Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
letter from the manufacturers of the roller
organs sent to one of the largest music
jobbing houses in the West, advising them
that they will be unable to supply them
with the roller organs of the style pre-
viously sold to them, inasmuch as they had
disposed of the entire output to the same
Chicago catalogue house who issues the
advertisements which we have quoted
above.
No interest to the music man in this, is
there?
The catalogue house is larger than the
music jobber and controls the entire fac-
tory output of a music specialty and still
some of our friends will assert we are en-
gaged in magnifying just a little trade in-
cident.
Wait uuti] the little thin cloud hardly
perceptible a year ago upon the trade hori-
zon develops into a regular tornado crush-
ing all before it.
This is a history making age and the
cloud is growing rapidly. The sky will
soon become overcast and what then?
How is the small dealer going to meet
a catalogue competition on a $98.50 and
no money down piano?
The catalogue man says next $74.50 just
as well.
The expenses incident to running the re-
tail piano business are out of all proportion
to the amount of business transacted.
The catalogue man ships his pianos di-
rect from the factory. He has cut expenses
to the smallest point possible, and can sell
his instruments still cheaper when he de
sires; but can the dealer?
Close students of the trend of trade in
this direction must admit that the note of
warning is timely.
As to the possible solution of this prob-
lem?
With this we shall deal later.
First to impress upon the industry the
necessity of an immediate choice between
enjoying a full meal to-day and a thin
diet for the succeeding days.
A capon-lined stomach Sunday, and a
water and cracker menu for remaining
days of the week.
In other words does a present success
outweigh a future failure?
TAXING INTELLIGENCE.
A T each session of Congress we are made
acquainted with the fool legislator—
the man who has a weakness for introduc-
ing unnecessary and harmful bills, or pro-
visions in them, destined to cause consid-
erable annoyance, hoping, no doubt, to
win in this connection some notoriety.
A case in point. The new postal code
which has passed the House of Represen-
tatives and is now before the Senate, con-
tains a provision requiring weekly periodi-
cals to pay from one to two cents postage on
every copy delivered through the mails to
a subscriber in the city in which the peri-
odical is published. If this provision
should be adopted it will cost more to send
The Review to a subscriber in this city
than to one living in any other part of the
United States or Canada—a truly anoma-
lous situation. It would, moreover, be in
the highest degree oppressive, for it would
in most cases add over a dollar a year—a
large percentage of the subscription price
—to the cost of circulating it.
On what principle of equity such a pro-
vision, either in the case of a weekly or a
monthly, is founded, we are at a loss to
understand. It certainly cannot be upon
the principle that the cost should be in
proportion to the amount of service, for
the delivery of a paper three thousand
miles from the place of publication in-
volves much more labor than the delivery
in the place of publication. Certainly the
character of the weekly journals of the
country calls for no repressive measure of
this kind, for most of them—nearly all that
would be affected by such a measure—are
of a distinctly educative character. Most
of the trade journals which are doing so
much to place the United States in the
front rank commercially and financially are
published weekly.
The measure viewed from any stand-
point is absurd and harmful. Should it
become a law it would affect the City of
New York to a far greater extent than any
other portion of the country, for this city
has become the great publishing centre.
Under the proposed change, the citizens
of New York City will have to pay from 52
cents to $1.04 a year more for their week-
ly publications than citizens who live in
any other part of the country or in Canada.
In other words, for such intelligence as
these journals convey — intelligence, in
many cases, not obtainable in the journals
published in any other city—there is a tax
of from 52 cents to $1.04 additional levied
upon the residents of New York City. It
is true the terms of the bill apply equally
to other cities: but the predominance of
New York City as a publishing center
makes the great burden of the tax fall
upon those resident here.
that once its attention has been drawn to
the matter, the sober second thought of
Congress will eliminate this most oppres-
sive and unnecessary provision."
THE PIAN0V0RKER.
IN his talk with The Review last week,
that clever piano maker, Paul G. Mehlin,
dicussed a topic which is worthy of further
exploitation, namely, the piano mechanic
of to-day as compared with the worker of
the earlier days of the industry.
"The mechanic who learned the trade
when I learned mine," says Mr. Mehlin,
"had to think and reason at every step.
He had to do it to get good results, and
good results were the only results wanted.
There was no market for any other kind.
The piano-making mechanic of to-day is
more automatic in his methods. He has
his thinking done for him and, as a rule,
he
keeps in
certain
well-defined
grooves and ruts. Unless he breaks
away from these ruts and grooves
his automatic life continues.
Hav-
ing once mastered work in some special,
but narrow field, there is no more neces-
sity for him to think. That kind of an ex-
istence pleases many because it is 'easy.'
But you can see the net result, can you not?
Instead of having an army of men thor-
oughly trained in every department of a
factory and who, therefore, have a fairly-
good all-round knowledge, you have an
army of men who can do this or do that,
and when 'this' or 'that' is done they are
at the end of their rope, using the phrase
in any sense you want."
This is a true and succinct review of a
situation too familiar to many manufac-
turers. It is because of these conditions
that it is so difficult nowadays to secure an
"all round" man competent to fill the post
of superintendent—a man not clever as a
regulator, a tuner, a casemaker—in other
words not a specialist, but a man who pos-
sesses a knowledge of all branches and
who can if necessary draw or improve a
scale.
In days agone a graduate of a factory,
if at all ambitious while learning his trade,
could fill with credit the post of superin-
tendent or scale architect. Place on one
side the piano men of the "old school" now
living and how many can you find among
the younger generation of workers equipped
The Funk & Wagnalls Co. are entitled to
to fill the bill?
the thanks of the profession for directing
The leaning toward specialism in all in-
attention to this dangerous clause in this
dustries is characteristic of the times—it
bill which should, and no doubt will, be
means, broadly speaking, quicker work and
strenuously opposed, for it is a tax on in-
dustry and intelligence. As Bradstreet's as far as it goes perhaps better work. But
well says: "The Weekly periodicals of the the men engaged in piano production are
country have never been so little deserving largely automatons. They are working
of such repressive, in some instances even out the ideas of a past generation,
prohibitive, treatment as now, and we hope and few are creating ideas for the future.