Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
i
the trade opinion is that they are men
who, clearly, were not entitled to encounter
grievous business disaster.
With such a magnificent showing of as-
sets, it will only be a question of a short
time, in our opinion, before the companies
LYMAN
will all have resumed business. If their
Editor and Proprietor.
creditors were all merchandise creditors,
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
the matter of an extension could be easily
arranged, but we think that the banks upon
3 East 14th St.. New York
an
investigation will not stand in their
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage) United States and
Canada, $3.00 per year; Foreign Countries, $4.00.
own light, and will also favor granting such
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts » special dis-
extension as the members of the corpo-
count is allowed.
REMITTANCES, In other than currency form, should
rations may deem it expedient to ask.
be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Money is the merchandise of banks and
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second-Mass Matter.
when the wheels of industry are stopped
there
is no need of banks. They furnish
NEW YORK, JULY 25, 1896
the necessary oil to industry, but if the
TELEPHONE NUMBER 1745. — EIGHTEENTH STREET.
machinery is not running what need of oil?
••THE BUSINESS MAN'S PAPER."
We believe, too, that on the part of the
members of the Hallet & Davis corporations
there will be no concessions asked from
their creditors in the matter of a remis-
sion of a part of their indebtedness. We
have no doubt but that they will ask only an
opportunity in the way of time in which to
recuperate and realize upon their assets to
pay dollar for dollar of their indebtedness
in full with interest.
It is impossible at this early writing to
tell just what action the creditors may take
or how they may view the corporation's
affairs, but as business men they must re-
solve upon a sensible course of procedure.
The Hallet & Davis piano may be prop-
erly termed one of the landmarks of the
piano industry of this country. The in-
struments bearing the name of Hallet &
THE FAILURE OF THE HALLET & DAVIS Davis have found a wide clientele of pur-
chasers and the corporate name in itself
CORPORATIONS-CAUSES.
constitutes a valuable trademark which
E cannot recall the immersion of
will under no circumstances be permitted to
any firm or corporation in financial
lapse into disuse.
difficulties in recent years wherein there
The failure of the parent house in Bos-
has been so much genuine sympathy and
general regret expressed as in the unfortu- ton was the direct outcome of the succumb-
nate position in which the assigned Hallet ing of the Chicago branch, which failure
must be attributed to the dullness of the
& Davis corporations are now placed.
times,
and the difficulty which was en-
This feeling of regret is not generated
by the belief that it may react upon other countered to raise money to meet maturing
houses in the matter of a curtailment of obligations.
No one realizes more than the business
discounts, but is one of real sympathy for
men
of to-day how difficult it is to financier
the members of the corporations who have
always stood for that which is highest and commercial institutions in these troublous
best in all their commercial dealings with times. It has not been one year of dull
manufacturers—with the supply men— times, but we are now on our fourth,
with dealers and with the retail purchasers. because it was three years ago last June
Mr. Cook, Mr. Kim ball and their associ- when the panic first struck us. Since that
ates are men who by their rigid adherence time the manufacturer and the business
to the principles of right and honor have man has had in many cases insurmountable
won for themselves the unbounded respect obstacles to overcome.
It seems to us while studying the causes
of the entire trade, and to them at this
critical period it must be in a large sense which were influential in producing this
gratifying to know that the consensus of latest music trade collapse we must not
W
I
overlook the fact that the recent so-called
Democratic Convention in Chicago promul-
gated doctrines which were anarchistic and
revolutionary in sentiment. They went, too,
a step further in their announced repudi-
ation of honest indebtedness. Such doc-
trines scattered broadcast could have only
one effect upon the great financial interests
of this country--that of a contracting of com-
mercial credits and a close curtailment of
discounts.
Banking institutions were influenced al-
most at once, showing how susceptible
they are to politico-financial matters.
If we recollect, shortly after the Tillman-
Altgeld Convention there was threatened a
panic in New York. Chicago bankers also
became alarmed and began to "call loans."
To particularize: The day before the Hal-
let & Davis Chicago assignment Mr. May-
nard, the secretary of that company, was
asked to pay a "call loan" of nearly ten
thousand dollars, which naturally he could
not just at that time meet. Rather than
to have an attachment issued against the
assets in the store, which would prevent
him doing business, he would much prefer
an assignment, which was almost imme-
diately made.
Thus we see brought home to us with
fearful reckoning, the direct result of the
populo-anarchistic repudiation of half of our
indebtedness by the exaltation of an ille-
gitimate dollar in an unlimited sense as a
legal tender.
With such facts before them—with such
unmistakable illustrations of the effect
of lack of confidence, and the scattering
abroad of distrust, some men are so con-
tracted in their views of life that they say
a trade paper has no business to meddle in
the affairs of politics. While we think a
trade paper is essentially a business me-
dium yet we feel that it is fulfilling its
noblest duty when it can best support the
interests of the men who make its life pos-
sible by the open advocacy of those beliefs
which tend towards the betterment of our
commercial affairs by the upbuilding of con-
fidence in our Governmental affairs, which
must necessarily mean confidence in our
local business affairs. For what after all
is oUr Government but a great business
institution, whose purpose it is to collect
and to distribute the revenues—to maintain
consular, postal and other services for the
people; always for the people, we cannot
lose sight of that fact, therefore when its
affairs are in doubt, when its very safety
is jeopardized, when the bonds of the Silver
states are going begging, does it not have
a reflex action upon every business insti-
tution in America?'