Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. XLVII. No. 6. Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 1 Madison Ave., New York, August 8,1908.
RECORD PROSPERITY DUE.
Next Decade to See Better Times Than We
Ever Had, Predicts Statistician Adams—Tide
Has Already Turned—Recent Business De-
pression Has Taught Business Men Economy.
(Special to The Review.)
Washington, Aug. 3, 1908.
Piano men will be glad to hear that prosperity,
better and saner than the United States has ever
known before, is foreseen for for the next decade
by Prof. Henry C. Adams, for twenty years in
charge of statistics and accounts for the Inter-
state Commerce Commission. Professor Adams
is recognized as one of the closest students of
industrial and financial conditions in the service
of the Government. His intimate association
with the railroads and their operation has given
him a thorough insight into business conditions.
The commission's statistician has reached the
conclusion that business in all lines will soon
return to normal conditions, to be succeeded
quickly by extraordinary prosperity in every de-
partment of industrial activity. Both capital and
labor, in his opinion, are on the dawn of a new
day.
Professor Adams declared that the holder of
stocks is about "to come into his own." He re-
gards the depression that followed the panic of
last October as a blessing in disguise, in that it
will insure economy by preventing the return
of reckless confidence that was engendered by too
much and too long continued good times.
"We are now almost through the business de-
pression," he said to-day. "It was preceded by a
period of intense business activity. Inevitably
during such a period, men lose more or less of
their caution. In such times everything seems
prosperous and the future promising, and there
is less care taken to watch details of manage-
ment and expenditure. So, when the depression
comes and revenues fall away, the managers cast
about for means to reduce expenses. They have
been finding out for the larger part of a year
where to make economies; where they were per-
mitting part of their money to go into avoidable
expense. They have been taking in the slack,
getting things on the safe and secure basis. It
has been a severe experience, but from the stand-
point of the shareholder it has been really a good
thing.
"The depression will end, and business will
be good again; its volume in the next cycle will
be greater than ever. But the lesson of this
period of enforced economies will not be soon
unlearned. The increasing revenues will be par-
alleled off against columns showing reduced ex-
penditures in many ways. There will be greater
care and economy, with the result that the stock-
holder will have a larger share of prosperity
coming to him."
Professor Adams is a firm believer in the
periodical recurrence of panics, which he believes
come with almost clockwork regularity every
twenty years, with smaller financial depressions
intervening. He points to the panics of 1873
and 1893 as proof of his theory, and he has
marked a danger signal over against the year
1913. The flurry of last fall he puts down as
merely one of the disturbances that fill in be-
tween the real upheavals.
It is acknowledged by Professor Adams that
the closer connections established between busi-
ness and transportation concerns will render
future panics less disastrous than in the past.
The strong will uphold the weak when crises
arrive, he says. This will not be an indication
of the arrival of the millennium, but merely an
exhibition of economic wisdom, for it will tend
to restore confidence. And when confidence walks
abroad, says Professor Adams, panics take to
cover.
OUR EXPORT ANDJMPORT TRADE.
Import Trade of Musical Instruments Shows
Decrease—Exports for the Month Are Also
Smaller—Player
Shipments
Make
Fine
Record—The Figures in Detail Regarding
the Various Instruments Furnish Some In-
teresting Particulars to Our Readers.
(Special to The Review.)
•
Washington, D. C, August 3, 1908.
The summary of exports and imports of the
commerce of the United States for the month of
June, 1908, the latest period for which it has
been compiled, has just been issued by the
Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Com-
merce and Labor. The figures relating to musi-
cal merchandise, including pianos, organs, piano
players and miscellaneous "small goods" in the
musical field are as follows:
The dutiable imports of musical instruments
during June amounted to $95,840, as compared
with $145,600 worth which were imported the
same month of 1907. The twelve months' total
ending June shows importations valued at $1,-
400,213, as against $1,498,724 worth of musical
instruments imported during the same period of
1907. This gives a decrease in imports for the
twelve months ending June of $98,511.
The import figures for the twelve months'
period for the three years are as follows: 1906,
$1,277,435; 1907, $1,498,724; 1908, $1,400,213.
The total domestic exports of musical instru-
ments for June, 1908, amounted to $262,044, as
compared with $319,524 for the same month of
the previous year. The twelve months' exporta-
tion of musical instruments amounted to $3,371,-
521, as against $3,256,063 for the same period in
1907. This shows an increase in exports for the
twelve months ending June of $115,458.
The export, figures for the twelve months'
period for the three years are as follows: 1906,
$3,168,052; 1907, $3,256,063; 1908, $3,371,521.
Of the aggregate exportations in June there
were 757 organs, valued at $59,424, as compared
with 1,112 organs in 1907, valued at $88,358. The
twelve months' total shows that we exported 11,-
637 organs, valued at $750,905, as against 12,-
751 organs, valued at $898,472, for the same
period in 1907, and 13,132, valued at $883,457, for
the same period in 1906. .
In June, 1908, we exported 310 pianos, valued
at $79,067, as against 333 pianos, valued at $83,-
157, in June, 1907. The twelve months' total ex-
ports show 4,341 pianos, valued at $1,060,195, as
compared with u,815, valued at $897,340, exported
SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS.
$8.00. PER YEAR.
in the same period in 1907, and 2,768, valued at
$638,501, for the same period in 1906.
Of the aggregate exportations in June, there
were 306 piano players, valued at $78,770. For
the twelve months' period, 3,153 of these instru-
ments, valued at $842,889, were sent abroad.
The value of "all other instruments and parts
thereof" sent abroad during June, 1908, amounted
to $44,783, in the same month of 1907 the value
was estimated at $83,302.
The total exports for the twelve months under
this heading foot up $717,532, as against $874,488
exported during the same period of 1907, and
$866,697 exported during the same period in
1906. This shows a decrease of $156,956.
EIGHT NEW STYLES OF PIANOS
Will be Sent Out to the Trade This Fall by
the Rochester Plant of the American Piano
Co.—They Are Divided Between Haines, Mar-
shall & Wendell and Foster & Co. Pianos.
(Special to The Review.)
Rochester, N. Y., August 3, 1908.
The plant of the Foster-Armstrong Co. is busily
engaged in completing eight new styles of pianos
for the market in time for the fall trade. Three
of the new styles are in Foster & Co. pianos,
three in Haines and two in Marshall & Wendell.
No addition to the company's catalog has yet
been issued covering the new styles, but it is
stated that they are beautiful to a degree and
brimful of originality. The Haines Bros, player
piano has met with such great success in all
quarters that difficulty is experienced in filling
orders promptly. So compact is the mechanism
that ordinary piano cases are used with top and
bottom panels altered to allow for the tracker
board and pedals.
C. C. CLARKE JOINS WANAMAKER FORCES.
iSpecial to The Review.)
Philadelphia, Pa., August 5, 1908.
C. C. Clarke, for the past seven years con-
nected with Chandler & Held, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
has been appointed manager of the piano sales
department of Wanamaker's. He assumed the
duties last Monday and will make his residence
in Philadelphia.
JOHN CHURCH CO. IN CHATTANOOGA.
(Special to The Review.)
Chattanooga, Tenn., August 2, 1908.
The John Church Co., Cincinnati, O., who
manufacture the Everett, John Church Howard
and Dayton pianos, have opened warerooms at
111 East Seventh street, this city, in charge of
L. L. Almutt, formerly general southern agent
for the company. The store is 20 x 100 feet, is
well fitted up and has a handsome plate glass
front.
PIANOS DESTROYED BY FIRE.
The Bush & Gerts Piano Co. recently lost a
carload of pianos in a fire in Ballinger, Tex.
They were displaying the instruments in the
store of the Ostertage Furniture Co. when the
building was destroyed by the fire.