Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
There are plenty of ways, if the aver-
age piano merchant adopt them, which will
result in a building up of public confidence
and esteem in his establishment, and the one-
price system will cause the cheap piano to
be sold at its proper price and thus the line of
demarcation between the cheap and the bet-
ter grades will become more distinct.
Confidence after all is the mainstay of all
business, and the communications which we
have been receiving from piano merchants,
upon the subject of fixity of price, show
plainly that they themselves do not believe
the general public possess the confidence
which it is desirable to hold, in the prices
asked at the average piano stores. They
frankly admit that one of the great deterring
influences in popularizing the piano business
with the public, has been its well-known elas-
ticity of prices which has prevailed to an
alarming extent for a long term of years.
The subject is growing exceedingly inter-
esting, and the special contributions to the
Prize Contest which we have been present-
ing should be read by every dealer, also the
opinions of many dealers presented weekly
in The Review serve to make the subject full
of live and continued interest.
THE PROMOTER'S PREDICAMENT.
The chilling effect
'"THE suggestion of
of the forfeit propo-
The Review that
sition upon the pro-
moter — [ H i s p l a n s
a cash forfeit be de-
completely routed—
The break in his pro-
demanded when a piano
gram—A hopeless tan-
gle.
plant option was de-
sired, in the event of its not being taken up,
has had a decidedly chilling effect upon
the work of the special trust envoy among
the piano manufacturers. Every manufac-
turer should insist upon this when a prop-
osition is made to him and an option re-
quested upon his plant. It is the quickest
and surest way to make the promoter show
his hand and, at the same time, his strength
and his financial backing.
In other words, his bluff is immediately
revealed. His alleged gigantic support
dwindles into an incoherent mass of mean-
ingless phrases calculated to confuse, but
which amount to nothing more than an eva-
sion of the subject.
That trade interest in the proposed piano
trust scheme is diminishing is evident to all.
Some weeks ago, when interest was at
the high water mark, the promoter was
over-jubilant, but, like other men with schem-
ing proclivities, he has witnessed the defeat
of his finely drawn plans which have been
completely shattered.
It required considerable time for him to
recuperate from the severe shock which he
encountered when the New Yorker who pro-
posed to underwrite the original plan turned
it down with an unmistakably heavy thud.
He has been endeavoring to get his forces
together after their rout, but, at the present
time, has not succeeded in making a formid-
able showing.
It is said that he grew black in the face
when he perused the suggestion of The
Review, that all manufacturers demand the
putting up of a cash forfeit in some bank
when an option on their business was de-
sired.
Take it all in all, June and July have not
been especially enjoyable months for the
promoter, who has witnessed the evolving
of his schemes into an almost hopeless tan-
gle.
He is beginning to think that he knows
really as much about forming a piano
trust as a brewery mule knows about trigo-
nometry.
In fact, his present condition of mental
doubt and financial hope reminds us of the
far-famed omithorhynchus which dies with-
out finding out whether it was born a duck
or a musk rat.
CONDITION OF TRADE*
TTHE decapitation of
Trade has kept up
notwithstanding
business is antici-
strikes and lack of
rain—Hope that labor
pated in the piano line
troubles may be ad-
during the summer
justed—No stock ac-
cumulation.
months; but the head
of the piano industry has not rolled into the
basket of business stagnancy as yet, although
we have passed mid-summer.
It is amazing how the demand for pianos
has continued with such frequency upon the
manufacturers' resources, and there has been
but little accumulation of stock for the fall
trade, which is sure to come in on the early
tide and remain with us for a long time.
Notwithstanding the rather discouraging
crop report which we get from the central
West, and the alarming possibilities of the
strike now under way, business still "keeps
up," to use the colloquial term.
It is to be hoped that some sort of an
adjustment will be made between the in-
terests involved in the Steel Trust, where
the leaders desire to suspend the labor of
hundreds of thousands of workmen, not
because wages are too low—not because
operatives are unfairly treated—but simply
because some of the plants that have come
under the control of the Steel Trust are still,
as they have always been, operated by non-
union labor, which employers decline to co-
erce into the union.
A general strike in the most important
manufacturing industry in this great coun-
try for such a cause as this appears pre-
posterous, and unprejudiced sentiment will
naturally range itself on the side of capital,
no matter how great the, sympathy with labor
in the abstract.
If the strike should assume the propor-
tions which those who are responsible for
it desire, the loss inflicted on the country
will be enormous.
The retail piano dealer will be one of the
first sufferers in the districts immediately
affected by the strike; he will not only lose
many "prospects," but it will be manifestly
impossible for his constituency to get in
sight of installment payments, provided a
general strike occurs.
The baleful influences will spread in ever-
widening circles. There surely ought to be
some method of preventing this suicidal and
fratricidal course—some method of control-
ling these unsafe guides who are them-
selves ignorant of the road.
Why should manufacturers and dealers
be constantly at the mercy of irresponsible
labor leaders?
The evil is not beyond remedy—by leg-
islation which shall embody justice to all.
A DESIRABLE~COMBINATION.
DEFERRING to a
Character and dol-
lars—Where the love
notorious
music
of money carries some
—Notable examples of
trade editor, whose al-
men who have not
leged retirement has
viewed life from the
dollar standpoint.
been the subject of con-
siderable jollying in trade circles, a member
of the trade remarked the other day: "Well,
no matter what methods he adopted, no mat-
ter how many people he has roasted, he has
succeeded. And that is what we are all in
the race for—to win success no matter what
the cost." Then and there we expressed
ourselves in strong terms of disagreement
with the expression quoted above.
It is
true, the world is too prone to judge success
in life from the money standpoint, but, as
a matter of fact, the desire to make money
is not the dominating thought in human
makeup. There are plenty of men who fig-
ure that character is much preferable to win
in the battle of life than mere dollars. It
is also true there are men, like the alleged
ex-music trade editor, without intellectual or
sentimental aspirations, who are moved en-
tirely by egotism and the desire to win dol-
lars, irrespective of the methods employed.
The alleged ex-music trade editor desires suc-
cess because success flatters his insufferable
vanity, and the roasting which he has done
is simply an incident in his career to win
money to satisfy personal vanity. It is pre-
cisely the same method employed by the
highwayman who holds up his fellow men
simply because he desires money and it is
the easiest way for him to achieve success.
Truly great men have had higher dreams
in life than simply money getting. Glad-
stone was Prime Minister five times and
could have made a very large fortune with
perfect ease, but he died poor. Jefferson im-
poverished himself serving his country.
There are plenty of men in public life to-day
who do not make money their god. There