Copyrighted, International Film Service Corp. A tile-surfaced Barrett Specification A Severe Test-Roof being used as a Drill-Ground Hundreds of marching feet-a regiment in action with a roof for its drill-ground-that's what you see above. You couldn't use a roof much more severely than this. And that's what happened almost daily for months on top of the big Altman Department Store in New York City, where several hundred members of the Home Defense League have learned to do their "bit." Barrett Specification Roofs contain a larger amount of waterproofing and protective materials than any other roof-covering. That is why they give such wonderful service. And not only do they give longer service than any other type, but they cost less per year of service. If you want this kind of a roof on your building, the way to make sure of getting it is to insert in your building plans the following: "The roof shall be laid according to The Only competent roofers can obtain the Bond, and the roof is constructed under the supervision of a Barrett inspector, who sees that the Specification is strictly followed. 20-Year Surety Bond We now offer a 20-Year Surety Bond Guaranty on all Barrett Specification Roofs of fifty and over in all towns of squares 25,000 and over, and in smaller towns where our Inspection Service is available. Our only requirements are that The Barrett Specification of May 1; 1916, shall be strictly followed, and that the roofing contractor shall be approved by us. MARK Vancouver B THE NATION'S Believing that the advance of business is a subject of vital interest and importance, The Outlook will present under the above heading frequent discussions of subjects of industrial and commercial interest. This will include paragraphs of timely interest and articles of educational value dealing with the industrial upbuilding of the Nation. Comment and suggestions are invited. MEETING THE HOUSING PROBLEM FOR WAR WORKERS One of the most serious problems to be met in connection with the enormous expansion of plants which are manufacturing war materials is the adequate housing of the vast armies of employees. It is announced that plans are now being drawn for a large working-community hotel in Buffalo, to be located close to the plants of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corporation and the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company. This hotel will provide accommodations with room and bath for the workmen employed at these two plants. ONE DELIVERY A DAY There has been much discussion on cutting down the delivery service of retail stores in order thus to reduce selling costs and to release men for war work. A long step forward has been taken by the leading retail establishments of Indianapolis, and is described in the "Dry Goods Economist:" Thirty-five retail concerns in Indianapolis have adopted the one delivery per day plan. The decision to take this action was reached at a meeting held a few days ago in the rooms of the Indianapolis Merchants' Association. It was further agreed that deliveries be made on the day following the purchase. Details of the plan were worked out by a committee appointed for the purpose. Light on the subject of the one delivery a day was obtained from Dayton, Ohio, where the plan has been a success with some of the stores for some time, and has been adopted by the other concerns in Dayton since January 1. The Dayton merchants are reported as saying that the one delivery a day method has caused a great increase in the number of packages carried home by customers. It is further stated that in Dayton fifty per cent of the men employed in the delivery departments of the retail stores have been released for other service. In Indianapolis, under the new arrangement, the store wagons will start out between eight and nine each morning, delivering the purchases of the day before. It is expected that all deliveries will be made before 2 P.M. This will be made possible by the assembling of packages throughout the day and the giving of more time than heretofore to the routing. In addition to reducing deliveries to one per day, the Indianapolis merchants will make a charge for special deliveries, and these, as well as C. O. D.'s, will be discouraged as much as possible. RECORD IN RAPID BUILDING CONSTRUCTION From Construction" In these strenuous days we have become accustomed to hearing of rapid work in THE OUTLOOK building construction, the demands of the Federal Government calling for expedition in this respect to a degree unthought of in normal times. Noteworthy in regard to time element among the numerous structures erected for war purposes during recent months is a Government ordnance building completed at Washington, D. C., on November 20 last. The structure in question is of hollow-tile construction, the material for which was supplied and the work of erection conducted entirely by the National Fire Proofing Company. Starting on the 3d of November, the work was completed just seventeen days later. The building as it stands is "fire-proof, weather-proof, and durable." CENTURY-OLD SLATE ROOFS In planning different types of buildings, the durability of the roofing material and its ability to withstand all conditions of weather must receive careful consideration. Slate is claimed to be among the most durable of roofing materials. The Vermont Slate Manufacturers' Association describes some old buildings which testify to the wearing qualities of slate: The Saxon Chapel, Bradford-on-Avon, England, was built in the eighth century, and has constantly been repaired-all portions except the roof. The Whitehazelpool Parish of St. Mary, by Whirlpool of Tyoilio's Cave, Wales, has been remodeled twice, and is in an excellent state of preservation. The gravestones are of gray, green, and brown slate rock hundreds of years old. These two ancient and honorable properties are highly respected and are maintained by the townspeople. The interesting feature of both of these antiquated chapels is that the roofs have never been disturbed. It emphasizes the great importance that thinking propertyowners are giving to the value of watertight as well as fire-proof roofs. The failure or success of the roof depends upon the ability to keep water and moisture from roof boards. The slate on these old dignified properties will average about 3-16 inches thick in the rick, and were laid with the regular standard three-inch lap. Native stone were used in each instance for main body of buildings. In 1915 the door-plate on the above-mentioned chapel was still attached; the plate is made of slate rock and the engraving done in "Old English." The oldest slate roof in America now in use, as nearly as we can ascertain, is the one upon the Hotel Rhinebeck, Rhinebeck, New York. This roof was slated with Welsh slate from Wales, in 1700. The main structure is built of brick, and the roof has not been disturbed. There were quite a few of the old colonial homes built from 1776 to 1800 in the seacoast towns in Massachusetts that were slated with "English slate," the same strata of rock as the American-Vermont sea-green slate. WOMEN HELP BUILD MOTOR- One of the large automobile concerns of Indianapolis, which has a $10,000,000 Government order for motor-trucks, is planning to employ several hundred women in its plant in addition to its men employees. The women will be specially trained and will then operate in the inspection and machine tool departments. Special Publishers' Numbers April 3-May 1-October 2 November 6-December 4 Each of these issues of The Outlook will contain, in addition to the usual number of book reviews, a special article of timely interest on the general subject of books. Special reprints of the publishers' announcements, the book reviews, and the article appearing in each of these publishers' numbers, will be sent, coincident with their dates of publication, to a list of approximately nine hundred of the leading book dealers of the country, who in turn will be advised that additional reprints, bearing their own imprint. can be secured from The Outlook at cost price. Copy for each of these special publishers numbers should be in hand not later than two weeks prior to date of publication. THE SECRET BY PAULINE FRANCES CAMP Who's that by the garden rim, Head a-bobbin'? Scarlet vest and jacket trim; Mr. Robin! Now he whistles, loud and clear, Eyes a-glisten ; Runs a bit, then stops to peer, Crocus lifts her waxen cup, Jonquil's golden lamp lights up For his pleasure. There's a secret glad and gay In his keeping; Can he keep it for a day Nay! he's whispered it about! Heads are noddin'; Spring is here! your secret's out, Mr. Robin! TWO CHEERING WAR We find in the Washington "Star" the following paragraph by one of its special correspondents in France, Mr. Junius B. Wood: Sitting in a dugout in the trenches the other night I heard a major give an inspiring talk to the battalion officers. Half a dozen knots glowed in a crude fireplace. There were two candles at one end of the table, the other end being in darkness. Boards nailed to the side walls of untrimmed logs supported other candles, the feeble light and the grotesque shadows suggesting cave life. Every man in the room stiffened as the result of that talk. "We have reached the top in training," he said, "and every man in the company should realize it. If you need anything, come and tell me, and I will get it for you if I can. If I do not get it, I do not want to hear about it again, for it means that I cannot get it. "We will have three meals a day if we can get them. If we have to miss one meal, we will not be badly off, and if we miss two or three it will not be much worse. We are expected to work from midnight of one day to midnight of the next day. If there is any chance to sleep between, all right; it will also be all right if there is no chance. Let everybody pitch in. While mud and water must be fought, it may be much worse. The hopes of the Nation are fixed on each man.” The other incident comes from a very well known Northern citizen who is spending the winter in the South. In a personal letter he writes us as follows: I can tell you a beautiful story for The Outlook. The policy of giving Negro regiments Negro officers has caused great controversy North and South. I have myself noticed in moving among the soldiers of our own army a very marked unwillingness in many quarters of white officers to salute the superior black officers. There have been several unpleasant incidents in consequence. In the South, naturally, this blameworthy attitude is more in evidence. Here in South Carolina prejudice against the black man is, I think, more marked than in any other State of the Union. A Negro major in this State found himself in a room with several junior white officers (all, of course, in uniform). The white officers avoided giving the salute. The black man, looking at them steadily, quickly took off his coat, hung it on a chair, and said, "Salute that, gentlemen, and I am satisfied.” The salute was immediately given. A big man, a brave and a witty, that Negro major. So eggs for the same food units-cost nearly ten times what Quaker Oats costs. Meats, on the average, cost eight times as much. The average mixed diet costs four times as much. You can serve seven breakfasts of Quaker Oats for the cost of one bacon-and-egg breakfast. Then in Quaker Oats you serve complete nutrition. Every needed element is there. You serve the greatest of the grain foods, measured by every standard. You serve the most flavory, most delightful cereal which Nature has created. Serve in big dishes. Make it the entire breakfast. A multiplied cost can buy nothing comparable. Then see what flavor it adds to your flour foods. Every pound thus used saves a pound of wheat, and it makes the foods more inviting. See the recipes in each package. Quaker Oats The Extra-Flavory Flakes FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT All legitimate questions from Outlook readers about investment securities will be answered either by personal letter or in these pages. The Outlook cannot, of course, undertake to guarantee against loss resulting from any specific investment. Therefore it will not advise the purchase of any specific security. But it will give to inquirers facts of record or information resulting from expert investigation, leaving the responsibility for final decision to the investor. And it will admit to its pages only those financial advertisements which after thorough expert scrutiny are believed to be worthy of confidence. All letters of inquiry regarding investment securities should be addressed to THE OUTLOOK FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York O INVESTIGATE BEFORE INVESTING NCE upon taking in which a great deal of New York capital was being invested. Many months had gone by from the time the project was first brought over from England for the examination of the American syndicate. There had been engineers' reports and bankers' reports, and voyages back and forth across the Atlantic, and then meetings in London, more examinations and reports, with the usual learned opinions of American and English attorneys (no large financial operation is ever consummated without diligent searching of all the ifs and ands of legal problems). It must have been eighteen months before the negotiations reached the stage where titles could be given and the first checks written out, and the cost of these preliminaries was easily a hundred thousand dollars. Up to the very last it was a question whether the American group would exercise its option and make the large investment or charge off the hundred thousand to profit and loss and go off in search of a more profitable venture. But the deal was finally made. In passing, it might be remarked that the investment, even after all this painstaking investigation, turned out unprofitable. But that is another story. What the writer started out to relate was that one day, while he was sitting in the American financier's offices overlooking the Thames, an English mining engineer came in with a letter of introduction from a well-known banker. He had an option on a gold mine in South Africa-the option would expire within a fortnight; he had all the engineers' reports, assays, legal opinions, and other documents ordinarily demanded by even the most venturesome capitalists before putting money into a new project of this character. After nearly two hours' examination of the papers and a running fire of questions addressed by the American financier to the mining engineer, the for-, mer said: "This looks like a promising investment. I am willing to send one of our engineers down to South Africa to make a report on it, and if he likes the look of it I would be ready to recommend it to our people in New York." "But, sir, my option expires in a fortnight. I could not wait that length of time. I think you are missing one of the great opportunities of your life if you do not come into this now." "That may be true," replied the financier, "and I am so impressed by what you have shown me that I am willing to gamble ten thousand dollars in an investigation of the property. But you certainly would not expect me to put several hundred thousand dollars into an undertaking that I had not independently investigated." The engineer finally took his papers and left, as it was plain that the American capitalist would not consider opening negotiations before he had had an opportunity to get his own detailed reports. After the visitor had left the financier turned to the writer and said: "It's a good rule in finance never to put your money into a venture that can't wait until the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Most of the money that is lost in these big projects is lost because the investor couldn't wait-because he was afraid somebody else might get in ahead of him. The world is full of good investments, and nobody ever went bankrupt by taking all That remark of the American financier, The man who has a little money laid aside waiting for investment does not have to pay for the information necessary for prudent purchases of securities. A few postage stamps and some time spent in letter writing is all the outlay he must make to insure himself against the ordinary pitfalls of the market-place. Nevertheless, as the correspondence of this department shows, investors are constantly putting their savings into projects that will not stand the simplest tests as to their sound ness. In a recent issue of The Outlook we Don't buy stock offered by promoters whose Don't buy stock in companies whose directors are not all of unquestioned standing. Don't buy stock in companies that do not make complete financial reports that will pass the test of a bank examiner. Don't buy stock for which there is not a good market where it can be readily sold. Don't buy stock that will not pass the examination of a trusted local banker. These are merely preliminary "don'ts." An investment that will go through this gauntlet is worth further consideration; but one that will not pass this examination 100 per cent is not worth a moment's consideration. After it has been determined that an offering of stocks or bonds is an honest one, made by honest men of high business capacity, then the investor can begin an investigation of its investment merits. The ordinary investor who is really in search of an investment and not a speculation should not risk his funds in very new companies. The vast majority of new companies soon fall by the wayside; the mortality is very high. This is true even of those honestly promoted. The promotion of new enterprises is a very necessary work, and the world has been enormously enriched by those courageous adventurers who have staked their fortunes on the success of hazardous undertakings. The whole industrial and commercial progress of the race is a record of risk-taking in new projects. But the man who has a little money to invest, who wants his principal to be reasonably safe and his dividends reasonably sure, ought not to hazard much in speculative ventures. We are not saying, "Don't put your money into new companies," but we are saying, "Don't put savings that you cannot afford to lose in untried enterprises." A seasoned security is one that has stood the test of time, and is the only investment that a prudent man ought to make if he does not want to lay awake nights worrying about his money. For the period of the war there will be |