Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-03


insight into many world of strange
psychology.
For example. Arnold, in China, tells
Of the American exporter OF foodstuffs
who was locking for a market for an
extra large crop Of California dried figs
made into fig biscuits. He encountered
the Chinese superstition that those who
eat figs can never become parents Of
boy babies. So he had to look else
where.
With stories such as this must our
trade commissioners be aware. And
then they must add another thing.
They add Willingness positively
military eagerness-to endure any hard
ship or danger in going after the infor-
nation they want Rare but not unique
are such stories as those of Louis E.
Van Norman, packed in for days at a
time with peasants, typhus cases, goats,
peacockS, garlic and more peasants in
postwar trains whose very seats had
been ripped out by the Bolshevists,
crawling across Rumania, foodlesS,
waterless. bedless.
ITO sell abroad We must buy abroad
said Mr.. Hoover.
To sell at home. we might add. under
that new competition which is SO often
a competition of industry against in
dustry rather than competition within
industry itself. we must be awake to
every lesson in economical production
and In novel expedient which the rest
of the world has TO teach us. And.
smart as We are, the rest of the world
can occasionally teach us something.
One From Washington.
Among our sparrow hawks for this
sort of learning commend to your at
tention one Axel Oxholm head Of the
wood products division of the Depart
ment of Commerce in Washington.
Oxholm leaps out from behind his
desk and filings open a cabinet in the
corner.
Results of my last trip he says,
enough for me to work on here for two
years!"
The interior of the cabinet is piled
with the most extraordinary miscellany
of wooden objects. Here is something
you kneel on while you scrub floor
There is wooden shoe hinged in the
sole most cleverly for use in acid plants,
cement works and so on. There is a
hAih Va AOASAAlS N4ldA, anu liChC M
a piece of wood fumed in a new way to
beautiful finish and piece of veneer
glued along its edges in another new
way. Up on top is something that looks
like a beautiful Egyptian temple. OK
holm shows that of triumphantly. 1t Is
something he saw in Caen. in France
o new way Of piling up lumber so that
you save per cent in your handling
cost
Here are the evidences Of scores of
ideas picked up in Sweden and Norway,
in France and Holland and Germany,
ideas which OXholm is now demonstrate
ing to the lumber industry for economy
in production and for expansion in use
So he, like others In this extraordinary
line of men, is able to answer for the
American exporter such a question as
that which came over his desk while
was there:
II produce SIS kinds of woods Can
I sell this kind in Holland?-sample in
closed And how can I sell 1t? Direct
to the consumer"
And he is able from field experience
to answer:
This wood Is too hard for furniture,
but the Dutch will like it for floors You
cannot sell direct. You will be boy
cotted. You should have a regular
established agent. inclose list of
possibilities. You will not want an
agent who represents two houses in the
same Zine, for he can play one against
the other He must be no sharper. but
a conservative and reputable business
man who will carry out your personal
wishes"
While Oxholm was in Europe doing
his regular job-though one hesitates
to use so conventional an expression OF
the way in which Mr.. OXholm works
he was gathering thousands of tabu
lated records of the export agents of
the various countries in which he
worked This highly confidential mate
rial he turned over to the department
in Washington.
I have said that women were given
an equal opportunity with men to quail
ify for this service. Three Of them
have so qualified. Two of them have
already qualified in the field of action
and the third has just gone on with
every prospect of making good.
Miss Smith in Shanghai.
The last I heard of Miss A. Viola
Smith she was riding on certain Sum-
day afternoon through the streets of
Shanghai on a truck which contained
a new refrigerating showcase, and see
ing that the window casing OF the shop
for which it was destined was taken
out tsince the door was too SmalD to
let it in, and standing over the coolies
while it was accurately installed.
Selling American goods to the Chi
nese market had not been enough for
Miss Smith-as it would not have been
enough for any other trade commits
sioner. She had to make sure that
these goods would have every chance to
function.
The st. Louis firm which exported
the apparatus has her picture on Its
wall
Miss Gundron Carlson I saw in
Washington the other day-a tall,
handsome young woman, charming, yet
full of pep. She is entering the serv-
ice at a fraction Of the salary she has
been receiving, and she Is doing 1t,
among other reasons, because she likes
pioneering"
Young as she Is Dust turning into
the thirtles) she was one OF the flrSt
women to strike out new paths In in
dustry. An expert and lecturer upon
food and food products, she succeeded
in making new job for herself-and
for other women-in the Institute OF
American Meat Packers. T. E. Wilson,
then president, needed a woman for
contacts, for scientific experimentation
and for the broadcasting Of its results.
1t was a new kind of work. Miss Carl
sons fellow collegiate highbrows as
sured her she would lose her hard-won
prestige In the educational world il she
took it.
But Miss Carlson was the stuff of
which our sparrow hawks are made.
Her motto is, New and dificult. and
therefore interesting"
Speaking Swedish like q native and