Miiy 2-1, lais 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



Occurrences at Washington Interesting to Lumbermen 



' Personal Mention and the Activities of Various Boards and Committees 



In legislative lines, it is said by momljcrs of Congress that tho 

 government timber commandeering bill has been killed in the house 

 committee on military affairs by the opposition of southern interests. 



Representative McArthur of Oregon has introduced a bill to 

 prevent interstate commerce in timber products in the manufacture 

 of which labor has been permitted to work over eight hours a day. 



The housing bill authorizing the expenditure of $(50,000,000 for 

 housing war workers and government employes has gone through 

 both houses of Congress in final form and at last reports awaits 

 the approval of the president. Under this bill the president will 

 have tho housing authority, which he will delegate to the secretary 

 of labor. The latter must go back to Congress with detailed esti- 

 mates for the actual appropriations for housing operations before 

 actual construction can be carried on. Contracts must be awarded 

 to the lowest responsible bidder. 



The Senate recently passed a bill authorizing the consolidation 

 of national forest lands by e.vchanging the government owned land 

 for private owned land within the forests. 



A bill has been introduced by Representative Slemp of Virginia 

 authorizing the W. M. Ritter Lumber Company to construct bridges 

 across the branches and tributaries in Buchanan and Dickenson 

 counties, Virginia. 



.V report on wages and hours of labor in the lumber, millwork and 

 furniture industries has just been published as Bulletin Xo. 225 by 

 the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This report is based on information 

 from representative establishments throughout the country cover- 

 ing the year 1915, together with comparable figures for 1913 and 

 summary figures for each year from 1907 to 1913 taken from pre- 

 vious reports of the bureau. 



The lumber industry was much depressed in 1915. The average 

 rate of wages per hour of sawmill employes, which has steadily 

 advanced from 1910 to 1913, was nine per cent lower in 1915 than 

 in 1913, and as there was practically no change in the average full- 

 time hours worked per week, the average w-eekly earnings were also 

 about nine per cent lower than in 1913. 



Oak will be needed in building freight ears for the government. 

 The wood will be used for brake steps and for other purposes. Lum- 

 ber will be used in most of the 100,000 freight cars for which orders 

 have been placed. The specifications have been very carefully 

 prepared and checked and rechecked in the forest products section 

 of the central purchasing bureau of the railroad administration. 

 Tho car builders send their memoranda of material needed to the 

 director of lumber, who distributes it among the several emergency 

 bureaus. The latter w-ill allocate the orders among the mills, where 

 the railroad administration will follow up the matter, its car sec- 

 tion furnishing the ears, its inland transportation division attend- 

 ing to the routing and movement, and tho forest products section 

 srcing to it that the material is not shipped all of one kind together 

 ndless of the immediate needs of the builders, 

 ixtensive construction operations by the government are planned 

 i 1 the coming fiscal year, some authorities say heavier even than 

 during the first year of the war. Besides enormous terminals, 

 wharves, docks, storage houses and railroad construction, etc., 

 appropriations of $187,000,000 for barracks and quarters, includ- 

 ing army camps, are now being asked of congress. It is reported 

 that fifty-eight camps are to be built in France and some new ones 

 in this country, besides converting all the national guard tent camps 

 into wooden cities and enlarging practically all of the army camps 

 and cantonments except possibly at Charlotte, N. C, and Dem- 

 ing, N. M. 



B. F. Dulweber and J. M. Pritchard, hardwood manufacturers, 

 came here recently expecting to meet representatives of the vehicle 

 manufacturers having government contracts, but the latter did 

 not come. There is said to be no development in the controversy 

 between these interests over the price of hardwood vehicle stock. 



although \V. M. Ritter has tried to bring about au agreement. The 

 Northern Hardwood bureau has withdrawn vehicle stock prices it 

 quoted some months ago. 



The ordnance ilepartment has contracted for 250,000 gunstocks 

 of laminated walnut, a type that has been approved by the gov- 

 ernment experts after severe tests. Capt. Nelson Bump of the 

 ordnance corps is in charge of the matter. Sample laminated gun- 

 stocks were boiled for a whole day and then proved not to have 

 changed in measurement to the slightest degree. Tests for break- 

 ing, pressure, pulling, etc., were also made. The first lot of lami- 

 nated stocks will be made from material rejected by the govern- 

 ment for solid stocks. 



According to Gutzon Borglum, who started the aircraft scandal, 

 Mr. Mix of the Dodge company, who made charges against Borglum, 

 w?s much interested in laminated wood and received a big govern- 

 ment contract for such material. Borglum saj's that ho himself 

 "indorsed laminated wood construction for its durability, sim- 

 plicity and speed in construction." 



The Borglum charges are! to be investigated by the senate com- 

 mittee on military affairs, while the general airplane scandal is 

 being investigated by the department of justice, where Charles E. 

 Hughes, former insurance prober, governor of New York, supreme 

 court judge and presidential candidate, has been engaged as special 

 counsel in the^work. 



According to Senator Thomas of Colorado there has been a giant 

 combine formed to control aircraft patents and government con- 

 tracts. It is being done through the Manufacturers ' Aircraft Asso- 

 ciation, he says, which has a system of cross licenses to accomplish 

 the purpose indicated. The senator says that the Curtiss, Burgess 

 and Wright-Martin aircraft manufacturing interests have combined. 



Archer A. Landon, president of the American Radiator Company, 

 Buffalo, N. Y., has been appointed by John D. Ryan, director of 

 aircraft production, to be in charge of the production division of 

 the reorganized aircraft branch of the government. 



A wooden ship per day is the recent record made in the govern- 

 ment building program. The delivery of wooden ships to the gov- 

 ernment has been delayed by failure to obtain promptly the neces- 

 sary boilers, engines and machinery, but it is claimed that this 

 is being remedied. 



On the west coast a pneumatic caulking machine has been devel- 

 oped and is in great demand among wooden shipbuilders. It does 

 the work of ten men, according to official reports. It works like the 

 pneumatic drill, hammer and riveter of which Chairman Hurley of 

 the shipping board was inventor, it is said. 



A new division of housing and transportation has been created 

 in the shipping board organization and placed in charge of A. Mer- 

 ritt Taylor, with J. R. Flannery and G. T. Seely as assistants. 



The Southern Pine Emergency Bureau is stated to be over six 

 months ahead in its deliveries of wooden ship schedules, which will 

 be completed in June instead of December, as required, it is 

 expected. 



The Southern Commercial Congress is sending south a committee 

 composed of Gen. Julian S. Carr and C. J. Owens to urge cooperation 

 among lumbermen, shipbuilders, capital, labor, commercial organi- 

 zations, transportation interests, and the like to speed up the ship- 

 building program. a 



A feature of the month in connection with the lumber industry 

 and its relations with the government has been the organization 

 of the National Bureau of Wholesale Lumber Distributors with 

 the following officers: 



President, L. Germain. Jr., the Germain Company, Pittsburgh, Pa, ; first 

 vice-president, Robert R. Slzcr, Robert R. SIzer & Co., New York ; second 

 vice-president, George T. Alickle, George T. Mlckle Lumber Company, Chi- 

 cago : third vice-president. Dwlght Hinckley, Dwight Hinckley Lumber 

 Company, cnulunoti, O. : fourth vice-president, R, B. Raynor, Raynor & 

 Parker, Fhlladelphia, Pa. Executive committee : Bernard L. Tim, Hlrseh 



