Dwcmber 10, 1920 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



Hardwood Men Seek Tax Improvement 



Representatives of both the National Lumber Manufacturers 

 Association and the American Hardwood Manufacturers Associa- 

 tion taxation committees discussed problems pertaining to income 

 tax assessment with Major David T. Mason, chief of the Timber 

 Section, Bureau of Internal Revenue, at conferences held in Chicago 

 at the Congress Hotel, Xov. 30. 



It developed during the hardwood conference that there is con- 

 siderable dissatisfaction among the hardwood interests with the 

 ijicome tax timber valuations and it was decided that an urgent ap- 

 ])cal will be made to the Treasury Department to establish a better 

 basis of hardwood timber valuation as of March 1, 1913. . Gen. L. 

 C. Boyle, who attended the Chicago conference, announced that 

 immediately upon his return to Washington, D. C, he will seek 

 an interview with Carl Stevens, Major Mason's successor in the 

 timber section of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, in an effort to 

 arrange an appointment for the tax committee recently appointed 

 at a conference held in Memphis. 



F. R. Gadd, manager of statistics of the American Hardwood 

 Manufacturers Association, was a member of the Chicago confer- 

 ence, and stated that immediately upon his return to Memphis, he 

 would begin the compilation of a mass of data for the use of the 

 tax committee of the association in putting its appeal before the 

 new chief of the timber section. It was said in Chicago that the 

 hardwood interests are confident that when the timber section fully 

 realizes how inequitable the present system is, and, that if con- 

 tinued, it would mean disastrous losses to hardwood operators, the 

 rulings will be corrected. 



One of the principal objections of the hardwood men is that their 

 timber valuation is on an acreage basis, whereas all other woods 

 are valued per thousand feet. The timber section has intimated 

 that $30 per acre is the maximum valuation to be allowed for 

 hardwood timber. 



The hardwood interests expect to show that many timber tracts 

 in the Mississippi Valley cut 12,000 to 14,000 feet per acre,' which 

 would fix the valuation at less than $2 per 1,000 feet, or $3 below 

 the average valuation of soft wood stumpage. Other tracts of 

 liardwood timber cutting 6,000 feet to the acre on this basis would 

 be allowed $5 for 1,000 feet depletion. 



Another objection is that the timber section will allow only $5 

 per acre valuation on the rich alluvial land of the Mississippi Val- 

 ley, notwithstanding the fact that cutover alluvial land since 1913 

 has sold readily at $25 to $125 per acre. Unless this valuation is 

 changed all who have sold cutover land will pay a profit tax on 

 all revenue in excess of $5 per acre. 



The conferences having been held but a few hours prior to the 

 expiration of Major Mason 's term of office, L. C. Bell, general coun- 

 sel for the W. M. Hitter Lumber Company, and a member of the 

 American Association's taxation committee, voiced the regrets of 

 the hardwood industry at the retirement of the chief of the timber 

 section, particularly at a time when the absence of a man of his 

 experience with timber valuation problems will mean many mis- 

 understandings. 



Expressions made by representatives of the softwood interests 

 at a larger conference indicated that they are generally satisfied 

 with the present basis of timber valuations. 



R. B. Goodman, chairman of the Bureau of Economics of the 

 National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, presided at this con- 

 ference, which was held on the call of the taxation committee of 

 tlic National association. In opening the conference Mr. Goodman 

 advised that its purpose was an open discussion of such subjects 

 as inventories, valuations and also the question of the interest of 

 the association in cages of individual taxpayers in regard to the 

 taxes of their timber holdings. 



The conference culminated in the adoption of a resolution pro- 



viding for a special committee to request a hearing with the Treas- 

 ury Department as to an amendment to the regulations with re- 

 spect to inventories. The manufacturers are anxious for a change 

 in the determination of market values. The contention is that the 

 dealers have been given the right to inventory on the present mar- 

 ket values while the manufacturers are required to inventory on 

 stumpage values. The manufacturers want to be permitted to list 

 their stocks in at the price they can get for them, and not for what 

 they cost as the present regulation compels. 



Gen. Boyle, R. B. Allen of the West Coast Lumbermen's Associa- 

 tion and R. M. Rickey of the Southern Pine Association were 

 selected as the committee, and they later left for Washington. 



Members of the tax committee of the American Hardwood Manu- 

 facturers' Association are L. C. Boyle, Washington, chairman; E. 

 M. Carrier, Sardis, Miss.; Thomas W. Fry, St. Louis; Graham Brown, 

 Louisville; W. R. Satterfield, Memphis; L. C. Bell, Columbus, 0., 

 and H. B. Curtin, Clarksburg, W. Va. 



Considering Col. Greeley Personally 



What manner of man he is personally, what his antecedents were 

 and the career that led him to the position of "master of the 

 forests," is engagingly sketched in an article on Col. William B. 

 Greeley, Chief of the U. S. Forest Service, appearing under the 

 signature of James B. Morrow in the November issue of The Na- 

 tion's Business. Lumbermen who have considered the new chief 

 forester merely from the standpoint of his statements of forestry 

 policy will no doubt be interested to learn something of the human 

 side of the man and his huge responsibilities. "It will be interest- 

 ing, perhaps, first to speak of the deep-sea lugger, 'H. G. Johnson,' 

 bound from Boston to Honolulu," writes Mr. Morrow. Then he 

 continues as follows: 



The ship's cargo consisted of merchandise and sugar machinery for the 

 planters of Hawaii and seventy barrels of whiskey. From Oswego, in New 

 York, before the barge sailed, had come Frank N. Greeley and his family. 

 He was in bad health and hoped that a sea voyage and a change of climate 

 and business might restore his strength and advance his fortunes. 



They — the Greeleys — took passage on the "H. G. Johnson" and were the 

 only passengers. Now, if Frank N. Greeley had not gone to California fcy 

 way of Cape Horn and Honolulu, his son, William B., never, in all probabil- 

 ity, would have become chief of the Forest Service of America, which high 

 office he now holds, nor one of the really fine soldiers in the war with 

 Germany. 



So the voyage of the "H. G. Johnson" Is properly the initial, and 

 pivotal fact as well, of this article. The ship, sailing south for thousands 

 of miles and then north and west for thousands of more mile-s, was at sea 

 five months, all told. When William B., aged eleven, was leaving the 

 lugger, the captain said : "You may stay with me and I'll rate you in my 

 crew as an *able' boy." 



The testimony of the captain also is worth mentioning. Another vessel 

 took the Greeleys to California, where, in Santa Clara County, a fruit farm 

 was purchased. There, on that fruit farm — prunes, the principal specialty 

 — William B. worked and lived during his boyhood. But, a propensity con- 

 trolling, he made his way to the mountains, not far distance, and spent his 

 Idle hours with their inhabitants — trees and wild animals. 



At the University of California, where he helped to finance his four years 

 of study by working ou fruit farms and ranches and by baling hay in the 

 Sacramento valley, which was heated like a desert, he read the story and 

 the bulletins of Gifford Pinchot. The soft murmur of the forests straight- 

 way became a commanding summons. 



With funds earned as a teacher In the high school of Alameda, in the year 

 1902, William B. Greeley began the study of forestry at Yale. Before doing 

 so, however, he sought the counsel of Bernhard Bduard Fernow, that great 

 old Prussian of the woods, who was then lecturing at Cornell. "Well," said 

 Fernow, with the bluntncss of his race, "your legs are long enough to carry 

 you over the logs." 



Graduated at Yale at the age of twenty-five, William B. Greeley took and 

 passed a civil service examination and was sent by the National Govern- 

 ment to California as an Inspector of forest lands. A year afterward he 

 (Continued on page 23) 



