20 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



March 25, 1918 



Occurrences at Washington Interesting to Lumbermen 



Personal Mention and the Activities of Various Boards and Committees 



Although two of the hardwood war bureaus have shut up shop 

 in Washingtou, it is reported that government war orders for hard- 

 wood material continue large. The Northern Hardwood Emergency 

 Bureau, for instance, lias received orders for 1,000,000 feet of birch 

 propeller stock from the French government and 400,000 feet from 

 the United States aviation corps. Eighty per cent of this must be 

 8 inches or wider and 8 feet or longer. Some of the stock may be 

 from 7 to 8 inches wide. Boy H. Jones, manager of the northern 

 hardwood bureau, says that this is diffieult material to cut, owing 

 to the fact that the grain must be straight, and long clear cutting 

 is difficult. 



Mr. Jones' bureau is run along different lines from the former 

 hardwood bureaus. They were practically information bureaus. 

 His is a selling agency. He says it will continue on the job. 



The war department quartermaster corps has awarded contracts 

 for motor truck bodies to the Mulholland Company, Dunkirk, N. Y.; 

 Hercules Buggy Company, Evanston, Ind.; International Harvester 

 Company, Chicago; Theodore Kuntz, Cleveland, O.; Grand Eapids 

 School Equipment Company; Continental Car Company, Louisville, 

 Ky.; Eagle Iron Works, Auburn, N. Y.; J. G. Brill Company, 

 Philadelphia; Hopkins Manufacturing Company, Hanover, Pa. 



It has given contracts for wooden wheels to the Prudden Wheel 

 Company, Lansing, Mich,; Bimel Spoke & Wheel Company, Port- 

 land, Ind. 



The war service committee of the furniture and fixtures and 

 allied woodworking industries not long ago closed a deal with the 

 quartermaster department of the army for furnishing about $12,- 

 000,000 worth of wagon and truck bodies and aero propellers and 

 parts. This order has been distributed among many different con- 

 cerns. 



The navy department wants 16,000 feet of ash, firsts and seconds; 

 various lots of first white ash; 8,000 feet white hickory, all firsts; 

 22,000 pounds lignum-vitae; 30,000 feet of hard maple; miscel- 

 laneous lots of white oak; 7,000 feet of black walnut, firsts and 

 seconds; 32,000 feet of cedar boat boards; 96,000 feet of white 

 pine; 400 North Carolina pine piles, creosoted; 75 Douglas fir spar 

 timbers; 65,000 feet redwood pattern stock. 



Matters connected with the vehicle material supply available 

 for war purposes of the government are up this week at a series 

 of conferences between J. M. Pritchard, Ealph Jurden, and John 

 McClure, representing southern hardwood lumber interests, on one 

 hand, and officials of the council of national defense, war depart- 

 ment, and vehicle manufacturers' association on the other hand. 

 The vehicle committee of the council of national defense has been 

 in on the matter. So has Mr. Thielens, representing the procure- 

 ment committee of the wagon manufacturers association. The 

 lumbermen conferred with Col. W. S. Wood of the quartermaster 

 corps of the army. Mr. Pritchard stated that it is not a question 

 of prices that is up. The government needs large quantities of 

 vehicle stock for army escort wagons, truck bodies, ordnance carts, 

 artillery, ambulances, etc. Some of this is bought direct by Uncle 

 Sam, but most of it probably will go to government contractors 

 who will turn it into finished articles. 



There is a committee of the railroad administration at work on 

 specifications for standard freight cars, of which from 100,000 

 to 250,000 are to be built in box, gondola and flat types. T. A. 

 Greene of the Southern Pine Association is advising with the rail- 

 road administration regarding specifications, etc. They under- 

 stand that the committee has decided against all-steel cars, but in. 

 favor of steel underframe cars. They hope that all-wood super- 



structure cars will be decided upon and in that ease that yellow 

 pine will be specified for most of them. Millions of feet wiU be 

 required. The favorite specification it is reported, calls for a 

 double sheathed box ear requiring much one-inch material that is 

 being cut incidentally along with the ship schedules. 



The railroad administration is working out a system of stand- 

 ardizing equipment and supplies. There is a central purchasing 

 committee and regional committees in the East, South, and West. 

 Railroad ties and lumber will generally be bought along their lines 

 by individual roads, but if these materials are not available there, 

 the advice of the central committee will be sought. 



The Southern Pine Association may be required to replace 100,- 

 000,000 feet of lumber in the retail yards that was taken by the 

 army purchasing officers for emergency uses. The quantity will be 

 determined by the war department. The price will be the govern- 

 ment emergency bureau price. Yellow pine may replace hardwood, 

 pine, hemlock and other kinds of lumber in the yards. A bonding 

 company will give bond to guarantee the credit of the retailers, 

 some of whom are not known commercially to the yellow pine men. 



The southern pine bureau reports 36,000,000 feet of orders re- 

 ceived and the Georgia-Florida bureau from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000. 



Eight million feet of southern pine comes to Washington for gov- 

 ernment construction operations. Uncle Sam is undertaking here 

 the erection of about a dozen buildings, some of them larger than 

 the United States Capitol, for accommodating government depart- 

 ments, including the war and navy departments, war trade board, 

 food and fuel administrations, shipping board, etc. 



The}- are part of a billion dollar government construction program 

 undertaken all over the country, not to mention France. This 

 program is largely under the new construction division of the war 

 department, which replaces the cantonment division. The work 

 in prospect includes storage terminals at Boston, Philadelphia, 

 Charleston and twenty-eight other points; signal corps canton- 

 ments and aviation fields at forty places; powder loading plants 

 and ordnance depots on the Atlantic coast; enlargement of the 

 Nashville powder factory; housing facilities for ship workers at 

 sixteen points; tuberculosis hospitals at Azalea, N. C, and Denver, 

 Colo.; mechanical repair shops in Texas; remount station at Charles- 

 ton and other points; hospitals at Fort Riley, Kans., and Tenafly, 

 N. J.; extensions of the Springfield, Mass., and other government 

 arsenals; gas making and shell filling plants. 



A committee headed by Prof. A. N. Talbot of the university of 

 Illinois has worked out a new kind of contract for this work that 

 is said to be p)rofiteer proof. 



John AVharton Maxcy has been made head of a provision board 

 under the shipping board to see that lumber is manufactured and 

 ships built as rapidly as practicable. He is a Houston, Tex., en- 

 gineer. 



A conference on industrial housing among lumbermen and others 

 at New York is planned. The general housing bill will soon pass 

 the house with $50,000,000 for housing employees of munition fac- 

 tories, etc.; also carrying $10,000,000 for housing government clerks 

 in Washington, D. C, in which connection extensive dormotories, 

 restaurants, barracks, and houses are planned. 



The aviation program is being investigated by three agencies of 

 the government on the charges of profiteering of government con- 

 tractors, slowness in operation, failure to accomplish results, etc. 

 It is said that the aviation program is 90 days behind schedule 

 time, but that many battle planes will be ready for Pershing by 

 July and that the year may see the aviation program catch up with 

 schedule. 



