THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



15 



The Ma^rv About To>vf\. 



BY C. D. STKODE. 



HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL HARD- 

 WOOD LUMBER ASSOCIATION. 

 (CONTINUED.) 

 THE INFLUENCE OF INDIANA. 



We come now to wbat is to me the most 

 interesting portion of the history of the 

 National association— the work of the In- 

 diana members. 



I believe that if it had unt Ijeeii for the 

 worli done by the Indiana members, the 

 National association' would have failed. 

 They furnished the connecting link Ijetween 

 the manufactnrir.-i and de.ilers, and by their 

 efforts the two elements in the association 

 were harmonized. Had it not been for that 

 work the manufacturers and shippers of 

 the South and Wei't would to-day have a 

 just grievance, and tlie Hardwood il'anu- 

 facturers' Association of the Unitetl States 

 «ould to-day have a much strougcr follow- 

 ing than it has. 



And the work was done just in time. 

 Had it been delayed another six months, it 

 would have been too late to save the Na- 

 tional association. .\t least, that is my 

 opinion, and I was watching things pretty 

 elos"ely. There was strong talk nearly two 

 years ago of organizing a manufacturers" 

 association in opposition to the National 

 association, and. it was stronger in Indiana 

 than anywhere else. When the Indiana 

 association came to Chicago in M'ay, 1901, 

 asking for changes in the rales, the entire 

 situation was set on a liair trigger, and if 

 the Indiana people had not Ijeen met in a 

 spirit of fairness and conciliation, there 

 would jla^•e been serious trouljle aliead for 

 the National association. 



A large manufacturer of hardwood lum- 

 ber in the State of Ohio came into the 

 office of the Record on the morning of the 

 first day of the Chicago meeting, and de- 

 livered himself as follmvs: 



"Well," he said: "I am here again, but 

 I fear this will be the last meeting I shall 

 attend." 



'■■S\'Tiafs the matK'rV" I asked. "Noth- 

 ing especially," he said, "only this asso- 

 ciation has had time enough, and if it 

 ever intends to do anything for the manu- 

 facturers it is time it was doing it. I un- 

 derstand there is to be an organized fight 

 made here by tlie Indiana people for a 

 modification of the rule on oak. and unless 

 some concessions are made you may count 

 me out When a buyer comes to my mill 

 to buy lumber and as'ks me if I will sell 

 ou National rules, I either want to tell 

 bim I will or else tell him I am n )t a 

 member of the association, don't approve 

 of it, and have no use for it I've made 

 up my mind that it is going to be one tiling 

 or another, and tliis meeting will decide." 

 That statement, I believe, fairly repre- 

 sented the feeling of most of the oak man- 

 ufacturers who attended that meeting, and 

 but for the gallant fight of the Indiana 



people, tliere would liave been no conces- 

 sions made and tliere would have been 

 serious defection from the rank.s of the 

 National association. Some concessions 

 were made, however, and although the In- 

 diana people only got a portion of that to 

 which they felt entitled, it was enough to 

 encourage those interested to believe that 

 they would ultimately get all that was due 

 them. 



The result proved the wisdom of their 

 course, for at the St. Louis meeting every- 

 liody else stood aside and practically al- 

 lowed the Indiana people to make the rules 

 on oak lumber. 



But we are getting ahead of our stoi-y. 



* * * 

 Ever since the National association had 

 lieen started, Mr. Sam Burkholder of 

 Crawfords'ville, Ind.. had been one of its 

 strongest, most sincere and most con- 

 sistent suijporters. 



He believed in organization, he said, and 

 thought the Indiana hardwood people 

 ought to get together and form an organ- 

 ization of their own. 



Tom Christian told him it would be a 

 cold day when he got the Indiana people 

 together— and sure enough it was— the 

 coldest day I ever saw. The thermometer 

 stood at 20 degrees below zero, with a gale 

 blowing from the northwest, which found 

 eveiy crack and crevice, and rendered the 

 Grand Hotel at Indianapolis, with its fee- 

 ble, flickering fires of natural gas. the cold- 

 est place I ever saw. I had never been so 

 cold before in my life and hope I may 

 never be so cold again, as I was on the day 

 the Indiana Hai-dwood lAimliermeu's As- 

 sociation was organized. 



Of course, hardly anyone attended the 

 nieeting. By counting those who were 

 present and those who might have at- 

 tended if the weather had been warmer, 

 the lumber papers managed to make a 

 pretty good showing of "thos'e in attend- 

 ance." Ijut any casual observer, seeing the 

 half dozer blue-nosed, shivering men or- 

 ganizing the Indiana association would not 

 probably have been seriously impressed. 



There was some question raised as to 

 whether, under the circumstances, it 

 would be wise to attempt to organize, but 

 Mr. Burkholder's cheerful optimism over- 

 came all objection and the organization 

 was launched upon its useful career on 

 February 9, 1898. 



Jlr. Burkholder was elected president 

 and HaiTy Christian secretary. At the 

 second meeting of the association the in- 

 spection rules of the National Hardwood 

 I^umber Association were adopted. None 

 of tlie Indiana members used the rules and 

 none intended to, but it seemed the duty 

 of a progi'essive a.s,sociation to aid the 

 movement for uniform inspection, and as 

 the Indiana association was doing its best 



to be progres.s'ive, it adopted the National 

 rules. 



And so the Indiana association plugged 

 along, holding an occasional meeting and 

 discussing forestry, and one thing and an- 

 other, and furnishing but little evidence 

 that it had any excuse for living, or that 

 it was even worth the $2 a year it cost its 

 members. Sam Burkholder thought it was 

 all right and had faitli that it would 

 amount to something or other after awhile, 

 and the balance of the members were will- 

 ing to leave it to Sam. 



The attitude of the hardwood lumber- 

 men of all classes toward the National as- 

 sociation and the National i-ules of inspec- 

 tion at that time was very curious. There 

 was but little oi^posltion to the National 

 association. It was regarded much as a 

 "Busines's Men's League" in a small city is 

 regarded, or as a "Society of Foreign Mi»- 

 sions," or similar progressive or benevo- 

 lent organizations are i-egaxded. Nobody 

 can deny but that they are all right in 

 then- way, but that they will ever amount 

 to anything very few believe. 



As' for the National rules of inspection 

 —oh, well, they were about as good as any 

 and it was surely better to have only one 

 set of rules' than a dozen. As for selling 

 their lumber on those rules, the Indiana 

 lumbermen had no more idea of doing so 

 when they adopted them than they had 

 of flying. They simply adopted them as a 

 matter of form because it seemed the 

 thing to do and there was no harm in it. 

 A custom of grading lumber had 

 grown up in Indiana, during the past quar- 

 ter of a century, which was well under- 

 stood and generally adhered to by Indiana 

 lumbermen. As yet, no attempt had been 

 made to embody that custom into a set of 

 rules. All the rales which had been in 

 force previous' to the National rules had 

 been made by the dealers in the central 

 markets and had been made to produce 

 ideal grades of lumber, from the dealers' 

 viewjwint, rather than to define the prac- 

 tice upon which 90 per cent of the hard- 

 wood lumber business was done. Some 

 lumber was lx>ught on those rules, to be 

 sure, usually from those who could not 

 help themselves, but there were very few 

 well-posted lumbermen, who were finan- 

 cially independent, who sold or delivered 

 lumber on thos'e rales. 



The Ihdiana lumbermen belonging to 

 the Indiana Association did not sell to the 

 dealers as a general thing, but where tliey 

 did they sold on the grades established by 

 custom, which were from 15 to 25 per cent 

 lower than the grades called for by the 

 National rules. Most of the lumber sold 

 to dealers by the Indiana people was for 

 shipment East, and so long as the con- 

 sumers of that section did not object to 



