50 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Election of Officers 



Tlie Cuiiiinittee ou IXomiuatious rejjorted, lOcuimneiuling the rcLHec- 

 linn of the dfiScers and the Executive Board as follows: 

 Presiilciit — R. M. Carrier, Sardis. Miss. 

 First \'ii-e-President— Frank F. Fee, Little Rook, Ark. 

 Seeonil Vice-President — W. B. Townseud, Townseud, Tenn. 

 Treasurer — C. M. Crawford, Coal Grove, 0. 



Executive Board 



Clinton Crane, Cincinnati, O. 



AV. A. (iilchrist, Memphis, Tenn. 



.r. 11. llinnnelberger, Morehouse, Mo. 



C. R. Lamb. Minneapolis, Minn. 



John W. T,ovc, Nashville, Tenn, ' 



<). J'J. \V. Luehrmaun. St. Louis, Mo. 



.r. W. Oakford. Seranton, Pa, 



A. B. Ransom, Nashville. Tenn. 



W. M. Ritter, Columbus, U. 



E. H. "V'ansant, Ashland, Ky. 



William Wilms, Chicago, 111. 



W. E. DeLaney, Cincinnati, O. 



The report was accepted and the secretary was instructed to cast 

 the vote for the Otficers and members of the Executive Board, as 

 named, which was done. 



Mr. Carrier made a brief siieech of acceptance and this most suc- 

 cessful nuHHing ill hardwood history adjourned. 

 Executive Board Meeting 



Inuucdiatcly folloiving the meeting, tlie Eseiiili\e Board held a 

 brief session. Aliout the only business of importance transacted was 

 the reelection of Lewis Doster as secretary for the ensuing year. 



The total registration at the meeting was 702. As the list of 

 names was jirinted in the Daily H.ardwood Record, it is omitted here. 



Hardwood Record Mail 'Bag 



I in this department it is proposed to reply 

 lo sach Inquiries from riAi;DW(joD Record read- 

 ers as will be of enough general Interest to 

 warr:iul publication. Every patron of the paper 

 is invited to use this department freelv, and 

 an attempt will be made to answer queries per- 

 taining to all matters of interest to the hard- 

 wood trade in a succinct and intelligent man- 

 ner.] 



The Views of a Small Arkansas Operator 

 The following semi-humorous, semi-pathet- 

 ic communication, which appeared in the 

 Cincinnati daily issue of the Eeeoril on 

 February ?>. was recently received by Presi- 

 dent Carrier of the Hardwood Manufactur- 

 ers' Association from a firm of small saw- 

 mil! operators in Arkansas. The letter is 

 absolutely authentic, though for obvious rea- 

 sons the names of the parties in interest can- 

 not be given: 



JltniioLE, .\RK.. ,Tanuary 10, 1910. 

 If. JI. Carriek, Hardwood Manufacturers' Asso- 

 ciation, Sardis, Miss, 



Dear Brother Currier : We are in receipt of 

 your very kind invitation to attend the annual 

 convention of the Hardwood Manufacturers' 

 Association of the United States, to be held in 

 the city of Cincinnati on the three first days 

 of February. 



It is with feelings of most sincere and heart- 

 felt regret that we are compelled to forego 

 this plea.sure, for we feel that it would indeed 

 be a pleasure to meet with so many of our 

 fellow sufferers as will be gathered together on 

 that occasion. 



The fact is that circumstances over which we 

 have no control, i. e., the prosperity of the lum- 

 ber dealers, have so affected our financial af- 

 fairs — that — that — that — well, maybe you will 

 spare us the pain of further explanations. 



You see, we, like a host of other small saw- 

 mill concerns in the South, have for the last four 

 Dr five years been trying- to overcome the "laws 

 >f gravitation" by selling lumber for less money 

 than it has cost us to lu-ociuce it. Of course, 

 [he inevitable is ovi-rlaking us. one by one, as 

 fast as the resources we put into our enterprises 

 to begin with are exhausled; the better worker 

 md hustler a fellow is, the longer he can keep 

 iliead of the sheriff, but sooner or later — . 



True, some of the luckier ones have managed 

 live because Ihc property they bought for the 

 imber turned out to be good agricultural lands, 

 md they realized a profit that way over the 

 irico the lands cost Ihem, but none of that profit 

 )elongs to the manufacturer of lumber. 



We doubt if there is a lumber firm in the 

 iouth today which would not rather have the 

 ands they own in the state they were in when 

 hey first Iiought them than to have all the 

 n-oflt they have made in the working up of all 

 heir line timber. 



We have wasted our "patrimony," Were wo 

 to outline the history of our experiences during 

 the past few years it would probably sound so 

 familiar to most of the small sawmill men in 

 the southern hardwood territory that they would 

 lb ink we were telling about them under an 

 assumed name. And yet the cost of our prod- 

 ucts to the consumer has probably been as high 

 as he could have afforded to pay. compared with 

 prices of other commodities, and at these prices 

 every sawmill man in the South should have, 

 during the last five years, gotten independently 

 rich. 



The trouble has been, it seems to us. tliat the 

 mill man has adopted the rule of "say nothing 

 and saw wood," and hasn't realized till too 

 late that it takes something more than a tract 

 of good timber and a good sawmill to make 

 money in the manufacture of lumber. 



The fact is. there are four things necessary to 

 a successful lumber manufacturing plant. The 

 first two are brains and money ; the mill and the 

 timber are accessories. 



We, of course, found this out later — and have 

 never been able to supply the deficiency. But 

 our idea in writing you this letter is not to 

 tell a tale of woe, or offer ourselves as candi- 

 dates to the kickers' club, but to make n sugges- 

 tion that occurs to us might be useful, from one 

 who has been over the ground and seen some of 

 the rough places. 



Perhaps the best way to illustrate the thought 

 we have in miud will be to tell about your own 

 experiences during the years just past. We feel 

 confident that the story will sound so familiar 

 lo a great many of your friends that they will 

 not accuse us of drawing on our im.aginatiou for 

 any part of the narrative. 



It ^-as this way : We owned several milliun 

 feet of standing timber in a fairly good loca- 

 tion, and thought we could see a good profit 

 in putting in a small mill and making it up into 

 lumber. We also found a man who owned a 

 pretty good mill, and was considered a good mill 

 man, so the two of us agreed to go in together 

 and start business. We had plenty of money 

 lo put the mill up and get it ready to start, 

 and to bu.v teams and wagons enough to do our 

 logging. Bill, that's my partner's name, said 

 that he knew a lumber firm in Memphis that 

 would furnish us all the money wo needed to 

 "perate ou, ouce we got the mill to going, and 

 could show them that we had everything paid 

 lor and could make good lumber. So. as soon 

 as we had everything going and had sawed out 

 c-nough lumber lo build a few shanties for the 

 Tiiill hands to live in and had everything lined 

 up rightly. Bill and I went over to town to 

 make our financial arrangements. 



We found the ottice of the Skinner Lumber 

 Company on the sixth floor of a very large 

 luiilding. It was a nice, coz.v. little office, with a 

 green carpet, a roll-top desk, a rented type- 



writer, some four or five easy chairs and some 

 letter flies and calendars. 



The manager, a bright, genial man. sat within 

 easy reach of the telephone, and a pretty, neat 

 little stenographer girl was busily chewing gum, 

 and trying to keep time on her machine. As 

 we entered and stood, hat in hand, on the 

 grrrn carpet, she glanced nervously at our big, 

 iiiiiildy, gum boots and involuntarily tucked 

 her skirts a little closer. 



Bill had already had some dealings with Mr. 

 Skinner, so that the introductions were easy, 

 and in a ver,y few minutes the little stenogra- 

 pher was busy jotting down the terms of our 

 contract. That settled, Mr. Skinner, who by this 

 tim(? had grown exceedingly sociable with us. 

 said that now while the girl was getting it up 

 on the machine, we would all go out and have 

 lunch — it was dinner time for Bill and me. On 

 the way we stopped at a convenient corner and 

 Skinner told the barkeeper to fix us up one 

 like he always took (whatever other faults Skin- 

 ner may have, he is a man of good taste). 



After "lunch" we had another on our way 

 back lo the offlce — and all on Skinner, mind 

 you. There we found the little girl with the 

 two copies of our contract all ready for us to 

 sign. Just putting ou her hat to go after her 

 own little lunch. 



The writings were pretty long, and after 

 glancing hastil.v over them. Skinner assuring us 

 they were all right, we signed up. It didn't 

 make much difference about the terms of the 

 contract. We had agreed on prices and pay- 

 ments, and what we had to have was money. 



At the end of the first month Skinner made 

 us an advance of seventy-five per cent of the 

 price, according to contract. He explained to us 

 that he had an arrangement at a bank to dis- 

 count his paper, so he gave us ninety-day notes, 

 discounting our statement of two per cent for 

 cash, but he paid the discount on the notes. It 

 took us a .vear to find out that we were securing 

 these notes for Skinner, and paying all the in- 

 terest and four per cent besides. 



So far as we have ever been able to learn, 

 tlio only money of his own that Skinner ever 

 put into our deal was the price of the lunch 

 and the drinks on the first day of our acquaint- 

 ance. Once or twice during the year when 

 Skinner failed to renew his notes and meet the 

 interest, the bank would notify us that they 

 held unpaid paper witli our endorsement for "so 

 much," requesting us to "call at once and pro- 

 tect same." 



Take it all in all, though, we got along 

 smoothly enough with Skinner & Co. during that 

 year. The seventy-five per cent advance he gave 

 us paid sill bills for grub, labor and supplies, 

 repairs, etc., so that we found ourselves with 

 a first-class credit by the end of the year. Such 

 promptness was quite unusual in sawmill firms, 

 and we figured out that we would have all of 

 the twent.v-flve per cent held back as a profit. 

 Things looked rosy. 



