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THE
REVIEW
EDWARD
LYMAN
BILL,
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
J. B. S P I L L A N E , MANAGING EDITOR
EXECUTIVE STAFF ;
THOS. CAMPBELL-COPELAND
WALDO E. LADD
GEO. B. KELLER
EMILIE FRANCES BAUER
GEO. W. QUER1PEL
A. J. NTCKL1N
* Published Every Saturday at I Madison Avenue, New York.*
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year; all other countries, ?4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per Insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00 ; opposite
reading matter, $75.00..
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, MARCH 21, J903.
TELEPHONE NUHBER, 1745-EIdHTEENTH STREET.
THE
ARTISTS'
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains in tts
"Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is
effected without In any way trespassing on the size or service
DEPARTMENT of the trade section of the paper. It has a special circulation, and
therefore augments materially the value of The Review to advertisers.
tributed over a large surface. A chain is no stronger than its weak-
est link, and when there is an unlooked-for strain, it doesn't take
long to locate the weakest point.
IN trade circles in New York and Chicago there is a clearly de-
* fined belief that possible labor troubles may come with the ad-
vent of May. Organized labor in all parts of the country is be-
coming so dictatorial in its demands that there must be a read-
justment of the relations existing between employer and employee,
or many institutions will close up for an indefinite period.
One prominent Chicago manufacturer when recently discuss-
ing these conditions with The Review said:
"So long as unions have no legal responsibility, and so long
as their representatives may commit acts of violence which go un-
punished, conditions must, to a certain extent, be unsettled and I
think the best way to settle them would be an absolute refusal on
the part of manufacturers to meet the dictatorial requests of labor
leaders. One thing that will break their clutch upon the industry
at the present time will be a return of the hard times, then they
will realize that they played to the limit."
S long as organized labor permits crimes to be committed in
its name, and the perpetrators go unpunished, so long will
The directory of piano manufacturing firms and corpora
DIRECTORY
tlons found on page 27 will be of great value as a reference for
OF P I A N O
it be unpopular with the masses of Americans, who, while they
MANUFACTURERS
sympathize with oppressed labor do not sympathize with men who
commit crimes in the name of the organization. Organized labor
EDITORIAL
invariably assumes to speak for the entire body of wage earners,
and treats non-union labor as a trifling minority which has no right
to imperil what the great body of their fellow workers regard as
F^ROBABLY under the stimulating influence of warmer weather
for their good.
*
trade conditions will improve materially. But thus far in
Now, while we hear so much of organized labor, is it not a
the new year retail trade has not been up to the expectation of
many, and there is a marked tendency on the part of some mem- fact that organized labor is a small part of the working forces in
what are called organizable industries? And these constitute but
bers of the trade to go a trifle slow.
a part of the whole working population—that is, the whole num-
Of course reasonable conservatism is at all times desirable,
ber of persons engaged in working for their livings.
but now there are no signs of anything suggesting a panic and
the commercial sky is unusually clear, therefore there is no basis for
I NFORMATION has been refused by different organizations as
pessimistic theories and no well-grounded reason for believing that
* to their numbers, but some statisticians who have gone into the
spring trade will be quiet. General conditions are favorable, and
matter as carefully as they could, have come to the conclusion that
personally, we incline to the belief that the fear of impending labor
numerically labor unions are far from being as formidable as they
troubles is influencing general business in a way which is not par- pretend to be.
ticularly helpful.
In Europe, and England particularly, the labor organizations
Labor troubles there may be, but there probably never was
a period when the prospects for an active spring, not to speak of
an advancing market in prices, were so flattering as is the case at
the present.
I T is rather surprising when we study these conditions that the
*• conservative element in our trade should be steadily gaining.
After all, it is not a bad indication, for it eliminates the danger
which comes from overstocking. There is to-day no congestion
of manufactured goods in any part of the country, and while pur-
chases have unmistakably slowed down, there is no reason to doubt
that spring trade will be satisfactory.
One result of conservatism will be increased financial stability.
The inclination of some piano men is to do too much business on
too limited an amount of capital. Now, if there is going to be a
tightening up of times, it is better to have that strength which
comes from concentration than to have the resources thinlv dis-
A
have gone squarely on record as opposing labor-saving machinery.
Now, the American is too wise to attempt anything like a system-
atic and organized opposition to labor-saving machinery. He rec-
ognizes that machinery is a necessity of modern industry, and has
observed that in some mysterious way, it increases the demand
for labor to a far greater extent than it displaces it.
T AST week while discussing business matters with The Review
-•—' Louis F. Geissler, of that great Pacific Coast house, Sherman,
Clay & Co., heartily endorsed the utterances of this trade news-
paper that the up-to-date piano man should have his complete line
from the cheapest to the highest grade of instruments, each sold
in the proper class, and the price of each marked in plain figures.
The house of Sherman, Clay & Co. was the first institution
in the far West to adopt the plan of having all instruments marked
in plain figures, and it is a policy which has resulted in a most
satisfactory manner in extending confidence in the firm.