SELLING LUMBER 



Mr. Seidel: Brother lumbermen, on behalf of the City of 

 St. Louis, and more particularly on behalf of the lumbermen of 

 St. Louis, I extend to you a hearty greeting. There was a time 

 in these affairs when we used George (referring to Mr. Funck), 

 but George fell down completely, and that is why I am here 

 before you this morning. It looks like an old-time home-coming to 

 see you back in St. Louis. It is so long since we had these organ- 

 izations here in St. Louis that we naturally rejoice as St. Louis- 

 ians to have you back again in our fold. We will leave nothing 

 undone to make your time pleasant that is, if there is any time 

 left for that. But I see that Brother Rhodes has got the program 

 so full that I don't think there will be any pleasantries for at least 

 during the day. Now I think that it is quite proper that where 

 we are today making such a strong plea for the use of wood, 

 where we formerly made the plea for the use of an individual 

 kind of lumber, that you ought to be in St. Louis, because I 

 believe that St. Louis, above all cities, has been a school of train- 

 ing in the use of wood. St. Louis was primarily a white pine 

 Address of mai "ket, and I remember how slowly the industries commenced 

 Welcome to use the other kind of wood when the South opened up its 

 products for use in wood manufacture. I look at the past with 

 a great deal of humor when I think of certain experiences that 

 were passed through. For instance, I remember one concern 

 here that made wooden pickets. They were all made of white 

 pine, and the firm was trying to introduce cottonwood, and when 

 they told their customer they would send him pickets made of 

 cottonwood of course he would not stand for it, because he didn't 

 know any of the qualifications of cottonwood ; so finally they 

 made him a gate and he had white pine pickets on either end and 

 cottonwood in the center; and after he had them introduced 

 he could hardly get rid of his white pine. I remember gum 

 lumber very well, because I bumped up against it. I was with a 

 white pine concern that sold white pine lumber for boards. At 

 that time we sold them for $8.00 delivered to the box factory, and 

 I generally had to take the order with the understanding that 

 it was a very good No. 4. And then came gum lumber, and it 

 was cut l>^-inch thick after it was dry; and they commenced to 

 sell it for $8.00 a thousand, and of course that hurt the sale of 

 our lumber. And I could relate to you a whole lot of anecdotes 

 of that kind, but I won't do it because our time is limited. But 



