16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



February 10, 1919 



question either the need or the popular interest in new homes, and 

 now that the government and every local industrial and trade 

 organization recognizes the importance to the whole nation of 

 resuming activity in this vital industry, it is reasonable to suppose 

 that financial means will be available to any one who wishes to 

 start building. This is going to be a feature of tremendous impor- 

 tance as bearing upon the speed with which construction is resumed. 

 The government support is likely to go beyond the moral stage and 

 extend to actual financial assistance. In addition, government 

 departments are showing disposition to immediately organize for 

 necessary government construction of all characters. 



It is not necessary to again go over the facts of supply and 

 demand so far as they have bearing upon the markets. Any one 

 watching national developments in important wood-using indus- 

 tries can form his own conclusion regarding the probable opening 

 up of these fields. A fair analysis of these factors cannot lead to 

 anything but optimistic opinions. As indicating the balance of 

 supply and demand the same factors hold that have maintained 

 during the past two months, namely: definite forced curtailment, 

 due to natural causes, of forty per cent to fifty per cent of the win- 

 ter 's cut which will be put in pile at a cost fully equaling and in 

 many cases exceeding any figures reached during the high markets 

 of the last six months. 



Taking the northern situation in particular, the soft open winter 

 win have an effect upon lumber markets, not only in the matter 

 of supplies made available, but in that of cost of production. Tha 

 almost total absence of favorable logging conditions has completelj 

 upset the plans of many large northern operators, necessitating 

 many changes and gi'catly increasing the cost of logging. This, ot 

 course, is naturally going to reflect in the total cost of manufactur- 

 ing the lumber. 



The Government's Attitude on Business 



ONE OF THE MOST SANE AND COMMON-SENSE utterances 

 that has ever come out of official Washington, one that most 

 nearly touches the problems of the average man of business as he 

 must face those problems, is in the form of a statement coming 

 from F. T. Miller, director of the Division of Public "Works and 

 Construction at Washington. Mr. Miller's bulletin is in effect a 

 statement of government support of the movement to resume build- 

 ing. The main and really essential point and the one on which the 

 success or failure of the ' ' Build Now ' ' campaign rests, is the 

 mental attitude of a large majority of the people who still think 

 that because of the end of the war the world has gone back to 

 the conditions of ante-bellum days. In other words, to use the 

 expression in the bulletin: "The majority of the people in this 

 country now are still in the mental hoop skirts and pantalets of 

 the before-the-war attitude of mind." 



This phrase applied to the condition that exists means that the 

 average man unthinkingly calculates that now, with the war over, 

 we may naturally figure along pre-war lines, using pre-war costs 

 and jjre-war comparisons, whereas, as a matter of fact, we must 

 not hopefully wait for something which cannot come about but 

 rather must accept the condition as i*" is now and make our plans 

 to adjust our businesses and to adjust industries to these conditions. 



This statement supports the contention Hardwood Record has 

 repeatedly made that a good deal more building will be taken up 

 this spring than is anticipated, as the people at large have become 

 accustomed to the higher standard of costs and make their calcula- 

 tions accordingly. 



The point of importance in the bulletin seems to be the fact that 

 it represents the government's authorized support of efforts to 

 stimulate the immediate resumption of the building industry. The 

 statement is carried elsewhere in this issue and deserves the careful 

 analysis of everyone interested in seeing the building situation 

 definitely improved in the near future. 



Inland Water Transportation 



SOMEHOW THE MOVEMENT toward improvement of rivers 

 and development of inland water transportation does not seem 

 to make headway. It is not a new question. It is older than the 

 railroads, and it has been before the people longer than any living 

 man can remember. The movement has sometimes manifested itself 

 in digging canals like the Chesapeake & Ohio or the Erie; sometimes 

 in the form of locks and dams by which a river is converted into a 

 series of pools extending scores or hundreds of miles, as the Monon- 

 gahela; and at other times the improvement of inland navigation 

 has taken the form of deepening rivers, removing bars, and clearing 

 channels of logs or rocks, as in the case of the Mississippi. 



Much work has been done, and much has not been that should be. 

 Inland navigation in the United States is in poor condition, and 

 popular sentiment in favor of making it better is not strong enough 

 or general enough to bring results of a positive kind. Nearly all 

 results now, and for some years past, have been negative. Appro- 

 priations which were formerly made by Congress for the improve- 

 ment of inland waterways gradually came to be looked at askance 

 because of charges that much of the money was wasted by being 

 expended where the need was small. It was known as "pork 

 barrel" politics; that meant, that congressmen would swap votes, 

 one voting for an appropriation where none was needed, in order 

 to get a similar appropriation in his district, where none should be. 

 In that way, it was charged, money was wasted. There was little 

 to show for large expenditures, and the whole system gradually 

 f)ecame unpopular. 



The need remains, but it is hard to get anything done. Inland 

 water transportation is now wanted more than ever in the past, to 

 help the railroads carry the country's traf&c. The railroads are 

 inadequate. But any movement in that direction gets a cool recep- 

 tion, and why is it? 



Opposition comes from two quarters. Railroads do not want 

 increased and improved water carriage that might cut in on rail- 

 road business. Now and then a railroad magnate, as in the case 

 of James J. HiU, may announce that railroads would welcome 

 improvements in river transportation, as a relief from congestion; 

 but the voices of railroads advocating river improvements are not 

 loud enough or frequent enough to attract much notice. The impres- 

 sion remains that the railroads would rather see a good deal of 

 freight congestion and many embargoes, than to see boats and 

 barges on rivers carrying any considerable portion of the coun- 

 try's traffic. 



More telling opposition to river improvement comes from another 

 quarter, from the indifference of the, public. The people generally 

 do not say much, think much, or care much about river improve- 

 ment. Now and then a board of trade or a chamber of commerce 

 or some business convention will pass a resolution favoring better 

 inland water commerce, and there the matter ends. There is no fol- 

 low-up to the movement. The little life it had at the start soon 

 tuckers out and that is the last heard of it until some other meet- 

 ing passes another resolution, and the spurt begins over again. 



Doubtless much hindrance and harm to the cause of inland navi- 

 gation have been done and are being done by too much small poli- 

 tics. One section tries to work the wires to gain an advantage over 

 other sections, and kills the whole thing. The view is not wide 

 enough or the vision large enough. It is not a question of neigh- 

 borhoods and townships, or of an outlet or inlet for this town or 

 that town. River navigation is a bigger question than that. Con- 

 gress should handle it; and district, county, and state lines ought 

 to be ignored, and plans for the whole country should be formulated, 

 and then all efforts should be directed toward general results. 



Once in a while some one still advances the theory that birdseye 

 figure in maple is caused by birds picking the bark to procure the 

 sweet sap. It is strange that an exploded theory should live so 

 long. The fact that birds do peck holes in maple bark and drink 

 the sweet sap is sufficient, in the minds of some people, to account 

 for birdseye figure in that wood. 



