Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1913 Vol. 56 N. 7

Page 4 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MU3IC TRADE
REVIEW
I
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Stall:
B. BmiTTAiK WiLSOM,
A. J. NicKLiN,
CAKLETON CHACB.
AUGUST J. T I M P I ,
L. M. ROBINSON,
W M . B. W H I T E ,
GLAD HENDERSON,
L. E. B o w n i .
BOSTON OFFICE:
CHICAGO OFFICE:
TOM* H. WILSON, 884 Washington St.
E. P. VAN HABLINGBN. 87 South Wabash Arc.
Telephone, Main 6950.
Room 806. Telephone, Central 414
PHILADELPHIA:
MINNEAPOLIS a n d S T . P A U L :
S T . LOUISt
R. W. KAUFFMAN.
ADOLF EDSTEN.
CLYDE JENNINGS
SAN FRANCISCO: S. H. GRAY, 88 First St.
D E T R O I T , MICH.: MORIIS J. W H I T S .
CINCINNATI. O . : JACOB W. WALTERS.
B A L T I M O R E . M D . : A. ROBERT FRENCH.
INDIANAPOLIS, I N D J STANLEY H . SMITM.
MILWAUKEE. W I S . : L. E. M I V H .
LONDON. ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., E. C.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Enttttd at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
SUBSCRIPTION, (including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada,
$1.60; all other countries, $4.00.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S , $8.60 per inch, single column, per insertion.
On quarterly or
• yearly contracts, a special discount is allowed. Advertising Pages, $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
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paper. We also publish
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also publish
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of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be We
cheerfully
given a upon
request.
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request
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. .Charleston Exposition, 1901
Diploma.... Pan-American Exposition, 1001
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark
Exposition, 1906
LONG DISTANCE T E L E P H O N E S - N U M B E R S S 9 8 2 - 5 9 8 S MADISON SQUARE
Connecting all Departments.
Cable address •• "ElbUL New York."
NEW
YORK, FEBRUARY
15, 1913
EDITORIAL
M
ANY business men make the mistake of weighing adver-
tising by what it costs. It is impossible to pay too much
for advertising—if it pays. Nothing is cheaper than advertising
that brings big, profitable returns. Nothing is more expensive
than "cheap" advertising that brings no results. If a paper
charges you 50 cents a line, and every line brings you a dollar,
you have struck a paying proposition—a veritable gold mine. If
a paper charges 50 cents a square foot, and you never hear from
it, you are pouring money into a rat hole. Advertising is mer-
chandise, and when the right mediums are selected a profit can
be made on it, no matter what it costs.
Some merchants say they do not believe in advertising, for-
getting the fact, whether they believe in it or not, they are adver-
tisers. A man's store, his dress, his manner, his expression are
advertisements. All these things have an influence on the minds
of the people with whom one comes in contact.
It is not really a question whether a man in business should
be an advertiser. He is one, and can't help it. The only question
that any business man has to decide is whether he will do effec-
tive advertising or ineffective advertising—whether he will ad-
vertise along correct, progressive lines, avoiding misleading
methods, which may tend to undermine the confidence of the
public in his store and in the line of goods which he handles, or
indulge in a hackneyed, poorly prepared, vacillating or mislead-
ing publicity that does not invite consideration or support.
Advertising is a most important factor in modern business.
Many piano merchants have given it too little consideration, and
some that have are under the impression that the public can be
fooled, forgetting that old familiar saying of Lincoln's. Adver-
ising interests equally the man who makes the goods as well as
the man who sells them, and to both advertising is all important
and vital. No business in this electric age can succeed without
it. It may vary in form, but whether by printer's ink or word
of mouth advertising must be done.
S a buyer entitled to credit when he refuses point blank to
divulge his financial resources, or to make a definite state-
ment showing relation of assets to liabilities? This is somewhat
of a pertinent question, and the individual or business concern
which is forced to call upon others for a loan of goods that profits
may be secured from a resale of the goods must admit that he or
it should be willing, first of all, to prove ability and purpose
to pay for the goods at expiration of limit to which credit is run.
Assuming that the prospective debtor comes forward with
such a statement, would it not be wise for the creditor to insist
that the statement be in writing, properly dated, and bearing the
signature of the debtor? To go a step further, is it possible to
establish a uniform statement system in every branch of the
music trade industry, and secure for it—as a fundamental prin-
ciple—the support and recognition of the creditor class?
The creditor would certainly be the gainer, the honest
debtor who is addicted to "plunging" would be properly curbed
and held down by the creditor, but, best of all, the man who
deliberately plans to steal your products would be forced to show
his hand, and in the event of his making" a false statement you
not only have good ground for proceeding criminally against
him, but in many States if your goods have been delivered and
attached by a second creditor your replevin writ would take pre-
cedence over his writ of attachment. There are decisions, also,
which hold that where the vendee has secured possession of your
goods through fraud, you may recover them from an innocent
mortgagee to whom this questionable title has been transferred
as security for a pre-existing debt. Are there any objections to
the plan?
HE election of the officers of The Cable Company, re-
corded in last week's Review, illustrates how faithful
and efficient service is recognized and rewarded. The gentle-
men selected to direct the operations of this great company have
all risen from the ranks, so to speak, and they demonstrated their
capability to fill the important positions to which they have
been elected by years of service in various departments..
The election of Geo. J. Dowling to the presidency was not
unexpected. He was the first vice-president of the company, and
is splendidly fitted by natural qualifications and business experi-
ence to be the official head of the great piano-producing corpora-
tion. His entire business life has been passed in the piano trade.
He has had experience in almost every department, learning,
while a very young man, the practical and mechanical side in Bos-
ton. Then an experience as a wareroom salesman, as traveling
man, as manager of a branch house in Chicago, in which he was
brought in close contact with dealers everywhere; and then, lat-
terly, his association with The Cable Company as vice-president,
during which he kept in close touch with the progress of affairs
the country over.
Mr. Dowling is, therefore, eminently qualified to fill, with
signal ability, the duties of the office to which his business asso-
ciates have elected him. He is a man of action and not words,
and surrounded as he is by a splendid directorate there can be no
question as to the success of his administration.
T
Y
OU cannot ship pianos by parcel post, but you can ship a
lot of small goods and musical accessories.
The way the American people have utilized the parcel post
is amazing. With a record of 40,000,000 packages handled in the
first four weeks of operation without delaying the mails, the
parcel post may claim to have passed the stage of experiment. It
appears, however, there is a further test to come. The service is
growing by leaps and bounds. The number of packages carried
in the second fortnight exceeded those of the first by more than
5,000,000. And the country patronage is just beginning to come
into play.
From the more remote sections of the country postmasters
report that merchants are extending their fields of service to the
rural districts through the system, while the farmers are learn-
ing its possibilities and preparing to make experiments in ship-
ping their products to neighboring cities and towns.
Chicago merchants have made a prompter use of the new
service than those of other cities, and as a consequence the
number of parcels handled there exceeds that of New York itself.

Page 5 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Being Equipped for Larger Responsibilities.
N these days when unrest and dissatisfaction seem to be rife
in the industrial world, when it is common to hear men com-
plain of lack of opportunity, it is interesting to turn to some re-
cent events in the music trade which demonstrate how men who
set out seriously to equip themselves for larger responsibilities
win out in the battle for preferment and success.
Take, for instance, those two energetic New Englanders who
figured in the news columns of The Review last week—Geo. J.
Dowling, president of The Cable Company, Chicago, 111., and A.
L. Jewett, who now has a controlling interest in the National
Piano Co., Boston, Mass.
Here are two examples of men who, by training and experi-
ence, and close observation of trade problems and their elucida-
tion, so equipped themselves that when opportunities came their
way they were enabled to take advantage of them.
Their lives illustrate the value of intensive work—of knowing
one's business thoroughly. In their relation with others they
have been developers and stimulators. They have always looked
on the optimistic side of things, and fitted themselves to sur-
mount all problems and difficulties that come their way.
Despite the general assailment of corporations and the much
discussed lack of sympathy with those who labor for them, there
are plenty concerns throughout the United States which have
recognized and are selecting for the most responsible positions
men who have worked up from modest posts. The great trouble
nowadays is that too many men do not fit themselves by educa-
tion and training, and lack that enthusiasm and interest in busi-
ness which entitles them to consideration for larger responsi-
bilities.
Years of service, while a factor to be considered, is not the
great essential to recognition in any institution. There must be
also manifest ability and developed knowledge gained in the busi-
ness which can be applied to its advantage and betterment.
Industry, skill and progressiveness are recognized to-day by
great corporations, whether in the commercial or railroad field, as
never before. But the laggards, the men who drift along com-
plaining without making any serious effort to make their service
I
more valuable will, like the poor, be always "in our midst."
When a man isn't successful he usually attributes it to ill-
luck, and that same man will always designate a successful man
as being a "lucky fellow," overlooking the fact that back of this
so-called luck there is plenty of persistent and unremitting toil—
that hard work in all its different degrees lies behind all success
in life.
The most hopeless failures are those who hold themselves
blameless, and who never admit their own lack of ability and in-
dustry—who blame fate, conditions, luck, everything but the real
cause.
It is true that most of us do not achieve that degree of success
to which we imagine our abilities especially entitle us. It may
be that we cannot secure the employment which we believe our-
selves specially fitted for. But more men drift into slothful in-
dolence through waiting for real "business snaps"—in other
words, for positions which they are not competent to fill—than
those who achieve distinguished success.
There are plenty of men who always wish to play the leading
parts in the great drama of Hfe when they have failed to demon-
strate that they have ability to play even the minor ones. Then
these men believe they are shunted to a siding through lack of
appreciation of their merits—that it is ill-luck that keeps them
down.
A man's unconsciousness of the direct or tributary causes
of failure doesn't make it any less a fact, but contributes lament-
ably to the hopelessness of his condition. When he once gains
a knowledge that in himself lies success or failure there is a possi-
bility of success. The knowledge gives him his chance to climb,
and he begins in no half-hearted way. It lies with him to decide
whether the apple of success is worth climbing for. We can re-
spect the man who looks at the apple, sizes up the labor and
decides it isn't worth the climbing; but the man who thinks he
deserves the apple, and waits for some one to come along and
loan him a ladder—well, he is waiting yet, and invariably he is
the man who is the most emphatic in his protestations against
ill-luck.
Reform in National and State Legislation.
T has often been stated that fewer and simpler laws, stripped
of ambiguous legal phraseology, would tend to facilitate the
working of the judicial machinery of the Government. To those
who have had dealings with either the civil or criminal courts the
desirability of laws of non-technical and of understandable char-
acter has been deeply impressed. .
Special interest, therefore, attaches to the announcement
that a number of business men of New York City have banded
together for the purpose of advocating a general reform in Na-
tional and State legislation by having laws drafted in such man-
ner that their meaning may be clearly defined. It is the claim
of the reformers that the present laws are drafted by legislators
who are almost without exception lawyers by profession, and
that the laws are therefore'calculated to give the members of
their profession constant employment in interpreting the laws for,
and at the expense of, the business man.
The stand of those back of the movement is clearly set forth
in the following letter sent out to commercial organizations
throughout the country: "The country is not only inflicted, but
is further threatened with laws, governing commercial business,
and including in a large measure imprisonment penalties. These
laws, such as the Sherman law, proposed Norris law and the pro-
I
posed legislation in various States, is so ambiguously worded that
it is impossible for a business man to clearly understand.
"Do you not think that it is time for a country-wide move-
ment among the commercial bodies to come forward unitedly
and ask for clear, concise legislation, and that the business men
of the country should have a voice in the drafting of laws that
will govern business? Our present legislators are nearly all
lawyers, and our present laws give them the opportunity of con-
stant employment."
While it can hardly be charged that the laws are made for
the special purpose of giving additional employment to the mem-
bers of the bar, there are many piano men who have suffered
severe financial losses through questions regarding the legality
of contracts, leases, name rights, consignment agreements and
other matters, who could have prevented those losses had the
laws been simple enough to permit of a thorough understanding
of their real meaning without the aid of lawyers.
With laws simple in language much of the legal controversy
in trade circles would be done away with, for there would not
be any opportunities for clever lawyers to interpret the involved
phraseology at the expense of the contestants and to their own
gain.
Boston comes third, but much behind the leaders, having handled
less than half the number of this city. All expect an increase
with the spring.
This is the showing of a service that politicians halted over
for years; that men of stand-pat minds said would never be profit-
able to the people or to the Government. And the express
companies, instead of dying, are sitting up and taking notice.
A good many people believe that the music roll business will"
be stimulated by reason of the parcel post; but there is a reverse
side to the medal, and we shall in a subsequent issue touch upon
the parcel post and its effect upon the music roll business and
other branches of the music trade,,.

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