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Show THE RITLLETTX 1!;e achievements of of li'.c Spruce Division ;in'n;,i'Ui,.o dr. to use tip t!t!o, the Loyal Legion f f l'ipxvs and Lumbermen) is now aliiuwt forgotten if ii deed it was ever Although tV.e Reunion of Spruce Production Division Recalls a n Chapter in the Little-Know- History of America's World War Effort nu-- Sicily Faces New Development As Result ol Italian Program generally known to their fei'tiw- Amcricans the magnituiic of that achievement has not gone In the entirely unrecognized. December 5, UU8, issue of the , one of Engineering the leading journals devoted to civil engineering and contracting, appeared an editorial, headed The Spruce Victory," which News-Record- By ELMO SCOTT WATSON (Released by Wcitern Newipaper Union.) AMONG the many reun-Zions to be held during A said: the 1939 convention of the American Legion in Chicago September 25 to 28 "A great purpose and a great leader backed up by organized talent, team work and enthusiasm that was the Spruce Production Division of the army . . . Rad there's one that's unique. For the first time in Legion history, former members of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen will get together to reminisce over the days when they were doing their part to "help win the war" even though it was up in the great forests of the Members of the Spruce Production Division loading Pacific Northwest thousands Oregon camp. of miles from the battle logs in an ically different methods of log ging, and entirely new methods in the sawmill, were worked out by leaders unafraid to disregard precedent. Out of their fresh and broader view came enormous increases in total production of spruce and what is, still more important an almost unbelievable improvement in the quality of the product. The thick spruce stands of the inaccessible regions Larp:e Construction ami have been tapped by railroads thirteen of them located, built Irrigation Projects and operating in less than a year, Planned. and a new goal of practically doubling the present output was i'rcniircd bv Nntwnnl Griwrnphlr Society, Service. Wiikhinghin. D. recently announced. Popular attention during the year has been Next on the list of places elsewhere, and the men in the for intensive development by Spruce Production Division have the Italian government is been too busy to tell of their A new program to work, if they would. Therefore, Sicily. little is generally known of prob include the breaking up of lems and successes that under big estates, irrigation projother conditions would have had ects and large-scal- e con world-wid- e publicity. This would for future the struction sug have been particularly true in en- Thirteen separate railroads were decided upon and construction of 167 miles of main line track and 149 miles of branch line was begun. This railroad accustomed to obeying his orders building would take time, of to "get the job done." course, and in the meantime several years the spruce in spruce was urgently needed for For wartime nucleus under the dustry of the Northwest had been new Allied airplanes. So Colonel longer and more official almost paralyzed. The low wages, Disque made contracts with the name of Spruce Production long working hours and disgrace- operators for the delivery of all "clear" spruce they could get. Division of the Aviation Sec- ful living conditions of the log the Besides that he sent his own ferthem had made camps ging of tion of the Signal Corps into tile ground for the I. W. W. to crews of the United States Army. sow its seeds of discontent The the forests to augment their ef However, if you don't know result was a succession of strikes forts. Over the protests of the opera about it even under that name, and a campaign of sabotage caryou're not much different from ried on by the "wobblies." As tors he inaugurated a system of thousands of other Americans. though this were not enough trou "selective" logging, that is, cut For it was one of the least pub- ble, the operators added to it by ting down only those trees which licized of all the units which their practice of stealing men had been picked by expert tim ber cruisers as best fitted for airUncle Sam mobilized for service from each other. stock. Where the stand of in the greatest war in which he This, in brief, was the situation plane was ever engaged. But it's high which confronted Colonel Disque timber was too sparse to justify time that you should learn about when he arrived on the scene, building roads over which to it, for the achievement of this charged with the responsibility of bring out these logs, or where "Loyal Legion was one of the most getting out great quantities of the country was too rough to get brilliant in the history of Amer- spruce and getting it out in a the huge logs out in the round; ica's war effort and, as is so often hurry. His first step was to call they were "rived" where they the case, it was due primarily to a conference of operators and fell, that is, the logs were split, was re the genius of one man. workmen, who heretofore had the Knotty heartwood That man is Brig. Gen. Brice been hopelessly deadlocked over moved and the remaining lum P. Disque, U. S. A. (Ret.) and the question of reducing the 10-- ber was split into "flitches" of convenient size. many of the veterans of the hour day to an eight-hou- r day. But selective logging was not Spruce Production Division who Installs Day. the only innovation which Disque are coming to Chicago for the To this conference the colonel introduced. He maintained that reunion are coming for no other reason than to see and salute announced' that eight, instead of logs could be sawed to get a 10 hours would be the basic much higher percentage of clear. again their commander of 22 working day and that there would straight lumber than was obtain' years ago. Also they're coming be no cut in wages because of able to form a permanent organizaby methods heretofore used conditions in the Some of the lumbermen said it that living tion of Loyal Legion "alumni" it; done camps would be raised to the couldn't be done. He produced i and to see what can be H.bout obtaining recognition for standards of the United States his own expert who designed a the Spruce Production Division army; that employers must stop huge government sawmill to be from the war department in the stealing men; and, finally, that built at Vancouver, Wash., across The form of an assignment as a divi- under his administration there the river from Portland. sional number and insignia, even would be a square deal for both lumbermen said that such a mill To couldn't be built in less than a and workmen. though they are proud to be operators known simply as "Disque's Own." bring that about he submitted to year and then it might not be a them, for their voluntary adop success. As a matter of fact it Tribute to Disque. tion, a constitution and was built in 45 days and instead That fact is eloquent testimony of an organization which he of the 25 per cent of airplane to the caliber of the man who called the Loyal Legion of Log stock produced by ordinary meth pommanded them in 1917-1- 8 and gers and Lumbermen. ods from clear "flitches" it be who so commands their respect Without going into detail into gan turning out 65 per cent. today. He entered the regular the way in which this organiza2,700 Production Increase. army in 1899 as an enlisted man tion operated, it may be noted would require a book to tell It from and was advanced sergeant the full story of the achievement to first lieutenant while serving of Colonel Disque and his Spruce in the Philippines. In 1913 he Production Division-h- ow was a cavalry captain on the they In- cr aseased the cent 2,700 was output and later border per Mexican over that which had been pos work signed to construction sible before the organization of which took him to the Philippines the Loyal League, how they met again. Resigning from the army the Allies' demand for a million to accent the position of warden feet of selected spruce daily, and at the Michigan state penitenhow it was rushed across the con few of the one time at that tiary, tinent by fast express for shipprisons in the ment across the Atlantic. institution In that he gave country, cluded in that story, too, is how a notably successful the attempts of the "wobblies" to create dissatisfaction and when one But it was a brief for, sabotage the spruce production the United States entered the was thwarted, how the effort of World war in 1917, he applied for labor union organizers to "mus his old commission as a cavalry cle in" was defeated, and how the captain. Instead he was made a Loyal League survived after the lieutenant-colone- l in the Signal war to the benefit of capital and corps and was on his way to France when his sailing orders BRIG. GEN. BRICE P. DISQUE labor relations in the industry. The It would tell also how Colonel were suddenly canceled. reason was this: that, perhaps "for the first time Disque, by this time a brigadier-genera- l, resigned his "benevoIn the summer of 1917 the in American history, capital and Allies were "fighting with their labor recognized the mutuality of lent dictatorship" at the close of thorthe war, liquidated the $10,000,000 backs against the wall" and their interests, French and English high officers oughly and reduced disputes to United States Spruce corporation of which he was president; rewere warnin t the United States a minimum. The nucleus of the force which turned more than 9& per cent of that if the war was to be won it must "be won in the air. Their carried on these vast operations the government's $10,000,000 in-said good-b- y to the great need was airplanes and was soldiers from the Natioial vestment, of men who were unmore airplanes. Spruce wood army and volunteers who had thousands was vitally needed for airplane been transferred for this special der his command and retired to Since the best work from other arms of the private life. construction. These are some of the things spruce available wft in Oregon, service. Many of them oame Washington and Idaho, Uncle from the timber districts of which the members of the Spruce Sam could best help his Allies by Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn- Production Division will talk over hurrying vast Quantities of it from sylvania. Eventually the total when they hold their reunion in the Pacific Northwest to the bat- - strength of the Spruce Production Chicago this month. There will Division was 30,000 men and 1,200 be tales, too, of their buddies who tlefront. Added to that force were killed "in line of duty" That was why Colonel Disque's officers. were more than 75,000 civilians impaled by flying splinters in the sailing orders were canceled he was the man selected for the engaged in the task of getting woods and mowed down by a post of commander of the new out the vitally needed spruce so blast of steel fragments when the Spruce Production Division of the that the total membership of the huge circular saw bit into. the Aviation Section of the Signal Loyal Legion was nearly 110,000, spike imbedded in a log by a Their first problem was finding sabotaging "wobbly" stories of Corps and he was ordered to Portland, Ore., to take charge of the spruce. The heaviest stands feverish activity in building roads the job of speeding up spruce of this kind of timber were dis- through the wilderness and conproduction, speeding up shipment covered on a strip of territory structing high pole bridges over of it from half a million to thirty about 50 miles wide on the west streams and across canyons, of g million feet per month and cut- ern slope of the Coast range in vigilance against and which fire hazard around the sawthe down the Washington time of its ship- Oregon ting ment from the forests in the was then the wildest and most mills with their huge piles of AH Northwest to the Atlantic coast inaccessible section of the West, precious spruce timber. from 50 days to 10 days. In less Since fir timber, heretofore the these and a thousand other incithan a week after Disque had re- chief source of lumber supply, dents of those hectic days when ceived his orders he was on the grew on the eastern slope of this they were doing their bit to help Job in Portland. range of mountains, no railroads, win the war will be the theme "You'll have one hell of a job roads or any other highways for of the men of "Disque's Own" at transportation of timber had ever this, their first, reunion of the getting spruce out of northwest-ertimber, because of govern been built on the western slope Spruce Production Division of the ment red tape and othei ob- So the first step was to construct Aviation Section of the Signal Corps of the United States Army. stacles," the mayor of thenv told Disque bluntly. front. You never heard of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, or the "4L," as it is sometimes called? Then perhaps you know about its The "other obstacles," it developed, were numerous enough and difficult enough to have daunted anyone except an army officer who was ! soldier-lumberjac- . by-la- never-endin- n Poland ks PlililiBilllllf liL-STRATEGIC SICILY. Map shows the location of the inland of Sicily in relation to the important Metliterranean region. The isluml guards the sea at its narrowest central point on the most direct shipping lane. Dottcil line shows general route of vessels. east-we- st rose to challenge the beauty and power of the motherland, Greece, herself. At the height of its career. Syracuse counted nearly a million inhabitants. Four centuries before Christ, thousands of Athenian slaves following the defeat of Athens by Syracuse, were transported to Sicily and forced to work in the gests that this big island at the "toe" of the Italian "boot" is to be prodded into greater activity and produc-- 1 tivity. After the Greeks came the Ro mans, who made of Sicily a huge island manned by slave laSicily, nearly 10.000 square miles bor. granary, In that followed the centuries in extent, is the largest island in new blood the decline of Rome, the Mediterranean sea. With a popu lation of more than 400 persons to strains were added to the Sicilian Gothic each square mile, it is also one of stream Teutonic, with the with Vandal and invasions: Arab, the most densely settled regions of of Saracen the the hordes; coming less is estimated, Europe. Yet, it h of Norman, German, French, and than 200 families own Spanish. At the end of the Bourbon land. the when the Italian patriot GariAlthough on this rugged triangu rule, baldi came to the aid of the revoltpeomore than 4,000,000 island lar islanders in 1860, the melting ple live, because of large estates ing of races that is Sicily finally and the old system of absentee own pot to passed Italy. ership, travelers see few farm Today, Sicily's position in the houses. Most Sicilians are concenMediterranean gives it strategic im15 10 miles or trated in villages one-sixt- apart of the Spruce Production Division ready to start work on a big tree. Two soldier-lumberjac- ks gineering circles, because of the engineering pioneering involved. The policy of putting engineering problems in the hands of engineers has been followed by General Disque from the outset, and too much praise can not be given him for his methods of management Now, that the work is clos ing down it is a pleasure to record the achievement and to give to General Disque and his colleagues the credit they so richly deserve." ZT'TJ rT ni,.". ides were recognized pol-- arti cle which appeared in the Forum in an and Century magazine. Written by Earl Chapin May under the title of "A Model for the New Deal," this article, which ap peared in the March, 1934, issue of that magazine, said in part: 'If, as and when the Supreme Court of the United States decides that the National Industrial Recovery act belongs in the dis card it will not be necessary for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Administration to relegate the celebrated and promis ing New Deal to history, "To all important intents and purposes the Roosevelt New Deal has successfully functioned for 15 years in the lumber regions of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. For fifteen years capital and labor have dwelt in harmony; wages and profits have been con trolled; production has kept ap-proximate pace with consumer demand; peace has reigned where industrial war once flourished; and a large part of one of our major industries has been run on an even keel, by is "Officially this known as the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen. Popularly, it is known as the "4L." It began under a military dictatorship as a patriotic movement to meet a wartime emergency. It has survived without any material change in organization machinery since 1921 and without a dictatorship, except that vested in mutually agreeing employers and employees. "If anything goes wrong with the machinery set up by the National Industrial Recovery Act if the Supreme court or any other court or influence throws a wrench into the federal government's industrial recovery Roosevelt program President and his "brain trust" can turn gracefully to the 4L and ride to recovery on its bandwagon. The National Industrial Recovery Act might become permanent by adopting some of the methods of the Pacific Northwest 4L." monkey-- Chief Farm Products. Sicily's chief farm products are lemons, oranges and almonds, plus cereals, figs, grapes and olives. Ol ives were grown on this island 1,500 years before Christ Sicily was also an important ancient granary for the Romans. As a source of mineral wealth. Sicily contains deposits generally believed more varied than valuable, including lead, quicksilver, iron, copper, lignite, petroleum, asbestos, salt With the exception of sulphurs a centuries-ol- d industry which still accounts for a large share of the world's demand most of the minerals are found in too limited quantity to be worth extracting. Even the sulphur industry, in recent years, has suffered as a result of the rising competition from new sources, especially In Texas and Louisiana. This decline, together with additional foreign competition in fruit-growin- g, wine-makin- g. portance in International affairs. A stepping stone from Africa to the Italian mainland, it is only 90 miles from French Tunisia, bone-o-f between Italy and France. ontention Colombia Leads South American Aviation Service 17 Busy Transport Lines Form Network Over Andes. Geographic Society, Prepared by National Washington. D. C WNU Service. A new airline has caught another corner of Colombia up into the network of air transport which has given that country an rep- utation for progress in commercial flying. The new service extends eastward, serving the region of broad Jungle plain east of the Andes, draining into the Orinoco river. In spite of three ranges of the Andes with peaks of 18,000 feet above sea level, already Colombia has the most complex system of airlines in South America. In fact, the three ranges which cut the country into lengthwise strips are the chief reain son for Colombia's the air. Rail and highway transport over mountain barriers was so expensive and slow that Colombia promptly took to the air for South America's first commercial flight service which has maintained conce MASTER BUILDER. Under the guiding hand of Benito tinuous operation. Mexico began air mail service south of the Rio Grande, in 1917, with delivery between the federal district (in which the capital is situated) and several key cities; but the service was discontinued the same year. In Colombia, the "flying crates" of the period blazed a way for air mail in October, 1919, and by February, ne Mussolini, Sicily will be rebuilt. Big estates of the island will be 1920, they had brought about for pasbroken down into small tracts, sengers the amazing transformation travel. irrigation projects end large-sca- of The Colombian commercial pilots construction jobs ere be ing planned by Mussolini s gov were just one lap behind those of the United States. After experimenernment. tal air mail flights as early as 1911, s and the in which the U. S. mail started service over Sicily specialized, has added con the airways in May, 1918. siderably to the crowded Island's 11 Air Lines. le mule-to-win- tropical-product- ' economic problems. Nature's Odd Contrasts. A land of striking natural con trasts, Sicily is a spot where catas trophe sometimes masks a blessing. From destructive volcanic eruption, for example, has come the fertile soil that promotes flourishing crops, Mount Etna some 10,000 feet high and described by the ancients as an' "awful yet bountiful lord" is one of the world's great volcanic spectacles. Sicily's geographic location In the Busy Colombia's 17 busy airlines serve as a population only large as that of the United States. Most of them live in the high Andean valleys, between 4,000 and 9,000 feet above sea level, which have a temperate climate, though just north of the equator. The concentration of people in Colombia's highlands makes one of the most populous and progressive regions in the Andes; the highlands are as thickly settled as most of the United States. About 30 per cent of the Colombians are city dwellers. The densely populated highlands are the source of most of the coffee and leather exports, the gold and platinum and emeralds that for four centuries have given the country an assured heart of the "Dangerous Sea" has brought her prosperity and bitter struggle. Ruins of Greek temples and palaces, scattered along the coast, tell a fragmentary story of the island's "Golden Age," when Syracuse and other ancient cities nlar in in1rnntinnl rnnnnnTi. |