HARDWOOD RECORD 



37 



The "common strife for the same object begins," and continues. 

 First Jones is on top and then Smith. Kach reduction must 

 bring additional reduction in the cost, and as tlie Lord has made 

 no charge for tlie raw material, tliere is iiotliing in the cost except 

 the labor that is necessary to make the goods. Consequently tliere 

 is notliing to reduce but the labor; and the reducing process goes 

 on down, down; the hours of work are increased — the age of the 

 labor reduced to the mimimum until mere children are at work, 

 and the burdens are made as heavy as it is possible for them 

 to bear, and the result is that tliere are contentions, altercations, 

 liglits. battles, death. This is competition. 



Jones and Smith met one day wlien conditions were at the very 

 worst, and one said to the other, "Why not get together and 

 agree upon a price for selling our stockings that will enable us 

 to employ men and pay them living wages; get rid of these 

 long hours, and child labor and make ourselves some prohtr And 

 be of some service to ourselves and our employees." 



The result is that they agree to do so. This is organisation, and 

 the kind of organization that it w-as intended for mankind to pursue, 

 and although it is forbidden by law, their pressing necessity and 

 distressed condition of their business makes them take tlie cliance. 



They find after forming this organization that they have a new 

 power. They control the sale, and can compel the bviycr to pa,y 

 whatever they may ask. With this new power they seem to forget 

 the conditions of anyone e.xcept themselves, and they say to them- 

 selves: "This is our business and we can do with it as we 

 please. It is true we are not paying our help enough — tliey 

 barely have enough to eat and but little to clothe them, but we 

 control the stocking business and lliey can't get any moic from 

 anyone else and we will just keep every dollar we can make." Tins 

 IS a trust. It is also forbidden by law. as it shoulil be. 



Organization as 1 have delined it in this brief way shotilj lie 

 permitted bi/ law; but trusts should be put out of business. 



Now I feel quite sure tliat you will all agree witli me up to 

 this point. The (juestion then is how to permit one and prohibit 

 the other. 



Before trying to answer this question, let us take a little dcejier 

 look into our system of commerce. It is a matter of statistics 

 that there is a greater percentage of failures in all branches of 

 trade than there is of success. Some have placed in the successful 

 column 5 per cent, of the whole; others 25 per cent. I am not 

 prepared to say which is right, but apply the thought to your 

 own knowledge. Write on one page the names of all the men 

 you know who have been successful in any line of trade with 

 which you are acquainted; those who have retired with a com- 

 petency with which to support themselves and their families in 

 old age; and on the other the names of those who liave started 

 and failed. I am sure you will find the failures to be many more 

 than the successes. 



Should not a system of eommeree that brings about this result 

 be changed? What is the cause of the failures? It is the system. 

 What is the system? ''Competition is the life of trade and trusts." 



What is the remedy? Legalized organization that requires every- 

 one engaged in any line of trade to associate themselves with 

 all others engaged in the same line, and that requires them to 

 become bureaus of information, through which they can show their 

 right to exist; and their right to exist should be based upon their 

 being able to show that they are conducting their business at a 

 profit, and this should be made so clear that it could be under- 

 stood by the producer, by the consumer, and by the public. It 

 must be known by the producer because he must know what his 

 goods are costing him in order to be able to sell them at a 

 profit, and it must be known by the consumer because the consumer 

 must be willing to pay the producer his wages, and it must be 

 known to the public because the public are the people that invest 

 their money in these institutions, and they must know that their 

 investment is safe. 



I hear an objection to the profit being known to the consumer. 

 Why should this be the case? If you employ a man you know 

 the wages that you are going to pay him. Do you not? And if 

 you are employed as a hatter to make a hat. you would be quite 

 as willing that the man that is to pay the bill should know what 

 he is paying. And there is something else that must be shown 

 also. Listen! They must show that they are conducting their 

 business at a profit based upon the cost of their goods; and as 

 the consumer must he willing to pay the producer a profit upon 

 this cost — this profit being his wages — if you please, for his labor 

 and for the use of his capital, so must the producer pay his 

 laborers a price at which they can live and support their families. 



Has it ever occurred to you that there is nothing in the cost 

 of any article of merchandise but labor? There is fundamentally 

 no such thing as cost of raw material. When the Creator started 

 this ^ organization of the human race. He did not say. "I will 

 furnish you raw material at such and such prices." but he said: 

 "Behold! I place you upon the earth to replenish it, to subdue 

 it, to have dominion over it, and I have given you everything upon 

 the earth, the trees, the ore, the coal." 



There is not a single item of raw material that is costing man- 

 kind one cent. The only cost is labor. 



Legalized organizations that are required to show their right 

 to live, and in doing so, to show that tliey are paying cost for their 

 goods, and that this cost permits the producer of it to support 

 their families as families should be supported, will become bureaus 

 of information, that will prevent over-production and the tempta- 

 tion to sell goods for less than cost. It will prevent under-pro- 

 duction, and the tempation to ask more money for them than 

 they are worth. 



They will settle the question of the tarilf as they will be made 

 to show positively what effect the labor they can buy in the shape 

 of partially produced goods coming from foreign countries, has 

 upon the product of their own labor in their own country: and 

 will settle the question of capital and labor, avoid strikes, lock- 

 nuts, and bring harmony where there is contention, fights, battles, 

 death. The economic changes that have occurred during the last 

 half of a century or during the present generation of living man 

 have unquestionably been more important and varied than during 

 any former corresponding period of the world's history. 



It woidd seem, indeed, as if the world during all the years since 

 the inception of civilization, has Ijeen working upon the line of 

 equipment and industrial efforts in perfecting tools and nuicliinery. 

 building work-shops and devising instrumentalities for the easy 

 inter-communication of persons and thoughts and the cheap exchange 

 of products and services: that this equipment having at last been 

 made read.y. the work of using it for the first time in our day 

 and generation is fairly begun. The real facts are that we are 

 just now ready to do business in this great country. 



A recent publication has undertaken to show what the great 

 volume of business will be in the United States in 1918. These 

 figures have been based upon the average increase that there has 

 Ijeen in the last IS years Taking the amount of business done 

 in ISilO, and taking the period from ISUO to 1908, a period of 

 18 years, and taking the average increase per year and apply this 

 for the next 10 years, and the increase shown is so marvelotLs that 

 one must hesitate almost to think it possible, I will mention only 

 one item. It is plainly shown according to figures that if the 

 business increases in the United States for the next 10 years as 

 it has in the last IS, that the railroad facilities of this country 

 must be doubled in order to handle the business in 191S. 



Xow does anyone lielieve that this great business can be con- 

 ducted with profit to the capital invested and to the labor that 

 produces it without organization? And are we to continue our 

 attempts to prevent organizations and give the men engaged in 

 it the opportunity to form trusts? Must we continue in the 

 dark? Would it not be better to come out boldly in the light? 



It is manifestly impossible for the government to make laws 

 to both control and prevent organizations. The fact that they 

 try to make laws, to control the abuse of them is an acknowledg- 

 ment that they cannot prevent them. 



This being the case, tvhy should they not be required by laic? 

 Is it not clear to you that if they ic^re required, and if they 

 were required to show their right to live as organizations, that 

 they could be more effectively controlled than with our present 

 system. 



I firmly believe that there is an evolution going on that will 

 result very soon in changing the trend of thought to this view 



I have no suggestions to make nor resolutions to offer for your 

 adoption. I simply want to leave this one thought wit.h you. Name- 

 ly, that the time is coming, if it is not already here, when organiza- 

 tion will be required by law. and when they do come, we will 

 have made one of the greatest steps forw'ard that has ever been 

 known to civilization. 



Now what has all of this to do with the Hardwood Manufacturers' 

 Association. Just this: You as manufacturers, have been holding 

 your meetings from year to year drawing ways and means for 

 the economic handling of your business. !Many of you, no doubt, 

 can look back to a time when you regarded your business as your 

 own. When you thought, if you did not say it. that Smith had 

 no right to be in it, but now you recognize that Smith is a part 

 of it and must be considered 



This is your part of the evohition that is going on. I believe 

 that this is the first meeting to which you have invited the con- 

 sumer. You are now asking him: How can we supply vou with 

 your needs to better advantage? How can we work with you in 

 a way that will help you and us to conserve this great gift of 

 nature so that it may be put to the best use. so that it may not 

 be ignorantly wasted or destroyed? And T answer you w-ith all 

 the emphasis of which I am capable, by organization 



Not by a trust that arbitrarily controls, and dictates prices, but 

 by organization that shows so plainly that there is a duty to your 

 fellow man which must be obeyed; that the mere price question 

 will become a secondary matter. The press of the country has 

 from time to time referred to a gigantic lumber trust. If there 

 is such a thing I do not know it, but if there is and they are 

 abusing their power they should be punished. Let us suppose for 



