24 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



April 10, 1922 



through the forest, like a log road or trail, resembles a tunnel with 

 sides and roof of green. When the rains descend and the floods 

 come, when no man can work at creek cleaning, the surface of the 

 water on which the logs float may be eight, ten or even fifteen feet 

 higher than when the dry season work of cleaning was done. The 

 consequences may prove disastrous to the riverman as he passes 

 through one of these submerged tunnels, its roof under water or 

 so nearly so as to force the expert to take his punishment lying 

 down, the tunnel dark enough by day and simply black at night, 

 presenting a situation full of uncertainties, and perhaps as replete 

 with dangers unknown (always most trying to a man of courage), 

 as the passage through the Colorado Canon, a feat not lightly to be 

 undertaken. In felling these big trees, the axmen do not stand on 

 the ground nor lay the ax at the root of the tree. The first thing 

 to be done is to cut four light poles and set them up for support 

 of a scaffold made of four horizontal sticks lashed at the required 

 height to the uprights, with more sticks laid across. On this pre- 

 carious footing the axmen stand and chop all around tlie tree, which 

 at last falls as it will, selecting its own bed ground, the natives 

 climbing down and slipping away to safe quarters. 



In cross-cutting, a ladder must be set up for the sawyers to stand 

 on in starting the cut. Cross-cutting of big timber takes a lot of 

 knowing how, else it is backbreaking work. The native is slow in 

 getting into the right swing, is inclined to ride the saw, pull at an 

 angle, push so as to buckle and bind, can not file or set so as to run 

 free, does not [iroperly block to prevent top binding, nor support 

 the nearly severed log to prevent splitting, and it becomes necessary 

 to instruct him on all these points. The same is true of the use of 

 all logging tools and of the devices for taking advantage of the 

 work in all its branches, and I am strongly impressed with the 

 thought that from my endeavors along this line and the results 

 accom[)lished by my coadjutor.s, I may rightfully lay claim to 

 favorable recognition as having done real missionary work. Sev- 

 eral thousands of bushmen taught the fine points of intelligent 

 labor; how to prepare and lay the foundations for successful results; 

 to rely on their own efforts rather than upon unusual and occasional 

 manifestations of nature or, to use a favorite expression, ' ' by 

 God's power;" in short, to put them in the way of earning real 

 money with which to buy the things they are at the same time 

 "learning to want" a long step toward becoming "civilized." 

 These items of progress may not entitle the claimant to any of 

 the medals or prizes, rewards for meritorious deeds, yet it all seems 

 like having done a vast amount of good to a large number of 

 heathen, paying each individual wages, with board and lodging, for 

 the privilege of educating him in a real, practical industrial school 

 than which nothing will better serve to civilize or modernize the 

 West African. If this educational work has been supplemented by 

 examples of clean and decent living, the care of the sick and 

 wounded, burial of the dead; prompt payment of obligations; 

 patience with the ignorant and stupid; justice and kindly treat- 

 ment for all, then it can not successfully be denied that some fairly 

 good missionary labor has here been accomplished. 



Quite naturally the question arises — why continue in the twen- 

 tieth century to haul logs with man powert Since neither horses, 

 mules nor oxen can be used, why not try the various kinds of steam 

 power; cable ways, skidders, yarding engines, pole roads; tram- 

 ways, railways, slides and other devices known to the logging 

 fraternity? 



Let us take it for granted that this matter has been given mer- 

 ited investigation and the use of the known methods found unsuited 

 and not adaptable to the conditions. If there were real forests of 

 mahogany, or if the trees could be found in groups or in ridges or 

 in numbers in any locality, as is the case with the timber in tem- 

 perate zones, modern, up-to-date methods might be used in logging. 

 Of the mahogany tree, it may be said that it is "lost in an im- 

 penetrable forest." 



Surrounded by hundreds of trees of different kinds and of all 

 sizes, these magnificent monarchs of the woods stand apart from 

 other members of the family and seldom more than three or four 



trees near together, and more often standing alone with no other 

 mahogany tree in sight. In fact, the trees to be felled are so scat- 

 tering that roads must be built to each one, and so few in number 

 that the cost of setting up logging machinery and moving it as the 

 timber supply within its reach was exhausted, would deliver it to 

 the banking ground by the primitive method, then the cost of the 

 macliinery, difficulty in landing from the steamer, and the almost 

 impossible fact of moving it to the work, all this and many other 

 expenses incident to the environment, make the man power most 

 economical. Logs to be hauled, whether flattened on cue side or 

 squared, are leveled or rounded at the end in form like a sled run- 

 ner, to slide more easily over the round skids laid across the road 

 and four to six feet apart. 



The hauling line is a one and one-quarter inch rope, attached 

 to the logs as shown in the photograph "taken by our own artist 

 on the spot. ' ' 



Determined to make some advancement over the methods in 

 vogue when David was gathering material for the building erected 

 later by Solomon, the writer decided on experimenting with the 

 caterpillar which lays is own track, as it crawls along over softish 

 ground and minor obstacles. Had just succeeded in getting every- 

 thing in shape for a thorough working tryout, when "grim-visaged 

 war ujireared his wrinkled front." Native labor became an uncer- 

 tain (|uantity; cargo steamers were commandeered, the caterpillar 

 ceased crawling, and this method of logging in tropical West 

 Africa is still in the experimental stage. 



Lumberjack Sky Pilot Urges Revision of 

 Sherman Law 



The Sherman Law must lie rewritten, to relieve American busi- 

 ness of the inhibitions which now lay so heavily upon it, the Rev. 

 ("Parson") Peter A. Simpkin, Supreme Chaplain of the Con- 

 catenated Order of Iloo-Hoo, told the Lumbermen's Association of 

 Chicago, in an address at the association 's headquarters in the 

 Lumber Exchange building, Chicago, on April 3. The interpreta- 

 tion put upon the Sherman Law by the Supreme Court in the Hard- 

 wood Case was characterized by the "Lumberjack Sky Pilot" as 

 "the most serious inhibition ever fastened upon American busi- 

 ness." It has removed, he declared, all legal basis for the gathering 

 by trade groups of statistics on production, stocks, prices, etc., 

 which are vital to an understanding of their business. "Thus, Amer- 

 ican business is made to drift like a rudderless ship, without chart 

 or compass. He urged that lumbermen bombard their representa- 

 tives in Congress with appeals for the revision of the Sherman Law 

 to conform to the present day needs of American business. 



Because of the attacks of the Department of Justice and the 

 Federal Trade Commission, Parson Simpkin said, American busi- 

 ness is disorganized at a time when it is in the midst of the severest 

 competition in its history. Business, he declared, will have to 

 "muddle along" as best it can until the Sherman law is rewritten 

 to relieve the situation. "That antiquated law of 1890 ought to be 

 rewritten," he declared. 



The Parson quoted Senator Borah as saying that out of some 

 3,000 bills introduced in the present Congress, some 1,500, or over 

 fifty percent, contained clauses limiting the freedom of American 

 business. This alarming evidence of a desire to legislate against 

 business, and the attacks of the two Government departments 

 aforementioned, were due in large measure to the "Business is 

 business" attitude of the American business man, he said. This 

 attitude had served to arouse the suspicions of and antagonize the 

 public. 



The Parson spoke at 10 o'clock, immediately following the 

 luncheon period, and was introduced by Jos. A. Gorman of the 

 Winegar-Gorman Lumber Co., chairman of the hardwood whole- 

 salers' division of the association. 



"Atkins Pioneers" Have Annual Dinner 



The sixteenth niiniuil dinner nnd frolic of the Atkins Pioneers, an 

 organization of employes of E. C. .Vtkins & Co., Indiannpolis saw manu- 

 facturers, who have been with the company twenty years or more, was 

 held Saturday evening, March 18. in the dining room of the Spencer Hotel, 

 approximately 110 members from the various branch houses an<l the head- 

 (iviart'_'rs being present. The organization was formed in I'JOG and now 

 has a membership of 1.58. At a business session following the dinner the 

 following ofBcers for the year were elected : William Weaver, president ; 

 Major M. Poole, vice-president ; C. A. Newport, secretary, and Charles F. 

 Aumann, treasurer. 



Mr. Aumann is the oldest member of the Pioneers in point of service, 

 having been with the Atkins company flfty-two years. 



