THE UNITED AMERICAN
Page Twelve
OCTOBER 1925
of the operation, without the impediment of an ether
anaestethic and its long and obnoxious effects. The
Aga Gasaccumulator Company in Sweden manu­
factures the “Narcyl.” The product is to be sold all
over the world.
heathen do; for they think they shall be heard for
their much speaking.”
Possibly our preachers have fallen into the same
error as the heathen. If they would save their breath,
more people might go to church.
FINLAND AS A LUMBER MANUFACTURING
COMPETITOR
V INLAND, the most heavily forested of all European
countries, is at present gaining considerable
attention among American lumber manufacturers due
to the information given out from Finland that the
Finns have organized, their country’s lumber trade for
the purpose of marketing their lumber products in the
United States. At the head of the new national organi­
zation they have placed Mr. John Saari, who for years
was engaged in lumber exporting business in Portland,
Oregon. Mr. Saari knows the American lumber
business thoroughly and this fact gave the American
National Lumber Manufacturers Association, one of
the groups in this country most concerned, something
to think about when they received the news from
Finnish sawmill-owners that they had put Saari in
charge of their new cooperative foreign trade enterprise.
The information is said to have given the Amer­
ican lumber trades a jolt, in view of the fact that
in the past American lumber exports have gone to
nearly all continents in the world.
One of the reasons why the Finnish producers
are able to plan marketing their lumber products, even
in the United States, is said to be the very complete
utilization which the Finns can make of their timber,
and the willingness of their own consumers to use
short lengths and bits of wood. American experts
have already indicated that they realize that this
national custom in Finland will result in the complete
utilization of every tree cut and lower the operating
charges against the finished product to an extent which
may enable the Finns to compete in the United States
against American home produced lumber.
Perhaps the Finnish trade competition in this
respect may teach us a valuable lesson and force us
to apply it, now that our American forests have been
is one of few states left with a substantial forest area
is the only state left with a substantial forest area
and a heavy timber growth.
CUSTOMERS AS CAPITAL
¿CUSTOMERS may rightly be regarded as capital,
we read in Forbes. Employers should realize that
each customer lost is equivalent to the burning of a
handful of a concern’s money. And Herbert N. Casson
is quoted as saying to merchants:
LONG-WINDED SERMONS
New York World
A MERIC AN sermons are too long, complains a West
.
Indian radio addict. Isn’t he right? Listening to
a sermon, one often wonders why the preacher
did not cut it in half and greatly improve it. A sermon,
if there is any life in it, is largely an appeal to the
emotions, and Poe was probably right when he said
that sustained appeal to the emotions is impossible.
There is a limit to our capacity to feel. However
willing the spirit, the flesh is weak; exhaustion over­
takes it whether or no.
The most eloquent sermon ever preached contains
less than 2,500 words and can be read aloud in 15
minutes. It was preached by a carpenter, from a
mountain, and seems an excellent model. Indeed, it
gives a hint on this very subject:
“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the
A customer buys $25 worth of goods from you every year.
Your net profit on his $25 is about $2.50. This is the interest,
at 5 per cent, on $50. So this customer is as good as $50 of
capital to you. A customer who spends $250 a year is equal
to $500 capital. This being a fact, and not a theory, you
should treat your customers as capital. When you think of
Mrs. John Smith, you should think of her as $500 of capital.
If you had only 1,000 Mrs. John Smiths, you would have
$500,000 of capital, paying 5 per cent. Customers are not
mere buyers. They are not outside people who come in to
buy things. They are more important than the goods. They
are more important than the system and routine of the shop.
They are the very life of the business.
In proverbial English style we might say “quite so,
old chap” in reply to Bernard Shaw when he tells us that the
religious law suit which some misguided people staged down in
old Tennessee, is an indication that we are not civilized. The
appellation would have a margin at that, if all of America
could be measured by the state of Tennessee, which it is need­
less to say is not the case. The joke of it is that most of our
present foolish religious controversies are rooted in similar con­
troversies in Great Britain, from where we have obtained our
various color schemes denoting the religious antagonism of
waring factions contending for political preferment on the
strength of their would-be religious proclivities. May we ask
Shaw what he thinks of Great Britain’s civilization, in view
of the recent religious riot in Glasgow, Scotland, as a result
of which more than a hundred people were reported as having
been sent to the hospitals for medical and surgical attention ?
A recent news item has it that Rhode Island has
ruled that automobilists on main roads in that state must
speed up to thirty-five miles an hour. Its a good ruling where
there are only trained drivers at the wheel, but the limited
area of Rhode Island will make it rather difficult for the
motorists of that state to keep up that pace for any great
length of time without “shooting” across the boundary line
into another state where this ruling does not apply.
It doesn’t matter much what other people think
and say of you. If you are fighting a fight that is worth
the while with clean weapons, you will win in the end though
your host of would-be friends are trying to slow up your pace
by raising the dust to keep you in obscurity.
NEW THINGS AND NEW IDEAS
Avery Gaul, the author, told a friend one day about a
woman who lived on her street.
Whenever Avery Gaul visited this neighbor she was always
shown a new chair, a new dress, a new carpet, or a new
china set.
“The woman seemed to have a passion for gathering in
new things, but she never picked up a new' idea,” said Avery
Gaul.
The world is full of people who are continually putting
new things on their backs and in their houses, and never
putting anything new into their minds.
Propably nothing can be done about it, but any person
with a properly cultivated mind will rather spend an hour in
the company of some one who is intellectually alive than a
week-end at a place where they have nothing to offer except
“things.”