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fHE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
.EDWARD LYMAN BILL-
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
~~
3 East 14th St., New York
~~
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be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the JVew York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, JUNE 17, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745-EIGHTEENTH 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 will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
FINANCIAL THOUGHTS.
of the last closing acts in the drama
enacted in Dolgeville was the filing
this week of a judgment against Alfred
Dolge by Mrs. Katie Sid well for nearly
$254,000. This vast amount represented
money loaned.
While our sympathies spontaneously go
out to those who are in financial trouble,
we, however, infrequently look upon the
other side. We seldom stop to think of
the great losses and possible suffering
wrought upon creditors by the failure of
great industrial institutions. But it is cus-
tomary in nearly all cases to sympathize
with the men at the head of business con-
cerns which have encountered financial
disaster. In the case of Mrs. Sidwell it
seems almost incredible that anyone
should have placed such an enormous sum
of money in a single enterprise, particu-
larly when that money represented practi-
cally her entire fortune.
Doubtless many of the creditors who
met at the Hotel Metropole to hear the
receiver's report of the condition of the
Dolge affairs will recall the presence there
of a sad-faced woman, who, it could be
plainly seen was suffering intense mental
anguish. That woman was Mrs. Sidwell,
who had placed her fortune in the Dolge
enterprises. At that time she had but a
faint idea of how severe her loss would be.
Few of those present, too, believed that
she had poured over a quarter of a million
dollars into the Dolge undertakings.
How little, after all, is known by invest-
ors of the inner conditions of those schemes
in which they make large investments.
They are frequently attracted by the
promise of liberal remunerations in the
way of interests and by the splendid
annual percentages of profit on the dollars
placed in this or that enterprise.
Following out the same line of thought,
how little the people know of the inner
rottenness and the over-capitalization of
the industrial schemes which are being or-
ganized and floated to-day.
The public is invited to buy shares, and
there is hardly an industrial combination
to-day listed upon the market but that in-
cludes in its directorate some of the best
known names in political, financial and in-
dustrial life. These names are used in-
variably for the purpose of gaining the
confidence of the people.
Men of high standing too frequently lend
their names to figure in the directorate of
new concerns as a drawing card when they
really have no knowledge of the actual
standing of the company.
If we scan the papers containing a great
many of our new organizations we will
find that some of the names appear as di-
rectors in more than a dozen newly found-
ed corporations. Now it is manifestly
impossible that these men should have an
intimate knowledge of the affairs of each
corporation. These names in many in-
stances are nothing more or less than stool
pigeons, used for the purpose of attracting
the public and attempting to win its con-
fidence by the association in their enter-
prise of names which are familiar to the
average citizen—names too, which belong
to men who have won public esteem
and respect. When the concerns go to
smash, the stool pigeon directors immedi-
ately protest that they never knew really
anything about the company's affairs, and
still they permit their names to be used in
a dishonest way, themselves receiving di-
rectors' pay for the use of their names, and
at the same time they are notoriously free
from responsibility.
This we have seen in the failure of sev-
eral combinations where the directors even
permitted false statements to be made,
padded accounts to be submitted to the
banks in order to borrow more money, and
still when it came down to a matter before
the court, they metaphorically threw up
both hands and protested innocence in the
whole business detail of the organization
with which their names were associa-
ted.
It would seem to us that the tremendous
over-capitalization of many of our new
trusts, and their almost impossible chances
of success, will result in such bitterness
on the part of the investing public that
our laws will shortly undergo a complete
revision as affecting the liability of direc-
tors.
There are more than five hundred incor-
porated trusts in the United States with a
capitalization of nearly $8,000,000,000, and
according to expert testimony, their actual
value is probably less than $3,000,000,000.
Now, how all these organizations are going
to pay dividends on this frightfully over-
capitalized stock is a problem which is not
clear to most of us.
It would seem that the liability of direct-
ors will be a live issue in this country be-
fore long. In fact the whole trust scheme
in all its varied ramifications is the one
dominating and important one in indus-
trial America to-day.
According to some of the most eminent
economic thinkers the trusts are gigantic
mushrooms not substantial monopolies.
The trust craze will subside materially in
the near future, but in this work of de-
molition will be left the wrecks of thous-
ands of individual fortunes and personal
business enterprises.
Manufacturers in all lines are still being
hounded by the ever present promoter who
is looking for fat emoluments in the way
of cash and stock.
To show what tremendous attractions the
trusts possess for promoters we may men-
tion five million dollars of common stock
of the Republic Iron & Steel Co. is said
to have been issued to the promoters of
that gigantic enterprise.
Small wonder when we study these and
other figures that the piano industry should
have possessed a large attraction not only
for those in the industry, but many outside
of it as well. It seems a strange fatality
almost, when we look upon the trust
scheme as associated with this industry,
that the man whose-name was first associ-
ated with the trust movement in the piano
trade should now be propertyless and his
industry in the control of a trust, the only
one formed thus far which has the slight-
est effect upon the piano and allied trades.
AGAIN CATALOGUE COMPETITION.
\ X / E have heard many complaints from
music dealers located in small towns
and cities throughout the great Central
West, anent what they term catalogue
competition.
By catalogue competition they mean
competition of such concerns as Sears,
Roebuck & Co., Montgomery, Ward &
Co., and others who obtain the lists of
names of well-to-do farmers and residents
from local authorities, and then to each
one of the names send a catalogue con-
taining illustrations of almost everything
from a paper of needles to an automobile,