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THE: MUSIC TRADE
dollars' worth of valuable merchandise in the music trade line.
That time is now happily in the past, and the piano men are not
dispensing favors as lavishly as in days agone.
B
ETTER conditions are seen from the fact that there have been
few failures in the trade, and most of those which have
occurred have been largely due to mismanagement and recklessness
in the conduct of business affairs. There may be watered stock
in some piano corporations, as was indicated in one which recently
went to pieces in New York, that had been incorporated for a
million dollars. When the crash came about a short time after the
stock offerings were made to the public, internal rottenness was
revealed that was astounding to those not posted in high finance.
It was not even watered stock, but it was simply hot air.
Music trade conditions generally are sound, and the corpora-
tions in this industry show up well with those in any other. While
business has had a tendency to slow up in all lines, yet there is not
the slightest occasion for distrust. The dismal predictions of crop
affairs which have been rampant for the past month or two, have
been discredited by the government reports issued this month. The
spring has been unusually trying to plant growth, and some of the
reports which have been promulgated by private crop forecasters
have bordered on the sensational in their portrayal of possible crop
shortages.
A LTHOUGH business in general has not been affected, the fear
1~V thus excited of widespread disaster has been harmful, and it
is most gratifying just now to have the government publish authen-
tic reports, showing that there will be an average yield in all of the
great staples. This statement gives relief to business, and manufac-
turing and commercial interests can feel certain in going ahead as
usual with their preparations for trade for the last half of the year.
Of course they must take the ordinary hazard of trade, but they are
not confronted by the certainty of a lack of purchasing power in
the vast areas dependent chiefly upon agriculture.
There is no reason why the United States should fail to be
more and more prosperous as the years go by. It will be, if we
can only eliminate the speculative element which is encouraged by
the great stock gamblers. There is absolutely nothing to indicate
hard times in the United States, unless it be fright that comes from
a revelation of dishonesty at the top of finance. The American
citizen is still a good, intelligent workman, thinker and planner.
The American soil is as rich as ever. The American mines have
not begun to deliver up their wealth. The world needs our product,
and is willing to pay for it. There is no reason whatever to talk
about hard times, and there is no reason why any man should be
afraid to put his money into business, and develop ideas to do his
part towards building up the country. The country is all right,
and it never had a brighter future before it, and there is absolutely
nothing to prevent the continuation of good times, except the dis-
honesty of thieving financiers, who put themselves above the law.
The piano business is all right; it is being strengthened all the time,
and business is being run on sounder lines. Better principles are
being introduced, and it is becoming more and more difficult for
those unworthy of credit to obtain it.
I
N a recent address at the Jamestown Exposition, President
Roosevelt said:
"The great increase in mechanical and manufacturing opera-
tions means a corresponding increase in the number of accidents
to the wage workers employed therein, these including both pre-
ventable and inevitable accidents. To the ordinary wage worker's
family such a calamity means grim hardship. As the work is done
for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public, it is a
bitter injustice that it should be the wage worker himself and his
wife and children who bear the whole penalty.
"Legislation should be had alike from the nation and from the
States, not only to guard against the needless multiplication of these
accidents, but to relieve the financial suffering due to them. Last
winter Congress passed a safety appliance law which marked a long
stride in the right direction. But there should be additional legisla-
tion to secure pecuniary compensation to workmen suffering from
accidents, and when they are killed, to their families.
"At present both in the sphere covered by national legislation
and in the sphere covered by State legislation the law in too many
REVIEW
cases leaves the financial burden of industrial accidents to be borne
by the injured workmen and their families, and a workman who
suffers from an accident either has no case at all for redress or
else must undertake a suit for damages against his employer. The
present practice is based on the view announced nearly seventy years
ago that 'principles of justice and good sense demand that a work-
man shall take upon himself all the ordinary risks of his occupation.'
In my view principles of justice and good sense demand the very
reverse of this view, which experience has proved to be unsound
and productive of widespread suffering.
"It is neither just, expedient nor humane; it is revolting to
judgment and sentiment alike that the financial burden of accidents
occurring because of the necessary exigencies of their daily occu-
pation should be thrust upon those sufferers who are least able to
bear it, and that such remedy as is theirs should only be obtained
by litigation which now burdens our courts.
"As a matter of fact, there is no sound economic reason for
distinction between accidents caused by negligence and those which
are unavoidable, and the law should be such that the payment of
those accidents will become automatic instead of being a matter
for a lawsuit. Workmen should receive a certain definite and lim-
ited compensation for all accidents in industry, irrespective of
negligence.
"When the employer, the agent of the public, on his own respon-
sibility and for his own profit, in the business of serving the public,
starts in motion agencies which create risks for others, he should
take all the ordinary and extraordinary risks involved; and though
the burden will at the moment be his, it will ultimately be assumed,
as it ought to be, by the general public. Only in this way can the
shock of the accident be diffused, for it will be transferred from
employer to consumer, for whose benefit all industries are carried on.
"From every standpoint the change would be a benefit. The
community at large should share the burden as well as the benefits
of industry. Employers would thereby gain a desirable certainty
of obligation and get rid of litigation to determine it. The work-
man and the workman's family would be relieved of a crushing
load."
LL employers of labor will not agree with the views of the
A
President as expressed above, and they may be quite as senti-
mental and tender-hearted as the President at that; they may care
just as much for the peace and comfort of their workmen, but
employers feel that they should not be financially responsible for
the negligence or carelessness of their employes. They are fre-
quently put to unusual expense through unjust claims being made
upon them. Many of them, however, have taken out policies in
various insurance companies, which protect the manufacturers from
all claims of this kind. They fight the claims in the courts for
them. For the service they pay annual premiums. Carelessness
in factories might be encouraged if the manufacturers were com-
pelled to pay definite compensation to their workmen, no matter
how injured, or through what cause, in their factories.
T
HE new president of the Piano Manufacturers' Association,
Edward S. Payson, is a man eminently qualified by business
and intellectual attainments to fill the position to which his fellow-
associates have elected him. Mr. Payson has been associated with
the Emerson Piano Co., of which he is now the president, for a
good many years, and is a piano man from the ground up. He is
not only a keen business man, but he is a man whose intellectual
qualities bring him into strong prominence among any gathering.
He is a lover of nature—of the beautiful in every form. He is an
excellent talker, a keen thinker, an enthusiastic association man,
and always a gentleman. Here's to President Payson! May he
not only live long and prosper, but may the association profit by his
leadership, as it should!
T
HE exclusive announcement which appeared in The Review
of two weeks ago, stating that John Wanamaker had pur-
chased the assets of the Schomacker Piano Co., Philadelphia, has
created considerable comment in trade circles. A good many music
traders are wondering just how Mr, Wanamaker will figure in the
piano business as a manufacturer. One thing is certain, he will
not be restricted by territorial lines in the handling of his new piano,
and it is predicted that the Schomacker will be a mail order instru-
ment.