VOL. VII

JANUARY, 1919

EDITORIAL CHAT

No. 12

D

RECONSTRUCTION

ESPITE the great calamity and wide destruction caused by the long, ruthless war, the world moves on. The devastated areas must be rebuilt, and the requirements of humanity supplied.

To the farseeing and thoughtful, who broadly view and consider conditions, past, present and looking to the future, there can be but one conclusion-the demand for material and supplies will be greater than ever.

Quoting from an article by Mr. Dudley Bartlett, of the Commercial Museums: "Knowing the energy and industry of the people as we do, we cannot doubt that out of all this desolation will rise new factories, that roads will be repaired and buildings, both public and private, re-erected. The demands for iron and steel, cement, lumber, machinery, tools and all kinds of equipment will be enormous, even if they be much less than many prophesy. Pennsylvania, outranking all other States in the production of the great essentials-ought to be able to supply a large proportion of the raw material and manufactured and semi-manufactured products that will be used in replacing old and, possibly, in the inauguration of new industries.

"Building materials of all kinds, looms for textile mills, machine tools for the iron and steel working plants, factory equipment of every nature, agricultural implements and machinery for the cultivation of the land, coal mining machinery, road-building machinery, foods in great variety, builders' hardware, textiles, leather, wearing apparel-in fact, nearly everything that a civilized community needs-Pennsylvania can supply.

"No State in the Union has such diversified industries and no country in the world can, upon demand, supply such a varied assortment of manufactures. It is not a question of the State's ability to supply-but rather one of the nature of the demand that will be made upon it and the alertness of its manufacturers in ascertaining and meeting those demands or better still -in forseeing and providing for the demand when it shall come. This is, after all, the crux of the situation."

Quality
Tells

Four Sins Soldiers Say They Hate

You may be surprised when you find out what they are

BY FRED B. SMITH in the American Magazine

[CONTINUED FROM December issue]

A

SI see it, immorality, drunkenness and gambling cannot live side by side with courage, unselfishness, generosity and humility. The more you study this set of standards your boys have placed before them, the more you will be amazed by the unerring way in which they have picked out the great essentials of character. War strips the veneer from life. And just because they are soldiers, these young men have instinctively left the surface things go, and have found the influences beneath which mould that surface.

I don't claim that every man in the American Army has these standards. The draft is a great net which has drawn together more than two million men of all classes, all degrees of education. They are not angels! Some of them are far from it. But the code which is here given does express the prevailing sentiment in that human mass which makes up our army in France.

What they hate most is cowardice. To show a streak of yellow is the thing they despise and cannot excuse. Before they have had the chance to prove themselves, many of them secretly wonder whether THEY are going to be "yellow," whether they are going to stand the test. To be a coward is the lowest depth to which they can sink. But this is because cowardice in a soldier is complete failure; because it is being false to himself and his fellowmen. It is being a traitor to every obligation. That is what cowardice means to a soldier, and if you put the same analysis to work in your life, or in mine, you will admit that “To be a traitor to every obligation" is pretty comprehensive. It is, indeed, the worst sin of which anyone can be guilty.

Here is one experience which seems to me a striking example of the way the soldiers feel about cowardice. One evening I arrived at a place close behind the fighting line, and found the whole camp in the greatest excitement. It was plain even to a new arrival that something extraordinary had happened. The men were talking in little groups, the officers looked concerned, and the place was fairly electric with some undercurrent, which I couldn't understand until I found out that one of the companies had mutinied! A very serious matter, and one which, knowing our men and the conditions in our army, I found almost incredible.

But here is the explanation: Not long before this company had been ordered into the front line, and a junior officer, who was in command, had requested his superiors for a delay. As a result, the company was not sent in. The men knew nothing of this at the time. But they found out about it later, and they interpreted the officer's action to mean that he was afraid.

Now it is possible that he had some other reason for making this request. But, however that may be, the men decided that he was scared, that when the time came for him to go into danger and it was dangerous where they would have gone he had turned yellow. So when they received the order to go in this next time they simply refused to do it with that man as their leader. They wouldn't fight under a coward-a man they suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of being afraid. They themselves were perfectly willing to go anywhere—but not with a man who was yellow. To their belief, he had been guilty of the worst sin of which a soldier is capable. That man could never again command those soldiers. He was transferred, as I happen to know, and another officer placed in command.

FOUR SINS SOLDIERS SAY THEY HATE

Examples of cowardice, or even of suspected cowardice, are rare. Stories of courage and of the men's respect for it are common. It is almost their fetish.

Then take the second sin on the list: selfishness. The night we gave the cards to the fifty men just back from fighting, one of them stood up, after I had explained what we wanted them to do, and said:

"I know who is the best man in my regiment!"

"Wait a minute," I interrupted him, "this isn't going to be a talking affair. Not just yet, at any rate. We want you to write the things on the cards."

"Oh," the other men called out, "let him say what he's got to say." So I told him to go ahead.

"Well," he said, "when we were going in the other night, on our way to the trenches, I forgot my blanket. It was darned cold, too. You fellows know that. And it looked to me like I was going to freeze out there. But when my pal found out the fix I was in, instead of guying me for being such a fool as to forget my stuff, he took out his knife and cut his own blanket in two and gave me half of it. I don't know whether that's what the preachers would call being good-but it's good enough for me!"

That boy wanted to put unselfishness at the top of the list. And all of them, without exception, have come to appreciate it as they never did before. There is more unselfishness along the battle line in France than anywhere else in the world. The way they help one another to endure discomfort, loneliness, suffering, danger is a splendid and beautiful thing. They have learned and we are learning from them-not only the duty of one human being to help another, but also the joy and satisfaction that come with doing it.

Then comes "Generosity” and its opposite, "Stinginess." They may seem much the same, respectively, as unselfishness and selfishness, but they are really very different. Generosity is the giving of material things without involving special sacrifice; whereas unselfishness may not cost any. thing in money or material things, but be paid for in discomfort, or in suffering of body or spirit. The boys quite rightly put unselfishness higher than mere generosity; but they have a whole-souled dislike for a "tightwad," a chap that won't divide his "chow" with a comrade, that won't share his smokes, that tries to grab the best of everything, and to hang on to everything he has. And they are perfectly right. There is something fundamentally wrong with a stingy man, and they know it.

When I found that they had put "modesty" fourth in the list, I was genuinely amazed. I think that surprised me more than anything else. But I soon found out that the soldiers hate a braggart; they can't stand a "blow-hard." I had a personal experience with a case of that sort which made a great impression on me: When I went to France I had a book full of names of boys whose parents or friends on this side had asked me to look them up if I had the chance. Among them was the name of a certain young man I had known very well over here; so when I found myself one evening at the point where his regiment was stationed, I hunted him up, as I did dozens of others.

I found him alone in his billet; and the moment I went in I saw that something was decidedly wrong with him, for he was sitting there, staring straight before him, with so strained and abnormal a look in his eyes that I was simply shocked.

I tried to find out what was the matter, but couldn't get anything out of him. Even when he found that I had seen his folks just before I left America, he did not rouse from his brooding and depression. So I finally went out and hunted up a friend of his whom I also knew.

FOUR SINS SOLDIERS SAY THEY HATE

"What's the matter with

-?" I asked.

“Oh, he's all right, I guess. Just a little down in the mouth."

And that was all the satisfaction I could get from him. A few minutes later I met the captain of their company, and I asked him the same question.

"Well," he said, "I wish you'd tell me! I can't make out what's wrong. He has been doing good work. His record is fine. He hasn't been up for a reprimand or anything of that sort. I don't know what to think about him, but I do know that he is in a very morbid state, and I'm worried about him."

Well, I was, too! I couldn't get him out of my mind. I was afraid he would do something desperate. So I hunted up his friend again and said:

"See here! You know what's wrong with that boy, and you've got to tell me. I know him and I know his folks back home. He's in trouble of some sort and I want to find out what it is. Now, out with it!"

"Well

he hesitated; then he blurted out, "it's just this: the fellows are down on him. They don't like him and they won't have anything to do with him."

"But why?" I demanded.

"Oh, they think he is a blow-hard. He's done some good work, you see, and he's kind of gone around bragging a bit; and—well, the fellows won't stand for that."

I'm glad to say that we got the boy out with the crowd that night— he had been brooding by himself until he was almost desperate and the next morning I had the satisfaction of getting a cheery "good-by” and a parting wave from him as he left with his company. But it was a revelation to me of the iron hand with which those soldiers punish vanity and boastfulness. However, I have seen also the wonderful way in which they react to simplicity and unaffectedness. They admire courage and heroism. But when it is coupled with modesty and simplicity they really adore the man who shows these qualities. (To be Continued)

T

A BIG POPLAR

HE frontispiece shows a famous poplar tree, which was located within three miles of Jasper, Indiana, where is located the Jos. Echstein Lumber Company by whom it was cut down and sawed.

Some idea of the size of this tree will be gained from the information

given us by Mr. J. B. Keith, whom we quote as follows:

"This tree made six fourteen feet logs, five of which were clear. The top of butt log measured forty-one inches in diameter. The tree made fortyfive hundred feet of lumber.

"Jos. Echstein Lumber Company is operating a six foot Band Mill, Band Rip, also Circular Rip and Cut Off Saws, and make a specialty of manufacturing Indiana Timber.

"Mr. Echstein is manager of the mill and Mr. Edward Schuler is filer. Most of the saws in the mill are DISSTON SAWS, and Mr. Schuler states he has always had very satisfactory results from DISSTON SAWS."

AN IDEAL PLACE

This description was given by a lecturer on the "Seeing San Francisco" wagon, and was repeated to us by one of our representatives:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Presidio Terrace. There is more wealth to the square inch in this little hillside street than in any other place in the whole world. The blades of grass have green backs; the birds in the air have bills; every flower here has a scent, and each tree has its roots in a bank. The people use diamond tires on their cars. Yet every summer they go away to get a little change."

A Well-Known Combination of Names

OTIS-MAHOGANY

T

O say "mahogany" without thinking of the Otis Manufacturing Com

pany, of New Orleans, would be difficult for those interested in the mahogany business, because the Otis Manufacturing Company has been for over fifty years a prime factor in the manufacture of mahogany lumber.

Once before in these pages we illustrated this plant, but we have some recent pictures of the operation which will undoubtedly be as interesting to our readers as they are to us, because this is and always has been a most interesting and unique sawing plant, cutting as they do over three and one-half million feet per month, or approximately fifty million feet a year, with an output probably exceeding in value that of any other lumber manufacturing plant under one roof in the world.

This remarkable business is under the direction of Mr. Frank G. Otis, President and General Manager, and Mr. Clem Barthe, Superintendent, both of whom give all of their very intelligent attention to perfecting this plant, which grows in efficiency from month to month, and is of constantly increasing interest to the visitor.

Four to six steamers are employed to bring logs, mostly from British Honduras, each steamer load being kept separately in their log boom in the Mississippi River. This boom rarely contains less than a million dollars' worth of mahogany logs.

Approximately 95 per cent. of their cuttings at present consists of 1-inch mahogany boards of Government stock. The British Admiralty buys very largely from this mill in "The City that Care Forgot."

A glance at the illustrations will give you an idea of the character of mahogany logs cut, of the band-sawing machines which are cutting these logs, and of the method of piling the lumber in the yards, each of these piles being valued at from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars. The value of a mahogany log will be better appreciated when one realizes that it takes at least one hundred years to grow a mahogany tree that is fit to cut at all, and then they rarely find more than one tree on an acre of ground.

Besides the two band mills shown in the illustration there are two smaller band mills of an unusual type. The two larger mills first "break down" the logs with 10-inch band saws 16 gauge, then pass “cants" to the smaller specially designed mills, which are equipped with veneer carriages to gain accuracy in sawing. The saws on the smaller mills are 10-inch wide 19 gauge, thus saving valuable stock, which otherwise would go into sawdust.

Instead of using circular saws on the "edger table," as is customary in most mills, the edgers in this mill are band saws, and after each board