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HARDWOOD RECORD 



January 10. 1918 



bodies were organized for the purpose of fixing prices and robbing 

 the buyers were no longer heard. 



Associations have won a great moral and business victory. They 

 have justified their existence and their methods; and this is being 

 acknowledged by the government. It is glad to come to them for 

 help, and it is fortunate that the help is forthcoming. In all prob- 

 ability, government hostility toward legitimate trade associations 

 has been killed forever. Better acquaintance was all that was 

 needed to bring about the change. The government had long looked 

 for an enemy in such associations and had failed to find it; but 

 when it needed a friend it did not need to look twice before finding 

 the most substantial friend it has discovered in the course of this 

 war. The government could not have procured the needed timber 

 for war uses if it had not gone directly to lumber associations to 

 get it, and thus it has been a grea,t victory for the combination 

 plan. There is power and efficiency in organization, and the gov- 

 ernment's former hostility and suspicion have been changed to 

 approval and thankfulness. The little politician who spent his time 

 trying to smell out something rotten in the lumber imhistry has lost 

 his job, thanks to the war. 



Timber for Ships 



SOMETHING IS WEONG SOMEWHEEE with the shipbuilding 

 program. It is charged that timber for shipbuilding cannot 

 be had in time or in sufficient quantity and that the wooden ships 

 ■cannot be had and steel must be substituted. In the face of the 

 bureaucratic muddling and the incompetence shown in the attempts 

 to supply guns and clothing for the armies, a person is excusable 

 for believing that the trouble in the ship program is not due to 

 lack of material but rather to lack of executive ability in some of 

 the bureaus that have the matter in charge. There is plenty of 

 suitable timber in the United States for all the ships wanted by 

 this country for the next hundred years. If this timber shall not 

 be put to use there is poor management somewhere. There may be 

 differences of opinion as to where the fault lies, but it does not lie 

 in the timber supply in the forests, and it is difficult to believe that 

 it lies with the sawmills or with the lumbermen. There are 40,000 

 sawmills in this country and plenty of men to operate them, and it 

 sounds suspicious to be told that the wooden ship schedule cannot 

 be put through for want of timber. 



Too much red tape is probably what is the matter; too much 

 incompetence where it can do the most harm; too many people on 

 the job who are too little for the job; and too little elbow room for 

 those who could make business move if they had half a chance. 



The Great Experiment 



ONLY A TRIAL WILL DETERMINE whether government opera- 

 tion of the railroads will accomplish what is expected of it; 

 but there is reason to believe that improvement in transportation 

 will soon appear. So far as the lumber situation is concerned, the 

 first betterment may be expectdd in the breaking of embargoes 

 which have so greatly interfered with shipments. The government 

 has power to do that, where separate railroad companies were help- 

 less. The railroad dictator can take cars from anywhere in the 

 United States and rush them to the points where needed worst. 

 He will not have to ask permission of anybody. Individual com- 

 panies had not that power. No road could take another road's 

 cars without bargaining for them, and the process of reaching an 

 agreement was slow and difficult, while the congestion continued 

 and the embargo remained. 



Most embargoes have been in the East where traffic is heaviest 

 and the supply of cars inadequate. It may be expected as one of 

 the first moves by the dictator that the congested areas will be 

 supplied with more cars. The car supply will be shifted from place 

 to place where most needed, and individual railroads will have no 

 flay in the matter. 



A good point in the arrangement is that the trained officers and 

 -employes of the various roads wUl remain at their present posts. 

 This guarantees competent management and labor. They will work 



under the dictator's general orders, but otherwise their duties will 

 remain about the same as before. 



Danger that transportation will be tied up by strikes has been 

 lessened. If there are strikes, the government will have to deal 

 with them. It may be expected to deal justly with the demands 

 of employes, but it will see to it that the wheels do not stop. If a 

 foolish and stubborn strike should undertake to tie up the roads, 

 trains would be run by military force, just as airplane stock is now 

 being cut by military force on the northern Pacific coast. 



The question of priority shipments, or the regulation of trans- 

 jiortation of essentials and non-essentials, can be better handled by 

 the dictator than by the roads separately. The government has a 

 sympathetic and friendly public at its back in this experiment of 

 managing the railroads, and that will make the task easier. Most 

 of the roads are not averse to having the government take control 

 and assume financial and other responsibility in these times of 

 trouble. If it is a step toward government ownership of railroads, 

 it is a very short step, and there is no reason to believe that it will 

 be followed by any other step in the same direction. 



Conscription of Property 



THERE HAS BEEN TALK that the government may and should 

 conscript property, the same as it conscripts men for the 

 armies. Sawmills, railroads, and coal mines have been mentioned 

 often in this connection. There is no question of the government's 

 power, under the law, to take possession of property and use it to 

 help carry on the war; but there is question of the wisdom of doing 

 so, except when the emergency is urgent and great. 



The conscription of producing properties and taking them out of 

 the hands of their owners and managers is impracticable and would 

 border on business folly in most instances. The government is not 

 in a position to assume their management because it has no staffs 

 competent to operate them, and after seizing such properties it 

 would be under the necessity of arranging with the present owners 

 to go on operating them; and in doing that it would have to make 

 terms which would enable the management to provide working 

 capital, satisfy wage-earners, make improvements, repairs, and re- 

 placements; for wdthout these the properties could not maintain 

 the high standards necessary to meet the government's demands. 



To take over private property to be operated for government 

 purposes would involve taking over the managers also and having 

 them carry on the work on account of the government, but this 

 is precisely what the managers are now doing, while keeping pos- 

 session of their own properties; and experience has shown that, as 

 a general rule, the most satisfactory results are obtained under, 

 private management of industry. It gives an incentive to indi- 

 vidual effort, promotes progress, and stimulates efficiency. 



The seizure of property by the government would neither put 

 money in the treasury nor increase the supply of such articles as 

 the government needs. Some advocate that the seizure take the 

 form of increased taxes; but a tax so heavy that it could not be 

 paid out of current earnings would reduce the working capital of 

 industries at a time when they need it all in order to produce to 

 the utmost. To meet such a tax they would be compelled to bor- 

 row, thereby impairing their credit, and they might be forced to 

 sell their property at a time when there are few buyers. That 

 would produce jianic at a time when the highest confidence and 

 greatest efficiency are needed. The country's salvation in this war 

 depends upon the greatest industrial output, and any policy that 

 would disturb this, or lessen it, would be injurious and unwise. 

 It ought not be attempted except as a last resort. 



It is your duty to yourself, your industry and your country to attend 

 the winter meeting of your association. The nation's industry is 

 against the test ; the lumber industry is vital to our country 's future. 

 But the problem of its complete mobilization in the national cause and 

 of the equally important task of guarding against uncertainties that 

 might vitaUy affect it must be solved by you. These meetings give 

 the fortunate means and at the psychological time. 



