Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1913 Vol. 57 N. 14

Page 5 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
A Criticism and the Reply.
WELL-KNOWN piano merchant in sending a critical
A
communication to this publication says: "I will say that
I have always regarded your paper as clean, free from aspersions
and attacks on manufacturers and dealers.
"However, I acknowledge to a lack of interest in any and
all of the papers published in the interests of the piano trade,
as I have been unable to find much information and but little
uplift.
"I plead to the same feeling regarding the National Associa-
tion of Piano Dealers, in which I lost interest a good many
years ago.
"If seems to me that the paper that will benefit the trade is
the one that will give it information, advice and uplift, and that
it will use its pages freely to comment or criticise piano adver-
tisements without fear or favor.
"As it is, I believe no one will contradict me in claiming
that the music trade press is fulsome in praise where manu-
facturers advertise liberally and is either silent or critical when
they don't.
"It is possible that certain patronage would be lost if the
trade press were to be absolutely straightforward and honest
in reviewing the various conditions as they come up from time
to time, but it is only by so doing that the press would be of
genuine value to the trade. One might refer, for instance, to
the recent entering into the retail business of manufacturing
interests in New York, with the aid of a chain of department
stores, using the money made through the dealer in the years
gone by to take business away from the dealers in the years to come.
"The press is silent regarding this condition, and for that
reason dealers remote from the localities where this campaign
has already been introduced are practically ignorant of it, where-
as with a straightforward trade press they would know all
about it.
"If you can remodel your paper to make it the Bible of the
piano dealer you will put your periodical in a class by itself.
"I have admired The Review for its straightforward posi-
tion, but I think that there are things which we can criticise
without being unkind."
The above is taken from a communication of a man of high
repute, and who is evidently sincere and means precisely what
he says.
He first acknowledges his lack of interest in the trade
papers, and at the same time it is plain that he reads them, and
reads them closely, for there is no other special field in which
he can gain information which is of value to himself and to
his salesmen.
There is no question but that trade papers could be better,
and there is no question, either, but that some of them are bad
enough; but they are conducted by men who are human beings,
who have the same impulses, good or bad, as the men who read
them, and if the advertisers had been unwilling to support a
malicious or decadent press it never would have existed. There-
fore it is fair to presume some men desire a servile or abusive
press. They need it in their profession.
So far as finding information in the trade papers is con-
cerned, we must differ very materially with our friend, because
every issue of The Review contains contributions from a hundred
different sources. Aside from the staff in our home city and
branch office in Chicago, there are correspondents in the prin-
cipal cities throughout the Union who contribute weekly.
So far as advice and uplift are concerned, we have hundreds
of letters on file which show that the advice of this paper is
looked for by men who rely upon its utterances.
For many years we have fought for the maintenance of
correct principles. We may say that the National Association of
Piano Merchants was originally planned and urged by this paper.
We may say that great national questions, such as one
price, the coupon, guessing contest evil and the one name piano,
doing away with misrepresentation in advertising, have all been
argued in these columns month after month.
In fact, we have at intervals taken up the great question of
trade expansion, and fought for trade advance faithfully and
conscientiously.
We may say that years ago we saw the possibilities of the
player-piano, and we commenced educational work along those
lines, acquainting the dealers with the trade-building power of
this new claimant for public patronage, and endeavored to im-
press upon the trade the importance of educational work in con-
nection with the sale of player-pianos.
In this connection we may add that we have produced the
only technical works in the world relating to the player-piano;
we have conducted an important player department weekly, and
monthly have produced a complete section of the paper devoted
to player-pianos larger in itself than some of the lesser music
trade publications.
This work has been conducted at considerable expense,
but with the desire to make this publication a power in the
legitimate development of music trade interests.
No one who has not gone into the subject carefully can
appreciate the amount of educational work which is required
along technical lines, and in this particular The Review has
occupied a unique position.
So far as the trade press being fulsome in praise when
manufacturers advertise liberally, it is but natural to suppose
that trade paper conductors feel well disposed to the men who
support them as compared with those who do not; but to say
that the trade press is lacking in honesty in reviewing various
conditions is hardly fair.
We would like to call the attention of our critic to the fact
that when the great wave of coupon advertising and guess-
ing contests and puzzle schemes was sweeping the country and
threatening to completely demolish piano selling conditions,
The Review, of all other trade papers, commenced a campaign
against this admitted evil.
Some of our old-time friends and advertisers were opposftl
to us. They thought that we had no right to criticise their aots, \
and the result was an unpleasant feeling was created, not on
our part but on the part of others towards the paper and its
management.
They felt that we were interfering with their plans, and
they did not hesitate to say so, and some of them said many
bitter and harsh words concerning our policy at the time, but
such actions did not swerve us in the slightest. We did not
resort to abuse in any particular; on the contrary, we tried to
convince, by argument, our clients and others who were adopting
the coupon, guessing contest scheme of piano selling that they
were wrong and that we were right. We succeeded in arousing
national sentiment opposing this whole plan. We carried it to
such a point that the dealers in convention expressed themselves
as opposed to its continuance, and thus we created a national
discussion which resulted eventually in sweeping the puzzle
schemes off the piano calendar, and at the same time we were
successful in annihilating some of our own trade, for it is a
fact that the piano men, like business men in other lines, are
thin-skinned—they cannot stand criticism—and they resented
our attack upon their methods, even though we were very careful
not to mention names in connection with our anti-guessing and
coupon campaign. So, with the loss of thousands of dollars in
advertising in this particular campaign and in others, we think
that *he criticism of our subscriber is hardly fair.
It is true that some manufacturing interests have been in-
terested in creating a chain of distributing interests through
department stores, but that move is legitimate. One is per-
fectly justified in seeking any output for products so long as the
methods adopted conform to established business principles, and our
friend could not surely expect a trade publication to tell the
manufacturer that he had no right to put out his goods through
a chain of department stores if he chooses, even though he is
running the risk of offending some of his dealers,
(Continued on page 6.)

Page 6 Text:

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
6
A CRITICISM A N D THE REPLY-(Continued from page 5).
We might retaliate by saying that there are many dealers
who resort to all sorts of unfair methods in competition, and
yet we cannot at all times write up all the disgusting details,
because we have a duty to perform to our clients and our
subscribers.
The Review will at all times be progressive, will be fair,
will be straightforward, and it will seek to uphold the principles
which make for business betterment; but to expect that all of
our readers will at all times approve of all of our acts is rather
inconsistent, and our friend, who is a business man of high in-
telligence, we believe will be willing to withdraw some of his
criticisms upon further consideration.
. We do not, however, blame some of the men for having a
prejudice against music trade journals, because we have seen
journals in this industry conducted on lines which were a dis-
grace to the times in which we live. The conduct of these
papers reflected upon the trade itself, because it supported an
abusive journal which should not have existed, and some of the
dealers themselves have used defamatory articles in certain jour-
nals in their own local territory in their aims to defeat the sales
of pianos which have been perniciously assailed in the black-
mailing press.
Surely our friend would consider our criticism rather unwise
if we should say that all of the piano merchants in the country
were tainted because some few used unfair and dishonest
methods, and we rather think that it is unjust for him to accuse
the trade press as a whole of unfairness and insincerity, when
certain sections at least have been working steadily along lines
of business uplift.
Trade journal conductors are interested in the upbuilding of
the trade, and if it had not been so they could not have made the
advance which they have in the past ten years.
The trade newspapers are securing more and more of the
best brains in the country, and every trade and technical news-
paper office is a sieve through which young men of ability are
passing every year. Only those who show a special aptitude
fcjjvthe work are retained.
j It takes energy and it takes a reasonable amount of common
sense to succeed fn the trade newspaper business, for the de-
•
mands made by the industry and the competition, which is
always growing keener and more unrelenting, compel the pub-
lisher in any line to employ the best talent available.
Go into the leading trade newspaper offices to-day and note
the organizations which exist; note the caliber of the men employed
there, compare them with the makeup of the organizations of ten
or fifteen years ago, and it will at once be apparent that the trade
newspaper is moving ahead, quite up with the procession.
Unquestionably there could be freer criticisms made in the
columns of honest-intentioned papers, were it not for the fact
that the existence of conscienceless sheets, controlled by men
absolutely without morals, has placed the honest papers in such
a condition that free and fair criticisms might be misconstrued
by some as a method of bringing* about larger advertising
appropriations.
In other words, so low and so contemptible have been some
of the papers in the music trade that their efforts have created
an influence which has tainted to a certain extent the entire pro-
fession, as well as the entire trade, because dishonest journalistic
methods have encouraged dishonest methods among piano
merchants.
Dishonest newspaper men have not entirely disappeared
from the field, but the blackmailing and holdup methods have
received their knockout blow, and those who still hang on will
find less encouragement in working along abusive lines than
ever before.
They may hang on for a while, picking up a little money
here and there, but at no time can they make progress. The
incompetents and holdupists and men of mediocre ability in
the trade newspaper field are fewer in number than can be found
proportionatley in any other profession.
The trade newspaper, although limited in circulation, covers
an entire industry, and it will be more or less subjected to
criticism which the individual will not, because it speaks to
thousands where the individual can only talk to those who are
present, and its utterances will always be open to the criticism of
the many.
We welcome criticism—invite it—provided it is honest and
sincere.
ELIMINATING DESTRUCTIVE PIANO ADVERTISING.
PROTECTION OF CREDITORS
In Detroit This Species of Publicity Has Reached the End of Its Rope—Unsuccessful Attempts to
Revive It—How National Association Membership Is Weakened.
By Means of Adequate Insurance on Stocks the
Mark of a Trustworthy Merchant, Say Credit
Men—Serves to Develop Confidence.
DETROIT,
(Special to The Review.)
MICH., September 30.—It
looks
as
though destructive piano advertising had absolutely
reached the end of its rope in Detroit. An attempt
made last week to revive it was a dismal failure.
Both houses which formerly were addicted to it
had advertisements in the papers. They ran just
one day, then disappeared. They were in a new
guise, the enforcement of a State law having made
the old style too dangerous, but they had the same
old "Was $500—now $50" misinformation so
familiar last year.
The reason for their sudden withdrawal is not
actually known, of course, but some obvious facts
furnish great deductions. One of the institutions
formerly occupied two entire floors of a building.
.Instead of expanding it has given up half the
space.
The other one, with the exception of that lone
advertisement, seems to have entirely changed its
method of doing business. Its windows are no
longer decorated with pianos marked at ridiculous
prices, which always "had just been sold" when a
prospective buyer entered to ask about them. It
has no more catch-penny schemes of any kind, and
traveling men who come to the city say that its
branches in other cities have undergone similar
transformations. They say also that the Detroit
branch is to be closed, as well as the branches in
several other cities. Seeming substantiation of this
is seen in the fact that a line of pianos which has
been handled by that store for a couple of years
was this week transferred to another Detroit store.
In fact, the traveler who made the transfer was
among those who have, tipped it off that the store
is to be closed.
Detroit dealers make no bones of saying they
are glad to hear it. J. Henry Ling pretty well ex-
pressed the sentiment when he said to The Re-
view : "The effects of that company's price de-
stroying campaign in this city will be felt for
twenty years, even if it closes up now and quits.
The campaign has brought nothing but loss to its
originators, and the straightforward, legitimate
houses must suffer as well. The fact that that
company, when its methods were so well known
throughout the country, was permitted to retain a
membership in ,the National Association, violating
its highest rules and precepts, was pretty good evi-
dence that the National Association didn't amount
to much; it cheapened its membership by allowing
such parties to remain; it didn't really stand for
what it professed to. That is the underlying rea-
son for the lack of interest at the national conven-
tions of the last few years. You may quote me on
this just as loudly as you please."
FRED C. LONG RESIGNS.
Fred C. Long has resigned as manager of the
piano department of the H. S. Barney Co., Sche-
nectady, N. Y., which position he took shortly
after the department was established, three years
ago.
BURST BOILER J 1 E S UP FACTORY.
(Special to The Review.)
NASSAU, N. Y., September 29.—The factory of
Kosegarten Bros., the piano action manufacturers
this place, has been tied down for several days
owing to the bursting of a boiler that had only
recently been added to the company's power plant.
It is fair to presume that there would be no dif-
ference in opinion among credit grantors as to the
proper attitude to take when confronted with the
case of a merchant whose assets were limited strict-
ly to his stock of merchandise, but who frankly
confessed he carried no insurance as a buffer be-
tween him and bankruptcy; yet a member of the
association on objecting to the shipment of goods
to a certain merchant receives in reply a letter ac-
companied by a statement of assets and liabilities
at the foot of which appears these words, "You
will notice that I do not carry insurance yet." Fur-
ther on in the letter "If you decide not to ship me
(he goods I have ordered, you will be the only
linn I have done business with which has ever
even mentioned the question of insurance to me."
Ts it not fair to ask whether our member who
points out the necessity of this merchant carrying
insurance is not a more genuine friend than the
other creditors, especially when one considers how
great are the chances of burning in this country?
—The Bulletin of the National Association of
Credit Men.
PIANO MAN AS COMMISSIONER.
F. Ernest Watkins, of Watkins Bros. Co., who
handle the Steinway and Sohmer pianos in Hart-
ford and other cities in New England, is putting
up a strong fight to retain his office of County
Commissioner, from October 1 until the convening
of the General Assembly in 1915. Major Edward
T. Lyons is one "of the active contestants for the
office.

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