A Decennial Record 171 



and without burdensome restrictions. Gentlemen, it affords me pleas- 

 ure as a lumberman to make that statement, and I trust that the other 

 lumbermen of my acquaintance appreciate the situation and will go 

 forth and spread this gospel at all times. 



I am a lumberman. 



The definition of a lumberman as commonly understood by the 

 public is one who maliciously and wantonly destroys the forests. 



They are presumed to be a rough set of men ; men without char- 

 acter. 



Being frontier men, naturally they are presumed to be devoid of 

 the niceties that go to make life worth living, an uneducated class. 

 Their mathematics are presumed to be sadly neglected. Even as much 

 as in the case of my early acquaintance, Capt. Jack Downer, a master 

 of a lake lumber cargo steamer. In the early days of the lumber indus- 

 try, in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, small steamers were used to 

 transport the cargoes of lumber from point of manufacture to the 

 lower lake ports, the points of consumption. Upon departure from 

 the port of loading, a document was handed to the ship's master indi- 

 cating the quantity of lumber and the freight rate per thousand feet 

 expressed in shillings. The cargo upon this particular voyage con- 

 sisted of 392.782 feet of linnber at a rate of 13 shillings. Captain 

 Jack's early education had been much neglected. The period of the 

 voyage was three days. In order to determine the amount of freight 

 money to be collected, the captain spent all of the three days in a vain 

 effort to determine the sum. No two computations resulted alike, 

 and as the vo3"age was nearing completion, with the table in front of 

 him covered with bits of paper in his effort to arrive at this result, in 

 exasperation Captain Jack beat the table forcibly with his fist and ex- 

 claimed, "Why in h — 1 don't they make these rates $1.00 or $2.00 so 

 that a man can figure them". 



Wastes were excessive in the harvesting of the forest, the me- 

 chanical appliances were likewise destructive and wasteful about the 

 mills. But, gentlemen, bear in mind that the lumber ])usiness, no dif- 

 ferent from any other commercial industry, is an economic problem, 

 and failure confronts it if pursued in any other manner. 



Within my memory, the early lumberman was imable to indulge 

 himself in any of the modern luxuries — his food was of a substantial 

 character, ])ut consisted principally of beans and salt pork — for the 



