Seattle Executive Heads National LumberDealers'Organization

Washington, D. C., May 20, 1941.-"The twenty-five millions of individually owned homes in this country are the nation's invincible bulwark against all enemies," declared Carl Blackstock, president of the Blackstock Lumber Company, Seattle, Washington, in an interview following his election to the presidency of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association at the annual meeting of that organization held here the past week.

Ccrl BlcrckstocL ideas. He has a solid and permanent stake in his country's safety and well-being," observed President Blackstock.

"The lumber and building material dealer is facing and discharging his responsibility as the economic keystone of the home building industry. It is only a few short years ago that home owning was a dream that could not be realized by the vast majority of our people. Ten years ago a $5,000 house was a cheap house, indeeed, and for the great mass of wage earners it was simply impossible to acquire a home. Today. the average of all houses built, big and little, is approximately $5,000 and almost no workman earns so little as to make home owning impossible. Thousands upon thousands of homes are being bought today for less than a dollar a day and for less than rent.

"Lunrber and building material dealers have played and continue to play a significant part in this development and upon them rests the responsibility of bringing to each local community the facilities for making home owning possible for all of our people. This is a responsibility that has been heightened as the nation is engaged in a gigantic effort to mobilize its industrial and human resources to defend the American Way.

"The progressive dealers in every community afford the only possible and efficient channel through which the building industry can operate by reason of the necessary local services that are part and parcel of the economic process of providing comfortable shelter for the provident among the nation's suburban and country population,,' concluded the newly-elected chief of the national a.ssociation of lumber and building materials dealers.