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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
5
THE RED MIST OF WAR.
(Continued from page 3.)
country has made some kind of a fairly defensible argument in support of its own acts. The leaders
are appealing to the Supreme Power for help and each one claims that the Supreme Power is behind
them in their particular cause—furthermore, they believe it. All are appealing to God and all are
willing to suffer for the cause which they consider righteous.
There can be no stronger proof of sincerity than to offer one's life for a cause.
I have personal friends in every army on the field—friends in every country at war.
And for me to attempt to advance my own beliefs would perhaps be to offend and to wound
the feelings of many good friends who are willingly giving up their lives on the red altar of War,
and I believe that a trade paper has no place as a forum for discussions of this kind.
In my humble opinion the trade editor who tries to solve the two sides will end in offending both
and will have placed himself in an unenviable position.
I am primarily interested in America and I believe that our national life depends upon the
efliciencv and devotion of our working classes, and such demotion as the men of the European nations
have shown is heroic. That one fact stands out clearly silhouetted against the lurid background of
battle.
Life is a struggle for survival and the nation which fails to give every last man a fair chance
to live and make the most of himself does so at its peril.
By and by the workers will read things clearer than they do to-day through the red mist of war.
When the blood lust has subsided—and I believe the blood fever runs in the veins of all people who
are at war—they will view things in a calmer and more reasonable sense. Then they will begin to
wonder why this awful destruction and why they themselves have permitted this gigantic struggle
lo go on with their support and with their staggering sacrifices, which are beyond power of descrip-
tion. Sacrifices which will form a crushing weight for generations yet unborn.
I believe in the development of a national spirit which represents the united thoughts of the
people of a nation, but I do not believe that any man occupying an hereditary position has the right
legally or morally to control the destinies of millions of human beings without they themselves
having a voice in the matter.
I do not believe in the indiscriminate attacks made in the newspapers upon individuals of any
particular race. There is good in all, and the men whose lurid utterances inflame a populace are
doing much harm.
I do not believe in what is colloquially termed hyphenated Americans. I believe that term should
be completely eliminated from our modern vocabulary. I believe in one word—American—and
nothing else.
A man cannot be half the country that gave him birth and half the country that gives him a living.
He is not a half and half proposition. He is either one thing or the other, and I believe this policy of
using the hyphenated term when referring to men of different races who reside here is wholly wrong.
It keeps alive a race feeling which is not conducive to good. I admire the man who has the spirit
and independence to stand up and assert his rights and beliefs on all occasions and at all times when
his opinion is invited, and to fight for them if called upon, but the fellows who are snapping and
snarling, who are posing as leaders in thought and who are urging the nation on lo light, would be
the first ones to flee when the enemy approaches.
I said more than I intended to at the start, for I simply desired to
make my position clear regarding my "let alone" policy in this terrible
war which is crushing all Europe, destroying the very flower of its man-
hood and imposing great burdens for decades upon those who are to
follow.
Oh, the sadness of it all!
munitions to the exclusion of their established trade. The war is
not going to last for a generation or more, and when it stops the
extraordinary demand for munitions will also cease. The manufac-
turer will then either find his plant idle or must devote renewed
energy to bringing back the legitimate trade that he has flighted
and lost, in his anxiety for war orders.
Anyone who is called upon to order metal parts, especially if
they consist of brass castings and tubing, realizes the difficulty that
must be faced in securing such supplies within a reasonable time
and in satisfactory quantities.
There are factories specially equipped to make munitions of
war. There are other factories with facilities in excess of those
demanded by their ordinary trade. There can be no complaint
when such manufacturers take war orders, but when those orders
interfere with industrial progress and tend to make the American
manufacturers lose money in business it would seem time to call
a halt.
N The Review recently there was chronicled the passing of the
veteran piano house of the Driggs & Smith Co., Waterbury,
Conn., or rather the taking over of that concern by the Fulton
Music Co. Incidentally in connection with the changj a special
sale was held to clean out the stock of the Driggs & Smith Co., and
an interesting, but up to this time unpublished, bit of history was
written in that sale, for it was the first general sale ever held by
the Driggs & Smith Co. in its career of sixty-three years. Sixty-
three years of business on a strictly one-price basis, and with only
one sale, i> a record that is worth hanging up for study, even
although the concern that made it has not continued in the trade to
enjoy the benefits of such a splendid showing.
I