48 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



June 25. 1922 



consolidation of the two associations as well as the meeting of the 

 executive committee which under the by-laws is composed of your 

 president, treasurer and the chairman or president of the various 

 groups of our industry. This meeting was held on May 19, and 

 in order that you might know just what occurred, we had the pro- 

 ceedings of that meeting printed and distributed among the mem- 

 Original Assessment a "Feeler" 



"Therefore, if you have manifested the interest that we feel 

 you should in your association, you are well posted on what has 

 occurred since our last general meeting in December. 



"While a few have expressed their intention of discontinuing 

 their membership in the association, and have frankly stated that 

 they felt the assessment made was entirely too high, the majority 

 have come along with the idea of seeing whether we would make 

 it w^orth their while. 



"Now, gentlemen, won't you kindly put yourselves in the 

 position of your executive officers and try to determine what 

 should be used as an assessment basis, Vk'hen you do not know 

 what your gross budget will be, nor the number of members who 

 will co-operate and further the amount of business which they 

 are doing upon which they w^ill pay their assessment. 



"We finally concluded to use the basis which had been estab- 

 lished in the Plywood Manufacturers association as a feeler to see 

 w^hat w^e could collect in the way of funds necessary to carry on 

 the work, as well as the reaction of the members to such an as- 

 sessment basis. 



"May I interrupt myself right at this point to express what I 

 feel should be in the hearts of everyone interested m this associa- 

 tion, a keen regard for, and appreciation of, the broad stand which 

 the Plywood Manufacturers association took toward the merger. 

 They really had little to gain, as they w^ould continue on the 

 same assessment basis as heretofore, and the possibility of losing 

 the interest of some of their members, because you know there has 

 been a feeling among those who are not as w^ell posted as they 

 should be, that a general association such as w^e are now estab- 

 lished could not function properly with the large buyers of the 

 veneer manufacturers' product participating and co-operating 

 with the manufacturers of such stock. 



Association Plan Is Logical 



"Personally, 1 am thoroughly of the opinion that -we are on the 

 right track, and those who think to the contrary are wrong in 

 that if they will understand the scope of the groups, and the 

 proper functions of the National Veneer & Panel Manufacturers 

 association, they will see wherein it is as wisely thought out an 

 association as there is in the woodworking industry of today. What 

 can be more logical than bringing together the various manu- 

 facturers and processes of manufacture for general discussion 

 and sociability, and the sub-dividing into groups, each group of 

 which is entitled to have a representative on the Executive Com- 

 mittee in the person of their Chairman or President w^ho would 

 have the title of Vice President of the National Association, and 

 have just as much to say in regard to the policy, as to assessments 

 or any other matters which should properly come before the ex- 

 ecutive committee as any other one of any other group, and then 

 to organize into groups each of those who considered it an ad- 

 vantage to do so, either by process of manufacture, kind of wood, 

 or any other method which they collectively might decide upon, 

 and they in turn to discuss with one another, function, and or- 

 ganize properly for such activities of the various programs of 

 their particular group. 



"It has been the idea of your executive committee, and those 

 who have put in time and thought on the constitution and by- 

 laws and future of this association, that the National Veneer & 

 Panel Manufacturers association had certain functions which it 

 Vk'ould be possible to carry on w^ith the groups organized under 

 it, w^hich would not be possible of accomplishment by individual 

 groups. I refer to traffic matters, costing, and at such time as 

 you may determine the logical moment to do so, publicity and trade 

 extension. 



"Mr. Allen, chairman of the traffic committee, will have a 

 report to make at the present time, of which I feel you should 

 be very proud, for when this work is finally consummated, and 1 

 have no doubt that it w^ill be consummated; namely the proper 

 distinction made between thin lumber used in glueing up ply- 

 wood, and high priced surface w^oods used for musical instru- 

 ments, furniture, etc., so that each may bear its proper proportion 

 of the traffic cost, and not have the product of our rotary mills 

 charged a freight rate on core stock as high as that which is 

 charged for the high priced woods which can stand reasonably 

 higher freight rates. 



Traffic Protection Demands Union 



"This work can not be carried on by the individual groups to 

 advantage, for it would be very much the same as our patriot Ben- 

 jamin Franklin said, 'We must all hang together, or, assuredly, 

 we shall all hang separately.' In other words, in union there is 

 strength, and when an industry as a w^hole is represented and 

 goes before such a body as the Interstate Commerce Commission, 

 the hearing which they obtain will be of greater interest to that 

 body if the industry as a whole is complaining, rather than the 

 individual or small groups, for reasons which must be obvious to 

 all. 



"Another very important function, valuable statistics, and 

 methods to w^hich we have fallen heir through the courtesy of 

 the Plywood Association is a logical costing method. They have 

 the machinery set up, reports made, and a very competent cost 

 engineer engaged for the costing of our industry, and it only re- 

 mains for the rotary manufacturers, the sawed thin lumber man- 

 ufacturers, and such other groups as may form and wish to take 

 advantage of this, to have established in their industries an in- 

 telligent method of costing at a nominal expense. 



"We (meaning those with whom 1 have been associated in the 

 manufacture of sawed and rotary cut thin lumber) have held the 

 opinion for a great many years that costing could not be ac- 

 curately determined in the reduction of forest products into lum- 

 ber and so-called veneer, owing to the fact that it is impossible 

 to accurately determine the value of a log until it is manufactured. 



Forest Products and Packing Defy Costing 



"We had our eyes opened recently through an audit made by 

 the Inventory Auditing Division of the Internal Revenue, stating 

 to us that they had not found it possible to obtain costs in two 

 industries. Now, you w^ill be surprised to know^ w^hat these two 

 industries are. The one is the packing industry, and the other 

 is the forest products industry. 



"Regardless of this statement, such industries as Armour, 

 Swift, Cudahy and others who are producing such a large per- 

 centage of our food have certainly not gone on all these years 

 without a method of costing as you may w^ell know, but w^e in our 

 industry taking it as a w^hole have been grossly ignorant of our 

 cost, and even though we should be not able to get a costing 

 system which would be absolutely accurate to the minutest detail, 

 yet it would be far better to know that when a commodity was 

 sold at a certain price that it would yield a profit. 



"We are grossly neglectful in our industry in not having estab- 

 lished a uniform costing system, and the time is not far distant 

 when those who are properly equipped w^ith a costing method 

 will have come to the end of the road, because the vast forests 

 which once covered these fertile United States are being surely 

 consumed, and wasted with the prodigality equalled by no other 

 nation in the history of the world. As a whole, our industry is as 

 ignorant of its cost as could be possibly conceived, and surely 

 when that time arrives when prosperity will have been considered 

 as past, and we reach the cycle known to the statisticians as 

 liquidation,' w^hich comes just prior to re-adjustment, then and 

 then only, will those w^ho are properly equipped understand that 

 they have wasted their time and energy and will realize but a 

 small percentage of the book values w^hich they have set up. 



"When 1 started in to write this paper, 1 had the idea that 1 

 { I'nu Until li ft inn fxiift -"tO) 



