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Music Trade Review

Issue: 1919 Vol. 69 N. 10

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXIX. No. 10
B
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Sept. 6, 1919
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USINESS men, labor men, economists and thinkers in all branches of society are considering, not with-
out anxiety, the new and pressing problems which the economic and industrial conditions of the, day
are forcing upon their attention. Neither employers nor employed have hitherto done much economic
thinking; and what they have done has been rather narrow and one-sided. But when conditions change
thinking must change with them. There are certain essential but simple truths concerning the economic status
and productive ability of our trade which must be bravely faced and fairly met. They are not facts of which
we should be afraid; but they are facts which we must face.
The underlying reason for any dissatisfaction which may be felt or voiced by any section of the public
is to be found at the moment in the simple fact of underproduction. Allowing for the undoubted fact that, in
our own industry at least, there has been an extraordinary shortage of raw material, the truth remains that
the real cause for underproduction with us has been in our shortage of man-power. In a word, we are
grievously short of skilled labor, and yet the conscience of the industry has been scarcely awakened on what
in the end is likely to turn out to be the vital, determining factor in our industrial history during the next few
years.
Underproduction, not in one but in all industries, is the basic cause of excessive prices. "More pro-
duction" is everywhere the cry. Now to that cry the response is not hearty and vigorous. The skilled worker,
in our industry as in all others, for the time finds himself in a position to dictate. He wants to produce less
instead of more, quite failing to see that when an artificial scarcity has been produced he will find that the
dollar, which now comes so easily to him, actually has less buying value than the old, hardly won dollar of
earlier days.
The worker is not to blame. He is only doing in a small way what the food profiteer is doing in a large
way, and to quarrel with him on moral grounds is rather absurd.
But there are some things we can do. We can attack at its source an evil which is doing no one any good
and which is slowly undermining our whole industry. We can and we must attack and re-solve the whole
problem of man-power.
If we can devise machinery for filling the depleted ranks of our skilled workers, and if at the same time
we can set the newly trained men and women in an economic position where they will desire to remain piano-
makers and not be tempted off into other lines of work by better wages, we shall solve the problem which
faces our industry.
Man-power coupled with higher earning possibilities must be supplied. Man-power will give us the means
for more production. Once -this is put on a secure basis we can begin to experience the general prosperity
without which it will be impossible to fill out our man-power.
Within the last few weeks reports have been coming in which indicate that the problem of recruiting man-
power is at last being tackled seriously. This is well; but it will not at all be well unless we all keep in mind the
simple fact that the problem is dual in its nature. We must indeed train skilled workers, but we cannot train
them unless we can get them to train, for one thing, and we cannot keep them unless we can compete with
other industries in respect of attractiveness and monetary advantages.
W T e might as well face the facts—our industry needs modernizing on the productive side. It is the finest
industry in the world, and when we have succeeded in "selling" this industry, in respect of its attractive
monetary and physical features, to the growing generation of our people we shall have achieved the economic
and industrial salvation which we now so anxiously seek. Until this is done, however, we shall continue to be per-
plexed by the problems which we hitherto have failed to solve.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
President and Treasurer, C. L. Bill, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Vice-President,
[. B. Spillane. 373 Fourth Aye., New York; Second Vice-President, Raymond Bill, 373
fourth Are., New York; Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
RAYMOND BILL, B. B. WILSON, Associate Editors
CARLE TON CHACE, Business Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staft:
WILSON D. BUSH, V. D. WALSH, W M . BRAID WHITE (Technical Editor), E. B. MUNCH,
C A. LEONARD, EDWARD LYMAN BILL, A. J. N I C K U N , L. E. BOWERS
BOSTON
OFFICE:
JOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
CHICAGO
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, Republic Building,
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Entered as second-class matter September 10, 1892, at the post office at New York, N. Y.,
under the Act of March 3, 1879.
SUBSCRIPTION
(including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year;
Canada, $3.50; all other countries, $5.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $4.50 per inch, single column, per insertion. On quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising pages, $130.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill, Inc.
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning,
regulating a n d repairing of pianos and player-pianos
p
are dealt with, will be found in another section of
this paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be cheerfully given upon request.
anil
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NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 6, 1919
No. 10
AN ADMITTEDLY UNFAIR RULING
HE action of the Internal Revenue Department in reversing its
former decision exempting from war excise taxes musical instru-
ments sold to Boards of Education and public institutions, and
paid for out of public funds, has been received with great regret,
not so much because of the slightly increased financial burden that
has been placed upon the trade, but rather because it is indicative
of the attitude of the revenue officials toward the educational status
of music. Music as an educational force is not a matter of propa-
ganda, but a matter of fact, regarding which no better proof can be
afforded than the schedules of the Board of Education of New
York, for instance, which include pianos and talking machines
as standard articles of supply, to be requisitioned as needed by school
principals and teachers.
All excise taxes on musical instruments have been, and rightly,
condemned as direct taxes on education, whether the instruments
be used in private homes or public institutions. To insist upon
taxes being paid on instruments designed directly for school use is
a move requiring special condemnation. It may be that the Internal
Revenue officials may be persuaded to reverse themselves again and
remove the tax from instruments for public use, but whatever future
action they may take they have already made their real attitude
plain. The officials are credited with stating that they realize the un-
fairness of the ruling, but that their 'hands are tied in the matter.
It would be interesting to know just who had done the tying.
T
SEPTEMBER 6, 1919
ment work of national scope and importance, and to make this work
most effective there must be in the various sections of the country
representatives of a caliber to appreciate what the Association is
doing, and contemplates doing, and with sufficient energy and force
to line up the trade in their respective districts back of the
movement.
In the past there have been found some State Commissioners
who accepted their appointment as an invitation to get out and
hustle in the interests of the Association, while others simply accepted
the appointment as a tribute to their high standing in the industry
and let it go at that, quite frequently not even attempting to attend
the convention and confer with their fellow commissioners. It is to
be hoped that the selections made this year will be so far as is pos-
sible of men who are imbued with the Association spirit, and will-
ing to back up their enthusiasm with effort.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MUSIC ADVANCEMENT
OFFICE:
Telephone, Main 6950.
209 So. State St. Telephone, Wabash 5774.
LONDON, ENGLAND:
1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., D. C.
N E W S SERVICE IS S U P P L I E D WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN T H E LEADING CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA.
rJaYcl-
REVIEW
PLEASING and practical application of the music advance-
A
ment idea which has been developed so successfully in and out
of the trade is found in Milwaukee, where plans have been com-
pleted for holding a music festival in conjunction with the Wiscon-
sin State Fair next week. The movement has the support of the
music industry, represented in the Milwaukee and Wisconsin As-
sociations of Music Industries, and although the time has been short
in which to do justice to the opportunity arrangements already made
should serve to impress most forcibly upon the Fair visitors the
dominating position held by music to-day.
For the next month or two there will be held throughout the
country the usual long series of State and County Fairs, and it
will be well for the members of the trade generally to take a leaf
from the book of their Milwaukee representatives, and see to it that
music has proper recognition at such fairs. These annual affairs
attract people who are in a mood to" see, to investigate, and quite
frequently to spend. They go home from the fairs full of enthu-
siasm regarding the new things they have witnessed. If, through
special efforts made in advance, these people go home imbued with
the thought that music is one of the big things in life, more will
have been accomplished than by a full year of spasmodic effort
and scattered publicity.
KEEP PIANO ADVERTISING CLEAN
S has been frequently pointed out in The Review, the value
A
of a piano on the wareroom floor to-day is not the straight
purchase price, but rather the purchase price with increased over-
head expense, war taxes and hundreds of other items added, and
then the relation of these figures with the price that will be de-
manded by the manufacturer to-day for an instrument of the
same type.
There are apparently some piano merchants who do not realize
this fact and who likewise do not realize that in an effort to do an
increased volume of business, simply to make a showing, they are
casting reflection upon the entire retail trade in their vicinity, the
effect of which is going to revert directly to them sooner or later.
Right now there is what is generally called a buyers' market
and in most localities there are more buyers than there are pianos
and players, which would appear to offer strong contradiction to
any arguments for sensational low-priced advertising.
These remarks are superinduced by a perusal of some adver-
tisements which have reached us from Western papers, in which
gross misrepresentations are made regarding the present status
of the piano business. These advertisements lead the public to
believe that pianos can be sold at old-time prices and that they can
be procured in abundance. In other words, they leave the impres-
sion that the piano man who is asking a fair price for his instruments
THE NEED FOR ACTIVE COMMISSIONERS
is not telling the truth.
Questionable advertisements of this kind have the very worst
ITHIN the next few weeks there will be announced the list
possible influence, for they undermine the confidence of the public
of those members of the National Association of Music Mer-
in the members of the industry. Local associations and piano mer-
chants appointed to act as State Commissioners during the present
administration, and it is well that President Conroy and his ad- chants everywhere throughout the country should watch closely
visers have been giving, and are giving, careful thought to the se- for any species of misinformation published in the public press and
bring it to the attention of either their local, State or national asso-
lection of these representatives. There have been great develop-
ciations. The members of the piano trade are not profiteers. They
ments in the trade, and particularly among the merchants, during
are asking a fair, honest price for products that have appreciated
the year, and still further developments 'are promised in the near
tremendously during, and since, the war.
future. The Association has entered into trade and music advance-
W

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