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THE
MUSIC TRADE
Uruler
I
T is an interesting study to business men how our great rail-
roads keep track of the enormous quantities of freight that
is confined to their care. As a matter of fact, five great gateways
of traffic are situated in different parts of the United States.
Through these, generally speaking, freight moving east or west
that passes from one line of railroad to another must go. They
are described in detail as Chicago, East St. Louis, 111.; East Han-
nibal, Mo.; Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Minnesota Transfer, Minn.
They are known as freight transfer stations, and have been estab-
lished to facilitate the interchange of traffic between different lines.
In a sense, these freight transfer stations resemble the great clearing
houses of the associated banks in big cities like New York and
Chicago, but instead of bills and coin they handle daily thousands
of loaded freight cars. Instead of bank checks, such as the finan-
cial clearing houses sort out every morning when they balance their
accounts, the freight transfer stations have hundreds of thousands
of bigger and more unwieldy pieces of paper which are called way-
bills, which represent the tremendous volume of merchandise in the
loaded cars. Also there are the bills of lading, which answer the
same purpose, but in a different way. If the value of the costly
freight passing through one of these great gateways each day could
be computed it would not fall far behind the day's business of the
New York clearing house itself.
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N addition to these five transfer stations that handle only busi-
ness that passes over two or more different lines of rails before
reaching its destination, each of the great railroad systems has many
similar transfer stations for the interchange of freight traffic be-
tween the various roads of which it is composed. A big system
like the New York Central lines for example, is made up of twelve
different railroads, each a distinct corporation- For the purpose
of accounting, each of these lines is treated in the books as though
it were a foreign company, though the rules for the interchange of
freight traffic between the various roads of a system are modified
from those which govern the same work between two separate sys-
tems interchanging business at any of the four great gateways in
the West. Yet the organization of domestic freight transfer sta-
tions, such as those on the New York Central lines does not differ
materially from that of the railroads which meet at Chicago, East
St. Louis, East Hannibal or Council 1'luffs. Each system has
from ten to fifty of these freight transfer stations located at the
various junction points of its allied lines. The New York Central,
for example, has thirty-one. There is no better place for a young
man to get a thorough, practical knowledge of everything con-
nected with the actual handling of freight traffic than a freight
transfer station.
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I "HE demoralization of prices in the retail piano trade, and the
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lack of a definite policy regarding their uniformity has long
been a subject of comment among piano manufacturers and mer-
chants who have at heart the permanency and best interests of the
industry. The Review has long contended that there is a remedy
for this evil, and it is the establishment by manufacturers of the
prices at which pianos should be sold. The latest to fall in line
are the Briggs Piano Co., controlled and operated by the National
Piano Co., of Boston, Mass., who at the request of their dealers
have established the fixed retail prices on all the various styles of
uprights, grands and player-pianos which they manufacture. In
future the upright models made by this company will contain cellu-
loid tags with the retail price printed thereon, and the grands and
players will have cardboard tags attached indicating the retail price.
This is a step worthy of emulation by others, and the Boston manu-
facturers are to be congratulated on the adoption of this policy.
If this were adopted in a much larger degree throughout the trade
it would work decidedly for the benefit of the piano business. Deal-
ers as w r ell as manufacturers would be aided for it would insure
uniformity and stability of prices. It is a guarantee to the dealer
REVIEW
TOWER.
who desires to sell pianos at an honest price that he has the co-
operation and backing of the manufacturer in his efforts to get a
fair price for his product. It also helps the industry because it
prevents a purchaser from being able to get two, or three, or more
prices on the same instrument at different stores, and in this way
the business is elevated in the minds of the purchasing public and
the confidence of the public in the goods is increased.
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I ^HERE is no evil to-day of greater magnitude in connection
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with retailing than this tendency to sell cheap commercial
pianos at extravagant prices. In many instances dealers represent-
high grade pianos use them merely as a means of attracting trade to
their store and then palming off an inferior instrument at a superior
price. A prominent traveling man in discussing this kind of work
with The Review the other day, said: "We manufacture, as you
know, a high grade instrument and also a piano which is sold at a
popular price—the latter to satisfy the demands of a growing com-
munity. While visiting one of our agents recently I was present
when a salesman sold one of these popular-priced pianos for $375—
only $50 less than our high priced piano is usually retailed for.
As soon as the customer had left I impressed on this salesman how
unwise it was to secure a price like this for a piano that should
have been sold at $225, and inquired how could he expect to get a
proper price for our high grade instrument if he persisted in this
kind of work—selling pianos out of their class? His response was
that he was instructed to sell pianos at the highest price he could
get for them irrespective of grade or quality, and he saw nothing
wrong in this sale." Surely the interests of the manufacturer are
not helped by such a policy of merchandising. It is to save the
name of the industry that manufacturers are being compelled to fix
a price at which their instruments shall be sold. In this way they
are not only helping the dealer who desires to sell pianos at an
honest price and is content with an honest profit, but they are going
to place the retailing of pianos on a sound, healthy basis—one that
in time is bound to win the respect of the purchasing public.
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O1XC1DEXT with the opening of a most extensive and elabo-
rate musical season with twenty-two weeks of grand opera
in New York alone and innumerable performances of classic and
modern music of the highest grade by organizations and individual
artists in this city, and in practically every city and town in the
country, a German doctor comes to the fore with the assertion that
Americans are going crazy through too much ragtime and that that
form of music is actually responsible for a great many business
failures. The doctor evidently talked simply for the purpose of
getting his name in print, and in that he succeeded to the fullest
extent. To place any dependence on his statement would be ridicu-
lous as the statement itself, for it shows his complete ignorance of
musical conditions in this country at large. The eagerness of the
public at large to aid in the support of good music and its perform-
ance offers a direct contradiction to the doctor's remark. The sales
of the higher class of music in sheet and book form is constantly
on the increase, the demand for music rolls shows a strong tendency
toward the better class of music and that kind of music forms a
good portion of the catalogs and the talking machine companies
report increased sales in the higher priced records bearing the best
in music. Then again a visit to any auditorium where such holds
sway would convince the most skeptical that the love of good music
is not only holding its own, but is increasing rapidly among all
classes- If the doctor insists upon remaining where ragtime holds
sway he should at least make a few observations in olier directions
before passing a general opinion.
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OLT will sell more goods, and you will sell them at a greater
profit, when everyone in your store thoroughly knows the
products you offer for sale.