THE CALIFORI\IA LUMBER MERCHAI\T

Jack Dionne, Publisher

In This Issue

the greup (bqt horekeping pEdice3 ql hir retoll yqd d the rdst irur'of lhe Ycd Fqeinq SGh@l Mdu€led by the Lmber tlerchdl3 Arsociotiq of Northem Colifcnio, whi(h i3 rePdted storting d Pqge 8

HtlW LUMBEH Lt]t]KS

Green fir displayed its most sus,tained period of strength in more than a year in the Crow's l,umber Marke't News Service of April 25. Utility and Economy fir dimension, both green and dry, felt the g'reates't demand and the green stock was extremely scarce. Green studs, were especially in demand. Dry white fir and green fir and larch d,imension were performing better pricewise and there was more life in low-grade pine boards.

Shipments of 491 mills reporting to ,the National Lumber Manufacturers As6n. in the week ending Ap,ril 19 werc 5.0/o above produotionl new orders soared ll.2/o above 'Orders of 112,017,489 feet weie 8.5% above production at 157 mills repor,ting (135 operating) to the West Coast Lurrrbermen's Assn. in the week ending April 19; shipments went 1.9/o above . Orders of 82,187,000 feet were 9.5% above production at 123 mills reporting to rthe Western Pine Association in the week ending April 12; shipments were 2.2/o above Orders of 21,311,000 feet were 9.28/o above production at 93 mills reporting to the Southern Pine Asssociation in the week ending April 19; shipments went 3.35/o, as all segments of the lumber manufacturing industry showed orders and sh,ipments uniformly up for the first time in many, many mon,ths.

The March report of 14 mills to the California ,Redwood Association, showing shipments of 42,68Q000 feet against production of 38,000,000 feet, was the first healthy sign of increased activity this year, due in part to improved weather. Production was 4 million and shipments 16l million feet above February, while orders went 6 million feet above the February figure. Orders on hand at the end of March totaled 57 million feet, 3 million feet more than the same 1957 date.

Total retail lumber stocks on Feb. 28 were 3.9/o above the end of January but 7.0/o below the same 1957 date, es'timated the National Retail Lumber Dealers Assn. Retail lumber eales during February were 16.3/o below January, with all nine retail regions indicating declines during the month.

Iune 6, 7882

"Like so many other professions, to make a good editorial employee one must love his work. Editorial work cannot be done by the clock. Your best thoughts are liable to occur any time of the day or night, if you have the proper viewpoint toward your work. We must have vision and still not be visionary. We must anticipate and have plenty of initiative. Earnestness must be our keystone."-Harold H. Rosenberg, wellknown publisher of building industry trade papers, who died in retirement in Los Angeles, Feb.24.

April g, 1958

"We believe that he has given the lumber industry fine service in the Northern California metropolis. and that his broader position in charge of the active ifiorts of the publication at Los Angeles simply enlarges his opportunities in that same direction." The notice was signed by Jack Dionne.

When the first issue of The CALI'FORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT stood before the industry for judgment that First of July, 1922, it also looked confidently ahead and said, "We will also soon announce a gentleman who will manage the San Francisco office of this journal in both an editorial and business capacity."

The word was made good within the month and the top story on the first news page of the third issue, August 1, 1922, stated: "The CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT announces the appointment of M.. J. E,. Martin as the manager of its business and editorial affairs in Northern California. Mr. Martin is a trained and experienced lumberman and forester. He is entirely at vour service. Any courtesies extended to Mr. Martin wili be fully appreciated.-Jack DIONNE, Publisher."

Thus began a close working association that continued thirty-one years, nine months and two tveeks-until Ed Martin went home to his Massachusetts birthplace to repair his health after getting out as usual the issue of May 15, 1954. But the close business association and great personal friendship of employer and employee continued beyond that date, for Ed Martin was still a member of this staff and an officer of the company when he passed away without pain at2:00 a.m. the morning of April 9, 1958, in a Lake Worth, Florida, hospital where he had been resting from a series of strokes.

When that first item about him appeared in these pages almost thirty-six years ago, that a "gentleman" would be announced for the San Francisco office of this journal, it also announced to the lumber industry the true character of a man who was to work with it and help shape its ends through these pages for more than thirty years.

J. E. ("Eddie") Martin, Editor

And the larger career was not long in taking form and substance. Under the heading above, this appeared on Page 4 of the issue dated March l, 1927:

"1.8.'Ed' Martin, of San Francisco, has been called into the Los Angeles publishing office of The CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT and installed in the chair of Managing Editor of the publication.

"Mr. Martin has been associated with The Lumber Merchant since it started business nearly five years ag'o, as secretary of the corporation and San Francisco manager. Mr. Martin is a graduate of }farvard University Forestry school, has had several years' experience as Technical Forester with the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado after leaving college, and several years' experience as a lumber salesman and buyer in the Pacific Nolthwest, before coming to join The Lumber Merchant.

The twenty-seven years that followed this announcement never gave Jack Dionne a day's fegret for bringing Eddie Martin to the magazine's seat of operations and thus begin the major part of a life's work of selflessness and service. For besides getting out a complete and accurate chronicle of the state's and nation's building materials business twice every month, Ed Martin found time to do his good works. The International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo knew him rvell, and he of all men knerv and understood its loftv Code of Ethics. Ffe was a Vicegerent Snark of his local clu6 and rose to membership on the Supreme 9.

Ed Martin's day was never too full, nor his paper's deadlines,too pressing, to take time out to reminisce with every woodsman who came a-calling, or to make time to help find a job for some lean and hungry wholesale or retail lumberman who came looking to him for one.

And they came in droves, especially in those depres- sion years, for his unfailing kindness and generosity were universally known. It has been truly said of Ed Martin that he helped place, and place again, more men in the state's lumber industry than any ten other'men who ever lived.

Ed Martin loved life and life must have appreciated his true worth, for it treated him u'ell. He savored its smaller. simpler pleasures like the gentle man he was. He asked for little but he offered much. Ed probably felt no fears, no regrets, if he realized as he approached his seventy-sixtl-r year that he was going away from his multitude of friends for a while. Still he might have requested just a short extension of his allotted tirne to see how the first few games of the state's first major-league baseball games came out, for next to his work and his friendshipi, Eddie Martin loved sports, particularly baseball, and he knew the champio_nship stripe, as befitted this champion of gentlemen.

James Edward lVlartin was a native of Brockton. Massach'usetts, the son of the late Patrick and Margaret O'Brien Martin. He was educated in Brockton schoolJ and graduated from the lJniversity of Massachusetts and the Forestry schools of Harvard ahd Yale universities. He follg*:d the light of the forest trails west to forever stamp his hand and mind on the western lumber industrv. then went home four years ago to join his brothers and- sisters at the old_ family place in Brockton, summering with them o.n.Cape Cod,. wintering with them in Florida, and happily liv_i1S again the scenes of his boyhood and young man6ood.

Mr. Martin leaves two sisters. Mrs. Tohn E. Lucev and I\4rs. George F. Murphy; the now suiviving one of fout brothers, Joseph, of West Harwich, and a nefhew, Edward F. I\4artin. The funeral services were held April 14 and a solemn hiqlr mass of requiem was sung at Saint Margaret,s church in Brockton, lvhere the beloved editor now rests in Calvary cemetery.

As the issues continue to be edited here where he worked so long, the job will be less difficult and the road ahead well-marked because of the principles he laid down for us and the noble ideals by which Eddie Martin lived and labored. \Me can iinow in which direction we should head b-ecause a great and good man-this gentleman-walked the way before us.

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