Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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VOL. LXV. No. 18
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Nov. 3, 1917
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Confidence an Essential Trade Factor
I
N discussing questions of national import we constantly use the word "confidence." Lack of "confidence,"
we are wont to say, precipitated the financial panic of 1907. Reviving-"confidence," during the year 1915,
restored a business prosperity that seemed to have been destroyed during the previous winter. And so on.
To-day, as never before, we have to ask ourselves about the future, and to discover whether there
be any sound basis for the expression of confidence therein.
The word "confidence," when you stop to think of ii, is constructive and positive. The last thing in the
world it means is blind faith or credulity. Nothing is truer than that you cannot have "confidence" in what
you do not understand; and nothing more positive than the further truth that the very word "confidence"
means, etymologically, "trust based on deeds." Confidence is positive and constructive, not passive and
emotional. True confidence, then, must be based solidly on knowledge, if it is to be indeed faithful to its own
meaning.
Have we this kind of a basis for confidence in our national future, in the events about to come to pass,
in the great deeds and actions that we shall witness during the next year or so? Can we be filled with a
true genuine "confidence," or are we just to hope blindly for the best?
Happily the answ r er may rightly be given as we should wish. We can indeed say that every man in our
industry—not to mention those engaged in other lines of effort—has the best and most powerful reasons for
looking forward with true confidence to the future. We can indeed base our trust on knowledge.
For, consider; the nation has developed an efficiency and a splendor of national effort scarcely hoped
for by the most enthusiastic amongst us. Whereas the first few months of our war-status seemed slow and
effortless, the last three have seen wonders accomplished. The great national army actually in training, the
financial burdens of the war in process of adjustment, treason being exposed and disloyally suppressed, the
people at last waking, even though slowly, to an understanding of what they are committed to, the activity in
industry and transportation at a stupendous height of intensity, with more to come; all these signs of an
awakening and a national community of effort are in themselves the basis for the highest kind of confidence
in the business prosperity of the nation during the coming winter and the whole of next year.
Why? Simply because the American people, for the first time in their history, are going into a great
effort unitedly. Collective effort means collective activity, industrial and financial. The wealth of the country
is," for the first time, actually being brought out and-used. The earning capacities of thousands and thou-
sands, never before developed, are being brought to light and utilized. The purchasing power of the individual
is not being decreased, but increased. Tt remains for us to take due advantage of these facts.
We are told, on high statistical authority, that the total marketable wealth of the nation is not less than
300 billion dollars! Of this amount perhaps 20 billions may be spent this year by the U. S. A. in prosecution
of its war aims. But the annual income of the nation is already more than 40 billion. And it is not our
purpose, as a people, to relieve posterity of the entire burden of a war waged mainly for posterity's benefit.
Therefore, it is not for us to imagine that the purchasing power of the people will be lessened, or that
the instruments we sell will be less attractive or less salable than they ever were before. Per contra: we
can make this winter the greatest winter in our business history, if we but will!
Let us make up our minds, individually and collectively, that this war is to be fought through; and that
we business men must do our large and vitally important part in making it possible for the Government to
finance the huge enterprise. To make this possible we must create, constantly, new 7 wealth, and distribute it.
Musical instruments are not alone legitimate elements in the national wealth ; they are peculiarly desirable
(Continued on page 5)