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Music Trade Review

Issue: 1919 Vol. 69 N. 15

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VQL. LXIX NO. 15
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Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Oct. 11, 1919
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The Present Epidemic of Unrest
1
*VER since the signing of the armistice, and in fact before that eventful day, there has been evident
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in this country a steadily developing epidemic of unrest in labor circles—an unrest that has spread
I
. until it has involved practically the entire country in industrial disturbances that are fast undermin-
ing the very foundation of business stability and of prosperity itself. When this unrest first made
itself evident it was sporadic in character, and perhaps did not receive the attention from business men gen-
erally that the situation really demanded. The members of the industries first affected were naturally con-
cerned, but the representatives of the other departments of trade, while expressing regret that such conditions
should exist, did not show sufficient vital concern in developments.
Labor trouble has spread until it is now general and involves almost every line of industry. It has
reached home to the members of the music trade through the declaration of strikes in piano factories and in
talking machine plants in a number of cities. It has come home to the trade press through the strike of
printers in New York, where the chief concern is not alone the demands of the printers themselves in the
matter of hours and wages, but in the apparently chaotic condition in union circles for which the publishers
and employing printers must suffer.
The need of the moment is action—not words. It is time for the executives of industry to gather together
and present a united front to protect the very life of industry itself. The rights of labor have been recognized
as never before during the past few years. The voice of labor has been heard with authority in the councils
of business, and has been welcomed there, but instead of this fact bringing about co-operation, it has served
to develop unrest. It is very probable that the rank and file in labor circles for the most part are desirous of
being conservative and of meeting capital half way, but unfortunately the radical element is fighting to gain
control, and the battle now being waged is not alone between employer and employe, but between the radicals
and conservatives in the labor ranks. If business is to be preserved—if order is to come out of chaos—there
must be made no effort at temporizing.
The radicals of the labor ranks, and for that matter conservatives, offer as an excuse for their demands
the necessity of meeting higher living costs, but hesitate to admit that the steadily mounting cost of living is
due in appreciable measure to their own actions. Strikes do, and have, helped to cut down production tre-
mendously at a time when production is recognized as the secret of the successful adjustment of industrial
conditions. It has been estimated that between ten and twenty per cent of the workers of the country have
been on strike constantly since the first of the year, and this means that for this reason alone production has
been cut down just that percentage. Even the element of unrest has resulted in curtailment of output in
plants that are fully manned but where the operatives are uneasy and are not working to the best of their
ability. Government figures go to show that in such fully manned plants production averages only sixty per
cent of normal. Instead of endeavoring to remedy this condition, the labor element comes out strongly for
shorter hours as well as increased pay, thus cutting down production and thereby directly influencing still
higher prices.
What is needed today is a closer union between employer and employe, and a better understanding on
the part of all of the necessity of creating wealth by labor. There is no question but that on American labor
rests the grave responsibility to attain a maximum unit production, and to maintain uninterrupted distribu-
tion of goods, if labor itself is not to suffer from further rises in the cost of living.
Team work was never more imperative than today; the manufacturer, the workman, skilled and
unskilled, the farmer, in fact everyone who works with his hands or brain should realize that efficient
co-operation is necessary to bring about full and proportionate production to meet the Nation's demands.
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,
T. B. Spillane, 373 Fourth Ave., New York; Second Vice-President, Raymond Bill, 373
Fourth Ave., New York; Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
J. B. SPILLANE, Editor
RAYMOND BILL, B. B. WILSON, Associate Editors
CARLETON CHACE, Business Manager
Executive and Reportorlal Staff
WILSON D. BUSH, V. D. WALSH, W M . BRAID WHITE (Technical Editor), E. B. MUNCH,
L. M. ROBINSON, C. A. LEONARD, EDWARD LYMAN BILL, A. J. NICKLIN, L. E. BOWERS
BOSTON OFFICE:
CHICAGO OFFICE:
JOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
E. P. VA.N HARLINGEN, Republic Building,
Telephone, Main 6950.
209 So. State St. Telephone, Wabash 5774.
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., D. C.
NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN T H E LEADING CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Entered as second-class matter September 10, 1892, at the post office at Neva York, N. Y.,
under the Act of March 3, 1879.
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year;
Canada, $3.SO; 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 payahle to Edward
Lyman Bill, Inc.
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Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
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tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning,
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regulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos
l C U I U l l d l U c p d l I l l l t l l l a are dealt with, will be found in another section of
tbis paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be -cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900 Stiver Medal,., Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma. . . .Pan-American Exposition, 1901 Gold Medal. ... .St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal— Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 6982—5983 MADISON 8Q.
Connecting all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York"
Vol. LXIX
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1 1 , 1 9 1 9
iSo. IS
The continuance of the strike in the printing industry
in New York City has somewhat delayed this issue of The
Music Trade Review, but the publishers hope to have the
next issue in the hands of the subscribers at the usual time.
THE SUCCESS OF THE STAMP PLAN
AT the convention in June there were those who declared that
i V the official stamp plan, as proposed by the National Asso-
ciation of Piano Merchants, for the raising of funds for music
advancement, was radical and impractical and would meet with
failure, yet now, only three months after the first stamp was
issued, the sales of the stamp's are rapidly approaching the
75,000 mark. All talk of the success of the plan—of the manner
in which it is being accepted by manufacturers and dealers, pales
into insignificance by the side of these figures. The idea of the
plan was to raise funds and that idea is being carried out most
successfully, and it does not require any great power of prophesy
to see close to $25,000 added to the fund for the cause of music
through the medium of the stamps before the first of the year
rolls around. It is a record of which the trade should feel proud.
NEW ENGLAND COMING TO THE FRONT
T
HR conservatism of New Englanders haslongbeenaby-word,
and the business men of that section of the country, rightly
or wrongly, have been credited with doing things more slowly
than their contemporaries in other sections of the country, but
doing those things carefully, and with the idea of permanence
strongly in mind. In trade association matters, however, the
New Englanders are losing some of their conservatism, as is
proven by the plans now being made for the big meeting in
Boston on November 18th, under the auspices of the Boston
Music Trades' Association, and to which all piano and music
men in New England are invited.
New England is distinctly a center in the music trade, both
from the artistic and industrial point of view, and if the repre-
OCTOBER 11, 1919
sentatives of the trade "down East" can be brought together in
one general organization, it will no doubt be of a character that
will accomplish things. Connecticut has long had its own State
Association, so has Maine. With these organizations as h
nucleus, coupled with the Boston Music Trades' Association,
there is every opportunity to build up an association unit in the
New England States second in strength and importance only to
the national body. The plans for the meeting are in good hands;
the interest appears to be widespread, and there is every reason
to be confident of the results.
AGRICULTURE AND GENERAL PROSPERITY
is almost an axiom in piano trade circles that prosperity
I T among
the agricultural classes means a heavy demand for
musical instruments, and there are convincing facts to back up
this theory. Those retailers who do business in rural communi-
ties have, during the past few years, been in clover. The news-
papers have had much to say about every farmer owning at least
one automobile, by means of which he is able to keep in close
contact with urban communities and thus broaden his viewpoint.
It is certain that the farmer of today is not the isolated character
of generations ago. He has a modern house, modernly equipped,
and lives.in a modern way, quite up to the standards of his city
brother. Likewise he demands music, as is evidenced by the
increased number of pianos, player-pianos and talking machines
placed in the rural districts.
Assuming that the prosperity of the farmer has a beneficial
effect upon the business prosperity of the country as a whole, it
is interesting to note that based upon recent figures the value of
farm products has increased over 120 per cent since 1914, despite
the fact that the acreage under cultivation has only increased
10 per cent. In this connection a report issued by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture shows that the area devoted to ten principal
crops in 1914 was 297,000,000 acres and in 1918 326,000,000. an
increase of approximately 10 per cent, and the farm value of the
ten crops on December 1, 1914, was $4,933,000,000. and on Decem-
ber 1, 1918, $10,934,000,000, an increase of about 121 per cent.
Of all farm products the Department of Agriculture puts the
value, "based on prices at the farm," at $9,895,000,000 in 1914,
and $21,386,000,000 in 1918, an increase of approximately 115
per cent. The increase in value of "animals and animal products"
is about 90 per cent, and of all crops 132 per cent increase, com-
paring 1918 with 1914.
SOME SUNSHINE AMONG THE CLOUDS
F
EDERAL reserve agents everywhere throughout the country
report prosperity and good business, but a greatly unsettled
situation as a result of uncertainty with regard to labor. Many
strikes and threatened strikes were reported to the board, and
they had a distinctly unsettling influence. Despite that factor,
however, business has been going forward actively, and there
was the usual fall increase. During this month, the board de-
clares, the labor situation has become the most prominent factor
in the business situation, supplanting high prices in that regard.
It is noted that high retail prices have not tended to check
consumption and that the demand for goods of the better grades
is unabated. Manufacturing throughout the countrv continues
active, it is reported, but some markets appear quiet because
some manufacturers are well sold ahead of present requirements.
THE DANGER OF SLACKING UP ON CREDITS
I
NE of the greatest lessons taught by the war concerned the
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matter of credits, and the music industry, as well as prac-
tically every other line of business, learned the lesson well. Now
that the war is over, there are signs already discernible which
point to a tendency on the part of some piano merchants to let
down their standards in the matter of credits, and even the
"dollar down" slogan is being seen here and there in the adver-
tising pages of the daily press. The war taught in no uncertain
terms the absolute necessity for a sound basis so far as credits
in the piano field are concerned, and the piano man who forgets
the lesson war-time circumstances taught him deserves the
disaster which awaits him.

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