38 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



December 25, 1921 



Merger of Veneer and Plywood Bodies Proposed 



' C'liithuird from pntjr 30) 



was open to all, and it was the fault of the plywood and veneer 

 manufacturers that they did not have representatives on hand to 

 present their own ideas as to the best term to use. 



The reason for all this work, he said, is public confidence. The 

 Advertising Clubs want to keep business clean and advertising 

 clean in order that the public's confidence in advertising will not 

 be weakened nor destroyed. "Public confidence means everything 

 now," he said. "The public be-damned policy is dead. It died 

 fifty years ago." 



Advertising, he said, is the greatest selling force business has. 

 Advertising is the great "Mass Salesman," and consequently it is 

 all-important that it be kept in good repute. The misuse of adver- 

 tising by even a few, he declared, casts the shadow of suspicion 

 over all advertising, and consequently destroys the drawing power 

 of this greatest of all "Salesmen." 



The suggestion that the Vigilance Committee interest itself in 

 the standards of the furniture industry came from John L. Young, 

 president of the National Retail Furniture Dealers" Association. 

 Mr. Lee said. The committee accepted the suggestion, because it 

 had observed the furore created in the industry by Attorney 

 Hawke of Cincinnati and saw that there might be some need for 

 improving the standards of the industry, or, at any rate, review- 

 ing the situation. 



Incidently, Mr. Lee mentioned the fact that the Vigilance Com- 

 mittee has stopped Mr. Hawke's efforts to "clean up" the industry. 



Two Valuable Economic Addresses 



The veneer and plywood manufacturers heard two valuable 

 addresses on economic conditions. The first of these was deliv- 

 ered by A. C. Babize of Chicago, publisher of Investment News, 

 and the second by John N. Van der Vries of Chicago, Central 

 District Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of the United 

 States. 



Mr. Babize viewed the business situation in a most hopeful light. 

 He referred to the fact that business conditions move in economic 

 cycles — in which prosperity and hard times, inflation and deflation, 

 alternate. We are rapidly drawing out of the quadrant of depres- 

 sion, he said, and are going to enter the quadrant of prosperity 

 much sooner than most of us suspect. He predicted that before 

 the year 1922 is out the country will have arrived at a period of 

 extraordinary prosperity, from which all of us will most assuredly 

 benefit. Deflation has already been completed by the raw materials 

 industries, with the exception of steel and coal. The business man 

 has deflated and the next great deflation will be in the field of 

 labor. When labor, coal and steel have been deflated, then the new 

 era of prosperity will come. Labor is already, he said, showing a 

 disposition to accept its share of the burden placed on the country 

 by the war; labor is listening to the voice of reason. 



Mr. Babize pointed out also that Europe is getting on its feet; 

 that imports into this country from abroad are showing marked 

 increase, revealing that Europe is again at work and producing 

 so that it can buy and sell. The armaments conference is another 

 great hopeful sign. It has already had a remarkable heartening 

 eflect on world business conditions, having caused substantial 

 increases in the value of the pound sterling, the franc and the lira. 

 If it were not for the condition of the mark the problem of a 

 recovered Europe would already be solved, he said. 



In his address Mr. Van der Vries urged the need for business 

 men to interest themselves in the larger economic and political 

 problems of the country. He made it clear that the welfare of 

 every individual business man is profoundly affected by national 

 taxation, national transportation and other problems. The indi- 

 vidual business man is only deceiving himself when he fancies he 

 has no interest in such problems. 



It was most significant, the speaker said, that President Hard- 

 ing in his last message to Congress had devoted the greater part 



of it to business problems, such as the problem of the over-centrali- 

 zation of industry and the needed decentralization. 



Tied up with this problem, he said, is the great problem of 

 distribution. Distribution has not kept pace with the development 

 of production in our country. During the next decade business 

 men of the country will be forced to devote relatively more time to 

 the solution of the problem of distribution than to the problem of 

 production, which has heretofore largely engrossed their atten- 

 tion. The matter of standardization, which has been receiving so 

 much attention from Secretary Hoover, is involved in the distribu- 

 tion problem, he said, and is one of the things that is being 

 attacked to help solve the problem. By standardizing products, 

 thus simplifying production, distribution and transportation bur- 

 dens are lightened. We have triumphed with our "Yankee in- 

 genuity" and mass production, he said, but we have fallen behind 

 in distribution of our products. 



As an example of the need for business men as a whole to 

 interest themselves in the political affairs of the country, Mr. Van 

 der Vries pointed to the development of the "bloc" system of 

 legislating in the Federal Congress. The agricultural bloc, he said, 

 has a program mapped out which proposes to offer a legislative 

 cure for every real and fancied economic or political ill that afflicts 

 the country. And these "cures" may be imposed, whether good or 

 bad. if the business man remains indifferent. The business element 

 of the country must be prepared to assert itself and not permit men 

 of other ways of thinking and other lines of endeavor to impose 

 their undisputed will upon the Government. 



"Today it is more vital than ever before," he said, "that the 

 American business man look outward instead of inward." 



The resolutions committees, comprised of C. B. Allen, chairman, 

 G. O. Worland and Z. Clark Thwing, reported a resolutions express- 

 ing the association's deep grief at the death of the late Robert S. 

 Bacon of Chicago. The resolution was adopted unanimously. 



President's Annual Address 



The economic situation within and without the industry was care- 

 fully examined by President Home in the annual address with which 

 he opened the convention. The address is as follows; 



-At our annual meeting' one year aso we were all very much de- 

 presseil as to the business situation and. in fact, there was very 

 little to encourage us. At our semi-annual meetiii.i;" in .luly conditions 

 were even worse. Orders which wt- had on our hooks were cancelled. 

 and to ffet new business was almost out of the question. It is triu- 

 that some of our members and other mills who were not members of 

 the association made prices that were below cost in many instances 

 and did manage to keep their plants in partial operation at least, but 

 the majority of the veneer and panel plants of the country were 

 either closed down entirely or runninR with a very small force, and 

 I am sure that we are all glad that the year 1921, so far as business 

 conditions are concerned, has passed into history. 



Wliile it is a pleasure to do business when we know that aftei- 

 we have taken an order it will be accepted when sliipped, it is not .i 

 very comfortable feelinK" when we are always wondei'ins: whether or 

 not the order will be cancelled by the time we are able to produce it 

 It has been impossible to know from week to week just what move to 

 make, and as a whole the year has been a very unsatisfactory one. 



But I am glad to be able to say today to you that in my opinion — 

 and I am basing: this opinion on the judgment of men of large affairs 

 — we have seen the worst of the business depression and that we arc- 

 now headed toward a much brighter year in 1922. There have been 

 quite a few important happenings that have taken place during the 

 year that are now having a good effect upon world business and 

 will still have more effect as progress is made in jviitting into practice 

 the real things that are now in the making. 



First of these is the disarmament conference now in session in 

 M'ashington. to which the civili/.»'(l world is looking with longing eyes, 

 and from the result of this meeting the world hopes to have a burden 

 lifted from its shoulders such as has never been lifted in the years 

 that have gone. 



Second, the settlement of the Irish question, the freedom of a rac4- 

 (Continued on patfc 48) 



