meeting, much more 

 than it will be necessary to devote to any 

 of the following meetings. I have done 

 this for the reason that it seemed im- 

 portant in compiling the history of the 

 National association that the reader s'hould 

 have a clear understanding of the various 

 steps leading to the organization of the 

 National association, and the result of 

 the first attempt among the representa- 

 tives of all the western markets to arrive 

 at an agreement upon a set of rules. Be- 

 fore the meeting assembled it was the 

 opinion of nine-tenths of the lumbermen 

 at least that no agreement could be 

 reached and that nothing would come of 

 it. Even among those who attended, this 

 feeling prevailed; but it was so manifestly 

 a good move to make the attempt, and if 

 it should succeed it would be so good a 

 thing for the hardwood trade, that, from 

 a sense of duty, they took chances and 

 attended the meeting. There were a few 



who had felt that the lumbermen could 

 get together, but the success of the meet- 

 ing was largely due to the excellent man- 

 agement of the meeting and the excellent 

 preparations which had been made for it. 

 In the excellence of its management the 

 National Hardwood Lumber Association 

 has been extremely fortunate. .Anyone who 

 has' attended a meeting of the National 

 association and is in a position to com- 

 pare the proceedings of that meeting with 

 the proceedings of the meetings of other 

 associations, will bear witness that for 

 clean-cut, business-like methods the meet- 

 ings of the National Hardwood Lumber 

 Association are pre-eminent. Another 

 cause of the siiccess of the first meeting 

 was the feeling among the delegates at 

 that meeting, that unless an agreement 

 was reached the cause of uniform inspec- 

 tion would receive a serious backset. 

 Each delegate came prepared to make 

 concessions to secure that agreement, but 

 he did not know that the other delegates 

 had come in the same spirit; and an agree- 

 ment was reached with much less difficulty 

 than it had been supposed. 

 V * * 

 It will not be necessary to say much 

 more about the inspiection rules. From 

 that first meeting there has been a steady 

 progress- toward a set of rules which 

 would be satisfactory to all branches of . 

 the trade, until that progress culminated 

 at the recent St. Louis meeting in the pro- 

 duction of a set of rules which I believe 

 to be as near perfection as it is possible 

 to come. 



All of the progress made has been in 

 the direction of making a set of rules that 

 would meet the approval and merit the 

 support of the manufacturers' of lumber. 

 At the first meeting tlie manufacturing 

 interests were scarcely represented at all. 

 They had never had a voice in the mak- 

 ing of rules previous to the organization 

 of the National association, and they took 

 but little interest. Gradually they have, 

 as the result of repeated urging and invi- 

 tation on the part of the National asso- 

 ciation, been induced to become members, 

 until they are now a large majority in 

 the association, and have been induced to 

 participate in the making of rules until 

 the rules', as they are to-day, are prac- 

 tically the work of the manufacturers. 

 Not only has the National association 

 brought the lumber trade to accept the 

 manufacturers' rules, but it has brought 

 the dealers with it. 



In the balance of this history it will 

 only be necessary to refer to the inspec- 

 tion rules incidentally. AATiat we will fol- 

 low is the gradual adoption of those rules 

 by the different sections of the country 

 until they have become practically the 

 standard of the country, and the organiza- 

 tion and progres'S of the inspection bureau. 

 Added to this we will endeavor to give 

 credit for the great amount of unselfish 

 work which -has been done to those who 

 of tlie rise and progress of that association. 



