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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
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B. BRITTAIN WILSON,
A. J. NICKLIN,
CARLETON CHACE,
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L. M. ROBINSON,
W M . B. WHITE,
GLAD HENDBKSON,
L. E. BOWERS.
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Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
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t i o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu
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lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
ICi.UUli.ai VCUdl UllCllia. d e a ] t w j t h > w i u b e f o u n d i n a n o t h e r s e c tion of this
paper. W« also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Diploma
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. .Charleston Exposition, 1908
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
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NEW
YORK,
OCTOBER
3 , 1914
EDITORIAL
RDER is slowly but surely replacing the chaotic conditions
which have prevailed in the world of commerce since the
war between the great nations of Europe started. There has been
a general tendency to proceed cautiously and wisely in the plan to
divert the commerce of warring nations to this country. Even
without effort to gain new markets orders are being placed with
the United States from entirely unexpected places and mostly all
lines of trade have reported a decided impetus in the matter of
orders within the past ten days.
This activity is not confined to the orders from foreign points,
but throughout the country merchants are realizing that the do-
mestic requirements of a hundred million people are of such mag-
nitude as to compel them to stock up to meet the demands of their
customers.
Merchants have been ordering cautiously for the past three
years, owing to the unsettlement of business due to the unfavor-
able legislation in Washington, and stocks in all lines at present are
very low. With the farming community getting large prices for
their products, and with more money to spend, dealers are seeing
an opportunity for trade that has not hitherto existed, hence the
improved outlook.
In this connection piano merchants must bear in mind that
American .farmers will have an immense sum of money to spend this
year as proceeds of their record crops, and a proper share of this
should find its way into the piano factories of the country, provided
the piano men are alive to the opportunities that exist.
The development of piano trade in small towns in the farm-
ing communities is well worthy of cultivation. The manufacturer
who sells the many small dealers in the farming sections—men who
retail on good terms and get good large first payments, if not all
cash—is quite as well off as where he sells a merchant in a
large city, who has to cultivate his territory a,t long distance, and
where he is not so intimately acquainted with his customers, or
with their financial condition.
During a recent trip through some of the small towns in the
agricultural sections of Northern New York State, the writer was
O
really surprised at the amount of business done by piano dealers in
very small towns. The annual total sales were not enormous, but
they were good sales, and enabled the dealer to pay the manufac-
turer from whom he bought the goods in a comparatively short
time. This is not the case of one, but a half dozen instances that
came under observation, and it bears out what a prominent manu-
facturer said to The Review recently:
"The small dealers whom we have been cultivating for a great
many years are really the backbone of our business," said this gen-
tleman; "we have the pleasantest relations with them because they
invariably pay their bills when promised. The individual annual
sales are small, but when we have thirty of these dealers through-
out the country doing a healthy business with an increasing output
it gives us a class of trade that is a pleasure to handle."
E
DISON gives American business men a timely text: "Act—
don't talk." When dislocation of foreign trade shut off his
supply of carbolic acid, Edison set day and night gangs to build a
plant where he could manufacture a substitute.
Too much inertia exists in trade circles, when opportunities sel-
dom equaled wait for the nod of recognition. The "laissez faire"
attitude will not win the rewards of this year or next. It seems
easier, when foreign supplies are unavailable, to shut shop and let
employes go rather than to think out a means of escape from tem-
porary conditions.
Members of Congress, too, are stumbling over ant hills when
they ought to be scaling mountains. The pettiness of some of the
legislative suggestions of the day, when the greatest fiscal and eco-
nomic problems of all times are to be met, passes belief.
May not the indifference of capital and trade to the favors of
the times be due to an ingrained fear that, with the war ended, our
foreign competitors will be backed by their governments in policies
that encourage expansion, while legislative energy here continues to
wear itself out in iconoclastic measures?
The foregoing from The Evening Mail is right to the point.
There is one thing sure, if permanent success is to be achieved in
the development of our foreign or domestic trade, there must be a
more sympathetic attitude on the part of the legislative department
of the Government than has been hitherto manifested.
The foreign countries that have expanded industrially are those
that have had the hearty support of their governments in all of their
undertakings, while here we are harassing business enterprises and
undermining the financial equilibrium by antagonistic legislation
which does anything but encourage business men to engage in new
enterprises.
Isn't it time to call a halt and have everyone put their shoulders
to the wheel of American industrial progress both at home and
abroad?
N
OW is the season of the year when the piano merchants of
the smaller towns as well as many of those in metropolitan
centers take advantage of the opportunity to exhibit their prod-
ucts at the various State and county fairs, and the fact that the
practice of exhibiting is followed year after year indicates that the
merchant who gives the matter sufficient attention is not forced to
regard the expenditure of time and money necessary to make and
take care of a suitable piano display as a waste.
The various country or State fairs come at a time when the
bulk of the harvesting is supposed to have been finished. The
farming element are in a position to realize just what the year's
work has accomplished and when crops have proven satisfactory,
as is generally the case this year, they are in a mood to be separated
from some of their money without great difficulty.
Piano merchants who make exhibits at the county and State
fair in an energetic manner frequently make sufficient profit on
actual sales on the fair grounds to more than cover the expenses of
the exhibit and in addition compile a live list of prospects.
With the advent of the player-piano and the talking machine
the dealer who exhibits finds that it is possible to have music almost
constantly and without inconvenience, and music is a wonderful
factor in attracting attention. Those who attend these small affairs
have often remarked that the greatest crowds appear to be in the
vicinity of booths wherein the piano and talking machine were
being exhibited and played, Such interest will pay dividends to
the dealer.