Frank O. Butler

“ THE EXTENT OF THE BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES
The century just past has witnessed a marvelous growth in the paper industry. As a seedling oak, first struggling for root-hold and then pushing its way steadily upward through difficulties and obstructions, it has assumed giant proportions, being now firmly established beyond any possibility of disturbance, and sending its branches in every direction. ”

“ The desire for improvement in material conditions, for better implements and better methods, has marked every stage of man’s advance. The same spirit that led primitive man to seek a better and more convenient medium of expression than the cumbersome bowlder or the carved obelisk, manifested itself again, centuries later, in the untiring zeal with which manufacturers sought to improve a product that may be considered the final successor of the bowlder and the obelisk. The beginning of the century saw many improvements in the methods of paper-making. ”

“ In the use of paper for wall-hangings, the artistic and practical come together. From the earliest days when men made for themselves permanent abodes, mural decoration of one form or another has been known, and every branch of painting, sculpture, and decorative art has been called into service. It is not strange that paper, with its many adaptations and wonderful possibilities, should, when it reached the proper stage of development, find one of its principal uses in making beautiful the walls of our homes. ”

“ A clay tablet might serve in a marriage proposal by a king who had the power to meet and vanquish all rivals, but terra-cotta was not suited either for the record of numerous and rapid business transactions or for the writing of books. The biography of one man, or a single treatise in philosophy, would have required a whole building, while a library of modern dimensions, as to the number of books, would probably have left little room in a city for the dwellings of its inhabitants. ”

“ Generous Mother Nature, who supplies man’s wants in such bountiful fashion, has furnished on her plains and in her forests an abundance of material that may be transformed into this fine product of human ingenuity. ”

“ For the wealth that is ours to-day we are indebted in large measure to man’s instinctive desire, manifested in all ages, to perpetuate his knowledge and achievements. Before the thought of a permanent record had begun to take shape in men’s minds, oral tradition, passing from father to son, and from generation to generation, sought to keep alive the memory of great achievements and valorous deeds. ”

“ The graceful water-plant whose plumy, drooping heads were swayed by the breezes that ruffled the waters of the Nile was one of the most useful plants known to Egypt, in whose commerce it long held a leading place. As early as 2000 B. C., or five hundred years before Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage, there was made from its smooth green stems a material called by the same name, papyrus, a kind of crude paper, which came into universal use, and was so valuable and in such great demand that one of the kings proposed to maintain his army from the sale of this product alone. ”

“ Statistics bring out the interesting fact that over one-quarter of the paper output is roll and sheet news paper. If an average value of 21⁄4129 cents per pound at the mills be allowed for this, it is evident that the users of news paper pay out some thirty-two million dollars every year for this important product. Notwithstanding the fact that this paper is sold for one-sixth of the current price of twenty-five years ago, it is yet greatly improved in quality. As a staple in this country, paper has come to rank third in importance in the list of man’s wants. ”

“ Through man’s inventive genius the utility of this valuable product has been increased a hundred-fold, and its wider use has been the means of broadening and extending other manufactories. It has aided invention, and is the medium through which new discoveries, theories, and conclusions have been proclaimed. ”

“ Man’s mechanical ingenuity has given to the machines of his invention something that seems almost like human intelligence, and in the case of the folding machine, the action is so regular and perfect that there seems to be no need of an attendant, save to furnish a constant supply of sheets. The folding completed, cutting machines are again brought into requisition, to cut and trim the sheets to the size of folded note or letter paper, which is the final operation before they are sent out into the world on their mission of usefulness. ”

“ For many years parchment was used in England for all deeds of real estate, and so lengthy were these documents that it was said it took a flock of sheep to convey an acre of land or make a marriage settlement. As the age of stone, the carved obelisk, the clay tablet, and other crude materials was outgrown, so was that of papyrus and parchment. With the next step forward came paper, and the improvements in its manufacture with regard to quality, variety, and increase of production, have kept pace with the varying and growing demands. ”

“ It is the chief glory of this century that mankind has been helped to a higher intellectual plane and the blessings of truth and knowledge have been more widely disseminated than ever before. “The statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge.” ”

“ A careful baking, either by artificial heat or in the burning rays of a tropic sun, rendered the clay tablets very enduring, so that many which have been dug from ancient ruins are now in a remarkable state of preservation, bearing letters and figures as clear as any of the inscriptions on marble, stone, or metal that have come to us from the splendid days of Greece or Rome. ”

“ To-day, through the abundance and cheapness of publications, all men may hold close communion with the minds of leading thinkers past and present, and the melodies of the great masters are brought within the hearing of all. ♦Paper’s service to the fine arts♦ In art it has served as noble a purpose as in literature and music. The fineness and delicacy of surface, attained through modern processes, make possible the half-tone and other fac-simile reproductions, which cultivate an appreciation of the beautiful and carry into even the humblest of homes the refining influences of great works of art ”

“ The century that has marked such material progress in the production of paper has been pre-eminently one of vast intellectual and industrial activity and advancement, and it is a fair statement that paper has not only contributed largely to the general progression that has taken place, but through it as a medium standards have been reached that must have remained unknown were it not for its efficient service. ”

“ Affording as it does food for the mind, and opening up the way to profitable employment through which the bodily wants are supplied, reading might almost be classed as next in importance to the food that nourishes and gives strength to the body. On account of its large production of the higher grades of writing, book, and ledger papers,130 Massachusetts leads in the value of the output; if our estimates are correct, the value of the paper of all varieties manufactured in the state was about $25,000,000 for the year 1900, or one-sixth of the entire estimated product. ”

“ Chemical wood pulp of the best quality makes an excellent product, and is largely used for both print and book paper; it is frequently mixed with rag pulp, making a paper that can scarcely be distinguished from that made entirely from fine rags, though it is not of the proper firmness for the best flat or writing papers. All ordinary newspapers, as well as some of the cheaper grades of book and wrapping paper, are made entirely from wood, the sulphite or soda process supplying the fiber and ground wood being used as a filler. ”

“ Our industry has shared in this increase of foreign trade, but not to the extent that it ought. Our own markets being the best in the world, manufacturers in past years have naturally confined their efforts practically to them, but we have reached such proportions in our ability to manufacture all kinds of paper that it seems as though there was never a more opportune time to explore and make conquest of the foreign paper market. ”

“ The United States, with characteristic enterprise, leads the world in paper-making, supplying about one-third of all that is used on the globe. The city of Holyoke, in Massachusetts, is the greatest paper center in the world, turning out each working-day some two hundred tons of paper, nearly one-half of which is “tub-sized,” “loft-dried” writings. The region in the vicinity of Holyoke is dotted with paper-mills, and within a few miles of the city is made about one-half of all the “loft-dried” writings produced in the United States. ”

“ Man’s untiring endeavor, his constant effort through the centuries to find something better suited to his needs, had in a figurative sense succeeded in turning stone into paper. It remained for two apprentices of Rittenhouse, who erected a third paper-mill in Pennsylvania in 1728, to advance the claim that this could be done literally, that stone, the primitive material on which had been carved the first written characters of the race could be converted into a paper resembling asses’ skins. ”

“ Paper follows next, as the keystone of our intellectual life, and promises in the years to come to play even a more important part in the upbuilding of our modern advancement and business. The conditions of civilization are such that intelligent reading is one of the essentials in individual progress. ”

“ The life in which they played a part has passed into history; the once proud and mighty cities lie prostrate, and upon their ruins other cities have risen, only to fall as they fell. The terra-cotta to which they committed their records is all that is left, and the tablets that were fashioned and inscribed so long ago give to us the best histories of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria. ”

“ The patient striving toward something better, which has marked all the centuries since man first learned to carve his rude records, finds its consummation in the process of making paper in a continuous web. This result is accomplished by a machine first invented by Louis Robert, a workman in a mill at Enonnes, France, who obtained a French patent, with a bounty of eight thousand francs for its development. ”

“ The matted pulp, now having sufficient body, passes on between two rolls covered with felt, which deliver the web of damp paper upon an endless belt of moist felt, while the “wire” passes under and back to continue a fresh supply. The paper is as yet too fragile to travel alone, and the web felt carries it between two metal rolls called the first press-rolls. These squeeze out more water, give a greater degree of compactness to the fibers, smooth the upper surface, and finally deliver the web of paper to a second felt apron, which carries it under and to the back of the second press-rolls. ”

“ All the wisdom of the past, garnered by patient toil and effort, all the wealth of experience gained by generations of men through alternating defeat and triumph, belongs to us by right of inheritance. ”

“ The process of paper-making is continuous, owing to the great expense involved in wiping or cleaning the machinery, an operation necessary to prevent the pulp from drying to or rusting the many parts through which it passes from the time of its entrance into the washer and beater until it comes forth as a finished and perfect product. ”

“ For ordinary use, common book or print papers are employed, but these are usually given extra care and attention in the course of their manufacture; the stock is so manipulated as to not only secure the desired quality and finish, but also to counteract the tendency of the paper to stretch, which if not overcome is apt to destroy the register and injuriously affect the quality of the work. The better grades of lithographing-paper are made by applying a clay coating especially prepared to bring about the desired results. ”

“ Strange, almost phenomenal, conditions come about in the transformation from filmy pulp to finished paper. A sheet which, though formed, is at the first press-roll too fragile to carry its own weight, becomes possessed of a final strength and power that is almost incredible. The myriad of minute fibers composing the sheet, upon drying uniformly, possesses great aggregate strength. A77 sheet of paper yields readily to tearing, but the same sheet, when a perfectly even tension is applied, will demonstrate that it is possessed of wonderful resisting power. ”

“ Higher education has brought to man a quickened sense of the inherent nobility of his nature, and has changed his conceptions of the relations that exist between his own life and that which pulsates about him. ”