Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
DECEMBER 14,
1918
THE MUSIC TRADE
TRAINING PIANO MAKERS FOR THE FUTURE
An Interview With HERMAN IRION, Steinway & Sons, New York
The problem of getting young men to enter
piano factories with a view of studying all
branches of the work and making piano manu-
facturing their life work occupation, which has
received the attention of the thinking men of
the trade for a number of years past, promises
to be solved, in some manner at least, as a re-
sult of the industrial changes brought about
by the war.
At least that is the opinion of Herman Irion,
of Steinway & Sons, who, in an interview with
The Review, said: "It is my opinion that the
9
REVIEW
tact. This competition will probably also serve
to eliminate to a considerable degree the con-
tract system with its attendant disadvantages
and place the industry in a more desirable light
from the employe's viewpoint. It is not prob-
able that there will be any general downward
revision of wage schedules in piano factories,
at least not during the period of reconstruction,
and the young man who returns from military
service, or from war work, will find piano fac-
tory work that will appeal to him, because it is
clean, healthful and permanent, far more per-
manent than the majority of industries can offer,
and likewise work that will secure for him a re-
muneration that is attractive.
"Then, too, the piano factory has the advan-
tage of offering openings to men of widely dif-
ferent training and abilities, for the common
laborer can find a place in one of our factories
if he shows the proper amount of application,
learn the work of the different departments and
advance himself according to his own efforts,
while on the other hand the man skilled in fin-
ishing, or the more technical branches of piano
making, likewise finds his opportunity. More-
over there are countless tasks in the average
piano factory that can be accomplished by men
injured or crippled in the military service. Ac-
tion regulating, assembling, and much other
work can be taken care of by men who find it
necessary to remain seated, while those crip-
pled in other ways can frequently find work in
the piano factory of a character that they can
manage without great strain or difficulty. This
fact in itself should serve to fill our labor ranks
to a considerable extent.
"On the whole, the piano industry for the first
time in many years is now in a position to com-
pete for labor on an equal basis with the ma-
jority of other industries, and can offer advan-
tages in the matter of steady and healthful work
that are not found in other lines of endeavor.
In short, it appears to me as though the ques-
tion of training piano makers for the future
would take care of itself, very shortly, and as a
direct result of conditions brought about by the
war—at least all indications point that way."
WARTIME LESSONS FOR THE PIANO TRADE
By OTTO SCHULZ, President, M. Schulz Co., Chicago
Herman Irion
period of reconstruction will see many young
men entering piano factories with a view to
adopting piano making as their life trade as a
result of the greater opportunities our business
offers, and as a result of the changes brought
about by the war.
"As we all know, piano factories as a group
lost their attractiveness for many ambitious
young men a score of years ago when develop-
ments in the electric and mechanical fields, and
the mining and development ventures of the
country offered to the youth about to seek his
life's vocation brighter futures than did the
piano factory. At that time, and for some years
to follow, the earning capacity of the piano
maker was not sufficient to lure promising ap-
prentices from other lines of endeavor, and even
those that took up piano making frequently left
for other fields because of various old customs
that have existed in certain departments of some
factories, such as the contract system that was
so generally in vogue. The result was that we
found in the factories only men of about forty
years of age, or older, who clung to the old tra-
ditions and to their piano-making trade, and as-
sisting them a class of younger men who were
satisfied with the knowledge of only one small
department of piano manufacturing, and de-
voted themselves to that department because
they lacked ambition to advance themselves, or
because they looked upon the work in the piano
factory simply as a temporary stepping stone
to something better in another field.
"It is true that the fact that the great bulk
of skilled workers in piano factories were far
beyond the draft age, as first fixed, probably
saved the industry from suffering more severely
than it actually did as a result of the labor
shortage during the war, and likewise probably
won for the industry more consideration than
would normally be. given to a trade of this
sort by the authorities at Washington, when it
came to a question of curtailments and pri-
orities. However, the very fact that the age of
the employes won this consideration offered
food for thought to those men who had been
brought up in the industry, and in its future.
"The war itself, however, has brought numer-
ous changes in piano manufacturing methods, or
rather in factory systems. The competition
for labor made it necessary for piano manufac-
turers to increase their wage schedule materially
in order to keep their organizations at all in-
• For a year and more the industries of the
country have been subjected to a necessary and
more or less drastic control by the Govern-
ment of their most intimate affairs. Output has
been curtailed, labor has been drafted, railroad
facilities have been regulated and many other
restrictions have been imposed; all tending to-
wards a better mobilization of the national re-
sources for the purpose of winning the war.
Now that hostilities have been suspended and
the affairs of the enemy countries appear to be
in a state which precludes them from renew-
ing aggressive action of any kind, industry in
the United States will by degrees come back to
its normal conditions. What lessons has it
learned and what can it do in the future years
better than it has done in the past, in the light
of its recent experiences?
So far as concerns the piano and player-piano
business, and perhaps the talking machine busi-
ness as well, the fairest thing I can say is that
we have learned, through an experience totally
new to us, the possibility of conducting busi-
ness on the basis of a seller's, not a buyer's, mar-
ket. In other words, we have had a demand
far exceeding supply, and this condition has
been so marked as to assure actually a gen-
erally prosperous state of affairs throughout
the industry in the face of an appalling short-
age of labor and of materials; in face, that is
to say, of circumstances which have forced up
the costs of producing musical instruments to
unprecedented heights.
We have shown the public during the past
few months, though we scarcely meant it at
the moment, that pianos and similar goods have
a real value and when wanted are wanted badly.
We have been able to obtain, at retail, prices
and terms never before realized. This has very
largely been because war-time conditions have
forced manufacturers to inject business-like and
well-defined terms in order to reduce the scat-
tering of capital resources through the long
terms which have been prevalent. To preserve
his own equilibrium the manufacturer has been
compelled to tighten up his dealings with the
dealer, and the dealer has very properly passed
the burden on to the ultimate consumer. I say
"very properly," and anyone who knows on
what terms pianos have been retailed in the
past will agree that the adjective is not mis-
placed.
We can, to a large extent, retain the present
comparatively sane conditions simply by re-
membering that, although restrictions are grad-
ually being relaxed, costs are still very high,
and both restrictions and high costs must con-
tinue to exist for some time to come, if not
indeed for some years. Knowing this, we have
every reason to continue for some time yet the
present policies of selling on close terms, watch-
ing credits closely and declining to act as if
pre-war conditions had been restored, as they
have not and, I hope, will never entirely be.
We can help to retain the seller's market, in a
sense, until we have re-educated the people to
paying hereafter sane prices on sane terms.
That much we can do by decent co-operation
between manufacturer and seller.
Again, during the period of restricted output
and regulated methods, we have been learning
Otto Schulz
much about defects, etc., in methods of produc-
tion, and have learned to effect many economies
once thought impossible. Those we shall retain
and it is unthinkable that the effect of these
often severe experiences should be anything
save thoroughly good. Long periods of peace
and prosperity always have a disintegrating
tendency and always gradually undermine the
commercial and economic morale of a nation.
During the times immediately ahead we may
see many changes in the face of political and
economic affairs. If the war has taught us, as
I hope it has, the necessity for whole-hearted
co-operation for the common good and for
whole-hearted resistance to the encroachments
of the greed-spirit, it will not have been in
vain. We should look forward to great and
expanding times; but we must look with far-
seeing eyes, unafraid of what may be before us.