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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
PUBLISHED BY THE ESTATE OF EDWARD LYIYIAN BILL
can piano manufacturers loses some of its value, inasmuch as
European piano makers for the most part are crippled tempo-
rarily as a result of the war. This is a strong tip, however,
to American piano men to keep up their energetic exploita-
tion of their products in the British West Indies so that when
the war comes to a close and the British piano manufacturers
are in a position to pick up the threads of commerce again,
the lead of our own people will be strong enough to guarantee
their prestige in the future.
(C. L. BILL, Executrix.)
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
J. RAYMOND BILL, Associate Editor
AUGUST J. TIMPE
Business Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staff:
R. BRITTAIN WILSON,
CARLETON CHACE,
L. M. ROBINSON,
GLAD HENDERSON,
A. J. NICKLIN,
W M . B. WHITE,
WILSON D. BUSH,
L. E. BOWERS.
D. G. AUGUR
BOSTON O F F I C E :
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Telephone, Main 6950.
'
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E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, Consumers' Building,
220 So. State Street. Telephone, Wabash 5774.
HENRY S. KINGWILL, Associate.
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., E. C.
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Edward Lyman Bill.
51 111!
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
aUU
t ; o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
nonopfmonfc
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
U t p d l lllieill!*. d e a I t w i t h j w i l l b ? f o u n d i n another section of this
paper. We 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
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma.... Pan- American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal. .Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905.
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NEW
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APRIL
1 5 , 1 9 1 6 .
= EDITORIAL
N a recent address before the Boston Commercial Club on
I Hurley,
trade association and better business methods, Edward N.
vice-chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, had
the following pertinent remarks to make regarding the ignor-
ance of the majority of business men in the matter of cost
accounting:
"The Federal Trade Commission has been in existence one
year and after surveying the field we found from a preliminary
investigation that 200,000 corporations out of a total of 260,000
engaged in the manufacturing and mercantile business of the
United States were eking out an existence; 100,000 of them did
not earn a penny. Out of 60,000 successful corporations doing a
business of $100,000 a year, over 30,000 charged off no deprecia-
tion whatever. Only ten per cent, of our manufacturers and
merchants know the actual cost to manufacture and sell their
products; 40 per cent, estimate what their costs are, and 50
per cent, have no method but price their goods arbitrarily. Most
of the manufacturers and merchants who do not know what
their goods cost are basing their selling price on what their
competitors sell for and with only this knowledge for a basis
they are frequently cutting prices and demoralizing the industry
in which they are engaged.
"There were over 22,000 business failures in the United
States last year; more than 20,000 of them were small concerns.
We all know that a large percentage of business is run at loose
ends, haphazard, and without the proprietors really knowing at
any time how they stand or whether they are making a profit
or a loss."
Here is an exhibit of anything but fitness for that state
of competition which it has been the goal of so much political
endeavor to assure to the business community. It is also an
exhibit which suggests that a vast amount of business uproar
has been raised in political quarters in an effort to procure from
politics through statutory enactment a measure of business
solvency by protection from competition which a very large
percentage of business has been too inefficient to obtain for
itself in the competitive field.
Efficiency as applied to business enterprise has often been
so exalted by its professors as to become a loathsome word in
the ears of business men. The science of efficiency as it has
been expounded has ignored too much the human element and
the personal equation in business, but corporations lacking
efficiency are unfit for the competitions of the market place.
Politics cannot save business if business will not take the trouble
to save itself from failure.
HE club idea among employes is steadily gaining ground
among the retail houses of the piano trade, as it is seen
that the plan works out most successfully, both from the view-
point of the employer and the employe. For the former it means
cultivation of a spirit of unity and co-operation among his people,
which in the ordinary course of events means greater and more
willing effort. From the viewpoint of the employe, on the other
hand, the club idea means the broadening of acquaintanceships
and a better understanding of the fellow worker, his likes and
dislikes, his ideas and his methods.
For general effectiveness, the club of employes themselves
is to be preferred to an organization headed and controlled by
the executives of the business. In the former case, the employe
feels at ease among his equals and his business superiors if they
are present, in the latter case, while the employer may appre-
ciate the spirit of the gathering, he is apt to be constrained and
RANK A. VANDERLIP, president of the National City
fail to enter into that spirit.
Bank of New York, is said to have been one of the first
Friendship in business between employes themselves and
of the financial leaders of the country to grasp the principle now
between employes and executives is not considered the bug-
so widely understood that good business is something more
bear to-day that it once was. Experience has proven that friend-
than the mere making of profits. To him, according to a recent
ship in business has not served to discourage discipline; on the
magazine writer, it is "service" first and last, and he believes suc-
contrary, it promotes good feeling and contentment. Contented
cess is inevitable when an individual or institution gives the
workers mean better and more satisfactory results that are
largest amount of service.
readily translated into profits.
The club meeting or a social gathering of any sort attended
ESPITE the increased cost of raw materials, both in the manu-
by employes of a firm is to be encouraged as making for greater
facture of pianos and in every other line of trade, even those
efficiency.
branches connected with furnishing the necessities of life, it is
significant that the retail piano trade, as well as the trade in
SIGNIFICANT section of the report on music trade con-
musical instruments generally, keeps up in a remarkable manner,
ditions in the British West Indies, as prepared by Trade
and that the business for each month appears to be somewhat
Commissioner Flood of Canada and published in The Review on
ahead of the business for the same month last year. Prosperity
April 1, is that in which he refers to the fact that at the present
may not really be here, but purchases of musical instruments are
time more energy is placed behind the sale of pianos from the not to be taken as an indication of extreme depression. Some
United States than behind those from any other country. The
people, many of them, in fact, appear to have money to spend,
apparently begrudged tribute to the business methods of Ameri-
which in itself tends to develop confidence in the situation.
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