HARDWOOD RECORD 



23 



.Mr. Clencleiiin: I beg to be excused from 

 tliat honor, as I came here jiartieularly to 

 ]earn and to listen. I am imt competent to 

 occupy the chair. 



Mr. Gibson: Jf that was yiiiir object, ilr. 

 f'k'ndenin, in attending this meeting, the 

 cliair is just the place for you, as there you 

 can learn and listen to the best possible ad- 

 vantage without liaving to say a word your- 

 self. 



Mr. Clendeniu was chosen chairman by ac- 

 claim and upon taking his seat introduced 

 K. W. MeCullough, secretary of the National 

 Wagon Manufacturers' Association, who had 

 jiromised to a.ddress the meeting on the value 

 i)f association work. 



Association Work as Handled by Wagon- 

 makers. 



Mr. .MuCullougli : Mr. ("liMiriiiMii anil Gcutle- 

 iiicn ; You have lieard the suffS'-slion of the 

 <'h!ur that I s[)cak to .voii for a few minutes and 

 I certainly will make m.v remarks as brief as 

 Iinssible. -I'erhaps the best way to arrive at this 

 matter of beneficial association work is to give 

 yiui a little inside history of the National Wagon 

 .Manufacturers" .Association, wliicli represputs to- 

 tiay between eighty-seven and one-Iiall" and ninety 



T. R. CLENDIXEN. .\TCHIS(1N. KAX.. CHAIR- 

 MAX AND MKJIl!i:i! n:R.MANE.\T OR- 



GA.XIZATION CO.M.MITTEE. 



per cent of the total output of the country. This 

 association was formed in 1879, at a meeting 

 held in the old Palmer House, and there were 

 present nineteen at that time and my records 

 show that all but two of that number have passed 

 to the great beyond. For three years they had 

 what might he called a social organization — they 

 got acquainted and met together frequently, but 

 they finally fell out over the matter of gettin.g 

 better prices for their goods. There was a lack 

 of confidence among them, a certain amount of 

 .iealous.v and not very much progress was made. 

 In 18S2 the.v drifted apart, luit in ISSO another 

 meeting was held and they came together again 

 on account of the same conditions, w-hich con- 

 tinued to prevail. Some of them realized where 

 they had failed before and they made some im- 

 Iirovement. They began to get a great deal bet- 

 ter acquainted witli each other and each and 

 every one found that the other fellow wasn't 

 such a black devil after all. So it went along 

 from 1886 to 189S in better shape. They selected " 

 their oSBcers from the rank and tile of the manu- 

 facturers, passing numerous resouitions, living op 



to only a part of them, and others not at all — 

 but education was going on ,iust the same, and 

 tliey realized more and more the value of it and 

 of keeping together. They finally got to the point 

 where they realized fully that all men are not 

 alike and that you can never expect to get into 

 a room like this and positively make all men 

 moral, honest or good. You will always have t(^ 

 rec'kon with the fellow that is timid, the one that 

 will evade his obligation, etc., but we have found 

 I hat there are many honest men in the manufac- 

 turing business and you will always find a ma- 

 .lority that will stand for the thing you want 

 to perform and that with that majority you can 

 win the Ijattie. I have men on my list all the 

 lime wlio are forever writing me hard luck sto- 

 ries about this, that or the other, or wliat some- 

 tmd.v else is doing, but the majority are working 

 along right lines. I want to say that in Ihe 

 work of forming an organization, the value of 

 social intercourse must not be underestimated. 

 If .\on people got nothing else out of it but this, 

 .\()U woidd have accomplished something. However, 

 in this day aud age of hustling, we want to go still 

 further and accomplish something practical. Un- 

 intelligent competition, as brotlier Gibson said, 

 is indeed a great difhcuity, and the liardest part 

 of it is that everyone will declare it originates 

 eutirel.v with "the other fellow." It originates 

 from one cause and one only, and I cannot lay 

 too much stress upon this point, which is lack 

 of knowledge of cost. You may be able to watch 

 your manufacture through the different stages 

 from the forest to the finished product, add a cer- 

 tain percentage for profit, etc.. and then feel 

 that you have arrived at cost. But there is al- 

 ways a certain undefined expense that is seldom 

 taken into consideration. Until 1904 there was 

 not one wagon factory in the country of any 

 note that had an adequate cost finding system. 

 Every one knew how many feet of stock, how 

 much labor, etc., went into a wagon. But that 

 is not cost — not nearly cost — and until we took 

 up the subject of cost finding, we arrived at 

 nothing as far as preventing this unintelligent . 

 competiti<.)n. Tlie prime factor of all our work 

 is to get each man to figure his cost and figure 

 it right. In my position as secretar.v, I have 

 access to all the factories and their private books 

 and records, and I gather information right from 

 these manufacturers so that I can furnish to 

 our members' the average cost of a standard 

 wagon ever.v so often. But it must be remem- 

 bered that this is only a gxiide and only gives 

 fhem a proof figure to prove their own figures by. 

 It is of no value for the fellow who manufac- 

 tures O.OUU wagons to know what it costs some- 

 body else to manufacture 30,000 or 40.000 In a 

 plant away off from where he is located. But it 

 furnishes an incentive for him to figure out the 

 same plan for himself, and when he does actually 

 figure it out, I will trust to his good sense to 

 add a proper amount of profit. This is all the 

 price regulation that the National Wagon Manu- 

 facturers' Association has. 



Since 1904 wagon prices have advanced some- 

 what and the business is in so much better con- 

 dition than before we organized and got together 

 on a practical basis that there is nobody who 

 wants to go back to the old status. The new 

 plan we started in 1904 was this : Previously 

 we had selected a secretary aud officers from 

 the rank and file hut when we attempted to cover 

 inside information, it was not given because 

 manufacturers did not like to put it into the 

 hands of other members of the trade, so we 

 found a permanent secretary, put him into office 

 and made him the confidential agent of each fac- 

 tory. For instance, I am considered a confidential 

 agent and act in that capacity for every member, 

 so that instead of turning the information into 

 the bauds of the competitor who might not be 

 scrupulously honest, it is known to me onl.Y. 



I have been in the wagon business for twenty- 

 five years, and of course there is a chance that 

 1 might tell what 1 know to some or.e or other, 

 but it is safe to say that if I did such things 

 there wouldn't be a place for me iu Ihe wagon 



business in this country. When I took up this 

 wcn'k I selected a small item of wagon stock to 

 start a cost basis on — the top box. These top 

 boxes were being manufactured and sold at $]..'50 

 and sometimes even thrown in with a wagon. 

 When we got through estimating cost, we found 

 that it was actually .f2.35. We immediately 

 said : Can't we reform some of these people aud 

 not give these things away? So a resolution was 

 passed that everybody sell these parts for what 

 Ihey ought to bring. A report within six months 

 developed the fact that there was not a factory 

 which had not raised the price. Now they are 

 not all charging the same price, but they are 

 charging a profitable one. From this beginning 

 we took other parts of a wagon and followed out 

 the same idea. 



But we have done other work that is even more 

 valuable. We have saved in the cost of manu- 

 facture. In 1905 we undertook the standard- 

 ization of farm wagon wlieels. Prior to that 

 time there were forty-three different heights of 

 wlieels. Xobod.v seemed to know wh,v — they were 

 largely matters of tradition — somebody's father 

 made them that w-ay and they followed suit. 

 Thus it was that some concerns furnished as 

 nuiny as fifteen different heights of the same 

 wiieel and same tires. When we got through 

 with our standardization, we fixed on just three 

 heights, utterly abolishing forty. We adopted a 

 low wheel, a medium and a high one, which 



P. C. SCOTT. ST. LOUIS. MO.. CHAIRM.VX 

 PERMAXENT ORGANIZATION COM- 

 MITTEE. 



seemed to satisfy as well as the forty-three dif- 

 ferent heights. But it took three years and 

 lots of work to convince some manufacturers 

 that their particular way wasn't the only one ; 

 still we did it eventually. 



From this I will pass to the meeting we had 

 about two weeks ago when the buyers of our 

 wood material got together aud adopted stand- 

 ard sizes of rough dimensions of wagon stock — 

 on all parts common to all wagons. Heretofore 

 mills have cut our material on special orders, 

 owing to the different specifications of wagon 

 manufacturers. Thus few mills could afford to 

 accumulate stock on hand, or hold it, because 

 of lack of uuiformit.v in requirements, but this 

 will establish sizes that will be salable and in 

 demand everywhere. All this work has been han- 

 dled through the secretary's oflice. Matters first 

 come to him aud are then passed on to the execu- 

 tive committee, composed of twelve of the larg- 

 est manufacturers. You will ask why we choose 

 these large dealers — because the cost-finding sys- 

 tem in such factories has arrived at a higher 

 stage of proficiency than at almost any others. 



