February 1, 1911.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



165 



never attended a previous dinner, and know absolutely nothing about 

 this Club, am preeminently fitted to address you on that subject. 

 (Applause.] 



Now, with malice aforethought, I am going to endeavor to so mangle 

 this subject that no other speakers, if there are others to follow me, 

 will dare attempt it. [Laughter. J 



And in comparison, perhaps, I might touch — well, I may say the 

 subject will be largely "Clubs vs. Trade Associations"; because I am 

 deeply interested in Trade Associations, and I think we have a par- 

 ticular field for a Club, as differentiated from a Trade Association. 

 The Club takes in everything; the Trade Association narrows you 

 down to a manufacturer or manufacturers of a class of goods that 

 apply to a certain industry. 



Tonight. I assume we have here rubber brokers — God bless' em^ 

 [applause], and the manufacturers of fabric, and the manufacturers, 

 perchance, of the inner tube of a self filling fountain pen, and the 

 inner tube of n tire, and in between these is the great mass and multi- 

 tude of manufactured products we all turn out collectively. 



We have here in the Club the men who sell each other. [ Laughter. 1 

 You can't get that in a Trade Association. And it is a grand thing 

 for us to have reached the point where we can have a Club, and that 

 is a splendid name — Club — when socially applied. 



We have come into the broader sphere of New York. Yuu have 

 had to come do\\ n to the cyclone center where the wind blows, to 

 gather a meeting of this size. I am rather impressed with the fact 

 that the meetings have heretofore been smaller. It is no reflection 

 on the New Englanders here — and I think they predominate at the 

 moment — but they have now opened the door for us to come into this 

 Association or Club, and so 1 want it to be called that, and not drift 

 into a Trade Association. 



Don't let this Club take up at any time the work of the Associations. 

 That would be a mistake. You can't do it with a diversified member- 

 ship, such as this Club has today and wants to have in the future. 

 The Trade Association can follow a direct and concrete line to ac- 

 complish a specific object; because every member in that Association 

 has the same object in mind. But we want to meet here socially, as 

 buyer and seller, and know each other — know each other better than 

 we ever have in the past — and just let it be a social organization. 



Trade Associations take up credit, and I would hate to have my 

 fellow member in my Club bothering about my credit. [Laughter.] 

 It might be embarrassing to him, and a very bad thing for me. Trade 

 Associations take up trade abuses. Sometimes they dabble in the 

 unfair practices. They try to tell their members that they are not 

 following the exactly legitimate channels of trade, in their efforts to 

 boost their products. We don't want the members of the Club to do 

 that, and so I say there is a big field, to my mind, for this organization. 



It ought to grow — ought to meet once a year and have some speak- 

 ers from among ourselves, as well as the brilliant speakers from out- 

 side; and if later on we get to know each other better, we might go 

 into the general question of trade situations, and sniff in each other's 

 pigpen. 



For instance, today the rubber trade is in perhaps a semi demoral- 

 ized condition, caused, very largely, by our friends from the Congo, 

 the rubber brokers, and so on. They raised the prices to a very high 

 point, and then pulled the pegs out so fast that we couldn't even dig 

 our toe nails in as we slipped down hill. Now, the consequence has 

 fast created a hesitating buying market. The average buyer can't be 

 expected to place goods on his shelves on a declining market, and if a 

 man can't feel it now, he can't feel anything. 



So I say that because our salesmen's reports are not as enthusiastic 

 as they have been, and they haven't got that constant line of orders, 

 with prices extended, that are customary with them, we say to our- 

 selves "the other fellow must be getting it because we are not getting 

 it." Now, as a matter of fact, the business is not there, and because 

 we think the other fellow is getting the business, we put in force 

 practices that in ordinary times, and with the exercise of level, clear 

 headed judgment, we would never possibly think of doing. 



We run a great risk at the present moment of creating for ourselves 

 a period of demoralization that will take several years to recover from 

 — just because we believe the other fellow is getting the business. 

 [Applause.] 



I hope there won't be many occasions like this, when we have to 

 put ramrods down the backs of our dress suits and lean on them strong 

 and feel they are there; hut it seems to me almost the psychological 

 moment — the opportunity to show you the condition the trade is in 

 today. It is just like a jelly fish — when anybody touches it, it shivers 

 and shakes. Now, we don't want that. If we can have any inter- 

 change that will help things, and keep us from making bad breaks, 

 that is all right; but don't let us feel that there is a great big sea of 

 trade outside, and that we are not getting it because the other man 

 is getting it. It is not there. 



Gentlemen, I am not going to say much more. I want to emphasize 

 the fact that you have got a Club today that compels esteem, and ought 

 to he kept a Club, and not take up trade subjects, because the trade is 

 well supplied with associations for that purpose. 



1 want to say that Mr. Pearson has made a very gracious apology, 

 at the start of his speech, for almost everything that might have hap- 

 pened. But I am particularly keen about the way my name is placed 

 on the orticial seating documents. I am down as H. G. Raymond. 

 [Mr. Raymond's name is H. E.] My initials spell the two best things 

 on earth — "He" and "Her" [laughter]— and I am rather keen on that. 

 1 call it to his attention, in case I should ever be commanded to. attend 

 another banquet. 



1 should like to say, as I close, that the preceding speakers were 

 graciously invited to this banquet; I could tell that from the way they 

 talked. 1 was continandcd to appear here, and I obeyed the command 

 in the interests of your worthy President and your entire .\ssociation, 

 and I am only sorry that I was not privileged to enjoy membershi;) 

 with you many years ago. 



Gentlemen, I thank you. 



IN LIGHTER VEIN. 



The editor of The Schoolmaster, Mr. Creswell Maclaughlin, 

 being on vacation from the seat of his serious labors, at Corn- 

 wall-on-Hudson, New York, had left behind all of him that 

 savors of business, and entertained the guests with a succession 

 of witty epigrams, funny stories suggested to him by the occa- 

 sion, and rare bits of humorous philosophy of which he had 

 deprived the readers of his pedagogic magazine for the doubtless 

 more appreciative audience that gathers round a festal board. 

 Such an after-dinner talk would, of course, be spoiled by trying 

 to present it through the medium of a stenographer's notes. 



RUBBER. PLANTING UNDER OUR FLAG. 



After Mr. Maclaughlin's speech the President said : 



I have decidedly changed my mind with regard to that quiet burg 

 known as Cornwall-on-Hudson, As our last speaker, and one who, if 

 he is willing to tell us what he knows, will be most interesting, I want 

 to introduce Professor Henry H. Rusby, who has spent much time 

 in Mexico, and knows very much about what we would like to know. 



Professor Rusby, after a pleasantly humorous introduction, got 

 down to his subject as follows: 



When Mr. Pearson asked me to speak this evening, he said he 

 wanted me to speak on two subjects — first, something about the pros- 

 pects for the growth of the guayule rubber shrub in Texas: and, 

 second, the prospects for the successful cultivation of rubber trees in 

 the Philippine islands. 



I want to tell you, gentlemen, that I believe that in the whole realm 

 of applied science there are very few things so difficult to do as to 

 predict the results of an experiment in the commercial cultivation of 

 rubber plants. I don't know of anything else more uncertain. As a 

 matter of fact, the rubber business is pretty uncertain all the way 

 through, except the Wall Street end of it. That is always certain, 

 of course. You can always tell what you must expect on Wall Street, 

 and you can make your calculations and base sound business policy 

 on what is going to happen in Wall Street. Wall Street might be 

 called the balance wheel which keeps the rubber market stiff. 



To give you an idea of how difficult it is to state whether there is 

 going to be success in the cultivation of rubber I will relate one or two 

 occurrences. Ore of my friends said to me one day: 



"I am thinking of investing in a rubber plantation in Mexico. I 

 suppose you would know all about it and can advise me." 



"Well," I said, "let us suppose that you are going to put $10,000 

 in it." 



That, it happened, was just the amount he was going to put in. 



"All right," I said; "go to the bank and draw your $10,000 in gold, 

 and put it into two bags; put one of those bags in your safe; take the 

 other out on a ferryboat and drop it into the middle of the North river, 

 and you will save just $5,000." 



That was the uncertainty in those days. That wasn't in this last 

 rubber growing flurry — this last one, you know, that surpasses the 

 power of expression — but this was one that happened a good many 

 years ago. 



Since that time we have actually got to growing rubber, and I think, 

 on the whole, it is promising; but as to how promising it is. I would 

 rather advise somebody else about that than to put my own money 

 in it. It don't cost you so much when you advise somebody else. It is 

 the uncertainty of it. 



Now. some of you know that there are some cactus plants. You 

 know that there are a great many spiny things that grow on the desert 

 that ignorant people call cactus that have nothing to do with cactus; 

 but there are a few true cactus plants which contain milk, and in that 

 milk there is a little rubber — not enough to be of economic importance, 

 but it is an interesting scientific fact. 



We were fortunate enough at the New York Botanical Garden to 

 get some of those cactus plants growing there, and they were such a 

 great success that Dr. Brilton, when he had a certain visitor come 



