Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUJIC TRADE
VOL. LXIV. No. 22
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. June 2, 1917
8lng
Ji. 0 Vrer 8
Accomplishments at the Conventions
T
HE conventions of 1917 are now history, and if the plans formulated at the sessions in Chicago lead
even to halfway accomplishments, the history will be one of which the entire trade should be proud. ;
Never before were problems of the trade taken so seriously, recognized so broadly and handled so
emphatically. Those of the trade with broad vision found that the time to temporize had passed, that
the situation demanded more than conversation, that action was needed, and needed quickly.
That the sentiment of the rank and file of the various associations was for action, regardless of how that
action might affect the individual pocketbook, was indicated by the fact that the program as outlined went
through practically without opposition.
Before the Convention, especially among the merchants, it was broadly hinted that various phases of next
year's program would be disputed in open meeting; that there were differences of opinion which would "be
fought out on the floor; that there was a sentiment of conservation of association resources that would not be
downed. As a matter of fact none of these things happened. It was discovered that the danger was not in
the association doing too much but in its doing too little.
This new sentiment was appreciated by those privileged to attend the meetings of the manufacturers, where
representatives of a number of leading manufacturing houses of the industry submitted with little opposition
to a proposition falling for a voluntary assessment of one-tenth of one per cent on their net wholesale output for
association work. It was true that there was much discussion on the question, but the discussion was not on the
payment of the assessment but on the exact means by which the net output was to be determined and other
factors calculated to clear up the atmosphere for the operation of the plan.
With the country at war, and a War Revenue Bill threatening to pile a five per cent, excise tax on musical
instruments in addition to the duties and taxes of ten per cent, to thirty per cent, on supplies, one would be
inclined to pardon a slight show of pessimism among the members of the industry, but if pessimism existed it
was well concealed.
The piano men visited Chicago not to cry over their troubles but rather to determine the ways and means
for meeting unusual situations and developing business in the near future—not simply to keep it normal but to
make it better than normal. There were, of course, piano merchants from various sections who truthfully said
that business at present was not particularly lively but they explained they held high hope for fall sales.
There were many dealers, particularly those from the agricultural sections of the West, who came to the
Convention full of enthusiasm. Why not? Farm products are bringing unprecedented prices. Farmers have
money to spend now, at a time of the year when they were formerly hoping for the future. Several dealers
reported a volume of business during the last few months which almost equalled that of the entire year 1916.
Summing up, the piano men who attended the Convention found out that the piano business was not shot
to pieces by any means, but was going strong—that the piano men not only recognized conditions but were
prepared to face them. They found out that the live factors of the trade were as a unit in efforts to develop
the industry as a whole. Moreover, they found that trade associations, instead of being merely passive factors
providing an excuse for an annual joyfest, were capable of being developed into militant organizations when
the proper time arrived and the proper plans were presented.
Now, with a program carefully laid out, with a definite objective determined upon and representative men
of the trade pledged to the support of the new ideas, it remains only for the rank and file of the trade to get back
of the movement, realizing that anything that makes for the betterment of the trade as a whole reverts directly
to the benefit of every individual in it, providing he is conducting a legitimate business in a legitimate and
straight-forward manner.