Norionql lumber Mcrnufqcturers Associotion Will Spur Promotion of Wood Products in 1956

Directors of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, at the recent annual meeting in Washington, D.C., elected Lawrence D. Kellogg, Alexandria, La., as NLMA president for 1956 and moved to step up the promotion of lumber and wood products in the building fields. Kellogg, president of the L. D. Kellogg Lumber Company, succeeds Judd Gree.nman, Vernonia, Ore., who was named NLMA board chairman. Greenman recently retired as general manager of the Vernonia Division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

NLMA directors climilxed their three-day conclave by voting funds to expand the association's technical assistance to builders, architects and engineers. The action authorized the association to: l. Prepare a "how-to-do-it" manual on recommended framing and construction details, for use by carpenters and building foremen.

2. Prepare and publish additional data on "the cost of wood construction versus other building methods, for use by architects and engineers.

NLMA recently published a booklet showing the economies possible through the use of wood in school construction. The latest action by NLMA directors provides for the publication of similar studies on commercial, industrial and mercantile structures.

NLMA directors also voted funds for the association to keep up to date on research activities of the forest products industries and to conduct preliminary investigations of promising research "leads."

In another action, the lumbermen voted to continue the association's annual scholarship program, which provides for the award of $500 scholarships each year to four outstanding forestry school students and ten weeks of instruction and in wood technology and utilization at the laboratory of the Timber Engineering Company, research affiliate of NLMA.

Speakers at the lumber meeting included former Rep. Fred Hartley (R), N.J.; P. S. Knox, president of the Prefabricated Home Manufacturers' Institute; James Cope, vice-president in charge of public relations for the Chrysler Corporation, and Lloyd A. Hatch, vice-president in charge of research and product development for the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corp.

Sharper Teeth in Labor Act

Hartley called for "strengthening" of the Taft-Hartley Act and said management should "start punching and stop alibiing" for the statute. Hartley insisted that the law which he co-authored "isn't nearly tough enough." But he said that it has brought the U.S. to the threshold of "the greatest era of industrial peace in many and many a decade."

The ex-Congressman urged amendments which would:

1. Give workers kept from their jobs by "mob action,"

2. Make the unions subject to anti-trust law penalties whenever their actions cause restraint of trade.

These and other changes in the act, he said, should be brought about by a toughening up of those sections which ban, or attempt to ban (1) featherbedding practices, (2) secondary boycotts, (3) strikes afiecting the national health and safety, (4) mass picketing and the use of force to enforce strike demands.

The speaker estimated that workers have saved "milions and millions of dollars" in wages as a result of TaftHartley's ban on jurisdictional disputes.

Hartley predicted that the next session of Congress will not amend Taft-Hartley. But he warned that the unions will make an all-out effort to elect a "pro-labor boss Congress" next November in their drive to "emasculate" the law.

Knox told the association that lumber's share of the housing market could be vastly increased if lumber manufacturers catered more to housing as a major end-product consumer of lumber. (See separate story on next page.)

Cope said companies striving to out-do the competition must realize that their customers expect "tomorrow's promise as a living experience today." The Chrysler executive identified research as the principal means of satisfying the customer's urge for self-expression and self-betterment in the products he buys.

Cope applauded "the very intelligent performance on public relations and promotional fronts which has been shown by many segments of the lumber industry," and added:

"From the handling of public land and reforestation issues at one end, to the modern popularizin! of wood treatments in the home, your business has produced and is pursuing numbers of well-calculated and wellmanaged efforts to get hold of people's imaginations."

Hatch's remarks were keyed to the theme of the meeting -research. The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corporation official reported that his company, in the last 30 years, has achieve d $27 in sales for every dollar invested in research. He cited development of the asphalt shingle as an example of a research project which had quick success. He