38 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



We cannot speak too highly of the personnel 

 and the earnest, conscientious work of the Na- 

 tional Civic I'^'deration and recommend most 

 heartily that the National Wholesale Ijumber 

 Dealers' Association continue its interest in the 

 work of the federation. 



Kespect fully submitted, 



B. Feaxklix Betts, Chairman. 



Next in order was the reading of the find- 

 ings of the Fire Insurance Committee, as fol- 

 lows: 



Beport of Fire Insurance Committee 



Yotir Insurance Committee beg leave to reijort 

 as follows : The lumber insuring companies and 

 lumber mutuals have all passed a very successful 

 year. Some of our newer members may not 

 know that some twelve .vears ago the Iural>er- 

 men were very much dissatisfied with the con- 

 tinual increase of insurance rates on lumber 

 yards or sawmills, when after a complete in- 

 vestigation covering the previous tw-ent.v years 

 it was shown that $3 had been paid in premi- 

 ums when $1 had been paid in losses on such 

 risks. As a result of this investigation the fol- 

 lowing lumber mutuals w-ere formed : 



I^umbermen's Mutual Insurance Company, 

 Mansfield. O. 



Pennsylvania Lumbermen's Mutual Fire Insur- 

 ance Company, Philadelphia, Pa. 



Lumber Mutual Fire Insurance Company, Bos- 

 Ion, Mass. 



Lumbermen's Mutual Insurance Company, In- 

 dianapolis, Ind. 

 And later the 



Lumber Underwriters of New York. 



Lumber Insurance Company of New York. 



Adirondack Insurance Company of New Y'"ork. 



Toledo Fire & Marine Company of Ohio. 



National lAimber Insurance Company of Buf- 

 falo, N. Y. 



CHESTER F. K(5I!X. ONE OF THE HOSTS 



The last five companies named are all stock 

 companies, but controlled and operated by prac- 

 tical lumbermen ; their policy has always been 

 to rate each risk on a fair basis without regard 

 to old line rates ; they have all been very suc- 

 cessful. 



Referring again to the lumlir^r mutuals, the 

 four companies, namely : LuniliiLiiiin's Mutual 

 Insurance Company of Mansildil. ii. ; Pennsyl- 

 vania Lumbermen's Mutual Fire Insurance Com- 

 pany of Philadelphia, Lumber Mutual Fire In- 

 surance Company of Boston, and Lumbermen's 

 Mutual Insurance Company of Indianapolis. On 

 January 1, 1010, the above companies showed 

 combined iigures as follows : 



Insurance in force $47,913,804.00 



Premiums in force 1,117,383.00 



Cash assets 1,729,874.00 



Cash surplus 1,116,538.00 



Since their organization these companies have 

 paid to their policy holders — 



For dividends $1,500,183.00 



For losses 1,905,276.00 



Total $3,405,450.00 



The above figures, satisfactor.v as they are, 

 do not represent all the good which has been 

 achieved for the lumber trade by combined mu- 

 tual and lumber insuring companies. The com- 

 petitive insurance facilities which they have af- 

 forded the lumbermen has materially brought 

 down the rates of stock companies so that all 



members of the lumber trade, whether they are 

 policy holders or not, have benefited. The in- 

 demnity which is ottered by the lumber insurance 

 companies is of the best and we believe it is the 

 duty of every reputable lumberman to support 

 these companies as far as possible. The larger 

 volume of business that these companies can 

 secure, the more steady becomes the loss ratio. 

 With combined economy in management and 

 careful selection of risks these companies have 

 a bright future. 



Itespectfully submitted, 



Hugh McLean, Chairman. 



Henry T. Wills, secretary of the National 

 T.-iriff Commission, addressed the convention 

 and urged its cooperation in purposes of his 

 organization. He also outlined its plans for 

 a non-partisan tariff commission in the inter- 

 est of all commercial bodies. Trustees of 

 the association were instructed to appoint 

 delegates to the national commission. 



The much discussed car stake question was 

 thoroughly treated by F. B. Babeock in his 

 report ou that subject, as follows: 



Report of Special Congressional Car Stake 

 Committee 



Your committee known as Congressional Car 

 Stake Committee takes great pleasure and satis- 

 faction in anuouncing that the original Car 

 Stake Committee created in joint convention in 

 Ottawa, Canada, and composed of representatives 

 of the affiliated association throughout the United 

 States was able by renewed and continued efforts 

 to collect enough money by personal appeal and 

 subscription to liquidate all obligations and close 

 all the affairs of that committee with the end- 

 ing of the year 1909. I'or the benefit of those 

 who may be interested, I am filing with this 

 leport a copy of the statement showing receipts 

 I'na disbursements. 



Owing to the fact that there was little activity 

 during the last two years other than the detail 

 v.ork of closing up the affairs and the receiving 

 of an adverse opinion at the hands of the In- 

 terstate Commerce Commission, there has been 

 littli- to arouse the sympathy of our supporters, 

 thei-efore it is only natural to assume that many 

 have already lost interest in this car stake con- 

 tention and while we were unable to accomplish 

 what we had hoped to at the hands of the 

 commission, yet we were not altogether defeated, 

 as you will remember, as we won that part of 

 our contention relating to free freight to the 

 extent of 50U pounds on car stakes and it is 

 purely in the interest of our members that I 

 am prompted to refer briefly to this matter. 

 (_'areful investigation shows conclusively that 

 many of our members are not deriving the benefit 

 they should by virtue of two reasons : first and 

 most important, 1 regret to note a disposition 

 on the part of the railroads to totally ignore 

 these obligations at least insofar as putting on 

 the freight bill anything that will tend to show 

 whether or not due allowance has Ijeen made ; 

 and, second, there seems to be a lack of in- 

 terest ou the part of many who are entitled to 

 such an allowance, therefore your committee 

 feels that it is its plain duty to call attention 

 to this matter and urge upon every one of our 

 members to scrutinize carefully all freight bills 

 to see that the i)roper allowance has been made. 

 Only recently one of our most reserved and 

 modest members was forced to give vent to his 

 leelings in the following : 



"This flagrant and persistent violation of 

 their agreement must be either from negligence 

 or an intentional avoidance, and it Justifies our 

 contentions with the railroads and our appear- 

 ance before the commission and Congress in 

 efforts to secure for our branch of trade its 

 lair and equable share of the facilities for ship- 

 ment and which are supplied other industries. 

 Incidentally this particular showing will help 

 refute the charge that the railroad interests so 

 often make to the effect that shippers delight 

 to knock and ask unreasonable legislation. We 

 are not getting our share of the plain contract 

 part of a division in money and are apparently 

 losing thousands of dollars every year to the 

 railroads and in spite of the agreement and 

 rule." 



Gentlemen, while this amounts to only 50 

 cents to .$1.50 a car, it is an easy problem to 

 solve that in the aggregate it amounts to a 

 snug little sum annually that is worthy of your 

 attention. 



It will be remembered that a year ago we re- 

 ported having filed a bill in congress under 

 the advisement and recommendation of our 

 counsel ; in fact, the bill was prepared by coun- 

 sel and as such would naturally be subject to 

 more or less individual criticisih because it in- 

 cluded many things that do not particularly 

 interest us. 



Owing to the fact that it was decided to do 

 little other than consider tariff regulation in the 

 sixtieth congress, there has been no opportunity 

 to do anything in support of this bill until 

 very recently and for the purpose of getting 



this matter as clearly as possible before our 

 members, I beg your indulgence for going some- 

 what into detail to explain the present status 

 of our case. 



A general invitation was issued by the Com- 

 mittee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce for 

 all people Interested in the passage or defeat 

 of all bills before that committee to arrange 

 stated hearings, therefore upon an appeal made 

 by our secretary, Mr. Perry, we were granted 

 a hearing on Wednesday, January 20, 1910, 

 which proved in a manner to be rather an un- 

 fortunate date, as many of our friends were 

 unable to attend because of several lumber con- 

 ventions being in session at that time, notably 

 the Southern Yellow Pine Association at New 

 Orleans. Notwithstanding this, we had a very 

 representative gathering, having several dele- 

 gates from our own association from New York, 

 I'hiladelphia, Baltimore and Pittsburg, as well 

 as representatives of the National Lumber 

 Manufacturers' Association, National Hardwood 

 Lumber Association. Southern Cypress Manu- 

 facturers' Association, Eastern "States Retail 

 Lumber Dealers' Association and several large 

 individual interests. As stated before, our bill 

 was ijrepared by counsel and contained many 

 things that did not seem to be of interest to 

 the lumbermen, yet it did not appear to be 

 expedient' to go to congress with a bill drawn only 

 in the interest of one commodity and one class of 

 people, therefore our bill was drawn upon broad 

 lines including with forest products many other 

 commodities, some of which are on a parity 

 with ours, believing that if those interested in 

 the other commodities did not deem it- necessary 

 to defend that part of the bill pertaining to 

 them it would in no way materiall.v weaken 

 that portion which we undertook to sustain in 

 our appearance before the committee, therefore 

 in our argument we contended for the bill as 

 a whole, but made it clearly known that we 

 were interested in it only insofar as lumber and 

 forest products were concerned. 



So that those of our members who are de- 

 sirous of familiarizing themselves with just what 

 is being done. I am taking the liberty of quot- 

 ing in part some of the points which seem to 

 be in favor of the relief prayed for in our bill : 



"We all recognize the absolute necessity of 

 securely and safely fastening, binding and rack- 

 ing all commodities transported on flat and gon- 

 dola cars in order to avert accidents and pre- 

 \'ent loss of life and property, and we believe 

 the only way this can be done is in uniformity 

 and without prejudice in all parts of the United 

 States so as to do away with the present dis- 

 crimination. 



"Lumber, representing as it does the second 

 largest tonnage of any commodity known to the 

 common carrier inasmuch as it is excelled only 

 by coal, becomes a very important factor ; espe- 

 cially is this true when it can be s aid w ithout 

 fear of contradiction that in addition to its be- 

 ing the second largest in tonnage it is one of 

 the largest (if not the largest) revenue earners 

 to carriers, as these are facts that have been 

 proven to the Interstate Commerce Commission, 

 before whom many of the points in interest 

 have been brought out and established, all of 

 which evidence can be produced for your con- 

 sideration if desired." 



It was also shown by a compilation of figures 

 that approximately 1,748,620 cars of lumber 

 were shipped annually on open cars, for which 

 the necessary car stakes, binders and liracers are 



