Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1903 Vol. 37 N. 20

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
8
REVIEW
Editor and Proprietor.
EDWARD LYMAN DILL.
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor.
EXECUTIVE STAFF:
THOS. CAMPBELL-COPELAND,
A. EDMUND HANSON,
GEO. B. KELLER,
A. J. NICKLIN,
REVIEW
It is well to arouse the industry once in a while, to stir it to its
depth regarding not only fake house sales, but to show up the meth-
ods of dealers who secure, by misrepresentation and by the employ-
ment of dishonorable methods, certain instruments carried by their
competitors which they offer at practically wholesale rates, thus try-
ing to discredit the instruments in the estimation of the community
wherein they had secured a solid footing. It is well, too, to stir up
the trade now and then upon the dishonorable and blackmailing tac-
tics adopted by certain sections of the trade press.
EMILIE FRANCES BAUER
GEO. W, QUERIPEL.
I T is also a good thing to remember, while we are heating the water
* to the boiling point, that methods which are dishonorable and
PHILADELPHIA OFFICE: R. W. KAUFFMAN.
disreputable alike to the industry and to the individuals engaged in
Published Every Saturday at 1 Madison Avenue, New York.
the various departments could not be long tolerated unless they re-
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
ceive substantial assistance in some form or other.
SUBSCRIPTION (including: postage), United States, Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per
year; all other countries, $4.00.
Now the people who conduct fake house sales receive their in-
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
struments not from dealers but from manufacturers. They make
matter, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be made payable to Edward
some sort of an arrangement so that instruments are shipped to them
Lyman Bill.
On the first Saturday of each month The Review contains in its
at certain points directly from factories.
THE ARTISTS' "Artists' Department" all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or service of the trade
Now, are not the men who are supplying these instruments as-
DEPARTMENT section of the paper. I t has a special circulation, and therefore aug-
ments materially the value of The Review to advertisers.
sisting in maintaining this sort of trade debasement which could not
The directory of piano manufacturing firms and corporations
f lmd
°
° n P 3 ^ ™ wSU b e ° f ***** ^^ ** * ICieTCa <* t0T ^;exist if the source of supplies were stopped ?
MANUFACTURERS
dealers and others.
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE-NUMBER 1745-EIGHTEENTH STREET.
- - As Jong as these nomadic house sale people, who fold their tents
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 14. 19O3.
as quietly as the Arabs and steal from place to place, can secure suf-
ficient stock to carry on their deceptive business, they will continue
it. Of course, the dealers, by carefully advising the people in their
EDITORIAL,
respective localities of the danger in purchasing from these irre-
sponsible people, can materially reduce their number of sales; but
OME of the pessimism and much of the depression noticeable in when we are denouncing the fakirs themselves, are we really striking
some quarters is due in a measure to the labor element which
at the root of the trouble ?
went wild in its attempt to control the country. The arbitrary and
A ND just the same will fittingly apply to the dealers who in some
unjust demands of labor retarded business development, delayed
•* *• way secure instruments regularly carried by their competitors
building operations, and made it impossible for vast building plans
and who offer them not only at cut-rate prices but speak of them in
to be carried out. This has had a marked effect upon the iron and
such terms of disparagement in their advertisements that the desire of
steel interests; and until this is righted, the building activity of the
killing their competitors' wares by dishonorable means is plainly
country will not return to normal conditions.
evident.
However, these general conditions in the stock market, in iron
Now, if the manufacturers refuse to sell such men their regular
and in steel and in labor must not be regarded from a pessimistic
stock and would cut them off entirely, that sort of business would
side. This country is all right.
soon cease. So, when we blame the dealer, are we really striking 1 at
It holds eighty millions of the most active, virile, vigorous, people
the root of the trouble? The manufacturers hold the key in their
on the face of the earth; and in ten years more, at the present rate of
own hands, but some of them figure their personal interests too great
increase, we will have passed the hundred million mark.
to step in and assume a positive stand as opposed to such methods
Plenty of good prospective business for piano men and any other
to the extent of losing an agent.
men who figure to take the fullest advantage of prosperity. The ad-
vancement of the country will go forward despite the fact that Wall
I T is practically the same with dishonest and blackmailing journal-
street may have a sudden and severe chill.
* ism. It could not exist if all the manufacturers should deter-
Every piano man should do his best to reap all the possible trade
mine to uproot it.
from the present conditions. He should quit talking depression, quit
A man who was shamefully abused may bring a suit against a
telling about that little cloud which he discovers on the business
disreputable trade publication; and yet, while he is making a fight
horizon. He then will be helping materially to maintain prosperity.
for trade decency and honor, there are other men who are steadily
BOSTON OFFICE :
W. MURDOCH LIND, 694 Tremont St.
CH1CAOO OFFICE:
E. P . VAN HARLINGEN, 36 La Salle St,
fake house sale scheme is just now being vigorously at-
tacked by the two trade associations and the trade press, and
without doubt the opposition will result in diminishing this illicit
traffic which has been going on to a considerable extent in many of
the cities throughout the land.
Trade sentiment will kill this kind of traffic, for such business
cannot be carried on when the entire spirit of the trade is aroused as
arepellant force.
_
. _ . „
. ._,_
pouring in to the treasury of the journal a fund which enables the
editor to carry on a business which is at once a menace and a threat
to business independence. It is one thing to pass resolutions con-
demning dishonest journalism and pledge an organization to the sup-
port of a member who has been abused through the holding of an
official position, and quite another to remove absolutely all patronage
from the abusive journal. Happily, some men are not lacking in
courage. _
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The facts are, that notwithstanding the prodigious advance
which we have made in almost every line during the past few years,
we have not wholly eliminated that inherent selfishness in human
nature.
Now the first step towards checking the corruption which
threatens the foundation of industry, trade or society must be the
general recognition of the need for a higher standard. It is all per-
fectly useless to tell about our exalted heights of idealism, which
are unexcelled in any part of the world, while in an underbreath cer-
tain elements in the industry are insincere in their utterances.
I T is true we are not only a practical but even a cynical people,
and we have grown somewhat calloused regarding the al-
legations of corruption which are said to exist in various cir-
cles. There are men who want to use dishonorable trade papers
as pawns in the industry's battle.
While trade conditions have materially bettered during the past
few years, their complete purification is still, to Ingallize, an irides-
cent dream.
There are many whose interests are directly affected, who are
at once indignant at the very existence of such conditions, but the
HERE is no question but that the one-price system is steadily
growing in this industry. It is becoming fully established
throughout the country, and its merits are now better recognized by
progressive piano men than ever before. There is, however, in the
management of some of the stores a constant temptation to deviate
from the fixed price.
Some men affirm that theoretically one price is all right, but
practically it does not work in a successful degree.
We have never known any one who has given the one-price sys-
tem a fair trial to abandon it. We know of some large concerns who
tell us frankly that they find it difficult to strictly adhere to one price
undeviatingly. They state that they feel justified in slashing prices
at times in order to make sales.
Last week a well known dealer in New England stated to us
that he had found the making of special prices really demoralizing
to his salesmen, destroying, as it did, their confidence in the instru-
ments which they offered for sale.
The man who not only talks one price, but sticks to it, is moving
along sound business lines. Deviation from fixed prices is a more
or less business weakness, and is apt to have an unhealthful effect
upon the concern adopting such methods.
lust for gain is not wholly extinguished, and some men are not just
A DISCREDITED local publication has recently issued a circu-
ready to make sacrifices which involve financial risk in order to con-
tribute their quota to the betterment of industry. The corruption
•* * lar letter to piano manufacturers asking their opinion regard-
ing what system of awards should be adopted at the St. Louis Expo-
microbe has crept in and permeated many departments of our indus-
sition-whether .or not the award system should be wholly abolished
and a number of other similar questions.
trial and political life.
As a matter of fact the entire system of awards has been definite-
l y URING the early fall of last year an alleged trade paper, filled \y decided upon, and whatever opinions piano manufacturers or other
*-^ with impetuousness, strenuousness, abusiveness and a few other
exhibitors should now express would not change the determination
choice ingredients, published an article which was exceedingly dis-
o f t h e Board of Directors of the World's Fair,
tasteful to Wm. Dalliba Dutton.
' 1 "'HEY have already settled upon the plan of awards. Every
After mature deliberation, Mr. Dutton concluded to bring suit
*
exhibitor must conform to those plans; and they would indeed
against the offending publication and its editor, naming the damages
show themselves to be vacillating in their opinions if they should at
at a hundred thousand. All legal formalities having been
this day decide to modify them materially. It is a bid for cheap notor-
complied with, the case was on the court calendar for an early ap-
iety on the part of the editor of the discredited publication—the same
pearance in November. At the end of last week the offending paper
one, by the way, who endeavored to play such a peculiar part at the
discovered, after a year's close research, that Mr. Dutton is flawless,
Chicago Fair.
and that the editor did not intend in any way to "make any attack
Some piano manufacturers have already received notice of allot-
whatsoever upon Mr. Dutton's honor as a gentleman." The editor
ment of their space, and there will be enough participants in the
calmly regales himself upon a dish of crow, and the bird of ebony
music trade section to make it thoroughly representative in character.
hue seems a keen relish for him, for he devours it with much gusto.
The chief of the Liberal Arts Department, Col. J. A. Ockerson,
has been anxious to interest piano men, and he also is determined
T is not stated in this "cheerful retraction" what other considera-
I
tions brought about the change of heart in the editor, but mistakes
of that character which require such minute professional investiga-
tion usually are expensive ones; and in this case, as in the Steinert
one of days agone, the editor has discovered, no doubt, that a truth
which takes a year's work to establish is an expensive appendage to
a newspaper business. It is a truth which cannot be found on the
bargain counter. However, the suit is settled out of court, and the
terms are satisfactory to the parties most interested.
It was believed by many in the industry who are familiar with
the record of the editor that he would never permit the case to come
to trial, particularly when the evidence seemingly was so strong
against him. He swallowed the crow, bones and all, and it was a
dainty dish when compared with the repast furnished by Victor
Herbert.
that only those who take part in the exposition shall reap any reward
through the musical entertainments, which, by the way, are being
planned on an extensive scale. As first announced in The Review,
no pianos will be permitted on the concert platform save those which
are represented in the Liberal Arts Department.
'"T"*HE piano man who reduces his fire insurance because he has to
*
pay more for such protection is pursuing an extremely dan-
gerous policy.
It is true, fire insurance rates have gone up materially—some
think to an excessive point. But, then, it is well to bear in mind the
marked increase in the cost of building.
A contemplation of the facts in the insurance proposition and of
the changed conditions should not cause the wise men to reduce their
insurance.

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