Music Trade Review

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THE:
MUSIC TRADE: REVIEIW
and a share of the overhead expense, and he naturally does not
hesitate about entering into a new arrangement by which he cannot
lose.
A piano manufacturer in New England believes he has solved
the agency problem to a certain extent at least, by making the
merchant pay real money for the first shipment of instruments
simply as a guarantee that he means business.
The fact that the instruments must be paid for does much to
encourage the merchant to push them and put forth special efforts
in their interests, causes him to weigh the proposition before he
takes the agency at all and ensures the manufacturer some sort of
run for his money. The earnest dealer should not object to the
plan and the other sort will be eliminated.
Legal Questions Answered for the
Benefit of Review Readers
have opened a Department wherein legal
questions, which have direct bearing on music
trade affairs, will be answered free of charge.
tJThis Department is under the supervision of
Messrs. Wentworth, Lowenstein & Stern, attor-
neys at law, of 60 Wall Street, New York.
CjMatter intended for this Department should be
addressed plainly, Legal Department, The Music
Trade Review.
I
N all branches of industry to-day there is evident a desire to
eliminate "lost-motion"—to manage men and machines more
effectively with the object of securing a maximum of results at a
minimum of expense.
The agitation for improved methods in shop management, under
whatever name they are put forth, has done much to call attention
to the possibilities of improving both conditions and results. In too
many cases all effort seems to be directed toward speeding up ma-
chines and men as the only way to secure these results, the individu-
ality of the man being lost sight of.
It is refreshing to find a few business doctors under various
titles, who are working along different lines. Their first work is
with the managers themselves, to get them to first decide on their
own ideas of a policy before attempting to ask men to co-operate
and be loyal to it. After this, it is argued that every employe can
be trained to think along lines which will add to the welfare of the
institution. This does not mean that the boy will plan the adver-
tising campaign, but that his ideas can be put to useful work in his
own line by a little encouragement of the right sort.
This is in direct contrast with the policy of attempting to locate
all the brains in the office force, and seems bound to work out to
better advantage in the long run. There are many cases where a
boy or man low down in the wage scale of a plant has made sug-
gestions which have saved many times his salary for the year. True,
this may not happen very often, but as we are after all the improved
methods possible, we cannot afford to let any of these escape.
If any business doctor can show us how to get all the brains at
work, each in its own strong or feeble way, as the case may be, it
is certain that better results will be secured.
Rules for guidance in either office or factory are excellent
things until we forget that they are for guidance, not hindrance.
The minute a rule begins to hinder work, just that minute it begins
also to be converted into a nuisance.
It is the same people that are unable to distinguish between
system and red tape that often make rules into hindrances, They
are people who see the form, but fail to catch the true spirit of
things, and many times when they think they are progressives they
are really obstructionists.
When a rule hinders and the man that is being hindered by it
lacks the sense and the backbone to break or go around that rule, it
is' about time for the man that pays the bills to break one of the ten
commandments to relieve the situation. Not that a rule hinders
every time some man imagines it does, nor that this should be taken
as license to break rules regardless. There is a sensible way to treat
rules to get good service out of them, and the sensible man should
be able to distinguish when a rule is really hindering, and know what
to do.
O E V E R A L interesting facts are revealed to those who make a
Vv3 careful analysis of the bulletin of manufactures of the United
States, as shown by the thirteenth census recently issued by the
Bureau of Census of the Department of Commerce and labor. One
of the principal things shown is that the percentage of the value
added by manufacture—in other words 1 , the combined gross profit
of both capital and labor—favored the latter in 1909. In that year
51 per cent, of this added value, or profit, went for salaries and
wages, against 49 per cent, derived by the average manufacturer as
the gross profit of his enterprise. In 1904 the percentage of gross
profit was evenly divided between capital and labor; in 1899 capital
received the major share. Then the .division favored the manufac-
turer by 51 per cent, against 49. To put the matter briefly, in ten
years the earnings of the workers in the average American indus-
trial enterprise have increased 2 per cent, and the gross profit to the
individual or corporation conducting the business has been reduced
a like amount.
T
HE death at the Hotel Langham in Paris on Sunday last of
Lucien Wulsin, president of the great Baldwin piano in-
terests in Cincinnati, has occasioned a great deal of regret through-
out the trade. Mr. Wulsin had played an important part in the
upbuilding of the industry. As head of the Baldwin corporation
he had seen that business grow from a comparatively modest stand-
ing to a position of unusual strength in the financial and commer-
cial worlds.
Mr. Wulsin was a man of wide vision, a strong executive, an
able administrator and a great believer in systematized business.
As a result, he controlled a strong organization which remains a
monument to his ability and able management. He was a great
lover of flowers, the outdoor life, of music, good books and the
fine arts generally. He was also a lover of his country and mani-
fested his faith not by words, but by deeds, for he made a gallant
record as a member of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry during the Civil
War.
S
OMEONE has very aptly named the show window the ''Head-
light of the store," and this description is not far-fetched, for
the window has the effect of attracting the passer-by to the store
or repelling him, as the case may be. Carelessness in window
arrangement betokens carelessness in the management of the store
back of it, and is not at all likely to receive the attention of the
public. Then, too, from another viewpoint, when it is realized
what a large proportion of the rental is tied up in the show window,
the merchant who does not make that part of the investment pay
dividends lacks in business foresight.
Take the piano warerooms on Fifth avenue, for instance, where
the high rentals make every inch of space valuable. How many of
the window displays are allowed to become stagnant, to remain un-
changed month in and month out and to grow wearisome to the
pedestrian ? Do not the managers realize that even a display of the
simplest styles of pianos changed weekly or fortnightly will receive
more attention from the public than the handsomest art piano left
in the window for five or six months ?
The Aeolian Co., which by reason of occupying an entire build'
ing on the avenue, has only a very small portion of its expense
chargeable to the show windows, has long realized the value of
frequent changes, and as a result its windows always receive con-
siderable attention from the public. Wm. Knabe & Co., with prac-
tically its entire warerooms exposed to public view, finds it pays
to place new piano styles' in the show window at proper intervals.
So do Hardman, Peck & Co., Sohmer & Co. and the Mason &
Hamlin Co.
The results mean interest on the investment. The crowd on
Fifth avenue, for the most part, is a peculiar one, inasmuch as the
same people promenade that thoroughfare daily, the society folks
for their constitutional, and the workers 1 as a pleasant path to and
from business. Both classes are well worth attracting to the store
by means of good show window displays.