THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



13 



be necessary to fimeiul the Constitution of 

 the United Stiites. 



The big Atlantic ship combine is now, 

 he says, an assured suiecess, and with his 

 gi-eat ti-usts to ru'oduce the goods, his rail- 

 roads and steamboats to haul the freight 

 and the great free American people to pro- 

 duce the money, Jlr. Morgan feels satisfied 

 that he will go into winter quarters in 

 good shape. 



THE WAYS OF REFORM. 



In digging dovm into the philosophy of 

 things, John E. Williams, editor of the 

 Lumber Ti-ade Journal of New Orleans, 

 sets down in their issue of August ]5 the 

 following as some of the "things he be- 

 • lieves to be wise and just and right and 

 worth the saying: 



All of the great reforms of history have 

 come through conflict and the slow, toil- 

 some processes of moral evolution. The 

 men in advance of their day and genera- 

 tion who have bravely breasted the tides 

 of human eiTor and turned them into 

 other and nobler channels have, at first, 

 very largely been stigmatized as merely 

 visionary or coiTupt cranks. Fortunately, 

 though, it is a part of the economy of 

 things that men inspired to lead in great 

 public reforms are generally also un- 

 daunted by either taunts or impediments 

 and are thus proof against all forms of 

 resistance. It is, thus, too, that the bene- 

 factor is evolved out of the supposed 

 crank; thus that reforms finally prevail 

 against prejudices with only old" age for 

 a foundation. 



Take the history of any of our great 

 lumber associations, and in every case the 

 struggle against the primitive has been 

 precisely in effect the same. The average 

 man parts with old usages, old prejudices, 

 reluctantly, grudgingly, and regards the 

 would-be refoiruer with distrust and di.s- 

 favor. It has always been, it probably al- 

 ways will be. that way. The principle 

 that dominated the first retail lumber as- 

 sociation was so perversely in the nature 

 of blackmail that it forthwith defeated it- 

 self and subsequently yielded to the only 

 principle known now to be effective — the 



nciple of reciprocity. The early days 

 of the National Hardwood Lumber Asso- 

 ciation were marked by a succession of 

 sti-uggles for individual or factional su- 

 premacy against the only principle that 

 could be of any jnaterial' avail— universal 

 uniformity. Some went into it with aa 

 eye single to and thinking to make the 

 association the vehicle of some selfish end 

 in which the majority was not to share. 

 Such exclusive aims always fail. Others 

 went into it with no very definite concep- 

 tion of any particular purpose; others had 

 an idea that the association could be made 

 useful to them without regard to others 

 of or to whom they might subsequently 

 buy or sell lumber. There were a succes- 

 sion of demands more or less conflicting, 

 but mostly narrow and all selfish. These 

 demands resulted in a concession here and 

 a concession there, until th'e time came 

 when it seemed that no more could con- 

 sistently be thought of. Then it was dis- 

 covered that, in spite of all anterior cross- 

 purposes, all indirection and every insincere 

 word or act in connection with the asso- 

 ciation's stniggles, the body had somehow 

 gained a foothold impossible to displace- 

 some of its projectors and promoters had 

 simply builded in a way at the time so 

 obscure as to be Tinfcnowii to even them- 



selves. Its true leaders, those who fore- 

 saw and, clearly foreseeing, were sustained 

 l)y an undaunted faith, they are the real 

 reformers, the real benefactors. They are 

 the Cromwells of the movement. 



And so it has always been, is now and 

 will continue to be— only the good sur- 

 vives. As Mr. Williams states, the first 

 efforts at the organization of the lumber 

 trade were so narrow and bigoted as 

 to shock even those who made them. 

 But the succeeding associations relegated 

 the ignorance and bigotry to the rear; the 

 good lived on, but the evil died. 



The past few years have seen a tre- 

 niendous work done in organizing the lum- 

 ber ti-ade, and the editor of the New Or- 

 leans paper has seen the inevitable growth 

 of the liberal spirit. How many of sucli 

 organizations take the course those who 

 organized them intended they should take? 

 Mighty few. 



How many believed the National Hard- 

 wood Lumber Association would take a 

 course on such broad and liberal lines as 

 it has? Not the editor of the Record, for 

 one. Not one in a hundred, most likely. 

 Each member probably saw in that asso- 

 ciation a remedy for something he thought 

 should be remedied. Undoubtedly a great 

 number thought that with its aid the deal- 

 ers could control the situation; many saw, 

 or thought they saw, in it an agency for 

 bringing the consumer and producer nearer 

 together; and, in fact, it was natural that 

 each member should see in it an agency 

 to promote some selfish end, and we only 

 speak of that association as a sample. 



But selfishness, bigotry and nairowness 

 fall so flat in a speech, and look so badly 

 in print, that there is always a delicacy 

 on the part of most people about giving 

 them utterance. Once in a while some 

 member, more blunt and careless than oth- 

 ers, will speak out that which is in his 

 Iieart, but as a rule the reports of the as- 

 sociation meetings are models of fairness, 

 justice and liberality. More fair, liberal 

 and just, no doubt, than certain men are 

 pleased to see them. But that which is 

 wrong, or narrow, or foolish will not bear 

 discussion. Man collectively is better and 

 stronger and wiser than man individually. 

 A man will reach a conclusion in his 

 heart, and act upon it, which he would 

 be ashamed to put into words, and which, 

 if it was put into words, he would repu- 

 diate and condemn. 



So that all the tendency of association 

 work is toward the broadest and most 

 liberal basis of common action, which is, 

 in fact, the only basis upon which com- 

 mon action is possible. One man may 

 overbear another man in a trade, and se- 

 cure and maintain an advantage; but any 

 body of men, to work together success- 

 fully, must deal fairly with all its mem- 

 bers. Abraham Lincoln once said that 

 this country could not exist half free and 

 half slave, and neither can an association 

 exist in which one-half the members are 

 getting an advantage over the other half. 



The National Hardwood Lumber Asso- 

 ciation is, we judge, a fair average asso- 

 ciation, its members being fully up t» 

 the average of intelligence and honesty; 

 but the utterances and actions of that as- 

 sociation are far above the plane upon 

 ■which the average man lives, moves and 

 has his being; and the same is true of all 

 successful associations. It must be true 

 of them or they will not be successful. The 

 National Hardwood Lumber Association 

 is fair and broad and just, not because its 

 promoters are so very superior to other 

 men, but because that association had to 

 be fair and broad and just or get out of 

 business. There were no three ways about 

 it. And the same is ti-ue of about all the 

 other associations of which we have any 

 knowledge. Nor are these associations 

 broad and fair and just because the men 

 having them in charge started out to make 

 them so. They merely found out as they 

 went along that there was no other way 

 to do. 



People who have not had experience in 

 association work don't generally know of 

 this fundamental principle of association 

 organization, but they soon learn of it. 

 An able newspaper man said he would 

 like the job of writing a history of a cer- 

 tain lumber association, and a certain 

 meeting it held, if he could give the ac- 

 tual, inside history, setting forth the mo- 

 tives which moved this man and that man. 

 We have no doubt but it would make en- 

 tertaining reading— but it wouldn't be fair. 

 We have known men to start into the or- 

 ganization of a lumber association with 

 enough bitterness, prejudice and naiTow- 

 ness in their hearts to make a pile as 

 high as the Masonic Temple, and the asso- 

 ciations turned out to be pretty fair as- 

 sociations, after all. They just found as 

 they went along that they would have to 

 cut that part of it all out. Of course, an 

 association with all that cut out may not 

 be the kind of an association they wanted 

 or started in to make, but it is about the 

 only kind possible; and they may get a 

 reputation for virtue and liberality by pre- 

 tending to like it. 



Another thing which has always ap- 

 peared fallacious is that, because a man 

 has been successful in his own business, 

 is an Indication that he will be success- 

 ful as an organizer of associations. That 

 does not appear to follow. There are very 

 many things which enter into the making 

 of money which do not, in any sense, im- 

 prove a man's fitness for a public position. 

 In fact, there is more or less of a conflict 

 in the qualities which enable some men 

 to accumulate property, and such quali- 

 ties as are necessary to succeed in p pub- 

 lic capacity. We admit that a gi-eat many 

 men are successful because they have 

 within them sterling characteristics that 

 will bring success anywhere. They suc- 

 ceed because they absolutely refuse to ac- 

 cept failure and whatever they undertake, 

 from selling peanuts to organizing trusts. 



