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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
.EDWARD LYMAN
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
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be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, JANUARY 14, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745-EIQHTEENTH STREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review will
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review wil!
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
44
LEST WE FORGET."
'"THE topic of trusts is the most absorb-
ing- one of the hour and undoubtedly
it will continue to attract and hold the at-
tention of thoughtful and earnest men for
a long period to come. With the trust, to
use the Clevelandesque phrase, it is not a
theory but a condition that confronts us.
Trusts would not exist without reason and
the reason primarily is human greed.
They had their origin in the desire to ab-
sorb everything in special lines. The
scheme worked successfully in some lines
and it spread to others. The trust idea is
much misunderstood, as many seem to
think that the hour they sign a trust con-
tract there begins a business life from which
all care is forever removed. They have that
satisfying belief that they will be taken care
of, never going below the surface to make
a few explorations of the pit into which
they propose to plunge.
The founders and promoters of trusts
are not noted for their" philanthropy and
fraternal feeling. They are, in the main,
cold-blooded manipulators of schemes.
They throw out alluring baits, a bewilder-
ing mass of prepared statistics, a confused
and misleading lot of documents, which
upon the surface look promising enough
surely. But the result—that is the point.
A lot of watered stock, big commissions
for the promoters, and the manufacturer
who only a short time before was indepen-
dent finds that he has sold his birthright
for a mess of trust pottage.
He finds that the men who urged him
to pool his interests in a trust combination
are indifferent to his situation when he no
longer cuts an appreciable figure as an op-
position power.
The speculators, the smooth manipula-
tors, have control and rest assured they
will be in the saddle if it is worth their
while to remain, if not they toss the rem-
nants aside like a sucked orange and look
about for more tempting bait.
Statistics show that six-tenths of the
trusts formed have gone to pieces, or, at
least, the original stock-holders lost all,
but the promoters had their commissions
drawn out before the collapse. - There
must be reason for these failures and in
our opinion the basic reason is that the
form of absolutism or imperialism, which is
the true character of the trust, is at entire
variance with American institutions. With
such imperialism, Republicanism is relent-
lessly at war. They are absolute contradic-
tions, the one being the negation of the other.
When any set of promoters undertake to
unite these antagonistic elements, there
must arise opposition which will refuse to
be lulled to rest. That opposition will
grow, it cannot be otherwise, as there are
some things which are repugnant to our
form of government. Even the matchless
oratory of Calhoun which won against the
calm logic of Webster in the Senate, could
not stem the irresistible tide of public
opinion which was setting against him. So,
too, the smooth argument of the trust
promoter may win temporarily, but in the
distance there are obstacles which it were
well to consider before the final step is
taken.
_; •
••
If we believed that a trust formed upon
lines similar to those operative in other in-
dustries would be of financial benefit to
the manufacturers of. our own trade we
should not advise them against it. We
should not perhaps at this time discuss the
other, the broader side, which will be a
future issue in our form of government.
We should possibly be inclined to say,
let those who are to follow us solve the
complex social and economic problems of
the days to come as we have solved those
in our time. But we believe that its pro-
moters only would profit.
connected with them. It defines a trust as
a combination of capital, skill or acts by
persons or corporations for this purpose:
To create or carry out restriction of trade,
to limit or reduce production, or increase
or reduce the price of merchandise or any
commodity, to prevent competition in
making transportation, sale, or purchase
of merchandise produced, or any commod-
ity, to fix any standard whereby the price
of merchandise shall in any way be con-
trolled or established.
This move in New Jersey is unquestion-
ably the inceptive move of many which
will appear during the present year. As
we have stated, the trust feature as it
stands to-day is obnoxious in the senti-
ment of our people, and whether it only
marks a stepping-stone to higher things
the future alone will tell, but that it will
exist as it exists to-day many of the great-
est philosophers of the day are not inclined
to believe.
There is an opportunity for a certain
kind of trust in this industry. A trust
founded upon principles to uphold the
right and condemn the wrong. A trust
which shall support the righteous weak
and uproot the deceitful strong. A trust
which shall stand for an industrial brother-
hood and not a speculative octopus. That
trust will be the logical outcome of a de-
sire to progress and to elevate and not to
destroy and enslave.
That trust will come when the members
of the industry gather of their own accord
to discuss trade betterments.
It will come as the honest outcome
of industrial expansion. It will not have
its origin in the brain of grasping specu-
lators whose commissions alone would
amount to more than the legitimate earn-
ings of a combination in a year, even if
successful.
Who pays these commissions? The con-
sumer?
No, the honest manufacturer who enters
the trust snare, which is baited with
an alluring attraction. The glamour of
gold is strong but it should not overpower
good, honest common sense.
" Lest we forget."
We believe that the shores of the trust
sea would be whitened with the bleaching
bones of one more wreck—the Piano Trust.
DEPARTMENT STORE PIANOS.
A straw which shows which way the I T may interest many of our readers to
trust wind is blowing may be seen in the
know that The Review has visited the
recent move in New Jersey, the state department stores of our city during- the
which has been properly termed the home past week for the sole purpose of examining
of trusts, towards taking positive action the pianos contained therein in a compara-
against trust operations. A bill will be tive sense with those on sale in exclusive
presented to the New Jersey Legislature piano stores.
defining trusts and providing for penalties,
It is a fact that all of the instruments in-
civil damages and punishments of corpora- spected were sadly out of tune, the keys
tions, firms and associations, or persons rattled, and as a whole they made up a