SELLING LUMBER 17 



tion is outside the provisions of Sections 12 and 13 of this 

 Act, it shall issue its order to that effect, make a report in 

 writing, and serve copies of the order and report upon the 

 parties to the contract or agreement. 



If you will notice, in the platforms of both the Democratic 

 and Republican parties this thought is included under the heading 

 of "Conservation." Last week at the meeting of the board of 

 directors of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of 

 America in Minneapolis, the board approved the action of its A Step 

 committee, and the matter has now been ordered to a referendum, stabilizing 

 But this is simply a starting point. After we secure the desired the Lumber 

 remedial legislation, then we can take the necessary steps to enter 

 into a contract, under government regulation, so as to stabilize 

 our industry and put it on its feet. 



Gentlemen, I regret that I did not have time to prepare for 

 you a co-ordinated talk, but before passing I want to carry to your 

 minds one further thought, and that is : At the beginning of the 

 last century in all of our transportation facilities our power was 

 hand power, wind power and water power. There was no such 

 thing as steam and electricity. With the advent of steam and 

 electricity has come the development of transportation and com- 

 munication to such an extent that now all parts of the world are in 

 immediate communication with each other. In the earlier days in- Times 

 dividualism was the cry. The old saw, that "Competition Is the Change in 

 Life of Trade," had some truth in it at that time. Today com- Conditions 

 petition, unintelligent competition, such as we have been forced to 

 have, through the improper understanding of our economic con- 

 ditions, enforced upon us by our lawmakers, has practically had 

 the effect of injuring very nearly all lines of trade. To my mind, 

 this is especially emphasized in the findings of the Federal Trade 

 Commission as quoted below from an address of Mr. E. N. Hur- 

 ley before the Public Affairs Committee of the Kansas City Com- 

 mercial Club on June 26th, 1916: 



"Leaving out of consideration the banking, railroad and 

 public utilities corporations, and referring only to those that 

 have to do with trade and industry, we find that there are 

 about 250,000 business corporations in the country. The 

 astonishing thing is that over 100,000 of these report no net 

 income whatever. In addition, 90,000 make less than $5,000 



