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THE
VOL LX1V. No. 23 Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. June! 9, 1917
Single Copies 10 Cents
$2.00 Per Year
Music a War-Time Necessity
A RATHER favorite cry of some of our sensational newspapers and would-be statesmen these days is
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"down with luxuries." The argument runs like this: "When the nation is at war, cut out everything
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\ you do not immediately need to sustain life. Above all, stop buying luxuries like good clothes, motor
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^ cars and—pianos. Remember we are in for dreadful times. Uncle Sam will take your boy out of
your home to fight—perhaps. Anyhow, tremble, fear, and give up the thought of that piano you were going to
buy."
It sounds plausible, and a great deal of this kind of talk has been poured into the public ear since the war
started. We are advised to release the skilled labor that now makes "luxuries" like pianos, by causing the
demand for such things to cease. In a word, we are deafened with the clamor of those who know just how to
save the nation—overnight. Some of us in the piano business might be foolish enough to listen, but let us, in
heaven's name, do our own thinking on this one matter.
What is a "luxury" anyhow? Apparently a luxury is "something we don't really need." But if you reason
it out, you will find that the things we don't "really need" make up about all that goes to create civilization.
We don't "really need"—that is, we could do without—almost everything save a fire, a few skins and a stone
club. We can live as simply as the primitive Indians i-f we want to; but we don't want to, and the age
wouldn't let us if we did.
When did music begin to be a luxury? The ancient Greeks considered training in gymnastics and training
in music equal needs of the perfect citizen. All the great peoples have been music-lovers. The soldiers who
now are fighting in the shell-torn fields of Northern France turn instinctively to music for refreshment, for
strength. You cannot drill recruits if you have no music, certainly they cannot march for miles over heavy
roads without music. Every army man knows that much.
In this time, we don't want people to be hysterical or to be carried ofif their feet. We want them to go
about their affairs, lead a normal life, think quietly, work hard, and do their duty. The piano can be the
greatest home-keeper, the greatest promoter of clean, quiet thought imaginable. We need something to act as
a deterrent to the cabaret, the road-house, the motor-inn, the dance-lunch-dance-dine-dance-sup craze. Good
music is the best of all such. Let us have good patriotic music in every home!
Piano makers and piano sellers alike should adopt this slogan: "The piano business this year ought to
be much better than usual. It can be much better. It must be much better."
For, mark you, a nation at war wants music, wants much music, wants good music. It wants clean,
inspiring, stimulating music, conceived in the same spirit that sent the men of i86r—and the women, too—
calmly and joyfully to their last supreme sacrifice. It wants the music that has cheered the Tommy and the
Poilu in the trenches. That music need not be serious; but it must be American and alive.
Piano making is the great American contribution to the evolution of musical instruments. The piano
perfectly expresses the American spirit. We must have music—and piano music at that—to maintain the morale
of the American home in these trying times.
The piano is not a luxury. It is needed. It is more important than a great many supposed necessities.
The piano business will be enormously prosperous this year, if we but give it a chance. People will want pianos
more than ever, and more than ever will have money to buy them. It is up to us to make and sell them in larger
quantities and on better terms than ever before.
Let us sing this one song from this day onwards, and sing it persistently:
"Music is a national need in times of stress. Let us have patriotic music in every home. Let us make
business better than usual!"