i6 



THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



Matliews Lumber Companj'; !M. A. Viii- 

 nedge, of Vinnedge Bros., and J. Reil, of 

 Keith Lumber Comi>any. 



And I want to say here, before I forget 

 it, that while he dropped out of the worl;; 

 later, much of the success of the Chicago 

 Hardwood Lumber Exchange, and all that 

 that success carried with It, is due to the 

 courage and determination of Mr. Dodge 

 as chairman of that committee. I do not 

 mean to underrate the work of the other 

 members of the committee, for all stood 

 together and did their best, and it is only 

 the fact that Mr. Dodge dropped ont of 

 the work after it had been well started 

 that makes this statement necessary; but 

 Mr. Dodge stood up and fought when it 

 took courage to do so, and when a good 

 many flinched. After the work was well 

 Started, Mr. Dodge, as before stated, 

 dropped out, and many members of the 

 trade do not know that he, as ehaii-man 

 of the hardwood committee of the Lum- 

 bermen's association of Chicago, took a 

 leading i>art in inaugurating the work of 

 organizing the hardwood lumber trade. 



Ik :1c ± 



The work which the hardwood commit- 

 tee had finally decided to undertake w,-is 

 the organization of the Chicago market in 

 such manner as would introduce some sys- 

 tem into the hardwood business, which 

 would afford protection to the shippers 

 from unfair treatment and the buyers from 

 unjust criticism. 



The task would nut have been so ditfi- 

 cult had the movement had the support of 

 the lumlier newspapers. But it hadn't. 

 Defebaugh was struggling at that time to 

 establish the Timberman. The panic was 

 on and the demoralized condition of tlu^ 

 hardwood lumber ti-ade was worth thou- 

 sands of dollars a year to him. His "Hovv- 

 It Is Done" department was in full blast 

 and he was laying his "lash," as he called 

 it, about him indiscriminately. It was a 

 great opportunity for him; it was what 

 the small boy would call "nuts" for the 

 Timberman, and any real reform which 

 would have corrected the evils of the trad» 

 would have dejirived him of his stock-in- 

 trade; so he would have none of it. 



It has always seemed to me that Defe- 

 baugh made a mistake in that matter. 

 Whether the mistake was caused by an 

 error in judgment or a sheer love of dev- 

 iltry I have never been able to dgtermino 

 in my o-rni mind. He had tlfe necessary 

 aggressiveness to have headed a genuine 

 reform movement, and by so doing have 

 earned the confidence and respect of the 

 hardwood lumber, trade for all his life. 

 Instead of doing this, he not ouly would 

 not help the hardwood committee, but o])- 

 posed it in every possible way, and when 

 the work begun by the Chicago Exchange' 

 developed sufficiently that the National as- 

 sociation was organized, he opposed that 

 association, and is still opposing it as 

 openly as he dares. 



Realizing that they could not expei-t any- 



thing but active and virulent opposition 

 from the Timberman. and that the support 

 of some trade paper that would place their 

 efforts before the trade in the right light, 

 was necessary, the Northwestern Lumber- 

 man. o^^^led and controlled by W. B. Jud- 

 son, was approached. 



Mr. Judson was, and is, a good citizen, 

 but not of that stern and imcompromising 

 character that would rather be right than 

 be president. He has a strong predilec- 

 tion for peace and his desire for adver- 

 tisements amounts almost to a passion. 

 Without going into details, it will suffice 

 to say that no satisfactory arrangement 

 could be made with Mr. Judson. nor with 

 Mr. Hitchcock, of Hardwood. The prin- 

 cipal ti'ouble with those gentlemen was 

 that they lacked the necessary combative- 

 ness to take up and carry forward tho 

 fight which it would be necessary to make; 

 and, looking back at it now, I don't know- 

 that I blame them. It was a hard figlil. 

 in which the participants got "more kick-f 

 than halfpence." 



But the hardwood committee mearit 

 business and approached me to start a 

 new paper. After several conferences 

 with the leaders I consented to do so in 

 consideration of a certain amount of ad- 

 vertising, at a certain price, for a certain 

 length of time. There have been so many 

 misstatements regarding the Hardwood 

 Record that I never coidd have kept up 

 with them with denials, but now that it's 

 all over, it will not be amiss in this his- 

 tory to tell the trulh about: it. and the 

 foregoing constitutes the only condition on 

 which the Hardwood Record was started. 

 There was certainly no understanding, 

 either definite or implied, that the Record 

 ■^^'as to defend or advocate anything irreg- 

 ular or illegitimate. The editorial policy 

 was left entirely to me, with the under- 

 standing that I should defend and advo- 

 cate only what I considered just and right 

 and for the good of the hardwood lumber 

 trade. That is what I have done, and the 

 members of the Chicago Hardwood Lum- 

 ber Exchange have never shown a dispo- 

 sition to criticise my work. 



To finish this matter while we have it 

 up. I will say that I underestimated the 

 task before me. The other lumber pa- 

 pers of Chicago had, among them, a dozen 

 able and popular men on the road ham- 

 mering the Record, and for a year the 

 paper stood still. The Chicago men stood 

 by their contracts, but I could make no 

 gains; my modest resources were ex- 

 hausted, and but for my success in getting 

 Mr. Kimball into partnership with me tlio 

 Hardwood Record would have gone to 

 join the great majority on the other shore. 

 But Mr. Kimball had a few dollars that 

 he had saved and threw them into t'.ie 

 breach, the Cincinnati market came to the 

 rescue, and by the time Kimball's money 

 was gone we had the Record on a paying 

 b-isis. 



After the fight was over and won, my 

 interest in the Record was for sale, and 

 Kimball bought it, and is now the sole and 

 only owner of the Hardwood Record. T 

 do not know that the readers of the Rec- 

 ord are interested in tliis matter, but I 

 thought it might not be amiss to make the 

 statement here. 



An understanding of the newsijaper sit- 

 uation is necessary to an imderstanding^ 

 of the difBculties which the Chicago trads 

 had to contend with. Had the old-estab- 

 lished lumber papers given the Chicago 

 lumbermen fair treatment, half the dift;- 

 culties would have been disposed of. It 

 took some time for the Record, an entirely 

 new paper, to establish itself in the confi- 

 dence of the trade sufliciently to have an 

 influence. But eventually it got there. 



It was in October, 189.5. that the hard- 

 wood committee began its active and ag- 

 gressive campaign to organize the Chicago 

 market. That such an attempt was to be 

 made had become noised about the city, 

 so that when the hardwood lumbermen 

 were called to meet at the rooms of the 

 Chicago Lumbermen's Association one 

 evening earl.v in the month nearly ever.y 

 firm in the city was represented. Some 

 came to support the movement, others to 

 oppose it, and a good many came out of 

 curiosity. I believe it was the most 

 largely attended meeting of the Chicago 

 hardwood trade I have ever seen. And 

 very few of the lumbermen knew one an- 

 other. 



That was one of the most difficult things 

 with which the committee had to contend 

 —the lack of acquaintance and lack of 

 friendly feeling among the member's. 

 There had never been a hardwood organi- 

 zation in Chicago to enable the membor.s 

 of the trade to get acquainted, and there 

 were so many stories, some true and some 

 unti'ue, in circulation, that nearly every 

 Chicago hardwood lumberman had an 

 idea that most of his competitors were 

 men whom he didn't want to know. So 

 that the meeting in the Old Colony build- 

 ing was pi'actically a meeting of strangers. 

 And it was an interesting meeting. The 

 newspapers were barred. I was there in 

 an anteroom with m.v "dummy" of the 

 Hardwood Record as I intended to pub- 

 lish it. I could hear some loud and ear- 

 nest talking in the meeting room, but I 

 couldn't distinguish what was said, but 

 I understand .some very jilain talk was 

 indulged in. Finally, after a very 

 long wait, I was called into the meeting 

 room, introduced b.v Chairman Dodge as 

 the party "n:ho intended to start a new 

 lumber paper, and was invited to state 

 my proposition. I did so as briefiy and 

 concisely as ijossible. I made it clear Ihit 

 the new paper would fight the old papers, 

 and when I closed I invited them all to 

 advertise in the new paper. And to say 

 that there wasn't any rush to accept tlie 



