Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MUSIC TRADE
of publicity has far-reaching; results and is cumulative in its effect.
it calls the attention of thousands of people to the advantage of self-
players, whose attention would not have been otherwise drawn to
this product.
There are those to-day who have little knowledge of the marvel-
ous development which has taken place during the last few years
in this department of the industry. They do not know that a "dead
piano*' can be brought to life any more than thousands of people
know of the marvelous evolution which has taken place in the talking-
machine. They associate the talking machine name at once with
the immature product of years ago, and have not the knowledge that
"a grand opera evening'' can be enjoyed in one's own home at
modest expense. The power of advertising is doing much to interest
these people, but it is a big country, and the only way to keep up
the interest is to keep everlastingly at it.
LEADING officer of one of the great Western railroads re-
marked recently: "Our lines are always as busy as they
can be. This road has every car and every locomotive at work
that is not in shops, and could use more. The requirements will
be even larger this year than last."
Other traffic managers are saying practically the same thing.
and the reported railroad earnings show a vast increase. Further-
more, there is so much railroad building in the West that the
directors realize that the}- are facing a labor famine, twenty-five
thousand men being needed in the Northwestern and Southwestern
States, with every prospect that double that number will be needed
by June i.
According to the Government reports, the farmers still have
in the granaries 176,000,000 bushels of wheat, or one-quarter the
crop; 1,077,000,000 bushels of corn, or nearly half the crop, and
375,000,000 bushels of oats, or one-third the crop. Jn the South
something like 5,000,000 bales of cotton are yet to be marketed;
and, better still, of the prices of the staples which was a year ago
eight cents a pound is now nearly twelve cents. ' Business can't help
being good under such circumstances, and every piano manufac-
turer and dealer should profit by these conditions. A man who
cannot show some progress under such environment is surely out
of the race.
A
NE of the largest New England manufacturers said recently
before the Springfield Board of Trade in opposition to the
Parcels Post bill that he was opposed to the measure, not from a
selfish business standpoint, because individually he could sell his
product direct to the consumer, delivered at a lower rate than at
present he was doing through the jobbers and retailers. He said
that the proposed bill to carry merchandise at a rate of eleven
pounds for 25 cents would drive at least one-half of the retail mer-
chants in the smaller cities, towns and villages out of business
within a few years and centralize the population in the now over-
crowded large cities, a menace to the nation which our President
has referred to in no uncertain terms, sounding an alarm that we
should all heed.
O
T is a fallacy to think for a moment that the proposed bill would
help the smaller merchants in any line. The only protection
that they have to-day in many cases is the differential between
freight and express. If a consumer can get packages delivered at
his door in small lots at a less rate per pound than the merchants can
get delivered by the ton, then the small merchant is down and out,
for the large distributors .will spring up in every city and be able to
sell at practically the small merchant's cost and deliver the goods as
cheap one thousand miles away as the local merchant can three miles
from home by the proposed parcels post.
The farmer depends upon the local merchants to take his prod-
ucts. He can never profitably send at different seasons to distant
markets a dozen eggs, a few pounds of butter, some lard, a lot of
grain, or a few chickens and vegetables, and the many things that he
depends upon his local merchant to sell for him on exchange for mer-
chandise. The farmer's market is gone. What does it profit him
if he can .buy his merchandise in a distant city at a slightly lower
rate?
I
OW can a business man expect the Government to do work at
a loss to favor a certain few, or even the many? Is it a
reasonable, common sense proposition to require the Government to
H
REVIEW
carry eleven pounds of merchandise three thousand miles at the same
rate it would charge for carrying this package only three miles?
The Parcels Post bill will bring about new conditions. It will
help the big catalogue houses and bring ruin to the small merchant.
And as far as musical merchandise is concerned, 80 per cent, of
the entire business would be transacted by the catalogue houses in
less than two years, and then when once the big houses were doing a
thriving trade in musical merchandise they would take occasion to
boom pianos and piano-players under various names.
In points in Texas and the Southwest the catalogue trade has
already hurt small merchants. We haw before us a recent adver-
tisement by a local dealer in Temple, Tex., who says: "If you or
your neighbors send away for all of your goods, what is to become of
Temple and Bell counties? The value of your farms, our good
roads, a market for your products, our schools and churches? The
grass will grow on our good streets."
This music dealer in Temple, Tex., has already felt the heavy
pressure of catalogue-house competition, and it will increase if
once the Parcels Post bill becomes a law. It is getting close to
convention time, and why should not the dealers protest as a body
against the passage of this bill ?
T
HE influences of trade publications represents a predominant
factor in the purchase of industrial products, equipment and
supplies. And it is conceded that the trade press of to-day is a
powerful force in the development in all industrial lines. Many
of our trade publications occupy a high professional standing, and
their editors are keenly alive to the progress made in the industries
with which they are concerned, and readers can keep most closely
in touch with and gain much through the valuable information
from trade publications.
The success of this newspaper institution may be attributed
wholly to the fact that it has always rendered to both advertiser
and subscriber a value equivalent for the money invested. Our
clients have remained with us, and increased their patronage each
year, because the returns from their investment have been most
satisfactory, as the paper has steadily increased in influence and
circulation.
W
E devote weekly a considerable deal of space to the dis-
cussion of purely technical matters, and we are at all
times ready to answer any inquiries which may be made concern-
ing the technical side of the industry. Every department of trade
is completely covered, and it will be seen that advertisers in all
lines have not been slow to realize the advantages which come
through publicity in the columns of The Review.
We may say that March was the banner month as far as
business is concerned for this institution, and the pressure upon our
advertising space for April has been so great that we have been
compelled, on account of limitation of the size of the paper, to
hold over considerable matter which our clients desired published.
It requires a thorough system to produce a paper of from fifty
to sixty pages weekly. Our organization is made up of trained
men in every department, who cover every phase of trade life.
The patronage which we are receiving is certainly the strongest
and most eloquent testimony that could be given to the paper's
worth.
T
H ERE has been a material advance towards improving the
quality, and at the same time the wholesale prices have not
been advanced materially, at least not enough to cover the actual
cost of labor and material. There are a great many items, too, tint
go to make up the success of the manufacturing enterprise that
are not measured by the cost of raw material and labor. lint it
is necessary that a business be properly handled to succeed in these
strenuous times of high initial cost and low selling prices.
There are some manufacturers to-day who have been holding
back fearing that they would lose some of their trade if they ad-
vanced prices, and yet they have the example before them of some
of our most noted makers who have not hesitated to ask a reasonable
advance, which does not cover the increased cost of creating instru-
ments to them.
There will be 110 immediate decrease in the cost of anv of the
great staples which enter into piano construction. On the contrary
according to the belief of experts, these will steadily advance.