Breaking the LOG JAM By H. S. RISLEY
T 1HE spring thaw is on in the North woods. The winter cut o f logs is caught by the rising waters along the river banks before they can be joined into rafts. Suddenly they come rolling, tumbling, on the seething, white waters. At some bend in the stream where the width between high banks will not permit the free passage o f the huge, confused mass of logs, the “jam” occurs. Logs are piled on top o f logs, others shoot across their companions at mad angles. Some leap upward and stand wedged like strange and blasted trees growing in the river’s bed. Those constantly piling up behind add increasingly to the con fusion o f the breaking, bending mass o f groaning timbers. Until the “jam” is “cleared,” there is no hope o f orderly progress; no chance o f continuing work on the river. There is perhaps no more daring, no more skillful work in the world than the breaking o f such a “jam.” Experienced loggers, each armed only with his long, barbed logging pole, or perhaps with only a stout cant- hook, stand in the shadow o f the grumbling logs. Some
where in that tangle of hewn trees is the “key” log; the ONE and only piece of timber which a blind chance has decreed should “lock” the remaining mass in an intri cate tangle. The head logger studies the downstream front of the “jam.” Finally he decides which is the “key” piece. Lean ing forward, he drives the steel barb o f his pole into the bark of the selected log and pulls, shoves, and twists, until the “key” log shoots from the entangling mass. The men must be quick on their feet. With a roar like an avalanche, the whole pile o f logs, suddenly released from the tension of the “jam” and driven by the force of the stream, comes tumbling confusedly forward. The log gers are running for their lives now, leaping from one slippery tree trunk to another, headed for the steep bank. A misstep will cost a life, but this time they avoid disaster, and soon you see them clambering up the rough banks as the thundering logs go hurtling past on the black waters o f the mountain stream.
S OMETH ING very much like this breaking of a log “jam” oc curred at the congregational meeting of the Church of the Open Door on the evening of July 27. For the imagined log “jam,”picture the mass of confused debt accumu lated from a past generation, and which has checked the life and ac tivity of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles for the past nine years. For the loggers we suggest that you vis ualize the Executive Committee of
the Church of the Open Door with their Pastor, Louis T . Talbot, and the Institute’s attorney, Claude A. Watson. Contemplate this scene: Paul W . Rood, President of the Institute, has relieved Dr. Talbot by presiding at a great conference meeting in the main auditorium of the same build ing so that Dr. Talbot can avail himself of the needed opportunity of presenting the new reorganization plan to his church. The gathering
is hymning itself into reverent at tention; a brief prayer follows, and the addresses begin. The Executive Committee of the Church of the Open Door is first in troduced. It is evident that these men believe they have found the “key” log. Not very promising at first sight, there is the ungainly sec ond mortgage of $291,000.00 and accumulated interest, given to a lo cal bank to secure a long past loan. Four thousand shares of Union Oil
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