Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MARCH 30,
1918
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The Slogan of "Business Better Than Usual" Should Be Adopted By Every
Player-Piano Dealer, and He Should Advertise His Wares in Such a Manner
That He Will Make That Slogan A Reality During the Months to Gome
Three and one-half years ago the business men
of Great Britain were saying to each other
"Business as Usual," meaning that the then
newly-come war must not be permitted to dis-
turb the course of business. Within a very
short time, however, it was discovered that busi-
ness could not go on as usual; but that there
must be profound changes throughout the whole
industrial and financial world of the British Em-
pire if the war was to be successfully prose-
cuted. The slogan "Business as Usual" was
dropped, and in its place came the amendment
"Business Better Than Usual."
But if it wa.s found that "Business as Usual"
is impossible for a nation going to war under
modern conditions, how comes it that the slogan
"Business Better Than Usual" could be made ef-
fective? How is it that, with all the changes
which have so profoundly modified the financial
industrial and general economic life of our allies,
the state of general business has been so re-
markably active, the condition of the laboring
classes almost incredibly prosperous, and the
profits accruing to capital, despite heavy war
taxes, generally excellent? The reasons are
striking, and even more so because the music
business, in which we are more particularly in-
terested, is one of those which in Great Britain
and throughout the British Empire have suf-
fered from only one evil; the scarcity of material
and labor. All the pianos that could have been
made in England under any conceivable condi-
tions of facility could have been sold twice over
each year since 1914. That so many have not
been sold has been due only and solely to ina-
bility of manufacturers to turn out the instru-
ments on account of the lack of supplies and
labor.
For us, entering just now upon our share in
the war for civilization, these remarkable experi-
ences of our great ally are extremely interest-
ing. We may draw some lessons of great value
from them.
Why Wars Bring Good Times
Only the other day, an old-timer dug up some
figures showing the output of pianos during the
Civil War in this country. It appears that
even during that great conflict, when greenbacks
were at a discount of 60 per cent, and the young
nation was straining its resources apparently
to the very utmost, the piano business was in
a most prosperous condition. Every one, of
course, knows that general business did remark-
ably well during the war, and that when peace
was finally declared, the wealth of the nation
was seen to be really almost boundless in poten-
tiality and needing only to be developed.
Now the modern war js a war of peoples, not
of mere armies. Our own Civil War was some-
thing of the sort, as civil wars usually are. The
present war is one in which every effort of every
individual citizen, man and woman alike, is
needed in order to co-ordinate the enormous ef-
forts required. Material, men, ships, money;
these are used up in appallingly large quan-
tities and with incredible rapidity. Wealth is
being destroyed each moment at an almost in-
conceivable speed. Why then the prosperity?
That prosperity exists in wartimes, among all
the belligerents who are outside the war zones,
is not to be doubted. The reason, though para-
doxical, is not hard to understand. Wealth is
the creation of man. Resources are the gift
of nature, but resources are not wealth until
they have been manufactured into the various
and innumerable articles which civilized life re-
quires. The more manufacturing there is, the
more general wealth there is, provided the man-
ufactures can be consumed as fast as they are
manufactured.
Now wartimes automatically guard against
over-production and inability to consume by
preventing the glut of the labor market which
keeps down wages. The present war shows that
plainly. Given a government compelled to use
inconceivably enormous quantities of manufac-
tured goods, with a people ready to make and
sell them, and you have the foundation for
every industrial activity.
The goods used
must be paid for and that means simply turning
back to the people, more or less roughly but in
substance actually, the very money to-morrow
which to-day the Government must take away
in taxes. The taxes raise the money to pay the
makers of the needed goods, who in turn pay
more taxes, and so on. But, since there is a
profit on the manufacture and some gain on
every turnover of the money, it follows that the
amount of money in circulation increases con-
stantly.
This, of course, again means high prices, stead-
ily rising as the amount of money in circula-
tion increases. Such rise in prices would can-
cel any advantages gained by industrial activity
if the needs of the army did not take away so
many laborers, and by bringing many women
into their places, keep the number of depend-
ents down, while still leaving the demand for
labor greater than the supply.
When peace comes these extraordinary condi-
tions must gradually be brought back to normal.
But until then it is plain to all, surely, that
the buying public will have money to spend and
will enjoy a general prosperity.
Why Grumble at Taxes
Now there is a very distinct tendency on the
part of many business men to complain about
the taxes imposed on them by the Government.
But when you come to analyze the complaints
you nearly always find that the kicker is really
saying that his own profits have been, or are
threatened with being, smaller than otherwise
they would be. But we are at war and the war
must be financed. There is just one way to
do it. The Government will certainly impose
and collect taxes and will certainly do its best
to sell its bonds. The choice lies between
grumbling about paying and making more
money with which to pay. In a word, instead
of grumbling at our obligations to our country,
which has a right to our duty, our loyalty and
our money, let us put ourselves in such a posi-
tion that we can pay up without feeling badly.
"Better Than Usual"
Business must, therefore, not only be as good
as usual, but much better than usual. And it
is actually being so, in spite of the grumblings
of the few and the fears of the foolish. The
American people have more money to spend
to-day than they ever had. They are certainly
not indisposed to spend it; and whatever hesi-
tation they may ever have or have had, may
be traced unerringly to nothing more than the
hysterical nonsense on the subject of economy
which has been preached by certain bankers and
other men who ought to have known better.
But all the hysteria in the world cannot pre-
vent people from spending money when they
have it to spend. Automobile advertising is go-
ing on just the same as ever, and automobiles
are most decidedly being bought as fast as they
can be turned out, to judge from the ever-in-
creasing block of them on every busy street of
our great cities and on every country road.
Well, automobiles are being well advertised; and
that is the principal reason for their being
bought. Stop advertising them and sales would
fall off precipitously. Yet everybody knows au-
tomobiles.
Advertise!
Now not so many people do thoroughly un-
derstand the player-piano. It is only necessary
to talk with a dozen intelligent business men,
each of whom can tinker with his own car, to
prove that very few people really are awake to
the beauties of Music in the Home generally
or of the player-piano specifically. The fact
is that if the music trades are to enjoy the
usufruct of these abnormal times to their own
advantage, in order to their doing their duty
towards their country, they must make up their
minds to get after business in a way that has
never been thought advisable or practical before.
We need, above all, a great and elaborate cam-
paign for Music in the Home, and especially for
a better understanding of the player-piano. This
we need and must have. And the need for this
as well as the ways for doing it must be
preached steadily by all of us if we expect to
pay our taxes, buy bonds, do our bit and act as
patriotic citizens ought to, without crippling our-
selves hopelessly.
Business Better Than Usual must be our slo-
gan; and above all we must advertise, advertise,
advertise!
SELLING MUSIC ROLLS
trying to feature and sell these rolls, until he
sees for himself that they are profitable. This
means helping him not only to advertise but to
get efficient and capable men and women to go
into the music roll departments and sell these
goods. Here, and here chiefly, is the great
problem.
We earnestly ask dealers to align themselves
with the progressive «men in the music roll trade,
and to get behind them in their efforts to strike
out new paths. The reward is certain, and
meanwhile the work of the pioneers should be
lightened as much as possible.
The Q R S Co. and the Imperial IMayer Roll
Co. deserve and have our compliments and
thanks.
{Continued from page 3)
of Randale interpretations concludes the con-
tents of this interesting little booklet.
"Good and Efficient"
Now, both of these new departures are good
and efficient. It remains to ask how it is pro-
posed to get them into the hands of the pub-
lic. For obviously if this cannot be effectively
done their preparation is a waste of time.
We should therefore like to say to the keen-
niinded gentlemen who have worked out these
schemes that the dealer is the weak link. If
the traveling men and the sales managers of
these companies can educate their dealers to
feature these new ideas, by window displays, by
correspondence, and by newspaper advertising,
then the public will respond; but it is hardly to
be expected that they will do so otherwise. The
problem, in fact, is to get the dealer interested,
to keep after him, to push him into, selling or
The firm of Charles M. Stieff, Inc., piano deal-
ers of Baltimore, Md., reports an excellent de-
mand for its line of Petite players, all of the
branch stores of the concern doing big business
with these instruments.