Music Trade Review

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THE MU3IC TRADE REVIEW
will receive what they are worth, which is very often more than the
union can get for them.
The same law which governs the field of trade and commerce
must apply with exactness to the labor situation, and the better this
is understood the smoother will be the relations between employer
and employe.
BUSINESS institution can hardly succeed to-day unless system
prevails in every department, and many an apparently in-
telligent business man fails to systematize his business, not wholly
through a lack of enterprise on his part, but through the belief
that it means added expense to him. If any business is worth pre-
serving and building up, it is worth systematizing, and there is
hardly a business in any line which has achieved distinction without
the application of systematic lines of business conduct.
Isadore Saks, of the house of Saks & Co., who controls three
large retail houses employing an aggregate of fifteen hundred peo-
ple, recently remarked, that the first lesson in system that he ever
learned was when he and his brother tried to do the bookkeep-
ing themselves. He said that they got so helplessly tangled up that
although they could not afford it they decided to engage a girl at
eight dollars a week. That was the beginning of a system which
has kept pace with the growth of a great business, and which is
considered to be as accurate as any of the systems used in the
great department stores.
Mr. Saks says that decision to engage an eight-dollar-a-week
girl indelibly impressed upon his mind the fact that money spent
in systematizing was money well invested. That decision, he said,
to hire a clerk was the first important step in his progress.
There is hardly one of the great department stores throughout
the country which is not managed on a thoroughly systematic basis.
It could not live and meet competition without it, and in lesser
business enterprises the same principles could be adopted with
excellent results. The small piano merchant can adopt a system
which will be beneficial to his business if he will.
A
nalism has made during the past decade, and The Review by merit
alone has become the guide and text book of the progressive re- .
tailer in all parts of this country.
The influence exerted by this institution upon the piano dis-
tributing trade is admittedly great, and we are thoroughly equipped
to handle every question from the standpoint of one within the trade,
and wholly familiar with the views and interests of piano men.
The Review has been enabled to treat every subject, and the
correctness of its premises and conclusions have been generally
recognized. In this way it has acquired an authority in its own
particular field, so that its utterances upon the mercantile and
ethical problems that have come before the trade have won general
acquiescence and respect. Since 1900 The Review has figured
prominently at all of the great expositions, and through its influence
has compelled a recognition from international juries, a recognition
of trade newspaper work which was never before conceded.
P
RESIDENT ROOSEVELT believes in railroad rate regula-
tions, and he demands a control that controls. He believes
that power should be given when a complaint is made of a given
rate as being unjust or unreasonable, to adjust matters.
In this most piano men would agree with him, and this industry
has just complaint of it, for, as a matter of fact, notwithstanding
the enormous growth of the piano industry during the past few
years there has been practically no readjustment of the freight rates
since the days when it was in truth an "infant industry."
Regarding trade matters the President said on his Southern
tour:
"The abuses of which we have a genuine right to complain
take many shapes. Rebates are not now often given openly. But
they can be given just as effectively in covert form, and private
cars, terminal tracks and the like must be brought under the control
of the commission or administrative body which is to exercise super-
vision by the Government.
"But in my judgment the most important thing to do is to give
to this administrative body power to make its findings effective,
HERE is something fine in the resolution of a man in these
and this can be done only by giving it power, when complaint is
hustling times to let a monetary goal go for the sake of art
made of a given rate as being unjust or unreasonable, £ it finds the
ideals. It stands out in eloquent contrast with the sordid money
complaint proper, then itself to fix a maximum rate which it re-
grabbing shown in the $150,000 salaries of our insurance presidents,
gards as just and reasonable, this rate to go into effect practically
who manipulate sacred funds which are placed in their custody in
at once—that is, within a reasonable time—and to stay in effect,
such a manner that they add millions to their own possessions.
unless reversed by the courts.
Chas. Dana Gibson, the inventor of the "Gibson Girl/' has set an
"I earnestly hope that we shall see a law giving this power
example at a time when such examples are greatly needed. Mr. passed by Congress. Moreover, I hope that by law power will be
Gibson, who is now under forty, and in the flood tide of fame,
conferred upon representatives of the Government capable of per-
announces that he has bought his freedom from the slavery of
forming the duty of public accountants carefully to examine into
black and white and that he will follow higher ideals in art. He
the books of railroads, when so ordered by the Interstate Commerce
has made enough to live on comfortably, and henceforth he will
Commission, which should itself have power to prescribe what
devote himself to painting, abandoning the pencil for the brush.
books, and what books only, should be kept by railroads.
It was a number of years ago when he sent his first sketch
"If there is in the minds of the commission any suspicion that
to Life and received four dollars for it. He followed this with
a certain railroad is in any shape or way giving rebates or behaving
other sketches, and soon the public became aware that there was an
improperly, I wish the commission to have power as a matter of
American Du Maurier. The Gibson girl is now the typical repre-
right, not as a matter of favor, to make a full and exhaustive
sentation of American womanhood, and as such familiar all over
investigation of the receipts and expenditures of the railroad, so
the world. She made her creator famous before he was thirty.
that any violation or evasion of the law may be detected.
She introduced him into club life, and into society, and for several
"This is not a revolutionary proposal on my part, for I only
years enabled him to earn an annual income of from sixty-five to
wish the same power given in reference to railroads that is now
seventy-five thousand dollars, and now in the full flush of young
exercised as a matter of course by the national bank examiners as »
manhood, and at the high tide of fame, Gibson calmly turns and
regards national banks."
casts off" his splendid income to follow higher ideals.
Now, if the piano men can only get the President to attend
If only some of these insurance grafters and men of higher
the banquet next year in Washington he may give them a talk on
finances would study Gibson they would find something in his
freight rates which would be in itself a tremendous power to right
career to admire. Such examples are rare indeed in these cold
the wrong under which piano men have suffered for many years in
sordid days.
freight tariffs.
T
r
I "HE Review was specially honored, at the Portland Exposition,
-L where it gained the highest honors accorded any trade pub-
lication or periodical, and there are many who are familiar with
our work there say that the honors were worthily won, and that we
were in all fairness entitled to the gold medal and diploma, which
the jury of awards gave to The Review. Our exhibit there, which
illustrated in an interesting way the growth and development of the
piano industry, was novel and unique, and attracted thousands of
people. There were special features introduced and beautiful sou-
venirs were distributed. The outlay amounted to many thousands
of dollars, and yet the work benefited the whole industry more than
an individual institution. It illustrates the advance which trade jour-
A
MANUFACTURER, writing to The Review, says: "I have
been much interested in reading your editorials upon the
proposed piano trade exhibit to be held in Washington next year,
and I believe with you that it will not widen the retail distribution '•<
of pianos by the sale of a single instrument, and I do not think
that manufacturers will feel inclined to spend their money for
exhibition purposes."
The whole matter will probably resolve itself into being an
open door for those who desire to ship on exhibits, but it is not
believed that a centralized line of exhibits will be made, but simply
follow out the plan which has been adopted in some former years,
to have instruments exhibited at hotels and local warerooms.