Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
twelve days old is also valueless. It is be-
ginning to discriminate between the alert
searcher for news, the publi sher of facts, and
the blackmailer and the paste and pot man
who with ready scissors is ever appropriat-
ing news which his contemporaries have
secured and once served.
profit-sharing schemes that had come
under his observation had been that the
workmen worked harder and got less pay
in the long run than under the wage system.
He did not think the problem would be
solved in that way. He did not agree that
the wage earner should share in the losses
of the employer by submitting to lower
wages in bad times, saying that they had so
little now that they could not get along
with less. If an employer could not man-
age his business so as to pay fair wages, he
should get out of it and let some one else
run it. Throughout his statement Mr.
Gompers insisted upon the necessity for
organization among the laboring men.
Mr. Gompers justified the use of the
boycott as a perfectly legitimate weapon
in the hands of laboring men, declaring
that an organization had a right to do
what he had a right to do as an individual.
He had a perfect right to withhold his
patronage from whomsoever he pleased,
and he had a right to combine with others
to do the same thing.
A maximum work day of eight hours is
the goal towards which the Federation of
Labor is striving, and Mr. Gompers in-
sisted that it had been demonstrated that a
short day was better for the employer as
well as for the wage earner.
It will be some time before the average
employer will agree with the labor leader.
GOMPERS ON TRUSTS.
OAMUEL GOMPERS, president of the
American Federation of Labor, who
visited the Chicago piano manufacturers
in the interests of the locked out workmen,
talked recently of labor and trusts.
He thought the labor organizations
would be able to take care of themselves
in any contest with the trusts, and he
feared that any legislation that might be
enacted might be turned against organized
labor. He denied that organized labor
could properly be called a labor trust, and
he said that the attitude of organized labor
toward trusts and great industrial corpora-
tions would be largely determined by the
attitude of the trusts toward organized
labor.
It was too early to say whether the ten-
dency of trusts was to benefit labor or the
reverse. Thus far, in some instances, labor
in establishments taken into trusts had
been benefited, and in other cases it had
not. The most serious objection to trusts,
he said, was that they had endeavored to
control political affairs, to interfere with
the franchise and to unduly influence the
AFFECTING EASTERN TRADE.
judiciary.
ASTERN business is naturally feeling
the effects of the lockout in Chicago
Mr. Gompers declared that in the near
future it would be still more in the in the extraordinary demand for pianos.
power of organized labor to compel the It will be impossible to supply the call
trusts to deal fairly with labor than at for instruments with anything like promp-
present. He did attach much importance titude. It is useless to talk about it. Un-
to the alleged tendency of trusts to increase less conditions lighten up in Chicago very
prices, saying that the tendency of prices soon there will be a vast number of our
was always downward. There might be people who will be compelled to change
times such as the present when prices their original intentions of making pianos
would be forced upward by temporary for Christmas presents. They will wait
causes, like the scarcity of raw material or until the New Year.
an unusual demand, but the general trend
Another point too, all warerooms will be
was downward.
pretty thoroughly denuded of stock, so that
"As time goes on," said Mr. Gompers, the variety of instruments afforded to make
"the wage earners will get a larger share an ordinary selection will be materially
in the wealth which they produce. I have reduced. It will be a clean-up year, and
no fear for the future of organized labor, there will be much shop-worn stock dis-
and I have no fear for the future of labor." posed of before old Father Time rings
He said the world-long struggle between down the curtain on '99.
the employer and employed would go on.
The only question was whether it should
Lumber Still Advancing.
be carried on in an amicable way, each side
Lumber manufacturers, it is reported,
making concessions, or whether it was to have agreed upon a uniform mark-up in
be bitter and costly. He did not agree en- prices, taking effect at once. The advance
tirely with the declaration that the interests is 50 cents per thousand on some grades of
of the employer and the employed were dimensions and $1 a thousand on some
grades of uppers. Notice is given that all
identical, nor did he favor the profit-shar- grades not advanced now will be shortly,
ing system as opposed to the wage system, making a uniform advance of $1 per thou-
saying that his experience with all the sand all around on all grades.
Bankruptcy Law and Assign-
ments.
DEED OF GENERAL ASSIGNMENT HELD TO CON-
STITUTE AN ACT OF BANKRUPTCY.
Referee in Bankruptcy Nathan W. Little-
field, in the course of an address on the
National Bankruptcy Law, before the
Rhode Island Business Men's Association
recently, discussed the effect of the act
upon common law assignments, and pre-
sented some opinions which are of interest
to the entire business community. He said:
It has been held by the Supreme Court
of the United States that a deed of general
assigmnent for the benefit of creditors
constitutes in itself an act of bankruptcy
which authorizes an adjudication of invol-
untary bankruptcy under Section 3 of the
Act of 1898, entirely irrespective of act-
ual insolvency. Until this decision was
announced there was a little uncer-
tainty whether a general assignment for
the benefit of creditors, which was
made in good faith and free from fraud,
would be valid or not, inasmuch as
certain acts of a debtor which are declared
by section 3 of the Bankrupt act to be acts
of bankruptcy are only such when done
while the debtor is insolvent, but the
fourth clause of section 3 declares the mak-
ing of a general assignment for the benefit
of creditors to be an act of bankruptcy,
without any qualification as to insolvency,
and the decision of the Supreme Court is
in the line of what had been anticipated by
careful students of the Bankrupt act.
All property, therefore, of a debtor con-
veyed by a general assignment, if he be
proceeded against as a bankrupt within
four months of the recording of such a
conveyance, remains a part of the assets
and estate of the bankrupt, and passes to
his trustee, whose duty it is to recover and
reclaim the same by legal proceedings or
otherwise for the benefit of creditors.
In passing, it is well to note that the
effect of a general assignment at
the present time is to tie up all
the property and estate of a debtor for
four months after making such assign-
ment. It is not safe for an assignee under
such a deed to make a conveyance of any
of the property assigned to him, or pay
out any moneys for and on account of said
assignment, until after the time has elapsed
within which the deed may be set aside by
proceedings in bankruptcy. Moreover, it
has been held on high authority that per-
sons who have taken an active part in pro-
curing such a general assignment, and
even those who have received benefits
thereunder, are not estopped from joining
in a petition against the assignor under
the Bankrupt act. But there are authori-
ties to the contrary.
Massachusetts Now.
SINGLE-LINE MERCHANTS IN THE OLD BAY
STATE WANT LEGISLATION.
About fifty retail merchants of Massa-
chusetts, representing an association of
2,000, held a meeting on November 10th
for the purpose of considering an act to be
presented to the incoming Legislature for
the controlling of the traffic of department
stores in all the cities in the State. One of
the subjects under consideration was the
form of bill to be presented to this end.
Fred Schraudenbach, the Estey repre-
sentative in Morristown, N. J., during a
visit to The Review sanctum this week,
spoke enthusiastically about business con-
ditions in his section.