Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR •
• EDWARD LY.YIAN BILL-
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
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Entered at the Ifew York Post Office as Second Clasi Matter.
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 16, 1899.
TELBPHONE NUMBER, 1745-EIGHTEENTH STREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review wil)
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in a-iy way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
VICTORY^FOR THElviANUFAC-
TURERS.
T H E report of the State Board of Arbi-
tration of Illinois, together with its
recommendation for adjustment of differ-
ences which exist between the piano manu-
facturers of Chicago and their workmen,
is presented in another portion of this
paper. It is an interesting document,
temperate in tone, and constitutes virtu-
ally an unequivocal endorsement of the
position maintained by the piano manufac-
turers from the very inception of the labor
trouble. It shows up Mr. Dold, the union
agent, in rather an unfavorable light. He
had formally made the statement that he
would compel the attendance of piano
manufacturers as witnesses before the
State Board. It seems that he knowingly
passed a serious defect in his petition
which rendered the State Board powerless
in its efforts to insist upon the attendance
of manufacturers as witnesses.
Was not this precisely what Dold de-
sired ? At least we may so infer, for he
was thoroughly cognizant of the fact that
the law requires that the application for
arbitration should be signed by a majority
of the employees. In case of the Dold ap-
plication it was discovered that all the
names which were attached to the petition
bore the unmistakable imprint of being
written by the same man. When this was
discovered a suggestion was made to Mr.
Dold that a new application be made and
filled out as the law requires. This he de-
clined to do.
It is interesting to state in this connec-
tion that not only was Mr. Dold furnished
with a copy of the Arbitration law but care
was taken to inform him that the applica-
tion must be signed by a majority of the
employees.
It seems that Dold desired to be a sort
of imitation Aguinaldo in this and in other
matters.
The Board had no difficulty in learning
that the real cause of the trouble was the
refusal of the piano manufacturers to recog-
nize the union in the adjustment of differ-
ences with their men. For a long time
this distasteful draught has been offered to
manufacturers, some of whom have gulped
it down with obvious remonstrance.
The trouble last summer at Bush &
Gerts' factory began with the unwilling-
ness of Mr. Bush to deal with the union.
He said that he would meet a committee
composed of his own men but he would
not adjust matters with Chas. Dold, an
outsider.
Before the Board Mr. Dold waived all
demands of the recognition of the union
by employers. The report reads further:
"The manufacturers appear to have made
no objection to any proposition for an in-
crease of wages, but insisted upon dealing
directly with their own men in each par-
ticular instance instead of dealing with an
agent of the union who had never been
connected with any department of the
piano and organ trade, and who is alto-
gether without practical knowledge of the
business."
The entire findings of the Board must be
a severe blow to Dold and his backers, for
it should be understood up to the time of
the strike and lockout there had been no
discrimination made by piano manufactur-
ers between union and non-union men.
The refusal of the manufacturers to accede
to the demands of the union, that only men
belonging to that organization should be
employed, was virtually upheld by the
State Board, which makes no attempt to
recognize a wage-scale, but leaves that
matter to be adjusted between each indi-
vidual employer and his employees. The
Board states that the failure of Dold to
comply with the law in filing his applica-
tion does not make its actions legally
binding; all that they can do is to offer a
recommendation which amounts to the
strongest kind of endorsement of a position
taken from the first by manufacturers.
ployer meet a committee of his employees
and endeavor to settle such differences by
mutual agreement."
Now it remains to be seen whether Mr.
Chas. Dold, who by his leadership has
caused the men to lose nearly a quarter of
a million dollars in wages, will hold out
further in order to carry out his threat of
"getting even" with the manufacturers.
For he is said to have remarked 1 that he
would abide by the decision of the Board.
Here is an opportunity to prove the sin-
cerity of his purpose. The State Board of
Illinois certainly deserves the strongest
recommendation for its findings in this
matter. The whole document breathes of
a fairness of purpose and breadth of spirit,
and must certainly go far to establish in
the minds of the people that a State Board
of Arbitration may with safety be em-
powered with authority to act as arbitra-
tors in labor differences.
There is not a single line in the findings
which shows a desire to pander to the vote
of the labor element, a spirit which has
been plainly apparent in the courts of Chi-
cago, and elsewhere, we may add, for it
cannot be disputed that there arc a certain
number of our politicians who are always
trying to cater to the labor vote by pre-
tending to be its real friends, when, on the
contrary, they are its foes. No man would
be a better friend of labor than the up-
right, honorable and successful employer.
The piano manufacturers of Chicago
have shown their willingness to sustain
great losses for the maintenance of a prin-
ciple, the abandonment of which would
surely mean a deterioration of industry.
We incline to the opinion that the find-
ings of the State Board, the cold of De-
cember, the diminutiveness of the weekly
payment to men by the union, will quickly
bring them to their senses, and Dold will
have opportunity for solitary contempla-
tion of his gigantic self-conceit. He will
realize that he is not the only pure white
pebble on the labor beach.
GET TRADE.
J IVELY holidays—perhaps the liveliest
America has ever seen; every one is
busy. There is no department of this
industry that is not pulsing with life and
The first, second, third, fourth and fifth energy. Active men are more active, even
recommendations refer to the immediate the drones have some life, but after all,
resumption of work and that a legal day drones have no place in modern business.
shall consist of nine hours and that all of We have no use for drones at any time,
the employees be re-employed without less use for them now. The man who
discrimination.
figures that because he did so and so years
The solar plexus blow to the union ago with such and such results that he can
comes in in the fifth recommendation— do it to-day, is a back number, a drone,
" That in case of the difference involving shall we say ? There is yet time for him
a proposed increase of wages each em- to cast off the dronish ideas and inject in