Music Trade Review

Issue: 1896 Vol. 23 N. 10

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
LVMAN
Editor and Proprietor.
PUBLISHED
EVERY
SATURDAY
3 East I4th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage) United States and
Canada, $3.00 per year; Foreign Countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
ertion. On quarterly
q
Insertion.
or yearly contracts i< special dis-
count is allowec
REMITTANCES, In other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyman BilL
Bntered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26, 1896.
TELEPHONE NUMBER 1745. — EIGHTEENTH STREET.
THE BUSINESS MAN'S PAPER."
BY THE MAN AT THE MAST-HEAD.
future—their opinions regarding the com-
ing election—its probable effect upon trade,
and allied matters.
We have been only able to select a few
of the many replies which we have received,
it being impossible to print them all in
full. Our selection has been fair in that
we have not been influenced by personal or
political views in the matter of publishing
a fair digest of the opinions of dealers all
over America as expressed to THE REVIEW
over their own signatures.
These opinions should carry weight with
the manufacturers as they express clearly
and emphatically the views of business
men who are engaged in enterprises which
afford them opportunity to fairly forecast
the business situation in their respective
localities.
The consensus of all the views received
is that conditions during the past ten days
have materially improved in all parts of
the country. The last two weeks of Sep-
tember have been encouraging from a
trade standpoint, and October bids fair to
furnish a considerable betterment in trade
conditions.
A perusal of the many letters received is
convincing that we are to receive a fair
amount of business this fall. Casting aside
all rhetorical garnish, all political verbiage,
the situation as we sum it up stands pre-
cisely as follows:
The election of William McKinley will
bring about an immediate restoration of
confidence—that confidence is the real basis
of business—because credit without confi-
dence cannot exist. Stocks are low—in
truth in all lines stocks were never so de-
pleted as at the present time. The mills
and factories must at once start; in fact
many are starting up now in order to ac-
cumulate a stock of goods for the holiday
trade. There will be, should McKinley be
elected, and that seems extremely probable
now, an immediate revival of business.
That revival will in a sense be spurty, in
that there will be an abnormal demand
during the months of November and De-
cember; after that we will predict a quiet
January, and trade building slowly and
steadily; no rush, no boom, no sudden ex-
pansion, but gradually the trade arteries
will all assume their normal functions, as
the pay roll in the various factories in-
creases, and the distribution of money be-
comes larger. Then an era of gradually
increasing prosperity for a term of years.
HE REVIEW has taken extraordinary
methods to gain a comprehensive
view of the true inwardness of trade condi-
tions throughout America. We hold that
it is an important function of a trade pub-
lication to keep its readers acquainted in a
business sense with the fluctuations of the
trade barometer.
It is true that trade life has been hover-
ing in the vicinity of the bulb during the
last few months. There are indications,
however, that the storm signals may be
withdrawn, and that the depressive and
cyclonic trade atmosphere which we have
endured for some time past will be succeed-
ed by a rising temperature and clearer
commercial conditions throughout the
That is about the way the man at our
country.
mast-head outlines the situation at the
During the past few weeks we have ad- present time. We do not wish to urge un-
dressed communications to hundreds of wise action on the part of manufacturers,
dealers all over America, asking their opin- but we do believe that they should consider
ions anent trade conditions present and one thing, and that is that we are to have
T
considerable of a demand for pianos and
musical instruments this fall. The de-
mand will come, and with a rush too, after
election.
We know by our recent travels that there
is comparatively little manufactured stock
on hand, so it seems to us that all manu-
facturers who expect to be in line to sup-
ply the demands made upon them with
anything approximating promptitude, must
prepare a finished stock to meet the de-
mands Which assuredly will come.
The dominating question of the political
issues of the day has subordinated every-
thing else to its influence. It is the Jug-
gernaut which now crushes everything
else in its path.
Some men may criticise the trade jour-
nals for their expression of views upon the
great political issues of the day. They
claim that business publications have noth-
ing to do with politics. To such men we
would propound the question: "Then if we
have nothing to do with politics, why should
politics have everything to do with us?"
In other words the business man is seriously
affected and crippled in his trade extensions
by reason of the absorbing effect of poli-
tics, then why should not a trade publica-
tion which is the exponent of a particular
trade do everything in its power, exert its
influence in the highest degree towards aid-
ing that party, the success of which it be-
lieves will promote in the highest degree
the business prosperity of the trade in which
its interests lie?
We say THE REVIEW is essentially a non-
partisan organ, but in such times as these
it does not hesitate, in fact it would fail to
do its duty as a true representative of the
music industry of this country did it not
exert its influence towards the establish-
ment of what it believes to be of the great-
est interest for the prosperity of American
industry.
There is one point in connection with the
present campaign which perhaps is not
fully appreciated by the great mass of
Americans, and that is the immense edu-
cational advantages afforded by the cam-
paign literature which has been issued from
the headquarters of both of the political
parties. We say never in the history of
American politics has there been dissemi-
nated such a vast amount of educational
matter, and never before have the people
as a whole understood the complex situa-
tion of politics and finance as they under-
stand them to-day.
Talk with men who a few months ago
were in entire ignorance regarding the term
of sixteen to one, they can to-day tell you
all about the political and financial system
of the United States Government, quote
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
full chapters of the Constitution as well as
extracts from the essays of the great men
who occupied prominent niches in the Pan-
theon of American fame, such as Hamil-
ton, Washington, Lincoln and all the rest
of that good old sort.
With a country so keenly educated, it
seems to us that after all this campaign
will leave an indelible imprint upon the
memory of Americans as vvell as to prove
of incalculable benefit to them in that they
are to-day more alert, more progressive and
eager to extend their business lines every-
where.
The comatose conditions of the past
three years will be speedily replaced by
accelerated trade life.
#
#
No trade-paper bulldozing.
No advertising payments in
advance.
No monetary loans to support
newspaper mendicancy.
#—#
John Boyd Thacher has already proved
himself to be as big a failure as a guber-
natorial nominee as he was chairman of
the Bureau of Awards at the World's Fair.
Although presumably giving his consent to
run on a silver platform, it took him a
week or more to know his own mind. He
displayed the same peculiar weakness dur-
ing his connection with the now historic
medals. John Boyd Thacher is hardly fit
or worthy to succeed the present executive
in Albany.
#
#
As we expected from the start, the prop-
osition made the creditors of the Emerson
Piano Co. at the meeting held in Boston
last Saturday, to pay their indebtedness in
12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 months—five equal
payments of twenty per cent, each with
six per cent, interest—was accepted without
hesitation.
The details of the assets and liabilities
which we gave in our last issue proved that
the affairs of the concern were in a perfectly
solvent and healthy condition, and their
assignment, as we have always maintained,
was simply the result of the injurious effect
of the Chicago nominations on the commer-
cial world, compelling the banks to be un-
duly conservative in their dealings with
customers.
The Emerson Piano Co. have always
been a"hundred cent house" and therefore
will pay one hundred cents on the dollar.
Without more ado they will continue oc-
cupying their old place in the estimation of
their agents and the trade generally.
Their course since the assignment has
been above board and in line with the
reputation which they have always en-
joyed, and the sympathy of the trade,
which has been theirs during their tempo-
rary trouble, will follow them in that pros-
perity which is destined to come their way
with the arrival of improved times.
#
#
If. the statement that the John Church
Co. will soon open piano warerooms on
Fifth avenue, this city, is correct—although
it yet lacks official corroboration—they
will have certainly placed their interests in
charge of a thoroughly competent and ac-
complished gentleman in the person of Mr.
A. M. Wright, formerly president of the
Manufacturers' Co., Chicago. He is a first-
class piano man, energetic, able and widely
esteemed, and he cannot fail to make him-
self felt in New York.
#
#
This week Mr. J. P. Byrne, secretary of
Lyon & Healy, Chicago, furnishes us with
a "Specialty Talk. " Mr. Byrne, by virtue
of his active connection with one of the lead-
ing houses in the music trade industry, his
wide experience and close study of music
trade affairs, is especially well fitted to ex-
press intelligent and valuable opinions on
the topics presented.
#
#
We understand that all the creditors of
the Hallet & Davis Co., Boston, including
the banks, have this week accepted the pro-
position presented them by Mr. E. N.
Kimball, and the matter of adjustment is
now a question of days; hence the speedy
resumption of this old-time concern under
the same management is assured.
It is certainly a matter of congratulation,
not only for the parties concerned, but the
entire trade, to be able to report a definite
settlement this week of the Hallet & Davis
Co. as well as the Emerson Piano Co.'s
affairs.
#
#
The Palmer & Embury Mfg. Co., of this
city, have recently placed on the market
a very desirable line of novelties in music
furniture, particulars of which may be
found in another part of this issue. We
have examined the goods in question and
can testify to their beauty and utility.
#
#
I
T occurred to me that I had not seen Wil-
liam Steinway looking better for years
than he appeared this week when I saw
him in Steinway Hall. His cheeks had
that tinge of red which betokens good
health; this supplemented by a keen sparkle
of the eye from underneath his over hang-
ing brows caused me to think that hard
work is a tonic to the head of Steinway &
Sons. Where will you find a harder worker
than William Steinway in this music trade ?
His duties are manifold aside from his over-
sight of the great musical business of
which he is the head. When I asked him
about politics, there was a quiet twinkle in
his eye as he said: "Well, you know,
there are always surprises in politics."
* *
*
Robt. A. Widenmann covered himself
with glory at the great Palmer and Buckner
sound money meeting at the Madison
Square Garden last Tuesday night. In in-
troducing Ex-Governor Flower as chair-
man he uttered the following earnest words
which at once caught the house, and at their
close the applause may be termed an ova-
tion. He said: "We have rescued the ship
of Democracy from the hands of the
pirates. She has come through Scylla
and Charybdis, and the currents of popular
opinion have scraped her bottom and her
sides of the barnacles that have covered
them for the last thirty years. We took her
into dry dock in Indiana. We ripped
out the rotten planks; we riveted her afresh,
from stem to stern, from top to bottom, and
have placed her in charge of competent and
trusted commanders."
* *
I learn with extreme regret of the be-
reavement which has recently befallen Mr.
Carl Neuendorffer, chief of staff of Wessell,
Nickel & Gross. Mr. Neuendorffer's young
son Alfred C. died on Sunday last at North
Spring, N. Y. Young Mr. Neuendorffer
was only eighteen years of age and had been
carefully trained with a view of entering on
the career of civil engineer. He recently
secured an appointment in the United States
Geological Survey in the Adirondacks.
Owing to exposure he contracted a cold
More Haines Bros.
which developed into a serious fever result-
A. GUTTENBERGER & CO., piano ing in his death.
dealers of Macon, Ga., have just sold
#
to the Georgia Normal College atMilledge-
Col. H. W. Hall came in to see me Thurs-
ville, Ga., four Haines Bros, pianos of the
same style as were purchased by the Wes- day. The Colonel takes an optimistic view
leyan College at Macon. This live South- of the business situation, and tells me that
ern firm are pushing the Haines Bros, pi- trade in Burlington and vicinity is bright-
ening up materially. As manager of Bail-
anos with much success.
F

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