Glass Manufacturers hold 46th convention; D. C. Jenkins listed

Glass Manufacturers Hold 46th Annual

Convention

American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manufacturers Meet by the Sea to Discuss Many Important Phases of Glass Industry — Special Speaker Makes Optimistic Address On Business Outlook

THE forty-sixth annual meeting of the American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manufacturers convened at the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, Atlantic City, N.J., last Friday afternoon, July 21, with an attendance that was not quite as good as usual. This was not due, however, to any lack of interest, but rather to the time of week it was held, for to have reached there in time, it necessitated most of the manufacturers having to break into their week's work by leaving their homes on Thursday, instead of Saturday or Sunday, as has been their custom in previous years.

The meeting was called this year on Friday instead of Monday, in order that the wage conferences could be started promptly on Monday morning. President of the Association Marshall W. Gleason, of the Gleason-Tiebout Glass Co., Brooklyn, called the meeting to order promptly at 2:30 o'clock. His very interesting opening address which was followed with close attention by the members of the association, was as follows:

PRESIDENT MARSHALL W. GLEASON'S ADDRESS

American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manufacturers.

Gentleman:

"It is indeed good to be back here, looking once more into your familiar faces. After all, old friends are best.

"For many years I had looked forward to take the cruise to the Mediterranean, the Holy Lands and Egypt. and I would not have missed it for anything. And while I found most fascinating the constantly changing scenes and the almost bewildering succession of strange sights, it all made me realize more keenly than ever before that there is no spot on earth quite so fine as the good old U. S. A., and, being away from my accustomed activities, made me understand more clearly than ever before how much all you men and how much association with this body means to me.

"As I look about, some familiar faces are missing, and it is fitting that we give a moment's pause in memory of Colonel Heisey, Alexander Patterson, and others of our number who may have died during the year. One by one we disappear into the mystery and the larger opportunities of the future.

"The year just passed has not been a very happy one either for the glass manufacturers or for our faithful workers. Orders have not been very plentiful and, as a result, our factories did not run full time, and that has meant many days of idleness for the workmen. Like Lloyd George, we have found our relief and recreation in changing about from one kind of trouble to another, and we must look forward to ever new troublesome complications and vexatious problems that at the time seem almost insurmountable. Nothing ever gets settled finally. In this life we never cease, to suffer growing pains as our industries expand and our civilization grows more complex. We would not want it otherwise. Ours would be a very stale and uninteresting existence if we did not have a few difficulties to make things interesting. We must take our troubles philosophically and meet our problems as they arise, calmly and with confidence.

Marshall W. Gleason.

re-elected President American

Association of Flint & Lime Glass

Manufacturers

"It is not to be wondered at that business has not been good when we stop to consider the terrible condition of affairs in Europe. I need not tell you of the deplorable situation in Russia. Conditions in Germany and in Austria are very bad, and even all the countries victorious in the late war business conditions are far from satisfactory. Permanent improvement in our own affairs here in America cannot take place until there has been improvement on the other side of the water. The wisest minds in all the world are giving constant thought to solving the troubles of the European nations, and I am confident that success will crown their efforts and that the time will soon come when the whole world will gradually be restored to more normal and hopeful conditions.

"The fuel problem is always a burning question among glass manufacturers. During the war period we had more than our share of worry in this direction, often not knowing what the morrow would bring forth, and now to complicate an ordinarily uncomfortable situation comes the great coal strike, which if too long continued will necessitate the shutting down of many of our factories. I am hopeful; however, that the good sense and patriotism of the coal miners and the operators will prevail and a settlement will be made that will be fair to all.

"To me the strike is one of the most terrible features of modern industry. On July 10th the National Industrial Conference Board stated that about one and one quarter million men were idle as a result of strikes. This presents a loss of approximately ten million man-hours of work each day, and the evil is contagious like a pestilence — each day more and more persons engaged in secondary or allied industries, depending on the major industries, are thrown into involuntary unemployment. When will we learn to conduct our affairs so that such terrible losses and the resulting inconvenience will no longer be visited upon our people? I do not think you quite realize it, but we men in the glass business set an example for all industry, not only here in America but the world over. The possibility of industrial peace lies only in some such plan as we have been following for many years. I refer to our Annual Conference between the workers and the manufacturers at which all difficulties are adjusted and all our little quarrels settled in a friendly way without even the possibility of a strike being, considered by either side to the controversy. To me one of the saddest things in life is the inability of men to work together in harmony and in mutual helpfulness, but the world does not seem to have been organized that way. Even brothers and sisters often fail to get along peacefully together, and I have even known of cases where man and wife disagreed, so that perhaps we manufacturers and workers ought not be discouraged if once in a while we get into a little argument over what, after it is passed, seems to have been a very trivial thing, not worth talking about.

"I do think, however, that all the men in the glass business, both workers and manufacturers, are to be congratulated on not having had a general strike in 34 years. How much more sensible and manly when we cannot agree, to keep on working until a settlement is finally arrived at instead of pouting and refusing to play together any more, for all the world, like little children quarrelling over the possession of a toy.

"The Tariff question is another one of our problems that has been constantly before us during the past year, and I am indeed sorry to report that after the most devoted efforts on the part of some of our members, and even in spite of the most helpful co-operation from Mr. Clarke, President of the Workers, certain branches of the glass industry have lost out completely in their efforts to secure adequate tariff protection. Lighting glassware especially suffered the most. Through some awful blunder, electric lamp bulbs were transferred from their original position in the Tariff Bill into the lighting glassware schedule.

"This seemed to condemn the whole paragraph in the eyes of certain Senators, who cannot get it out of their heads that a certain large company (who uses most of the lamp bulbs) is a wicked trust. Many hours of debate were devoted to detailed explanations of the iniquities of the lamp trust, and by the time they got through confusing lighting glassware with electric lamp bulbs it is a wonder that products of that kind did not get put on on the free list. As you all know, most of the bulbs are made by machinery and the labor cost is very low, whereas lighting glassware is mostly hand made and the labor cost is very high. I am in hopes that when the Senators realize what a great injustice has been done by putting lighting glassware in with lamp bulbs that the error will be rectified and adequate protection afforded to that branch of our industry.

"After the Tariff Bill has become a law it is going to be too late for any of us to make complaint about the Tariff, so that it behooves us all, if we are in any way dissatisfied with the protection granted, to make complaint now or forever after hold our peace.

"In studying and analyzing the discussions in Congress on the Tariff question, I have been greatly impressed with the importance placed by some of the ablest men in the Senate upon the report made by Mr. Clark, President of the Workers, and Mr. McCreary of the Phœnix Glass Company, on their recent trip to Europe to investigate conditions in the glass industry on the other side. This is most gratifying and should convince us all that co-operative effort of this kind, when occasion requires, is sure to produce desirable results for all of us. And should it be necessary for us at any time in the future to join in any united effort for the benefit of all, I am hopeful and also confident that the response will be immediate and unanimous.

"And now I come to what I consider the most important subject before us. After the most careful, study of all the conditions, I am convinced we should all, manufacturer and worker alike, join in an effort for lower prices. It is going to be better for us to build up our industry on the solid rock of lower selling prices than on the treacherous quicksands of inflated value.

"No industry can prosper if its factories are running only part time. The moment a factory shuts down six months out of a year manufacturing costs are almost double, and it does not help the workers any to have a high wage if they are idle a good part of the time. If we inflate our costs and selling prices it means that sooner or later, even if business becomes brisk, we will subject ourselves to a flood of foreign glassware. The importing interests and the foreign manufacturers are loud in their predictions that the proposed, tariff will raise prices to the consumer. They do not hesitate to say that we are all parties to an unholy conspiracy to gouge the public with excessive prices the moment the new Tariff Bill becomes, a law. They do not explain that a low tariff will turn the American market over to the foreigners, and that this means smaller production in the American factories, higher costs, and necessarily higher selling prices, with resulting stagnation in the industry.

"We glass manufacturers know that an adequately high tariff gives us all the assurance of a market right here at home for 100 per cent. production, and the moment we can operate full blast, lower manufacturing costs automatically result and we are enabled to lower our selling prices and at the same time give employment to more people. Prosperity for both manufacturers and workers follows inevitably.

"Please do not misjudge me. I want to see our workers get a fair and adequate return. This whole question of wages, manufacturing costs, and selling prices is an economic one. We are all — worker and manufacturer alike — at the mercy of economic forces too great for any or all of us to control and too complicated even to understand clearly. But this I know — we are all in the one boat together, and what helps one will help all. In mutual helpfulness and sympathetic understanding lie the promise of a bright future and our entire industry. Let our union workers enter into the spirit of this suggestion and let manufacturer and worker pledge to each other their Co-operation in endeavoring to secure full time for all the workers at fair wages and 100 per cent. production at minimum manufacturing costs with reduced selling prices to the public."

Following his address, Sydney A. Linnekin, Vice-president of the Babson Institute, Wellesley Hills, Mass., was introduced by President Gleason, as a special speaker he had induced to come and address the manufacturers on some of the subject of the "Business Outlook."

Some of the principal points Mr. Linnekin made were, that from statistics gathered by Babson's, they looked for business to be more active within the next few weeks and a sounder basis, and also said that business conditions looked more favorable for the next five or six months than for any five or six months for the past five or six years. Crops, one of the greatest single factors influencing business, he said, were good and were bringing prices approximately 50 per cent. higher than in 1920. New building, he said, for the first five or six months of the year was double in dollars that of last year, and in volume, due to shrinkage of the price of some materials and labor, was more than double.

He said that the purpose of Babson's was to provide more economic education, and said it was a statistical center of three divisions, education, conference and research. He extended an invitation to the association to hold their annual convention on the Institute campus, on which is located an auditorium seating 1,600 people. The accommodations and size of the campus is capable of handling twenty or thirty conventions at one time. There is no charge for use of the grounds or auditorium, with the added convenience of having business facts and data of the last thirty years at the disposal of the association. The institute is now engaged in special research on the various individual industries; in consequence all information will be centralized in one spot. He said that it was because of lack of facts that the greatest losses were made, including ignorance of business cycles and ignorance of new methods.

He said they were developing the most complete conference grounds in existence, an idea of the importance of which could be gained from the fact that it will include two hundred acres for education, thirty acres for campus, twenty acres of office buildings, sixty acres of farms, a hundred and twenty acre golf course, and seventy-five houses.

A round of applause was given Mr. Linnekin when he had finished, and upon motion of Reuben Haley of the United States Glass Co., a rousing vote of thanks was accorded the speaker."

The reading by Secretary John Kunzler of the minutes of the regular quarterly meeting held at Wheeling, W. Va., on April 25th, was the first in the order of regular routine business taken up. This was followed by the report of Treasurer A. P. Evans.

Reuben Haley and Charles West were then appointed by President Gleason as an auditing committee to audit the treasurer's account and report at the next meeting.

The appointment of a nominating committee, consisting of John Beiswanger, E. A. Gillinder and W. E. Hunter, was then made, and their recommendations were as follows: For president, Marshall W. Gleason; first vice-president, Marion G. Bryce; second vice-president, Nicholas Kopp; treasurer, E. P. Ebberts; actuary, John Krunzler [sic] Kunzler, Directors: Marshall W. Gleason, Nicholas Kopp, M. G. Bryce, E. P. Ebberts, W. E. Hunter and A. J. Bennett.

The complete ticket as recommended by the committee was unanimously re-elected.

The one change in the officers from last year is that Marion G. Bryce and Nicholas Kopp exchange places as first and second vice-presidents.

The following resolution on the death of the late Frank G. Bryce, of the Bryce Bros. Co., Mt. Pleasant, Pa., was read and approved:

"Therefore, be it resolved that in the death of Mr. Frank G. Bryce, the American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manufacturers has sustained the loss of one who has long been associated with us and one whose wise counsel was often sought and highly esteemed.

"Resolved, that these resolutions be spread on the minutes of the Association, and that a copy be sent to the bereaved family in the assurance of the heartfelt sympathy of the members, who join with them in the sorrow and loss we have all sustained.

(Signed) J. F. KIRK.

J. F. CHALLINOR,

W. A. B. DALZELL"

The following were present at the meeting: Roy Boyd, Cambridge Glass Co., Cambridge, O.; Leo Nussbaum, Canton Glass Co., Marion, Ind.; E. Schaub, Central Glass Works, Wheeling, W. Va.; Frank Cupps, Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co., Caraopolis Pa.; A. P. Duncan, Duncan & Miller Glass Co., Washington, Pa.; W. E. Hunter, Economy Tumbler Co., Morgantown, W. Va.; C. B. Roe, Fostoria Glass Co., Moundsville, W. Va.; John Beiswanger and Harry Strong, Gill Bros. Co., Steubenville, O.; E. A. Gillinder, Gillinder & Sons, Inc.; Tacony, Pa.; M. W. Gleason; Gleason-Tiebout Glass Co., Brooklyn, N. Y.; Mr. Franc, Holophane Glass Co., Newark, O.; Henry Batsch, Indiana Glass Co., Indiana, Pa.; Mr. Griffith, Jefferson Glass Co., Follansbee, W. Va.; Thomas Crock, Jeanette Shade & Novelty Co., Jeanette, Pa.; Howard Jenkins, D. C. Jenkins Glass Co., Kokomo, Ind.; Donald Smith, McKee Glass Co., Jeanette, Pa.; Ira Clark, New Martinsville Glass Mfg. Co., New Martinsville, W. Va.; M O. Taylor, H. Northwood Co., Wheeling:, W. Va.; E. P. Ebberts and Thos. W. McCreary, Phœnix Glass Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.; Wm. Gilmore, Pittsburgh Lamp Brass & Glass Co., Pittsburgh. Pa.; C. M. Rodefer, Rodefer Glass Co., Bellaire, O.; Reuben Haley and J. E. Challinor, United States Glass Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Chas. West, Westmoreland Specialty Co., Grapeville, Pa.

The trade press were represented T. A. Kimes, National Glass Budget; J. G. Kaufmann and Samuel Leffler of China, Glass and Lamps and the Glassworker; H. R. Handy of the Pottery, Glass and Brass Salesman; and F. Calvin Demarest of the CROCKERY AND GLASS JOURNAL.

The National Association of Glassware Manufacturers held meetings on Friday and Saturday mornings, preparatory to opening the conferences on wages, at the Marlborough-Blenheim on Monday morning, which are, scheduled to last until and including August 8th.

The workers are asking for increases ranging from 10 to 30 per cent., while the manufacturers are asking reductions approximately of the same amounts; in other words, it looks somewhat like a fifty-fifty proposition.