April 10, 1931 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



Socialistic Trend Is Attacked 



speakers at Third American Lumber Congress Demand Return to Original 



Concept of Americanism, Answer Challenge to Private Property Rights, 



and Denounce Government Invasion of Private Business 



Socialism, paternalism in government, government operation and 

 control, as exemplified in the railroads and the merchant marine, 

 in fact, every condition or thing in the country that challenges the 

 right of private property, would unduly shackle individual freedom 

 and hamper private business initiative in its lawful enterprise, 

 came under vigorous attack during the sessions of the Third 

 American Lumber Congress on Thursday and Friday, March 31 and 

 April 1, at Chicago in the Congress Hotel. 



These sessions, which were dynamic with the spirit of old- 

 fashioned, self-reliant Americanism, were presided over by John 

 Henry Kirby of Houston, Texas, who on Wednesday, March 30, 

 the day preceding the opening of the congress, had for the third 

 time been elected president of the National Lumber Manufacturers' 

 Association, under the auspices of which the Congress is held. 



The attacks on the evils enumerated were made by such speakers 

 as Patrick H. Kelley, United States Congressman at Large from 

 Michigan, speaking on "Problems Before Congress; " the venerable 

 Leslie M. Shaw, former Secretary of the Treasury under Roosevelt, 

 under the topic "Vanishing Landmarks;" George Wilder Cart- 

 wright, former State Senator of California, on "The Preservation 

 of Industrial Peace," and the distinguished former U. S. Senator 

 from Texas, Joseph W. Bailey, who delivered a stirring address 

 on "The Government of the United States," at the annual dinner, 

 which was held in the Gold Room of the Congress Hotel, the evening 

 of the first day of the Congress. 



They preached the doctrine of the sturdy Americanism that 

 wrought a world power out of a vast wilderness. They denounced 

 the puling spirit that would have government perform those serv- 

 ices rightly within the province of courageous, intelligent private 

 enterprise, and that would put a premium upon indolence and 

 wastefulness by paternalistic legislation. They warned the lum- 

 bermen that the destructive doctrines of socialism have made 

 powerful inroads in the governmental, educational and industrial 

 institutions of the country, and called on them to arouse them- 

 selves, to interest themselves more and more in public affairs, and 

 by the right kind of propaganda fight this pernicious permeation. 

 It is only by the alertness and the industry of the right thinking 

 Americans that the original and real American character of the 

 nation can be preserved, they said. Senator Bailey declared that 

 there could be no temporarizing with socialism and that it must be 

 fought and stopped at every effort to extend its sway. Mr. Shaw 

 called attention to the fact that George Washington and the other 

 framers of the Constitution created a Republic and not a democ- 

 racy, and that when writing into the Constitution the provision 

 that every citizen has the right to "Life, liberty and pursuit of 

 happiness," they intended that a man should pursue happiness, not 

 have it handed to him by the government. Government, he de- 

 clared, can not go into business, competing with its citizens without 

 abridging this inalienable right to achieve. Government must 

 foster, but not father industry, he said. "When the government 

 protects your life and your liberties, it has got quite a job. Bills 

 have been introduced into Congress," he continued, "to guarantee 

 employment whether you want it or not, to guarantee wages 

 whether you earn them or not, and when you get old, with no 

 property, everything gone and you are poor, 'come and we will 

 put you on the honor roll along with the boys who fought in 

 Flanders; we will give you an old age pension.' " 



If this tendency to paternalistic government is pursued, he said, 

 the time, will come when the government "will come around each 

 morning with a nursing bottle and each of us can have four draws. ' ' 



Mr. CartwTight said it was a grave error to think that the con- 

 dition of the small man, the poor man, can be improved by pulling 

 down the big man, the rich man. "Sympathy doesn't solve the 

 problems of the world; we must have reason and action based upon 

 sympathy. Reformers have made a mistake of trying to reform 

 men at the top. They have been legislating the business man out 

 of his business and the laboring man out of his job." 



He believed that all difference between capital and labor could 

 be ironed out by intelligent deliberation. "The time has come 

 to figure out our differences and not to fight them out. Why should 

 employers and employees quarrel about wages? Wages are a scien- 

 tific proposition. Wages either too high or two low mean ruination 

 and when the working men and their employers come to understand 

 this they will figure out wages. ' ' 



After having discussed the ills that have resulted from Govern- 

 ment operation of the railroads and control of other industrial and 

 business groups. Congressman Kelley declared that "this is the 

 time of all times when the business world of this country must set 

 its face against the Government going into all these kinds of 

 business." 



Government Operation Fallacies 



He then disclosed the amateurish methods of Government opera- 

 tion of the Merchant Marine, characteristic of which mismanage- 

 ment was the lack of a central purchasing department, the master 

 of each of the 1,200 ships in the fleet being permitted to do his own 

 purchasing. And this in the face of the fact that ships were 

 operated under contracts giving a certain percentage of the gross 

 return to the operator, while the government paid the cost of 

 operation. The trouble with government operation is inherent, he 

 explained, "you do not appoint men to govern because of special 

 technical ability. They go in for other reasons, but get their 

 salaries just the same." 



These are the high lights of the Congress, but considerable time 

 was also devoted to matters of direct relation to the Congress and 

 the lumber industry, such as the annual report of Dr. Wilson 

 Compton, secretary manager of the National Lumber Manufactur- 

 ers ' Association, an address by W. A. Gilchrist, chairman of the 

 subcommittee on waste prevention and Utilization, on "Prevention 

 of Waste in Lumbering," and the report of the resolutions com- 

 mittee, of which Charles S. ICeith was chairman. 



These resolutions demonstrated the attitude of the Congress 

 toward such subjects as foreign trade, the national debt, the 

 abolition of government control, Federal taxes, the Federal Reserve 

 Board, the railroads and the revision of the tariff. In composite 

 they may be said to have been directed to the end of arresting the 

 invasion of business by government, of obtaining the maximum of 

 freedom for business, curing governmental extravagance and re- 

 storing the normal processes of industry and commerce. 



Other resolutions dealt with strictly lumber or association mat- 

 ters, such as the resolution defining terms of sale, and recommend- 

 ing its adoption by the regionals; and the resolution commending 

 the "publication of lumber statistics of cuts, shipments and orders 

 furnished by the regional associations and by the bureau of eco- 

 nomics of the national association." 



This resolution appears to be of more than passing importance, 

 inasmuch as, after having uttered the above commendation, it 

 "recommended that this work be extended and developed so as to 

 include reliable data as to stock of each species, by sizes and 

 grades, and the prices thereof, compiled from actual sales. That 



