June 



1022 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



30c 



National Holds Epochal Meeting 



Tremendous Delegation of Hardwood Manufacturers and Distrib- 

 utors Adopts Sales Code and Recommends Expansion of 

 Service of Association to Include Statistics, Hardwood 

 Research to Improve Utilization, Making of Inspection 

 Available to Non-Members and Buyers in the Foreign 

 Markets; John W. McClure Elected President 



The tremendous attendance, the enthusiastic and unified loyalty 

 of the members, adoption of a National Hardwood Sales Code, and 

 the determination to consider other lines of endeavor to meet what 

 appears to be the special needs of the times, all combined to make 

 notable and epochal the twenty-fifth, or silver, anniversary meet- 

 ing of the National Hardwood Lumber Association, at Chicago, in 

 the Gold Room of the Congress Hotel, June 22 and 23. 



The business sessions of the two days were presided over by 

 Horace F. Taylor of Buffalo, X. T., the retiring president, and were 

 marked by the large attendance of the members. The Silver Jubilee 

 dinner, tendered by the association on the evening of June 22 to 

 members and invited guests, resulted in the largest attendance in 

 the history of the association. Over a thousand were there, and 

 almost as many attended the smoker given on the evening follow- 

 ing. At all the sessions, business and social, delegates were present 

 from the 35 states and the three provinces of Canada, which the 

 membership of the association covers. 



The unanimity of the members in the voting on various ques- 

 tions, which marked the closing session the afternoon of June 23, 

 was remarked by President Taylor, who had occasion also to refer 

 to the unusually large number in attendance. 



The adoption of the National Sales Code, which was presented 

 to the convention by Earl Palmer of Memphis, chairman of the 

 Sales Code Committee, was one of the unanimous agreements to 

 which Mr. Taylor referred. 



Mr. Palmer brought the code into the convention from a sales 

 code conference on June 21 at the Drake Hotel, which was attended 

 by over 100 representatives of associations of hardwood consuming 

 industries, and producers and distributors of hardwood lumber. 

 Over thirty organizations were represented by these more than 

 one hundred delegates. The presentation of the code on the floor 

 of the convention was the culmination of a year of unremitting 

 labor on the part of Mr. Palmer and his associates. 



In presenting the code Mr. Palmer explained that it represented 

 not alone the thought of the committee, but of the users of hard- 

 woods throughout the country. "The code is not a National Hard- 

 wood association sales code only," said Mr. Palmer, "it is not the 

 committee 's code, nor, in the narrow view that some are disposed 

 to take, 'Palmer's code' — it is the code of all the agencies which 

 participated in its making." 



Mr. Palmer called attention to the fact that the use of the code 

 is not compulsory, but is optional; and that it must be adopted 

 by the various hardwood producing and consuming associations, 

 represented at the sales code conference, just as it must be adopted 

 by the National Hardwood Lumber Association. 



On the vote of the members, the Sales Code Committee was asked 

 to continue its existence for the ensuing year, in order to work 

 for the acceptance of the code throughout the trade. Upon the 

 suggestion of M. M. Wall of Buffalo, a member of the committee, 

 the committee was authorized also to interpret the code to the trade 

 for the next year, so that a general understanding of its provisions 

 mav be effected. 



Officers Asked to Consider New Work 



The new endeavors which the association is committed to the 

 consideration of are provided for in the following resolution, which 

 was presented by the Committee on Officers' Eeports, and unani- 

 mously adopted: 



We find in the President's report the following- sug^g-estions; 



1. Statistical work or department to g-ather and compile data for 

 use of the public throug-h the agency of the Department of Commerce. 



2. The establishment of a Department of Hardwood Research to 

 study the best uses of various species for recOTumendation to the 

 consumers of the most suitable material for partictUar use. To this 

 may be added a campaign for trade extension in various woods, for 

 the education of the public and the benefit of the timber owner and 

 lumber producer. 



3. A means of making National Hardwood inspection and its ac- 

 companying guarantees available to non-members. 



4. A plan for providing- foreign purchasers with the same guaran- 

 tee and facilities for reinspection available to domestic buyers. 



Your Committee recommend that inasmuch as these suggestions 

 are in the nature of a departure from past policies of the Association, 

 they be referred to the officers and Board of Manag-ers for prompt 

 and careful study. 



The committee which presented this resolution was composed of 

 E. V. Babcock, chairman; F. S. XJnderhill and J. V. Stimson. 

 Hardwood Conference Is Suggested 



In reference to the recent and now celebrated Washington lum- 

 ber conference, the resolutions committee brought in a resolution, 

 which purposed to point out certain "salient facts" not taken 

 into account by the Department of Commerce, and also to reaffirm 

 the original purposes of the National Hardwood Lumber Associa- 

 tion; to suggest to Secretarj' Hoover a conference of hardwood 

 producing and distributing interests to consider the secretary's 

 ideas on standardization and trade practice, and to insist, as the 

 delegates of the National to the Washington conference did, that 

 "questions affecting the hardwood industry must, as a matter of 

 practical necessity, be considered and administered separately from 

 those affecting the softwood industry." This resolution was unani- 

 mously adopted, and is as follows: 



'WHSKEAS, It appears that there is not a complete understanding" 

 on the part of some of the public as to the purposes and accomplish- 

 ments of the National Hardwood Lumber Association, and 



■WBEBEAS, In an address delivered on June 22, before the Associa- 

 tion by an oflicial of the Department of Commerce, it was made evi- 

 dent that in the Department's suggestions for standardization within 

 the lumber industry, there has not been taken into account salient 

 facts with which the industry itself is thoroughly acquainted, and, 



■WHEREAS, It is in the interests of the public and of the industry, 

 and of the Department of Commerce as an agency for the public in- 

 terest that a brief statement by those competent to know the facts be 

 made; now. 



The Orig-inal Purposes. 

 BE IT BESOIi'VED, That the members of the National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association, in their Twenty-fifth Annual Convention, re- 

 affirm the original purposes of their organization as set forth in 

 Article 3 of their Articles of Association, to-wit: 



"To promote the welfare and to protect the interests of the 

 hardwood trade; to establish, maintain and apply a tuilform. 

 system for the inspection and measurement of hardwood 

 lumber"; 



