Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1926-09-03

strength we can show has been spOn-
sored by the enemy camp.
"Chart No. 9 glaringIy portrays
the trials that falling lumber has been
made to suffer through constantly
mounting sales and use Of wood sub
stitutes. Substitutes starting with =
basic 100 per cent in 1909 show an
increase to 294.4 per cent in 1924,
while lumber shows 20 per cent de-
crease in the same period.
''Now to learn the lesson from
Chart No. 9. A comparison Of popu-
lation, lumber production and building
contracts from 1911 to 1925. have
previously stated that your fortunes
as craftsmen in wood material are
bound to lumber's rise and fall. Have
you, as we, traced the constant de-
probation Of lumber, been comparing
your more fortunate wage scale situa-
tion to the conclusion that lumber
and lumber labor are not co-partners.
If so, No. 9 and No. 10 will promptly
disillusion you.
"In the period from 1911 to 1925
as shown on Chart No. 8 lumber
maintains fluttering existence, al
ways below the line Of population,
while building contracts have SCARED
to their greatest height, particularly
in the period from 1921 to 1925, a
building program far in excess of the
populations normal demand. This is
the answer to your wage scale, but,
gentlemen, has your wage doubled
or tripled as the building program
has since 1921.
"Chart No. 10, dealing with recent
operation should convincingly por-
tray my meaning. The population Of
the U. s., due to restrictive immigra-
tion laws, etc., has been, and is,
more or less fixed matter, constant
ly growing perhaps, but slow, steady
incline. Lumber should follow that
population incline, but because of sub
stitutes and their sale, It has not.
Carpenter labor should follow that
line and despite substitutes It has and
why, because building contracts have
scared from 3,107, 100000 in 1921 to
7312,000,00 in 1925.
Gentlemen, when building con-
tracts drop to the population line,
with substitutes in the saddle, what
is going to happen to carpenter de-
mand7 It does not take a dollar an
hour man to unroll paper roofing and
tack 1t on. 1t does not take a dollar
an hour man to nail up plaster board,
and it does not take a carpenter at
all to put on Stucco, or a shingle
layer or carpenter to put on asbestos
shingles. When the present building
program ends its leap and comes to
earth--the population line, the wood
workers and the wood industry will
be in the same bed, suffering from
substituted labor and substituted ma
terial. See Chart No. 12.
Gentlemen, l am not arguing to
the effect that common labor should
be denied or that the plasterer or
bricklayer should be denied, but that
they stick to their own last. Let the
plasterer stay in the house where he
belongs, and keep common labor off
the roof.
"Now to analyze this accomplish
ment of substitutes. Is the public
better or more cheaply served by this
agency and at our expense. The
positive answer is NO. From earliest
times wood and wood material has in
stinctively been turned to by man for
his housing purposes whenever avail
able, and he is only being turned from
1t at the present time by clever ad-
vertising and clever selling. We are
suffering because of a public that
buys from the printed page, educated
through the eye by papers and maga-
zines; a public buying of publicity
without regard to facts and without
merit. There is no more truth in the
statement that Celotax, for instance,
is as good as lumber as there is in
the Celotax advertisement that it is
lumber-it is not lumber and it is not
as good as lumber. Lumber costs
less, lasts longer. It is a natural
product, not substitute. Is applied
and fitted to a structure by a craft
Of skilled workmen and not slapped
on in chunks by common labor fol-
lowing a detail.