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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
it is also looked upon as a good place to avoid by the general public.
It is better for the piano manufacturer and piano merchant that
this view is becoming more general, and no longer does the great
West await with fear and trembling the latest reports from the citadel
of stock speculation. The doings of "the Street" do not interest
them to the same extent as of yore. The business atmosphere has
been purified by its removal from a gambling influence.
I
T is a good thing for the country that the gambling spirit is in its
decadence. It means that more energy will be placed upon the
upbuilding of regular industries and that our young men will not be
deluded by the "get rich quick" schemes which have their origin in
Wall street. Gambling young men seldom accumulate.
Their minds are not upon their work and in the fierce compe-
tition of to-day it requires the closest application to succeed.
T
H E men in this industry did not win easily. They were not
constantly leaving their posts to consult the nearest stock
ticker.
Ask Conway, who has fought his way up from the ranks, how
much time he ever gave to studying stock reports from the Street.
The reports in which he was interested were the reports from the
crop centers, the lumber, the steel, the iron markets, all of which had
a direct interest upon his own business. Those reports fascinated
him, and he was educating his brain to think and think quickly. He
was not nursing the thought that he might have made a much
brighter success in some other profession, but he was planning to
make the most out of his present environment. He was not de-
ceiving himself as to conditions, but was concentrating his energies
upon the accomplishment of certain definite aims.
M
ANY a man thinks that he is tied to a routine grind which
allows no time for his development, and that is the kind of
man who never gets above routine work. He never broadens, and
all the while the world of business is expanding and he wonders why
he doesn't grow with it. The explanation is easy. He is satisfied to
drift with the tide. He has mapped out no definite plan and lives
in a sort of a comatose state, now and then wondering why some one
of the many good things that he knows are going around does not
come his way.
Now experience teaches us that we have no limitations. We
can accomplish the seemingly impossible if we will. We can go as
far as we attempt to go.
MAN is always conquering or being conquered. If he does only
the things that he has learned to do, and can do without effort,
he is conquered. If he constantly accepts new responsibilities and
attempts new ieats he is forever conquering, and the strength from
each victory gives new strength for the next combat.
A young man wanted to study the political methods of one of our
statesmen. He made application for the position of private secretary.
"Will you be able to read my proofs ?" asked the politician.
"Yes," promptly responded the man.
"Then the position is yours. You are the first one of twenty
applicants who could undertake proof reading."
The young man had never seen a proof character; but he went
straight to the public library and searched out the needed information.
He sat up all night studying the meaning of each character; and the
next morning he went to the shop of a printer and borrowed some
galleys to practice on. He read proof so assiduously for the next few
days that when he entered upon active service he was able to handle
the work in a perfectly satisfactory manner. He had filled the order,
that was all.
The other nineteen applicants are probably still fitting their
known abilities to positions which require no additional resources,
no unexpected orders.
A
H E N the remains of P. J. Gildemeester, accompanied by his
widow and son reached Chicago on the long journey from
San Francisco, they were met by a delegation from the Chicago
Music Trade Association who did what lay in their power for the
comfort of the grief stricken family, and saw them safely on their
way through the city to the Eastern Seaboard.
Such an act demonstrates more forcibly than any beautifully
worded resolution the sympathetic feelings of the West. When in
W
9
this busy workaday world men leave business cares to alleviate
the sorrow and attend to the comfort of others, it is indeed worthy
of praise. It is touching—their tribute was sincere and poor dead
Gildemeester was not a manufacturer—but he was a comrade.
F
OR years past in these columns, we have been advocating the
value of "team work" in the piano trade—in other words the
inauguration of the committee system, whereby the heads of the dif-
ferent departments meet at stated periods for the purpose of consult-
ing ways and means for the betterment of the business of the house
where they are employed.
Wherever this plan or system has been tried it has been tre-
mendously successful. A splendid illustration, in this connection,
is the Aeolian Co., of this city, where this plan is worked out in a
most thorough manner. Every week the departmental heads of this
vast institution meet at which time ideas are interchanged and plans
inaugurated whereby the interests of the establishment are promoted.
Then annually the Aeolian family come together and review the work
of the past twelve months and discuss plans for further expansion
as well as the elucidation of the various problems to be met with in
the development of a business of this magnitude.
At the annual dinner of the Aeolian Co., which was held last
week, one of the best speeches which we have read in years, was that
made by the advertising manager, John Irving Romer, in which he
made the point that the success of the Aeolian Co. lies not in doing
whatever it undertakes a little better than any one else, but in doing
it a great deal better. "Most business houses think they are doing
the right thing if they prepare the best article they know how for
the public," said Mr. Romer, "and then devote all their energies to
marketing that article. In other words—in language which may or
may not be intelligible to those present—they 'stand pat' on their
original draw. If you will turn to the business proposition you find
in other and radically different lines, you will find that their general
attitude is to let well enough alone. But with the yEolian Co. we
who see its working from the inside know that there is no let-up in
its forward march, its spirit of progressiveness, its alertness to seize
upon whatever situation may promise to strengthen its position and
to make the most of it."
S an illustration of yEolian methods Mr. Romer said further:
"There are to-day different draughtsmen in different factories
working on the same problem, each unaware of what the other is
doing, but working under the general direction of our immensely
strong inventive department, and when the results of the labor of
these experts are compared and the best taken, it is safe to say that
the ablest genius in the world to-day will be baffled to surpass it.
When we have gathered at these monthly dinners, it has not been to
rehash the past or talk in vague generalities, but to listen to announce-
ments for the future, of some new plans calculated to make your work
easier and more effective. P2very move is in the direction of progres-
sion and greater achievement."
A very graceful tribute was paid the splendid work of the men
of the various departments of the /Eolian Co. by Mr. Romer—who,
by the way, has spent more than fifteen years in the advertising busi-
ness, covering a wide variety of interests—in the following words
which also illustrate the value of getting together and interchanging
ideas. He said: "From the inside view which I have had of the
methods of widely varying business enterprises, I can truthfully say
I have never seen the same well-developed degree of alertness of
earnest desire, to produce results, from the oldest to the youngest
employee, the same personal devotion and enthusiasm, the same
"team-work" and esprit de corps which distinguish the /Eolian or-
ganization. It is a well known fact that a house usually takes its cue
from the head. The policy and attitude of mind which characterize
the ownership or management will be found reflected in all the rami-
fications of the organization.
A
S Mr. Romer moreover aptly says:
"If that policy is weak,
uncertain, vacillating, unenthusiastic—as it often is even in con-
cerns ordinarily accounted successful—the whole organization is af-
fected and becomes less effective than it might be, no matter how
good the individual talent it has enlisted. In the yEolian Co. we all
draw our inspiration from the head, and it is an inspiration which
calls out the best there is in a man. The policy of the company
throughout all of its ramifications is broad-gauge. When a concern
grows big it often becomes unwieldy. Much effort goes to waste ii;i
lost motion. Not so here.
A