24 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



May 23, 1922 



Hoover Opens Lumber Conference 



Secretary of Commerce Presents Program for Simplification of Sizes, Grade- 

 Marking and General Improvement of Trade Practices to Most Representa- 

 tive Body of Hard and Soft Wood Interests Ever Assembled 



The first national lumber industry conference, with more than a 

 score of organizations present, representing practically the entije 

 industry of both soft and hardwood dealers, manufacturers, re- 

 tailers and consumers, began its five days of deliberation in Wash- 

 ington, D. C, May 22, and promises to be of paramount good in 

 the industry. 



This is the first hardwood and soft wood conference of the lumber 

 industry ever held with a cabinet ofBcer "listening in," and much 

 good, it was predicted, will come as a result of the conference, 

 which will consider three major propositions of vital interest 

 to the industry. They are: First, names of grades; second, uni 

 formity of grade marking, and third, standardization of sizes. 



Support of the tliree ideas, it is apparent, will be given by the 

 entire industry. The position of the National Hardwood Lumber 

 Association, represented by Horace F. Taylor, Earl Palmer, John 

 W. McClure and Frank F. Fish, was placed before the conference 

 at the first afternoon session, following Secretary of Commerce 

 Hoover's address to the delegates. 



"Spealiing for the National Hardwood Lumber Association, it 

 is my pleasure to say that we shall not only support your ideas, 

 Mr. Secretary, but it is also with a great deal of pleasure that we 

 are able to inform you that already the hardwood manufacturers 

 have put into practice some of the suggestions made," Mr. Taylor 

 said. 



Laying before the delegates to the lumber conference the pro- 

 gram embodying the three major problems. Secretary Hoover said 

 they "are the most difficult that you have to cope with, and the 

 settling of all of them, or two, or one, will more than repay you 

 for your time and efforts spent here. 



"The purpose of the department is to assist by bringing the 

 different trades together, so far as we are able; to give you such 

 expert assistance as we may and by giving you the benefit and 

 experience of other trade and industries in methods of solving 

 difficulties. 



"The problems in the lumber industry, which you arc here to 

 discuss, are of the most fundamental importance. With the lumber 

 industry, as with practically all other industries, the main trouble 

 is the cost of distribution. Practically all of your difficulties in the 

 lumber industry are questions of distribution; the guarantees of 

 qualities, the simplification of dimensions, the grading of lumber, 

 all of them, are steps in advance toward reducing the cost and the 

 waste of distribution. 



Initiative Left to Iiumbenuen 



"Whatever is arrived at must be arrived at by your initiative 

 and upon your agreement. My understanding is that we are going 

 to discuss three phases of this question. The first is the question 

 of grading lumber. When we come to questions of grading, the 

 first thing that one runs against is the nomenclature — of the actual 

 names that are in use for different commodities, and different qual- 

 ities or standards of that commodity. So that a primary necessity 

 is to have some agreement on the terms that are going to be applied. 

 Now. I realize that this is a trade that has an enormous variety of 

 material, so that a designation of terms must start with some common 

 acceptance of the designation of a particular type of wood; it is either 

 pine or hemlock, or it is something else. And the primary custom of 

 the trade is a definition of lumber on the basis of species, in which 

 there is some variance that needs to be corrected by agreement, as to 

 what species the lumber really is by way of trade name. We are not 

 Involved here in discussing trees and their origin; it is purely a ques- 

 tion of terms in the trade — trade terms. 



And then we come to the quality of any particular species or any 

 general variety that we have determined upon. And there Is a wide 

 variation there. Some lumbers are designated by clears and other 



qualitit-.s, wiiilst others have other nomenclatures, and we ought to 

 have tlie same terms, if that is possible. So that those are questions of 

 terms, of nomenclatures. 



The Question of Guarantees 



Tlien we come to the question of guarantees. As to how, after lum- 

 ber has been divided on any such basis as we may determine as to its 

 nomenclature, how the public is to have any assurance as to what it 

 gets. And there we have to enter into the problems of inspection, and 

 certification, and markings, or other devices that might be developed 

 to give some assurances to the consumer. And I do believe it is in- 

 finitely in the Interest of the industry as a whole that we should set up, 

 if it is possible, some sort of a system that will result in a practical 

 guarantee. I confess that is a matter that you will have to find a solu- 

 tion for, if it can be found, as I have but little useful suggestion to 

 make. But those guarantees are fundamentally one of the greatest 

 eliminations of wastes that could be made in the industry; in the 

 elimination of litigation and dispute, and in the better education of the 

 public which can follow as to the best grade adapted to certain pur- 

 poses, etc., etc. But it is hopeless to get through with that end of the 

 program, unless there is some pretty well defined assurance to the 

 public that the grades, qualities, and so forth, are going to be as rep- 

 resented. Indeed, one of the difficulties in this industry has been three 

 or four per cent, or perhaps even less per cent than that, of people 

 trading directly in lumber who have definitely shifted the grades in 

 transactions, and that has consequently led to a great deal of feel- 

 ing that the trade lacks certain basic honesty that I know it does 

 possess. In any event, if we could arrive at some method of guarantees 

 as to grades and qualities, we would eliminate the crook who casts a 

 general reflection over the whole trade; because if you find one crooked 

 transaction in lumber, it will reflect over 100,000 honest transactions; 

 it is the one thing that stands out. 



So that the problem of guai-antees is a vi-i-y grt-at problem. 



The Simplifi.ca,tion Problem 



Now, the third branch of the discussion is that of simplification; 

 simplification of dimensions and other items that make for economy 

 in both production and transportation and distribution. The difficul- 

 ties, of course, are very large, more especially as there are some forty 

 thousand saw mills in the country, and hitherto, in our examination of 

 these questions and in the actual processes of securing simplified prac- 

 tice, we have found that the first thing fundamental to it is some kind 

 of a survey to know how many varieties of dimensions, and sizes, and 

 so on, there are in the different breeds of the commodity; and we have 

 made the most successful approach to that problem hitherto, not by 

 setting up positive sizes so much as the elimination of a great number 

 of sizes for which there is but comparatively little call, or of compara- 

 tively little importance. However, that is a matter that has to develop 

 in the trade, as to the method by which the problem can be approached. 



Now. my suggestion, in order that we .should get forward with some- 

 thing that is constructive, is that we should ha\-e some discussion on 

 the broad issues of these three problems, and that perhaps then your 

 chairman would appoint some committees who could bring in some 

 kind of recommendations under these three or four headings for dis- 

 cussion. And we all need enlightenment as to the problems that exist 

 in the different branches of the trade, and the possibilities of securing 

 results in such a conference as this. 



I would like to make this general observation, that there has been 

 agitation in the lumber trade, or amongst the public, for the last 

 twenty-five years for some kind of Government inspection, Government 

 grade and Government control of that type. Some of the branches 

 of the lumber trade themselves have recommended courses of that 

 order. 



My own feeling is that if we can develop these things through the 

 internal machinery of the trade itself, as a matter of self-government 

 in the trade, that we will have secured infinitely better results, and we 

 will have secured something even more fundamental than that, and 

 that Is the sense of self-preservation in the American people. 



SherriU Explains Hardwood Problems 



C. H. Sherrill, Merryville, La., representing the American Hard- 

 wood Manufacturers' Association, said that the hardwood men, 

 owing to the fact that they dealt with so many different varieties 

 of timber, were not so favorably situated for ease of attainment 

 of standardization as the softwood men, and that their work as an 

 (Continued on ixig*' 2S) 



