Miir.li :>.1. I'JIS 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



22a 



but there nre a lot of organizations in tho trade who in the past 



have not been capitalized, and their officers and directors have been 



handicapped iu carrying out the broad programs because of this 



fact. However, every one of the organizations this year has had 



an interesting and profitable program and growing membership, and 



each in turn showed a good balance in the treasury, and in many 



cases underwriting syndicates back up any efforts put forward, so 



it would seem that the National's policies no matter how great they 



seem will be properly capitalized, and the program will insure this. 



Reminiscences 

 When an office boy in the old Timbcrman office, one of our regular 



visitors was the then king of the walnut business, John H. Lesh, 

 with headquarters at Goshen, Ind., operating all over the state of 

 Indiana, as well as Iowa, Indian Territory, Arkansas and adjacent 

 states, and utilizing St. Louis, East Chicago, Ind., and Cincinnati 

 as central points. Mr. Lesh was a very active business man. He 

 thought walnut was the only wood, and the production of his mills 

 every year was then a miracle to most folks. Like many fore- 

 casters in the trade, they had walnut out of the market twenty 

 years ago, but John H. Lesh could always find trees, and he had 

 the faculty of gathering about him practical, aggressive business 

 men, two of whom later became his partners and his successors. 

 What 1 Have in mind about these men concerns the days when 

 they were buying walnut in Indiana. John N. Penrod, now of 

 Kansas City, was buying logs south of Goshen, and F. P. Abbott 

 was looking after the territory north of that point, and each came 

 home to Goshen on Saturday night for a conference with the little 

 big boss. But for a year or two neither Mr. Penrod nor Mr. Abbott 

 could understand why he could not top tlie other in purchases or ship- 

 ments. Mr. Lesh would say: "John, you did fine this week, but 

 that young fellow Abbott up there just beat you out 20,000 feet." 

 Next week Abbott would come in and Mr. Lesh would say: "Well, 

 Frank, believe me, that fellow Penrod is some active fellow; he 

 just beat you out some 19,000 feet. He is certainly a hustler and 

 his purchases seem to be growing each week. ' ' It was a long time 

 after that that Abbott and Penrod got together. When they were 

 introduced Mr. Penrod said: "Abbott, so you are the fellow that 

 can buy more walnut in a week than I can," and Abbott responded, 

 "Well, John Penrod, I have been waiting to know you for a long 

 time. I want to get acquainted with any fellow that can beat me 

 buying walnut." Of course both had a good laugh, and Boas Lesh 

 in his own inimitable way made a happy event of the meeting by 

 giving a dinner that was worth while. The younger men after- 

 wards became partners in the firm of Lesh, Penrod and Abbott. 

 Both Lesh and Abbott have since passed away, and Mr. Penrod is 

 now one of the largest factors in the walnut business. 



Col. Lesh certainly knew how to get the best out of his men, and 



^nade real business men out of them, and he did it as gracefully as 



though that were his principal job on earth. He also had the 



ngcnuity to operate a big business in a section where the walnut 



recs were more difficult to find every year. 



Speaking of Mr. Penrod, I was reminded of a yarn he tells on 



iLimself. He has probably been the largest shipper of walnut to 

 Jermany the past twenty years. In discussing the government 

 seeds for gun stocks with a Frenchman he remarked: "I wonder 

 There the Germans are getting all the walnut for gun stocks," and 



|the Frenchman said: "John, you ought to know, you have been 

 furnishing seventy -five per cent of their walnut for twenty years." 

 That was just one of the little items of the German propaganda to 



Iwin the war. They never overlooked a point except diplomacy. 



Uncle Sam and the Lumber Trade 

 Everybody sympathizes with the government campaign of buy- 

 ing on a cost basis plus a suitable profit to the manufacturers. The 

 trade commission should be co-operated with to determine what 

 these costs are, and no lumberman has shown any desire to get 

 more than a reasonable price for his goods, but we feel it is only 

 right and just that the lumber people themselves, through their 

 associations, should determine what a fair cost is for the material, 

 and that the material should be used for the government and not 

 for some branch of industry that thought it could buy lumber for 



less than it was worth, expecting to get a profit out of the lumber- 

 man rather than legitimateh' through their own contract for what- 

 ever they were selling the government. Now there seems to be a 

 whispering iu Washington that the several hundred thousand cars 

 that the government will probably have to buy to properly equip 

 the railroads to carry the two hundred per cent annual shipments 

 should be bought on the same kind of a basis. The railroad presi- 

 dents have inaugurated a program which states that one difficulty 

 that prevents them from delivering the goods was that the govern- 

 ment's needs for munitions and supplies amounts to as much as the 

 annual shipments of the country itself. Why should lumbermen 

 furnish a dividend for the stockholders of the railroads out of their 

 pocket? If there is an agreement that the railroads are going to 

 be turned back to the stockholders, and the legislation now in 

 process seems to indicate that that will be done, it is not fair for 

 the government to buy the lumber in that way. If, however, our 

 leaders at Washington expect to keep the railroads I have nothing 

 to say against the lumber manufacturers furnishing this car mate- 

 rial at a cost plus a reasonable profit, say t%venty per cent, which is 

 only a fair profit in any manufacturing industry. 



Some of the dollar-a-year men, or some other wise patriot, or one 

 who thinks he is, has been advocating lately that the lumbermen 

 must furnish to the retaUer lumber on a government basis. There 

 are always a lot of fellows in the world who are willing to give 

 away somebody else 's property. They are generally made up of 

 men who havcmade a competence, or some jack-leg lawyer politician 

 who would confiscate anybody's property if you weren't looking 

 at them, and they do not get any less so when they got the excuse 

 to say it is onlj' patriotic. We have the illustration of the efforts 

 of the wagon people to profit at the expense of the lumber fellows. 

 Let us not have any others. There should be enough intelligent 

 lumbermen at Washington to convince the powers that be that 

 what is fair is fair, but we do not propose to be robbed for the 

 benefit of somebody else. 



Please do not think there is any lack of patriotism in these state- 

 ments. There is not. The lumber trade will pay as much money 

 in excess profit taxes as practically any industry except possibly 

 steel, w'hich has been making the excess on a basis of 200 per cent 

 advance, rather than a basis of 20 per cent to less than 80 per cent 

 advance as in the lumber trade. 



How About Inch Stock? 



A lumberman with more than a normal stock of inch oak, both 



plain and quartered, is wondering what the future of that thickness 

 will be. Most everybody has been cutting largely two-inch and 

 up; in fact, as much as they could get, and onlj- a few operators 

 have been satisfied to cut their stock to fit the new demand. 



There must be some specialties that thin oak can be used for. 

 Of course the building trade is somewhat in the grumpy state, but 

 I presume it will be as usual soon, and then there will be a feast 

 and then a famine on one-inch oak. In that connection I am 

 reminded that some of our friends making oak flooring planks will 

 find an awfully short demand. They must get some specialty iu 

 the plant to keep the wheels going. It might be a good idea to 

 turn part of the plant into a dimension or other specialty lines and 

 fill the hole now, and after the war is over it will make the factory 

 a little more independent of the consumer than times past. 



Attend National Chamber of Commerce 

 The business men of Chicago and the West should take advantage 

 of a great opportunity which most of them have not enjoyed before, 

 to attend the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the United 

 States, which will be held at the Congress hotel, Chicago, April 

 10, 11 and 12. Every delegate I have ever seen selected in our line 

 of trade to attend the meeting, after one convention they are all 

 anxious to come again. In fact for the first time in the history of 

 the country the business interests have been very well represented 

 at Washington by the National Chamber. A program of speeches 

 on the important subjects of the day, like financing the war, rail- 

 roads, shipping, etc., will be handled very intelligently, and any 

 business man who is not a member either through his association 

 or iudividuallv, should be. 



