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THE
MUJIC TFADE
VOL. L X . N o . 1
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Jan. 2, 1915
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Definite Actio
ONE is the Old Year, with its shadows and its sunshine—its triumphs and It« fl sl)rr6'VvS\ > :*. : V*
Gone is 1914, a year unlike any other in all history—a year in which the whole world
r has been saddened by the greatest war of all the ages—a year in which, as a natural se-
quence, there has been disturbances of various kinds.
And yet, in casting a retrospective glance over 1914 it must be admitted that we have much to
be thankful for. It must be conceded that much of our trouble is mental; that, after all, we have
no real troubles, such as those destroying the warring European countries.
While we understand, to some slight extent, the magnitude and awfulness of this war, we
should realize, to a greater degree perhaps, the blessings which are ours—the blessings which come
from living in a country free from war and famine, and blessed with an agricultural yield which
has added from eight to ten billions to its national wealth. That is something to think about—some-
thing to cheer the heart, for we face the future. For, after all, the world spends but very little time
in contemplation of the past. We are not built on the yesterday plan.
If we turn toward yesterday—that is, the old year—we will perhaps see much to fill our minds
with sadness and clog our mental machinery somewhat with despair and doubt. But why yesterday
when we face to-morrow? Let us wisely improve the present.
Our greatest asset is the present time, and it is the only thing that we can truly call our own,
and when we face the future let us face it in a sunshiny mood, and the sun always shines for the
to-morrow mind!
Nineteen fourteen is dead—it is but a memory; but 1915—that is, our to-morrow—is large with
promise and rich in the elements which make for human advance.
Of course we cannot all be victors; some of us will be defeated in the New Year, and what is
life but one defeat after another.
When some men meet with reverses it only seems to encourage them to bigger things.
The more energy you have, the more hard knocks you can receive and come up under them.
One type of man receives a sudden blow amounting to great reverses, and he sits down and
howls with all the ginger departed from him. The other type wipes the blood from his face and
strikes out, vitalized with a new force.
It is hard work to down a true fighting spirit, but no triumph can long stiffen the backbone of
a winner.
The men with chocolate eclair backbones have no place in the modern ranks of business fight-
ers. They are simply cumbering up the earth, and are bound to be pushed aside by the triumphant
army of producers—men who are trade builders in the truest sense.
The cruelty of fate cannot check the men with an unconquerable spirit. Those men to whom
1914 was a failure come up fresh on the threshold of 1915 with a smile on their lips and with an
undaunted spirit. In other words, they strike out manfully for newer and bigger things. They are
the kind of men who do not think of yesterday, because that is dead; but with them it is to-morrow
—the New Year. It is to the scrap heap with failures of the past, no matter what they are, and it
should be to the scrap heap with antiquated systems and a lot of suicidal policies which have ham-
pered the business of the country in the past. Why stick to a method when its failure has been
clearly proven by past events?
We have men in the music trade of large vision—business builders—and we have others of the
tvpe who are alwavs thinking of yesterday, and whose whole view of life is narrow and contracted.
They are the road blockers, nothing else.
When we stand on the threshold of the New Year it seems to be quite time to figure out definite
plans for the new twelve months, and if we have found by results that anything is radically wrong
in our program of yesterday, why stick to it to-morrow?
G
(Continued on page 5.)
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