Music Trade Review

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February 5th, i88t.
THE MUSICAL CRITIC AND TRADE REVIEW.
D. F. BEATTY.
In the above he deliberately accuses the leading manufacturers of decep-
tion in claiming too high prices for their instruments, and at the same time
charges the attempted extortion upon their agents. According to this
statement the manufacturer would charge his agents $450 for an organ, and
the agent continuing the system of fraudulent extortion would charge the
H I S M I S R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S E X P O S E S . retail
purchaser from $600 to $800 for an organ which could be retailed for
only $85 and still leave a fair profit. The same is true of his insinuations
the piano manufacturers and their agents, for if the manufac-
HOW HE MALIGNS THE PIANO AND ORGAN TRADES TO concerning
turer sells, as Mr. Beatty says, an instrument for $1,000, and the agent is
guilty, as he infers, of continuing the extortion, the retail purchaser would
DECEIVE THE PUBLIC.
be obliged to pay about $1,500 for an instrument which should cost him
only $297.
D. F. Beatty has very ingeniously availed himself of a circumstance,
* I ^HE music trades, like any other forms which at a first glance would seem to give some color to his charge, that the
JL of business, are infested by parties manufacturers were demanding extortionate prices for their goods ; we refer
whose operations, if not actually fradu- to the custom of making a fixed catalog tie price for organs, and then instead
lent, are calculated to deceive the unwary, of reducing the price on each instrument, making a general discount on the
and are in the highest degree reprehensi- whole list. The reason for this method is its obvious convenience, and the
ble. The peculiar methods of such people custom is not confined to organ or piano manufacturers, but is common to
are from time to time exposed, and the nearly all the prominent manufacturing industries in the country.
offenders, for a while, continue their
The idiocy of D. F. Beatty's charges at once becomes plain the moment
practices in a comparatively modest man- they are looked at in the clear light of reason by an experienced person.
ner. Then as other things begin to engross But the public is not experienced in such matters, and is easily misled by
the) public mind, these parties become such specious insinuations.
bolder, and finally grow fat in their own
But the chief point of D. F. Beatty's advertisement and the one that is
conceit, and are at last so careless, so per-
strongest for the purpose of catching the public ear is that he is the
sistent and so offensive in their methods the
who will sell directly to the public for $85 such an organ as
that straighforward papers are obliged, manufacturer
the agents of other makers sell for $450, and for $297 such a piano as they
for the good of the trades they represent, sell
for $1,000.
to take cognizance of these methods and
This statement is, to the best of our knowledge and belief, absolutely
unmask them before the world.
false.
For some years a person by the name of
In the first place D. F. Beatty is in no sense whatever a manufacturer of
D. T. Beatty, of Washington, N. J., has pianos.
been steadily practising upon the credu-
In the second place he buys the cheapest pianos the market affords,
lity of the public by maligning the piano stencils his (Beatty's) name on them, as " manufacturer," and these are the
and organ trades, and pushing himself instruments for which, he says "$297 is sufficient." We should think so!
forward on the strength of misrepresenta-
Reputable dealers would consider themselves fortunate in obtaining $200
tions. This man Beatty has emphatically announced himself as a manufacturer for the same grade of piano.
of plan os and organs, and has traded upon the innocence and ignorance of
In the third place, the organ which he says leading manufacturers ask
the " dear confiding public," by assuring people that he would sell his $450 for, and which he intimates, but without directly so stating, he can sell
instruments direct to them, at exactly as low prices as other manufacturers for $85, and still have a fair profit, is a grade of instrument manufactured by
of pianos and organs sold to their agents ; thus the people by buying of the many other parties, and the agents of many of the leading organ manu-
said Beatty would avoid paying the agents' or dealers' profits, which they facturers are, and have been, during the whole time that D. F. Beatty has
would be obliged to do when buying instruments made by other manu- been putting such statements before the public, ready and willing to sell a
facturers.
much better organ than that manufactured by the Haid Beatty, for the same
For a while this scheme of Beatty's worked successfully and he flooded price that he asks.
the country with his instruments which the people bought, actually believ-
If the above does not sufficiently show D. F. Beatty in his true light as
ing that by so doing they were saving from $50 to $500 as the case might be. a maligner of an honorable and respectable class of manufacturers, and if it
I t is hardly necessary to inform our readers that at the time we allude does not show him to be something very different from the true friend of the
to Mr. Beatty was in no sense whatever a manufacturer of either pianos or organs. public, which he claims to be, we have other facts concerning him at our
Of course all the parties directly connected with the music trades were per- disposal which may definitely settle the matter.
fectly well aware of this, but it was difficult to impress the truth upon the
So far we have thought best to confine ourselves to the criticism of his
public mind; for people are much more easily cajoled into buying a poor false and malicious advertising methods, making no attempt to pry into his
article at what they consider an extraordinarily low pi-ice than they are into manner of conducting financial matters, not wishing to be chargeable with
paying a profit that is extravagant in proportion to the cost of manufacture. undue zeal.
It is absolutely true—and it should be a truth self-evident to the world
—that a good article must bring a good price, and that a cheap article does
SOLID FOR THE EMERSON GRAND.
not save the purchaser the difference between the prices at which the cheap
and good article can be bought. On the contrary, the cheap article is sure
BOSTON, January 26, 1881.
to cost the purchaser much more than this difference in the end, by reason of EMEBSON PIANO CO.,
faulty construction, poor workmanship, and the inferior quality of the
Gentlemen:—Allow me to congratulate you on the great success of your
materials employed.
Grand Piano, used by that wonderful artist, Gustave Satter. Such a healthy,
A little more than a year ago Beatty began gathering himself together solid, noble tone has never been heard in Boston, responding to every demand
to take a more plausible stand as a maker, and to this end devoted a build of the artist, no matter how severe. The piano has been a revelation to our
ing in Washington, N. J., to the manufacture of the cheapest grades of Boston artists.
organs. Pianos he made no attempt to manufacture, knowing that he could
I feel impelled to write this, as the pianos used in Boston lately, never
not build these instruments any cheaper than those he had always bought of ought to have been put into the concert room.
Joseph P. Hale, of New York City. Being aware that the tide of popular favor
Gentlemen, the artists of Boston will thank you, and I think the man-
had turned in the direction of the better classes of pianos and organs, he made agers of our concerts and lecture-courses should learn a lesson not to force
his bombastic announcements convey the idea that he was offering at artists to play an instrument such as one of our best resident artists refused
extraordinarily low prices the very best grades of instruments. How true to play his second piece on the programme on.
his claims are in this respect, we shall presently show.
I consider the test Dr. Satter gave your piano more severe than if the
Meeting with little opposition, this willfully misrepresenting man, piano had been struck by lightning.
RESIDENT AKTIST.
Beatty, became more offensive and more bombastic than ever, in the pre-
tentions which he advertised in the various newspapers and in his own
The B. Shoninger Organ Company, of New Haven, Conn., have been
circulars, until he brought himself most obnoxiously into notice by an
advertisement which he inserted in a recent issue of the New York Daily lately putting in a large stock of high grade lumber in anticipation of a rise,
and their purchases have been justified by the fact, that they could now, if
Times.
This advertisement, appearing in an influential newspaper, and appear- they wished, sell out their whole stock at a handsome advance on the prices
ing moreover, as if it were an editorial expression of opinion by that paper, hav- paid. The estimation in which the instruments, manufactured by this firm,
ing merely the word " exchange " appended to it to show only to persons are held by the public, may be judged of by the fact that there are now 60,-
thoroughly posted in newspapei' mailers, that it was a paid-for advertisement, 000 of them in use, and their number is increasing at the rate of 700 per
is the cause of our charging D. F. Beatty with willfully and maliciously mis- month.
representing the piano and organ trades of this country, which stand among
Mr. E. McCammon of Albany, was in town one day last week, and reports
the very foremost of our manufacturing industries in the magnitude of their that he is having a very prosperous season, and that the McCamtnou piano ia
business, the amount of skill, ability, and capital employed, and the integrity, making steady progress in the estimation of the public.
energy and enterprise of the men engaged in them.
Messrs. Irwin Brothers, of Natick, Mass., have recently added pianos,
We shall not stop now to criticise Mr. Beatty's account of his successful
business career, his statement of the number of instruments he sells, nor his organs, and musical merchandise to their general business, and find much
encouragement
in their new departure. We hope all their pleasant anticipa-
well worn accounts of his charitable donations, made purely for advertising tions may be realized.
purposes, merely remarking in passing that if he has been successful in
business, and if he is selling large numbers of pianos and organs, it is the
At a recent meeting of the stckholders of the Prescott Organ Company,,
more glaring proof of the extent to which the public may be misled.
of Concord. N. H., it was voted to make a large increase of the capital stock
The part of Mr. D. F. Beatty's advertisement in the New York Times, all of which has already been taken. The company will, early in the spring,
erect a commodious manufactory, near the Concord Kailroad track, below the
to which we call particular attention, is as follows :
" Mr Beatty is the man who first conceived the idea of reducing the freight depot. This will consist of a four-story building, 36 by 90 feet, and a
boiler,
engine, and dry-house adjoining. The capacity of the manufactory will
prices of pianos and organs. He knew the agents were making entirely too
much profit on them, the same as was being done with sewing machines. be 100 organs a month. As soon as the buildings are completed, the company
will vacite their present premises, and carry on all their manufacturing opera-
He at once began to expose the deception practiced by leading manufac- tions
the new buildings. The office and warerooms will be up town. Tliis
turers, who asked $450 for an organ that could be sold for $85 and still leave is the in
oldest organ manufactory in the country (established in 1836), and we
a fair profit, or $1,000 for a piano that $297 is sufficient for. Then the war trust it has a long future before it. Une of the largest takers of new stock is
began. He was ridiculed and misrepresented in a shameful manner by the Jacob R. Foster, formerly of Concord, N. H., who has been engaged in manu-
monopolists, w r hose large profits were in danger."
facturing for several years past at Bartlett.