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NOVEMBER 2,
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
1918
Geo. W. Pound Reviews the Situation in Washington
Letter Written to Paul B. Klugh Points Out the Constructive Work Done
in Behalf of the Music Industry, and Presents a Most Optimistic Outlook
In a letter to Paul B. Klugh, president of the
National Piano Manufacturers' Association,
George W. Pound, general counsel of the Music
Industries Chamber of Commerce, makes a most
interesting report regarding the situation in
Washington and his activities there in the in-
terest of the industry. In the course of his re-
port Mr. Pound touches upon many important
topics, and says in part:
War Revenue Bill
The new War Revenue bill which passed the
House of Representatives provided for a tax of
10 per cent. [Section 900 (4)] upon "Pianos, pipe
organs, piano players, graphophones, etc." The
act then went to the Senate and is pending
there before the Senate Finance Committee. I
was granted a very cordial hearing by the com-
mittee and made argument in behalf of our in-
dustry, a copy of which has been mailed to our
membership, asking for the elimination of all
tax on pianos and pipe organs, in substance that
the language of our section should stand as in
the present act. •
The committee has tentatively decided in our
favor regarding pipe organs and has entirely re-
moved them from taxation, and compromised
upon pianos by cutting that tax one-half, mak-
ing it 5 per cent.
As proposed by the Senate Finance Commit-
tee the section now would read:
(4) Hand organs, music boxes, piano players,
graphophones, etc., 10 percentum.
(4 112) Pianos and organs other than pipe
and hand organs, 5 percentum.
The bill after being reported to the Senate by
the committee must be passed there, and then
goes to a conference of the House and Senate
Committee for final determination. Then back
to both Houses for passage. This will probably
take another month, therefore the bill will not
become a law or in effect until about December
1. In conference I will continue our fight
against any tax upon the piano or reed organ.
Floor Tax
This proposed act contains the most drastic
floor tax ever provided for in a War Revenue
bill. Section 909 provides:
That upon all articles (other than second-hand articles)
enumerated in section 900 upon the sale of which no tax
was imposed by section 600 (i.e., our section taxing piano-
players 3 per cent.) or 602 of the Revenue Act of 1917,
and which on the day after the passage of this act (i.e.,
the day after signing by the President) are held and in-
tended for sale by any person, there shall be levied, as-
sessed, collected and paid a floor tax equivalent to the tax
imposed by section 900 of this act upon the sale of such
articles. This tax shall be paid by the person so holding
such articles.
In brief, this section would impose a floor tax
of 10 per cent, upon hand organs and music
boxes, and 5 per cent, upon pianos and organs
other than pipe and hand organs. And Sec-
tion 910 provides:
That upon all articles (other than second-hand articles)
enumerated in section 900 in respect to which the tax im-
posed by section 600 or 602 of the Revenue Act of 1917
was payable, and which on the day after the passage of
this act are held and intended for sale by any person, there
shall be levied, assessed, collected and paid a floor tax
equivalent to the difference between (a) the tax imposed
by section 900 of this act upon the sale of such article and
(b) the corresponding tax imposed by section 600 of the
Revenue Act of 1917.
In other words, this section would impose a
floor tax of 7 per cent, upon piano players, pho-
nographs, rolls and records. The present act
exempts the retailer and manufacturer from any
floor tax, but this exemption is not carried into
the new bill.
These two sections were very strongly op-
posed by us, and I am quite confident that they
will not pass as drawn. The committee as yet
has not passed upon them. In my judgment,
the new act will not be retroactive.
War Industries Board
Priorities in metal first became effective June
6, 1918, but rules were not printed until July 1,
and that may fairly be said to be the date when
metal priorities became a menace. We imme-
diately made application for a hearing, which
was granted, and after much insistence our In-
dustry Priority Certificate under Class C was
granted our industry September 14, 1918, by the
Priority Division of the War Industries Board.
This is the highest classification given any non-
war producing industry. No other trade sim-
ilarly situated received such favorable treatment.
In my opinion, speaking in the light of actual
conditions at Washington and with a full knowl-
edge of the previously formed intention of the
War Industries Board and of the refusals given
to other industries, this is far and away the great-
est accomplishment which has come to us in our
eleven months of this work. Upon it absolute-
ly depended the preservation, the very existence,
of our industry. As I am informed, more than
500 industries in our land failed to get such
classification and were substantially forced out
of existence. Many industries, regarded by the
general public as far more essential than ours,
were much more seriously curtailed and often
were surrounded and hampered by restrictions
of various kinds.
Priority Certificates have been now granted
us for our steel and iron wants in tuning pins,
piano string wire and plates, sufficient to carry
us through this year. After that if necessary
we will be given further relief. Yesterday at
Washington I was given nine Certificates of Pri-
ority for metal (two others previously) calling
for 1,551 tons (gross) of iron and 262,298
pounds of steel. I was told that ours was the
only industry receiving anywhere near such pro-
portionate allowance of metal, substantially the
only one receiving any new priorities, and abso-
lutely the only industry in either the past or
present in which an allotment was granted upon
the personal pledge of its representative and
without advance sworn written inventories of its
manufacturers and also the only industry given
metal from time to time as its necessities arose.
Industry Given Every Priority Requested
It is always darkest just before daylight. I
believe we have passed through the twilight of
stress and the darkness of curtailment and are
approaching the dawn of better days, the time
when Washington feeling secure in its enormous
storage of war products will cease its hoarding
of metal and permit it to flow more readily to
industry, and our troubles will cease.
This
promised land, this time of relief from trade
fatigue, is thought by Washington to be in the
early spring of 1919.
Effective January 1 the War Industries Board
will reduce the allowance of steel to the U. S.
Shipping Board 60 per cent. This will release
150,000 tons of steel monthly. This steel will
flow to industry and should relieve the general
situation. And steel is always the barometer
of trade. With this reduced delivery the ship-
yards will get 1,800,000 tons of plates and shapes
in the year, sufficient for an output of more than
five million deadweight tons of shipping.
The Felt and Cloth Situation
1
Our next menace undoubtedly will be ham-
mer felt. The Government within the past few
days has decided upon orders for this type of
felt which to fulfil would require ten times as
much felt as is now produced altogether in this
country. This has been attributed to a wool short-
age, and not believing that such a shortage ac-
tually existed, this office prepared statistics show-
ing that there was no world shortage of wool
for such purposes, but the department has come
to the conclusion that the shortage is in the
capacity of the felt-making machinery of the
country. An effort is now being made by the
Felt Division to overcome this and we will be
further advised later. But it is my judgment
that the felt shortage is very serious. We have
a goodly supply in our trade for present use
but would need help if conditions continue.
Substitutes for the wool here used do not seem
available because the hammer felt must be live,
not a passive or dead material. And while, of
course, our other felts or cloths will be sympa-
thetic with this general felt condition, still there
is a cotton or even shoddy mixture we can obtain
and it would seem as though we might get by.
This great Government use of this hammer
felt comes from the decision to make in enor-
mous quantities a new gas mask for the use of
our troops in France. The filtering material
therein used is substantially our hammer felt.
Leather Shortage Threatened
Another threatening shortage is of buckskin
used in our instruments.
These deer-hides
come mostly from South America and Mexico.
At this time of year we get some "venison"
hides from deers killed by hunters in the Adiron-
dacks, and elsewhere. For our use we require
a heavy hide. We use rather the inside; than
the outside of the hide. Therefore out of an
average bale of, say, sixty hides, we have to pay
for the privilege of selecting an average of a
dozen skins. The deer-hide market is New
York, and at the present time the Government is
taking every such hide imported into the coun-
try. This will for a while curtail our and every
industry's supply of these hides, will cause buck-
skins to increase in price, and will force us to
use lighter and thinner leathers than have ever
been used. I am giving this matter attention
at Washington with the hope that we may pro-
cure relief from these conditions.
Tin and Tinned Iron
There is increasing difficulty in these metals.
Our principal supplies of tin come from the
"Straits," entailing a long ocean voyage with its
menace and shipping troubles; some Welsh or
Cornish tin; some Demler and other American
tin, and Chinese tin. Those of our industry re-
quiring tin or tinned iron or tin coverings should
acquire the same as quickly and as quietly as
may be, and should give heed to substitutes.
I have here, my dear sir, given you a resume
of existing conditions and problems of concern
to our industry as I see them. We have been
put upon with nothing of serious or unusual cur-
tailment or depression, on the contrary wei have
been splendidly and signally favored. In {ess
than a year we have advanced from no recog-
nition nor standing at Washington to the high-
est. Let our encomium be that we have striven
for this with dignity and have won it because
we deserved it. Always we have kept faith.
Let us therefore persevere through these few
remaining days while the battles wage, and give
thanks to the Lord God of Hosts, who has
given victory to our splendid young American
manhood on the fields of vine-clad France and
preservation to our industry.
!';•'
WINTER & CO.
RUDOLF
PIANOS AND PLAYER-PIANOS
PIANOS AND PLAYER-PIANOS
22O SOUTHERN BOULEVARD, NEW YORK