340 



SELLING LUMBER 



Captain White 

 Has "Come 

 Back" 



Setting the 

 New Minister 

 Right 



The Lumber Salesman and 

 His Possibilities 



By Capt. J. B. White 



President, Missouri Lumber and Land Exchange 

 Kansas City, Mo. 



I am mighty glad to see such a large and intelligent audience be- 

 fore me. I wish I were equal to the occasion. In a certain sense I 

 have come back. The last thing I remember when I passed on was 

 that a number of us were condemned, sentenced and fined for a 

 large sum of money for advising curtailment, and for attempting to 

 agree upon some efficient plan, because either that we were not 

 understood or that our attorneys did not understand the law. 

 What I said was intended to be in the interest of national conser- 

 vation of timber resources. And I said no more and I didn't 

 say it as well as it was said to you by General Boyle here today 

 but unintentionally violated a state law. He told you that you 

 ought to save the trees; you should save the lumber; you should 

 practice economy; think of the marketing of a large part of the 

 product in the utilization of the waste; and that you should see 

 that there was more still coming for future generations ; in short, 

 that you should curtail your extravagance, which applies to lumber 

 men who are here today; to those who are not lumber salesmen, 

 but who are manufacturers and owners of the forest. 



Now, times are changed; surely times have changed since I 

 was on earth before. (Laughter.) 



Now, gentlemen, my subject is, according to the program, 

 'The Lumber Salesman and His Possibilities." I shall stick pretty 

 close to that text, because I remember that down in the Ozarks 

 where I came from there was a Baptist minister, a young Baptist 

 minister, who had been to college and had taken his degree, and 

 came to the Ozarks, and didn't preach exactly as his predecessor 

 had preached. He lectured, in a way, he illustrated, in a way, 

 from common things ; and one day a committee called on him and 

 said: "Now, the brothers and sisters of your flock here, they 

 like your lectures; they like the way you talk; they like your 

 illustrations; but they have been in the habit all through their 

 lives of having a text given them, and the preacher keeping to his 

 text. Now, they don't want you to be offended. They like you, 

 but they wish that you would give them the text and then stick to 



