Cooperation Licks The World

Hisiory of the West Coost

By Arthur W. Prioulx In

The Lumber Manufacturers Association of the Northwest, formed at Seattle, Washington, in October 1891, holds tw-o records. It was the first lumbermen's association established in the West and it was the first one to go broke, giving up the ghost in the 1893 depression. This was a forerunner of destiny.

The rugged individualists who operated the sawmills in the Douglas fir area in those days were as tough and hard a bunch of single-footers as ever trod brush-tangled terrain. They were enterprisers who loved the battle. They could lick the world, and they rvere not bashful about admitting it, although in this slightly larger arena they found comfort in having a few battletried allies.

There was need in those days for concerted action to get equitable freight rates to eastern markets, and to develop standard lumber grades, protect lumber against competitors, and gather and disseminate industry statistics. These were jobs no single mill could do for itself, no matter how large nor how independent the operator. This is'as true today as it was then.

The stage was set in 1901 for another venture at group action. Led by Major E. G. Griggs, fir manufacturers of Puget Sound formed the Pacific Coast Lumber Manufacturers Association. A year earlier, W. C. Miles had established the Southwest Washington Lumber Manufacturers Association, and in 1905 the Oregon and Washington Lumber Manufacturers Association set up shop in Portland, Oregon.

The Douglas fir industry needed three associations like it needed more knot holes. So, with diplomacy and tact, Major Griggs brought tl-re now organization-huppy fir lumber crowd together under one roof and in 1911 formed the West Coast' Lumber Manufacturers Association. W. B. Mackay became president in 1913 when Griggs was elected president of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association. In 1915 under J. H. Bloedel, uewly elected president, the association name was changed to its present-West Coast Lumbermen's Association. Bloedel reasoned that a broader basis for affiliation was needed and he invited in loggers and timber owners.

Among early-day presidents of WCLA whose names still bring back fond memories of the "good old days" are such men as A. L. Paine, R. H. Burnside, R. S. Shau', R. \\r. Vinnedge, and A. C. Dixon. In more recent times, Ernest Dolge, E. D. Kingsley, C. I). Johnson, R. F. Nforse, John D. Tennant and E. \\r. Demarest held the reins. Considered as modern-day presidents are such men as \\r B. Nettleton, T. V. Larsen, Edmund Hayes, Corydon Wagner, O. R. Miller, Dean Johnson, C. FI. Kreienbaum, Charles \\r. Ingham, D. \\r. Gossard and Hillman Lueddemann.

Aggressive, hard-hitting, promotion-minded G. E. (Fred) Karlen, general manager of Eatonville Lumber Company, was elected president at tl-re annual meeting in l\[arch, 1953. He teams up with H. V. Simpson, one of the nation's leading

Lumbermen's Associotion Weyerhoeuser "Log"

lurnber merchandisers, who has been executive vice president of WCLA since 1946. Prior to that Simpson managed the association's Washington, D.C., office during the war years' topping off a lifetime of work as a lumber executive.

One of the reasons for the continued success of this halfcentury old lumber trade association is to be found in the high caliber of the managers selected by members' Frank B. Cole, Victor H. Beckman and Thorpe Babcock, first secretary man' agers, served as midwives at the borning and nurses during the early years. They wrote the rules for the early lumber grades, they set up many standards and practices which are industry ..rrio-, today, they fought out equitable freighi schedules, the basis for modern-day work in this field, they established sound avenues for statistical research aimed at helping member mills develop good manufacturing and marketing practices. W. C. Miles had a hand in this early history making as did Robert B. Allen, who served from 1917 to 7928.

There was a period in the 1920s when various segments of the industry took off in their own canoes. The cedar people set up their own bureau, and a \Alest Coast Lumber Trade Extension Bureau was established. Several tails were wagging all at once, and generally not in unison. The parent association, WCLA, was slowly losing control of the Douglas fir lumber family.

Cool heads among the \\rest Coast millmen soon awakened to what was happening. They saw the danger of disintegration of the central trade association as a strong and vital force that could handle any job needed to be done by industry.

It would take a big name to bring together all the various local factions in the sprawling two-state Douglas fir region. A strong and experienced hand was needed to raise an umbrella which would cover trade extension, cedar, fir, hemlock, spruce' traffic, lumber grades, wood preservers, loggers, millwork plants, and national affairs. Colonel W' B. Greeley, former chief forester of the United States, with a brilliant war record in France in World War I, was selected in 1928'

Colonel Greeley quickly brought all the related branches of the industry together into a strong central association. His job was made tougher by the onslaught of the depression which lasted through much of his tour of duty. The national advertising and promotion program started by the WCLA trade extension bureau in 1925, was continued by Colonel Greeley until the depression wiped it out. Forest-minded Greeley soon saw the need for an industry-wide forestry program and with the aid of a good many like-thinking millmen and forest owners he was able to help initiate such remarkable progr4ms as the Keep America Green and the American Tree Farm movement. Started in Washington and Oregon in 1940 and 1941, these programs under the banner of the American Forest Products Industries, have swept like wildfire through almost every forested state in the union. Greeley made the WCLA

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