Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
BE A "BULL" ON THE UNITED STATES
(Continued from page 3)
whole subject of taxation and war finance. A big subject, which no one group of men can settle to please all.
But when we are all in it, why should an individual complain?
There is the whole problem of food conservation, again; how to teach a good-natured but extravagant
people not to waste more than they eat, and not to think it a crime if they have less than the most expensive
sort of food occasionally. Meatless days and wheatless days are novelties; but need any one suppose the
people won't take them up? The people will take to them with a laugh; and be better off for so doing.
The problems are not small; but also they are not insoluble. The troubles we face to-day are by no means
so serious as those the nation faced in 1861, comparatively speaking. We shall not all pull together from the
first. That would be too much to expect. But it might as well be admitted right now that, after the second
Liberty Loan, it is pretty hard to be really tearful about the American people, is it not?
Business throughout the country, in musical instruments, is good. There is no denying the fact. In
spite of rising costs, in spite of the pessimism of some who ought to know better, in spite of the whines of those
whom Elbert Hubbard used to call the professional belliakers, the nation goes on. We shall have our troubles,
no doubt. But we are going on to the end and we are doing business through it all—doing business at the
same old stand; and finding the experience rather enjoyable than otherwise.
The piano business is not founded on the condition of the money market. The public want a piano or a
player-piano now just as much as they did this time last year; and perhaps a little more. Farmer Brown is
better off to-day than he was a year ago; and he was doing pretty well, thank you, then.
Tom Jones, who can handle a lathe with any man, and is just a year or so over the draft age, is doing
very well, too, at a big wage; and the shipyards are calling him at still better wages. Is he a prospect? He is!
Farmer Brown and Tom Jones are numbered by the hundred thousand. So are Banker Smith and
Merchant Robinson. So it goes through all the strata of American life. Everywhere activity, everywhere
determination, everywhere a growing sense of loyalty, not to the town, to the county or to the State, not even
to the family, or the employer; but to Uncle Sam, to the Nation, to the U. S. A.
All this means—what? Simply that the winter before us, the spring ahead of us and the summer following,
ought to be, must be, will be, seasons of plenty and of overwhelming activity in all lines of industry. This, then,
means selling pianos, player-pianos, music-rolls, talking machines, sheet music, by the trainload. Are you
preparing accordingly?
iiv-of dust, or lint, or the throwing out of adjustment of valves,
etc., that will cause the manufacturer much trouble unless he
provides a form of guarantee that will relieve him from respon-
sibility under such conditions. It is just another case of where
what is suited for the ordinary piano does not apply to the player-
piano, and it is a condition that has been recognized and has now
been provided for.
HE meeting of advertising men representing various local
piano houses held recently under the auspices of the National
Bureau for the Advancement of Music offers opportunity for a
T
more general co-operation in the matter of trade advertising with-
out in any way working against the effectiveness of such
advertising.
Every advertising man*must depend upon himself for his
originality of ideas and for copy that will produce the maximum
results, but if all the advertisers can arrange to present the same
basic thought in urging the desirability of owning a piano or
player, each according to his individual style, the general effect
should prove beneficial to the trade as a whole. It will be in-
teresting to see how the plans work out ultimately in the field
of piano advertising.
OVER THE TOP WITH STRAUBE
Straube Pianofortes
Excel
Straube Upright, Style 46
X,
Straube
Piano merchants who are interested
in seeing their sales total well over
the top of the sales for the same
period a year ago should investi-
gate the new models recently in-
troduced by the Straube Co. There
are several new upright models and
several new player models. They
are all moderate in price, attractive
in appearance and are all enhanced
by the famous Straube tone.
"Sing Their Own Praise"
Player-pianos
Excel
Stranbe Player, Style A-20
"Sing Their Own Praiae"
STRAUBE PIANO CO.
HAMMOND,
INDIANA