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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
association of piano manufacturers was first urged by The Review,
and at that time every other paper was opposed to it. Nevertheless,
the first meeting in this country, which was national in character,
where piano and organ men assembled, occurred in 1888, when the
present editor of The Review was chairman of the convention.
L
ATER on we urged the formation of a dealers' National Asso-
ciation, and after months of persistent advocacy on our part
the association was formed in this city. In this initial move we did
not have the support of another paper until after the organization
was effected at the time and place suggested by this paper.
Then the one-price problem was taken- up singly by The Review
and followed with such persistence that it became a national issue.
These are only a few of the many instances which might be
named in The Review's history, wherein excellent work has been put
forth by this publication to further general trade interest.
T
HIS publication has won higher honors at great expositions than
have been received by any other newspaper in the world. It
was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a
diploma at the Pan-American of 1901, a silver medal at the Charles-
ton Exposition of 1902 and a gold medal at the St. Louis Exposition
of last year. Such recognition emphasizes the dignified place which
trade journalism has fairly won among the trades and industries.
T
O-DAY it will be difficult to locate a trade publication of any
kind having a more perfect or better systematized organization.
We maintain our own correspondents in the principal cities through-
out the Union, and at the home offices of The Review there is a
competent staff which is required to keep up the varied departments
which appear in each weekly publication. The headquarters of
the paper are conveniently located in the Metropolitan Building,
corner 23d street, the finest office building in the world, where a suite
of five offices are required for the editorial rooms of the paper.
T
H E business has branched out in a number of ways through the
channels of technical and other works, and the first of January
The Talking Machine World became a part of this organization.
This is the only publication of its kind in America and appeals
with increasing force to the growing interests to which it especially
caters. The circulation of this paper has grown at a rate which is
really surprising, but it is due, as in the case of The Review, to the
large values which are put forth. In fact, the policy of the manage-
ment of this business has been to create a value which should be
instrumental in promoting trade welfare. The one dominating idea
has been to make The Review organization better and stronger, thus
making it a greater power for trade weal.
I
N season and out there has been no slowing up of interest on the
part of the members of this newspaper organization. All asso-
ciated with it have taken an honest pride in upholding the banner of
clean journalism. Aside from the weekly issues of The Review
and The Talking Machine World we are carrying on work at the
Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, which is of obvious advan-
tage to the entire trade. We are publishing a souvenir edition
monthly of fifty pages, superbly gotten up, which is distributed from
The Review's beautiful booth at the Exposition.
F
REQUENTLY we hear the statement made when referring to
some piano man who has accumulated a goodly share of this
world's chattels, that he has been extremely lucky.
Now, luck means in most of those cases another name for hard
work, because there are few men in this industry or out of it who
have succeeded without strict application and close attention to all
details. Here is a few of the younger men at random in the trade
who have succeeded in establishing successful enterprises. Take
in New York, Kohler and Campbell, for instance; a couple of young-
men, excellent workmen, who started in a few years ago to build an
enterprise. They did not draw all the money out of their business
to spend for extravagances of various kinds, but they' kept saving,
putting more back than they took out, and they took care too, to build
instruments for which there was a demand. They gave their atten-
tion strictly to their business. No luck about their rise.
I
N Philadelphia Geo. Miller to-day, who is said to be worth easily
a million, commenced as a poor boy in the store of E. A. North.
Young Miller proposed to improve his chances and make himself
valuable. He did, and he is to-day owner of warerooms, factories
and real estate, the value of which runs into big figures.
E. S. Conway, of the W. W. Kimball Co., did not win his spurs
easily, for when young Conway left the plough to sell pianos he
threw into his work an enthusiasm which has been noticeable in his
entire career. He has won, but the winning was not through luck,
but through the application of straight business methods.
Geo. P. Bent has been a hustler from boyhood, and the sewing-
machine business did not form a sufficient sphere for his widening
ambition. "Crown" sewing-machines were all right, but "Crown"
pianos and organs were a mighty sight better.
I
N the retail trade, too, there are plenty of bright young men who
are not only making the most of conditions, but are creating op-
portunities. It was only a few years ago that Henry Eilers started
in business in a quiet way in Portland, the present World's Fair City.
It was not luck that caused him to burn the midnight oil, but it was
the desire to succeed, and many who passed the Portland warerooms
of Henry Eilers at a late hour could have seen him very hard at work
in his office long after his employes had departed. It is thorough-
ness, application which wins, and the world will cleave" to a j lain
man of thoroughness, despite the more impressive, but less worthy
figures that pass like ephemerals, for he is fixed and unshaken as a
rock. Slipshod methods and the surface show of expediency are
short-lived, and men who get out to wrest from the world its trophies
do not at all times find the battle an easy one to win, but the men
who succeed to-day do not succeed through luck.
T
H E same may be said of the older generation, for the Steinways,
the Chickerings, the Webers, and the Knabes were all workers.
They founded great enterprises which have long outlived them.
This good old piano business possesses plenty of opportunities for
the young, vigorous men of to-day, for it doesn't matter murh what
work a man does, so long as he makes good. It isn't the line of busi-
ness a man is in that constitutes his success as much as it is the man
himself. The Astor opulence started in small deals in skins and
pianos. Old Commodore Vanderbilt used to run a ferryboat from
Staten Island to New York, Jay Gould peddled rat-traps, and it was
only a few years ago that Thomas Edison was sending messages over
the wire in a country telegraph office.
' I ''HE successful men are not all in one line, and they were not
J-
born successful. They started in as errand boys, as pie bakers,
as wagon drivers, as telegraph operators, as porters, as clerks, as
clitch diggers, like John W. Mackay, and mechanics, but they made
good. A successful man in one line would pretty surely have been
successful in another. A man of brains and energy will succeed
wherever you put him. Samuel of Posen used to say: "In one
year Til be on the road, in two years Til be a partner and in three
years I'll own the business," but he had to make good as porter, as
stock clerk, before he could get on the road, and the man on the road
must make good or make tracks.
I
T is the same old story of putting faith in small thing's. It will
work so well that nobody can follow and do better whatever that
job may be. The boy who does a good job on the floor sweeping
will make good in bigger things. He may not be a scintillating
genius, but if he has little horse sense and a good deal of earnest-
ness and also hard work, it will pull him through.
Come to think of it, how many successful men are there who are
really brilliant men? The most brilliant men are too busy shining
to attend to much of anything else. We have nationally a magnifi-
cent assortment of brilliant intellects, sparkling so that they may
shame the light of a diamond, but it is a noticeable fact that most of
them are a trifle frayed at the edges, but you take a business man
who has succeeded in the light of fierce competition of to-day, and
you will find that he has made good on nearly every occasion.
E
LIHU ROOT, whom the President has invited to the first seat
in the Cabinet, is not brilliant by the standard which appeals
to the ear or imagination, but he is a power-house of silent energy.
As a country boy he was noted for his thoroughness, and he has de-
veloped an analytical mind and an appreciation of the value of details
which is the habit of a man who realizes how trifles may even grow
to gigantic statures.