!'V YORK -- digitized with support from namm.org
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com
PUBI,
V O L . LIV. N o . 7
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI at 1 Madison Ave., New York, Feb. 17,1912
SINGLE COPIES. 10 CENTS.
$2.00 PER VEAR.
The Taint of an Industry.
iiuiu 1 —
M
ANUFACTURERS in every industry are interested in maintaining trade papers of standing and
character, for it is conceded by all intelligent men that the work of the legitimate trade press is
constructive. They record man's intellectual and scientific development.
Trade papers of influence and circulation wield a tremendous force in any industry.
They are looked upon as business builders; and, too, the progressive trade journals are created at
enormous expense. A competent staff of experts is maintained, whose duty it is to faithfully chronicle
not merely news happenings, but the improvements which are made in the technical world as well. Every
department of trade life is carefully covered, and each issue of the up-to-date trade journal conveys to its
readers a vast fund of information gathered from every department of trade life.
Branch offices and correspondents cover the entire country, so that far-away happenings are regu-
larly recorded in the papers, which make their appearance with regularity and precision.
In fact, progressive trade journalism has advanced tremendously during the past decade; but in the
piano industry it has never reached the position which it should have occupied on account of the malign
influences of men whose efforts have not been to build representative trade papers, but rather pieces of per-
sonal machinery, which could be used at the will of the conductors to extort unwilling money from the
pockets of men who have been compelled to pay the price demanded.
.
Such work should not be confounded with journalistic enterprises; but it has been so associated in
the minds of many and because hold-up methods have been rampant in this industry they have held
back the legitimate trade press from coming into its own.
So open, so continuous, so brazen have been the attacks that men have patronized papers, not on ac-
count of the values they have offered—they have never even stopped.to weigh the difference in trade news-
papers—but they have simply paid for something which has never been delivered to them.
They have paid money in order that attacks might be withheld upon their products.
• The value of the papers have never entered into consideration, but the attitude of* the conductors of
hold-up journalism has caused trade papers as a class to be looked upon with suspicion.
Years ago it was a common occurrence to hear the trade press denounced in the most violent terms
whenever piano men gathered in association councils.
.
.
They did not come squarely out and name the offending papers, but they roundly denounced the
entire press.
In other words, the papers which were conducted on the basis of progressive newspaper work were
tarred with the same stick as the disreputable journals, which simply fattened on the weaknesses and fear
of men.
The papers which were honest received a meagre patronage because the men of the industry did not
fear attacks from such sources; but the hold-up men were paid liberally—hence honest trade journalism
has suffered not only in. pocket but in reputation by reason of that form of journalism which has tainted
this industry for three decades.
•
.
At various intervals the attacks have become so severe that men have been forced to resort to the
courts of law to protect themselves and their interests, and it is well to record the fact that there is noth-
ing on record to show that whenever the legitimate interests have come into legal encounters with hold-up
journalism that the victory has been won by the journalistic misfits.
On the contrary, they have always evaded.a definite legal encounter. . ' ..
- . . . . - •
Their practice is to bluster—to threaten, believing that these.methods will prevent a legal attack;
•
- . • .
•
•
(Continued
on page ?•)
•
- •
• •
" "*