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THE
MUSIC TRADE
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
«J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
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NEW YORK, JULY 6, 1912.
EDITORIAL
D
IFFICULT problems that occur from time to time in busi-
ness are being solved daily by those who have the courage
to face them and the intelligence to seek advice and counsel from
those qualified to speak.
There are many men of recognized ability whose business
careers have been spoiled because of spasmodic efforts. They seem
to do things by sudden impulse, instead of progressing orderly and
quietly. One class of men seem at the moment quick and more
powerful in propulsive force, which soon expends itself in the rush
to get results quickly. The other class is slow, deliberate, step by
step in advancing and generally wins out. It is the old story of
the race of the hare and the tortoise, with the victory always in
favor of the latter. "Patience and perseverance made a wig for
his reverence," says an old Irish proverb, and these two qualities,
added to systematic work and close study, invariably bring their
own reward.
Some captains of industry are gifted with the faculty of se-
lecting the right kind of men for the right place, a rare and valuable
asset for business men. The market for ordinary help, both for
office and workshop, is almost always overstocked, but the men
who have the ability to successfully select, manage and supervise
others, are scarce, but vitally needed in developing enterprises.
When discovered and given fair opportunity under attractive con-
ditions, they make good, and work out the problem of the largest
possible output at the least possible cost. They are thinkers, be-
sides being doers. No matter what their occupation, they accom-
plish what is desired, and displace the plodders who do little think-
ing and planning.
I
N manv cities of the countrv there nre what are known as "piano
rows" or certain districts in the business sections where the
majority of the piano stores are located. The district method of
doing business is perhaps best explained as tending toward the con-
venience of the purchasing public and therefore the wholesale houses
REVIEW
dealing in various commodities 1 gather in one section, the retailers
have their own particular districts, and so on.
With the "piano rows" established, however, and with new ac-
cessions to the list of houses in those districts being made yearly, it
is pertinent to ask what combined efforts are being made by the
piano merchants to profit through their close proximity to one an-
other. What publicity has been given to the fact that within a
quarter or half mile radius of a certain prominent corner the ma-
jority of the leading pianos of the United States may be examined
at leisure and with little or no inconvenience and expense to the
prospective purchaser, the expenses of the publicity campaign being
shared among the piano men on the theory that what is good for the
local trade at large is good for the individual member of that trade
in proportion.
In this connection, the example of the prominent retail houses
located in New York and in the district bounded by Fourteenth and
Twenty-third streets, Broadway and Sixth avenue, a section ap-
proximately half a mile square and formerly, without question, the
letail center of the city, is worth noting. Not so long ago one
prominent concern moved from Fourteenth street to Thirty-fourth
street and in the course of five or six years at least four other great
department stores located on or close to the same corner, with the
result that it became recognized as the new retail center.
The houses still remaining in the old district, however, have not
been idle and have been taking close to full page spaces in the daily
papers, the total space being divided among a score of prominent
firms and headed with some pointed general remarks regarding the
importance and accessibility of the old district with the cards of
the merchants themselves telling of the actual goods offered and the
special bargains to be found.
It is believed that once a buyer is induced to visit one store in
the old district, in response to a particular argument offered in the
joint advertisement, he or she will not leave without having visited
one or several of the neighboring concerns with resultant profit to
those other houses. Therefore, a joint piano advertisement that
would draw prospects 1 to the district would mean that some house
would do business with that prospect and there would probably be
enough prospects attracted to give each house a share. Then special
days could be arranged for player-piano or talking machine recitals,
with or without assisting artists, that would make the visiting pub-
lic even more interested. The example set by our friends in other
industries is certainly worth consideration.
T
HE committee on patents and trade-marks, just appointed from
the New York County Lawyers' Association and composed
entirely of patent attorneys, is the first committee organized by the
general bar of this city composed wholly of the patent bar. The
members are charged with the advocacy of reforms in the Patent
Office, the supervision of the procedure regarding patents in the
United States 1 courts and promotion of patent legislation in Con-
gress. The Patent Office is said to be in a congested condition just
now, with over 21,060 applications 1 waiting action.
The committee has organized and is actively opposing the pas-
sage at the present time of the Oldfield bill for codifying the patent
law, on the ground that it is unconstitutional; that it is hasty and,
all considered, a direct attack on the integrity of the patent system,
which, under the guise of preventing abuses, does more harm than
good.
The committee includes the patent counsel for many of the
great manufacturing corporations, but is dominated by no special
interests.
T
HOUSANDS of travelers will sympathize with Bonci, the
great tenor, in the damage suit which he has recently started.
Bonci, whose voice and singing have won the admiration of three
continents, has brought suit for $50,000 damages against a railway
company and the company that supplies its sleeping cars, because
during an all-night journey in the dead of winter, to fulfil a pro-
fessional engagement at Toronto, he contracted an acute laryngitis,
due, he maintains, to the shutting off of the heat in the sleeping
car for some hours. The tenor further avers that he complained
of the lack of heat and asked that the car be kept at a proper tem-
perature lest he should take cold and be unable to sing. In spite