Long Long Road

In 1874 the country was still fighting the Depression that had started the year before. A small enterprise which went under that year was a hay business formed by Robert Alexander Long, 24, and two young friends, one of whom was Victor Bell. "The hay crop was excellent," said

Mr. Long in later years, "but the hay we bought turned brown and was all but unsaleable." Robert Long had come to Kansas City from his native Kentucky with $700, earned by doing farm chores and selling hickory nuts. All of his money was in the hay business and he wanted to get married. With his friend Victor Bell he peddled the lumber bought for hay sheds, recouped part of his loss. That was the beginning of Long-Bell Lumber Corp., world's greatest lumber concern under one ownership. Long-Bell grew to a company with $108,000,000 in assets. Yet assets do not always earn profits. Lumber has long been bad. Last week, alarmed by mounting deficits, certain bondholders of Long-Bell asked for a receivership. Prompt to protest was Chairman Long, now a thin, grey, tight-lipped little man of 87 whose wrinkled face wears a placid look. Proud of his company, old Robert Long was sure that the troubles of 1930-32 would vanish as did those of 1874-75. Surprisingly, Halsey, Stuart & Co. (who sold the bonds), agreed, denounced the move as "decidedly destructive." In the fight that loomed last week Old Robert was not the example of a great name bowed as was Rudolph Spreckels, nor were his troubles those of new competition which befell Col. Carrington's Hudson River Navigation Corp. His fight was the fight of the old-school businessman. To visualize Long-Bell one must think of the 14-story R. A. Long Building in Kansas City, must comprehend that on its 379,000 acres of land there were about 9,075,000,000 ft. of saleable timber, yellow pine in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, hard wood in Mississippi, Douglas Fir in Washington, white pine in California. The $108,000,000 assets further include thousands of acres of farm land, nine sawmills, 104 lumberyards, 292 miles of railroad, and the entire town of Longview, Wash. at the junction of the Columbia & Cowlitz rivers. With its bank, hotel, motion picture house, fire department, "Y," docks, tennis courts, schools, it is a model, moral settlement. Paternal & religious, Robert Alexander Long delights in the title of Founder. "Men in business today need many friends," is one of his maxims. By his side for 53 years Robert Long had someone who filled that need. It was his wife Ella whom he married the day he went into lumber and who died four years ago after 53 years of partnership. "No one knows better than I the part she played in whatever success has come to my ventures in business," was a tribute he paid her at the height of his success. In 1925 the company's fiftieth anniversary was celebrated by a reception at the home of President Mack Barnabus Nelson. In the place of honor stood Chairman Long with Ella by his side. After a buffet supper that lasted an hour and 25 minutes the guests sang the national anthem, listened to an invocation, to speeches; to telegrams. There was a response from Longview, Wash, on the radio. The Longs lived in a huge, old house in an unfashionable part of Kansas City, set in a big yard with a fence around it. Ella Long would have no signs of luxury save a Rolls-Royce. Today, Old Robert carries on methodically, alone. No matter where he is he drinks a glass of milk every morning at 10 o'clock. And every year on the day before Christmas the employes crowd into the directors' room, bow their heads while the Founder prays.

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