Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL
Editor and Proprietor.
PUBLISHED
EVERY
SATURDAY
3 East 14th 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
Insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts ^ special dis-
count is allowed.
REMITTANCES, In other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyinan BilL
Entered atthe New York Post Office as Second-Class Mmtttr.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 17, 1896.
TELEPHONE NUMBER 1745. - EIGHTEENTH STREET.
"THE BUSINESS MAN'S PAPER."
EFFECT OF FISHER METHODS^THE
"COURIER" ANSWERED.
OURAGE is a quality to be admired
whether in personal or in journalistic
utterances. No matter how much we may
differ regarding conditions and theories,
we always have possessed an admiration
for one who has the courage to fling down
the gage to battle and stand squarely up
for the fray.
While recognizing the importance of the
"Musical Courier," we disagree with it
materially in many of its utterances, and
we cannot permit its editorial of this week
to pass without breaking a lance in protest
thereof.
That journal, in referring to the methods
adopted by A. A. Fisher in Detroit, makes
a powerful arraignment of trade methods
to the effect that manufacturers themselves
have created the very conditions from
which the Fisher methods are a natural out-
come.
In its argument, it uses the cheap and
the stencil piano as a foil, maintaining that
the cheap piano has tended to demoralize
C
the entire trade. It also brings in as a fac-
tor in its argument, the fact that manufac-
turers have undermined their own interests
by the manufacture of two grades of instru-
ments.
Further it brings the firm of Alfred Dolge
& Son into the controversy, the credit ques-
tion, and many other matters. Some of the
"Courier" arguments are excellent, others
are extremely illogical, and when the
"Courier" says it is impossible to disagree
with it regarding its utterances, it denies
the right of argument and constitutes itself
as the supreme authority of the trade, be-
yond which there is no appeal.
The article as a whole is personal rather
than broad—following narrow lines rather
than to have discussed interests which have
been instrumental in creating the present
conditions existing in the trade.
We claim further that the "Courier" has
brought in its arraignment matters entirely
foreign to the subject. A. A. Fisher
opened a store in Detroit to sell pianos, as
he had a perfect right to do. Neither is
there any law in this country which defines
just what methods a man may pursue in
the disposal of his wares. There is free
trade between all the States of the Union,
and one man has as much legal right as
another to sell goods wheresoever he will
and may in this republic. Mr. Fisher has
his own methods of disposing of pianos.
Those methods are not popular with local
dealers, but Mr. Fisher, in the pursuit of
his business enterprise, does not consult
their wishes, neither does any other busi-
ness adversary pursue just the course which
his competitor is most desirous of having
him follow. Mr. Fisher visits a city to sell
pianos; that is his business, and in his call-
ing he brings to bear startling and quest-
ionable methods. His tentacular adhesive-
ness is amazing.
But no, they immediately get overheated,
lose their reason and rush into abuse.
They are always the first direct aggressors.
We have followed the career of Mr. Fish-
er over the country, and in every instance
we have noted this. Now, after having
made a direct onslaught upon Mr. Fisher,
his reputation, the wares which he handles,
what do they expect him to do, to sit down
quietly and allow the abuse to be poured
upon him without retaliation ? That would
be hardly human, and Mr. Fisher's resources
in the matter of retaliation are fertile.
The dealers who have assailed and an-
tagonized him are marked men. Through
means known to himself, he procures a line
of instruments such as are handled by the
dealers who have made an attack upon
him. These he offers at ridiculously low
rates, quoting the figures at which the local
dealers have offered the pianos for sale and
his own prices side by side. He turns the
people against the local dealers by endea-
voring to show to the public that the men
who have attacked him are royal roasters.
The dealers' attack upon Mr. Fisher is
wrong, ridiculously wrong, and Mr. Fisher's
method of retaliation, in our opinion, is just
as unfair, and two wrongs never can make
a right.
Fisher's System.
His usual modus operandi is to write an
extended article in the columns of the daily
press, explaining the attack upon him,
quoting a portion of the verbiage used by
his competitors, and then he proceeds to
the laying out process. In his articles, he
quotes the figures at which certain lines of
instruments have been sold at locally, and
quotes his own prices of the same instru-
mentss,howing a seemingly abnormal profit
on the part of the local dealers. His articles
are calculated to show that dealers have
been making enormous profits upon the
Should Ignore Fisher.
sale of instruments. The whole trend of
The local dealers, instead of ignoring his arguments seems to us to have the effect
Mr. Fisher as they should, seem to feel it to destroy the confidence which, presum-
their duty to get together and form a com- ably, the purchasing public reposes in the
bination, and abuse him and his methods local dealers. His articles tend to throw
discredit in the minds of the public upon
in the columns of the local press.
Mr. Fisher is not pachydermic, and like the entire piano business. They have the
every other sensitive man resents this sort effect to make the people believe that they
of treatment. There is nothing which will have been systematically robbed in their
arouse the ire quicker than a stab from an dealings with piano men.
The impression which Mr. Fisher would
unseen foe who makes a thrust in the dark
seem to convey in his articles is erroneous.
and runs immediately under cover.
We have, on numerous occasions, coun- He cannot prove by past history that piano
seled the dealers to ignore the business ex- dealers' profits are abnormal. The piano
istence of Mr. Fisher, attend strictly to business is conducted upon lines which
their own affairs, and enlarge materially differ materially from those of any other
their advertising expenditures with the trade. The first profit is always reduced
local papers during Mr. Fisher's tarry in by subsequent expenses, and then if sold
on the installment plan, a long perio-
their midst.