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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXVI1I. No. 7
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Feb. 15, 1919
Single Copies 10 Cents
$2.00 Per Year
The Necessity For Patience
A
expected concomitant of this era of reconstruction or readjustment is the natural feeling of impatience
on the part of business to get back to normal, or a pre-war basis. Some members of the trade,
particularly among the retailing fraternity, appeared to be somewhat surprised and hurt to discover
' that although the armistice was signed on November n , the music industry was not able to resume
on a complete peace-time basis on November 12. Some retailers, and apparently some manufacturers, appeared
so sure of the fact that normal business conditions were coming back at once that they did not hesitate to
advertise that belief to the public, announcing that they would soon be able to meet all demands, and there were
those who even predicted that prices would drop immediately.
Fortunately the great proportion of the solid men in the industry realized conditions as they actually were,
and instead of raising false hopes and making rash statements, simply went to work to rebuild and strengthen
their business structures slowly, carefully and with due consideration for the situation as it was at the time and
promised to be in the near future.
^
. !
Some few years ago it may have been that patience was a virtue, but right now patience is a genuine
business necessity and an essential asset, for it is only the observance of patience and the curbing of a normal
desire to jump ahead and get back to a pre-war basis over night that will save many business concerns from
trouble.
The end of the war left the world up in the air, as it were. It came with so little warning that there was
no chance for business men to prepare. In fact, when the armistice was signed piano manufacturers were not
considering peace, but rather considering ways and means for keeping their plants going at all during the coming
months, and only three days before the memorable date, on November 8, piano manufacturers held a meeting
in New York for the purpose of distributing to the greatest advantage to all a very limited supply of tuning pins*.
It is natural, therefore, that under the circumstances the rebuilding process—the turning over from war to
peacetime pursuits—must be a slow and tedious procedure.
It took the country many months to get into its full stride in carrying on the war, and this despite the fact
that the laws of economics were swept aside and all the energies of the nation were behind the movement, with
the cost as a last consideration. In the rebuilding process the principles of economics again come into their own.
Costs must be considered, the element of competition enters, and it is, therefore, but natural to assume that the
rebuilding process will take much longer than the work of tearing down, even though most earnest attention is
given to that process.
In the first place, the labor situation looms up large. Despite the fact that the newspapers carry stories
stating that there are from a quarter to a half million men out of employment in various sections of the country,
it must be remembered that the great majority of these men are unskilled laborers, and of the remainder only
a comparative few are trained, or can qualify for work in musical instrument factories. Lacking trained men,
it is necessary to select promising material carefully and spend more months in careful instruction before the
new men can be depended upon to take their rightful places in producing instruments for the market.
Then, too, labor has not yet found itself. The war brought with it the highest wages in the nation's history
—wages that increased steadily as conditions became more strenuous. With the end of the w r ar the workers
not only w r ant those wages maintained, but want to demand still further increases with shorter hours and other
privileges. This unrest is not confined to this country, but is world-wide, and is going to require long and careful
consideration before things become normal in this particular.
Certain items of supplies may have dropped slightly in price, but for the most part the costs are keeping up
{Continued on page 5)