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THE MUSIC TRADE
business. Many of these dealers have gone on record as saying that
no piano merchant who does not carry a leading player is overlook-
ing a rare opportunity to build a business which cannot only be made
a paying investment, but a valuable auxiliary to his regular line.
I T OW times and conditions have changed! How methods of
REVIEW
sign of mental or physical decay. A man who might be indispens-
able is the fellow who is always trying to do it better, and we war-
rant that man never figures himself the indispensable to any enter-
prise. To use the word originated by Devery and now incorporated
in a standard dictionary—he is not chesty.
* * conducting business are ever being transformed ! It was not
' I ''HE South, like the far West, is destined to become an im-
many decades ago, when men at the head of enterprises, which were
mensely profitable territory for piano manufacturers and
great in those early days, attended to all their personal correspon-
dealers the coming winter.
dence. It was only recently that we saw a letter written by Jacob
Orleans piano man, when in The Review sanctum last week, spoke
Estey, founder of the Estey dynasty, as well as an invoice made out
enthusiastically of the great possibilities of the South as revealed
in his own hand.
in its present prosperity. His optimistic predictions are not more
Philip Werlein, the well known New
It was the custom of manufacturers in those days to look after
striking and significant than the survey of Southern prosperity and
all the details of their business personally: write their own letters,
growth made by Richard H. Edmonds, editor of the Baltimore
and, if possible, talk with every customer. They did not see how
Manufacturers' Record, the recognized exponent of the material in-
they could afford to reject the thought of attending to all and any
terests of the South. He estimates the value of this year's cotton
of these details, but now everything is departmeijtized. Very few
crop at $600,000,000, or about $50,000,000 more than the average
communications are even read, or dictated by the heads of institu-
value of the last four years' yield. "The development of the cotton
tions. They are trusted entirely to subordinates.
mill industry in the South," he says, "has been so great that South-
A T present the most successful business men are those who dis-
cover the secret of rejecting minor things, leaving them to
others, while they themselves devote their whole energy to the most
important matters. In other words, map out a campaign leaving
to their lieutenants the active details connected therewith. By this
plan they are enabled to focus their brain power on the leading
features of the business, greater progress is made and danger sig-
ern mills are now consuming more than New England mills, and
of the coming crop Southern mills will take considerably more than
two million bales. In turning this into manufactured goods they
will increase its value over that of the raw material by nearly two
hundred million dollars. The value of the cotton seed mill products
will add another hundred millions.
"So the South ivill have poured into it, this year, entirely
from other sections and other countries, for cotton and its
nals are less likely not to be ignored.
It was only recently that while conversing with a prominent
products probably nine hundred million dollars, a sum un-
younger member of the Western trade that he remarked that he had
precedented in its history, and a far larger sum than any
discharged certain members of his staff and intended to take on the
one crop has ever brought from outside into any one sec-
work himself. Later he saw the folly of this and abandoned the
tion of the country."
plan, saying that he could better employ men to attend to details
than to wear himself out in following that line.
it is systematic work, concentrative effort.
We are
becoming greater specialists every day and no man can be a
successful specialist and attend to all the ramifications of his busi-
ness. Even those who take up law now say that they must specialize.
They must reject all, save real estate, or corporation law, or crim-
inal law, and in consequence they become lawyers of note in their
respective fields.
Men who enter the commercial field to-day should have but
one ambition, and make the work which they undertake their con-
stant study.
F
REQUENTLY we hear that such a man is "indispensable" to
the success of some business enterprise. And occasionally
statements are made that this or that man made such an institution.
We have fallen into that habit of thinking that a man is indis-
pensable whether his indispensability is of a fixed character or not,
and men are apt to be inflated by a measure of temporary accom-
plishment and come to regard themselves, to use the colloquial
expression, as "the whole thing."
Now it isn't a wise plan for any man to run away with the fool
notion that he is indispensable to the success of anything; no level-
headed man does that, for when a man reaches that point it is a sure
\ \ 7 ITH this splendid cotton showing is reported the largest
grain crop the South has raised for many years, if not the
largest in its history. The value of the products of Southern farms
is estimated at not less than $1,500,000,000.
The marvelous material advance of the South is shown by the
fact that while its population has increased 50 per cent, since 1880,
its agricultural products have increased 150 per cent, in value, its
pig iron production from 400,000 to more than 3,000,000 tons, its
coal output from 6,000,000 to more than 60,000,000 tons, its foreign
exports from $260,000,000 to $510,000,000 and its railway trackage
from 20,600 to 60,000 miles.
"With the phenomenal prosperity which will this year follow
the great incomes from its cotton," continues Mr. Edmonds, "and
starting with all that has been accomplished in the accumulation of
wealth and experience, it is entirely safe to say that the South will
make more progress during the next ten years than it has made dur-
ing the last twenty."
OLLECTIONS at present are slow, and perhaps it would
be nearer to the truth to say, extremely slow. But there is
every indication that money affairs will be materially bettered
within the next few days. The demand which is coming in to
manufacturers gives evidence of a quickening business throughout
the country, and the desire on the part of merchants to be in good
shape for the fall trade.