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THE
VOL. LXX. No. 2
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Jan. 10, 1920
Single Copies 10 Cents
$2.00 Per Year
Music Is Not a Luxury
NE of the problems that members of the music industry will have to solve very promp"try-is_that of over-
coming the tendency of a certain percentage of the public, particularly newspaper writers and bank-
ers, to classify musical instruments as luxuries and their purchase by the average workingman as an
extravagance. For the past two or three years Americans have had, or are believed to have had, a new
conception of the importance of music; of the fact that it stood high among the necessities of life. Even the
Government itself during the stress of war recognized the fact, but the bankers and others apparently believe
that the increased incomes of the workers should go into the banks they control, or go for the purchase of
products in the manufacture of which they are interested, rather than for the purchase of musical instruments.
This new and dangerous tendency to criticize the purchase of musical instruments has been particularly
in evidence since the holiday buying started. We find in newspapers and magazines many articles decrying
the extravagance shown by the working classes during the late holiday time, and there is hardly one of the
articles that does not contain reference to the fact that some day-laborer has purchased a grand piano, or that
some other wage-earner has seen fit to buy good pianos for each of his two or three daughters. These "hor-
rible" examples are offered as proof positive of the fact that the average workingman does not know what to
do with his increased earnings and, therefore, simply throws them away.
It was the privilege of the writer a few days ago to meet a newspaperman engaged in compiling an article
designed to show the present extravagance of the public. The newspaperman was elated to learn that the
demand for musical instruments had never been heavier, and that the call was for instruments of the better
grades, selling at very substantial prices. He was particularly happy to find out that what might be termed
a new buying class had developed since the war, consisting of workers who, previous to the present era of high
wages, had not had the money with which to indulge their taste for musical instruments. "These are just the
facts I need to prove that the high wages now being earned are being spent extravagantly," he said.
It did not take very long to give this particular newspaperman a new viewpoint; to convince him that
musical instruments were not in any sense luxuries, but absolute necessities; that workers were buying them not
because the workers were extravagant, but because they were able for the first time to buy something which
they had always realized was a necessity in the home. The newspaperman admitted that he owned a piano.
"Did you pay cash for it?" he was asked. In reply he stated that he had bought it on instalments. "Why not
for cash ?" he was asked. He flushed for a minute and stated that at the time of the purchase he did not have
sufficient free cash to close the deal. "Then you were extravagant, and followed the policy some years ago that
you are endeavoring to condemn the average worker for following today." "I don't feel that I was extrava-
gant," was the answer. "My daughter desired to study piano playing and I felt she ought to, so I bought
the piano for that reason, just as I would buy her a new school book."
The total result of the interview is that this particular newspaperman plans to write an article showing
the real reason for the purchase of musical instruments in such numbers at the present time.
Every music dealer should make it his individual business to combat in his own territory the tendency to
class the purchase of musical instruments as an extravagance. If he is alive to the situation he can counteract
personal argument with personalargument. If local bankers, officials, or business men in other lines present
that opinion in newspaper interviews, he should see to it that the real truth is published in the same papers and
that the man responsible for the interview is given a new conception of just what the musical instrument means
in the home.
It is just as important, and, in fact, more important, to fight propaganda against musical instruments as it
is to support propaganda in the cause of music, and the trade will do well to remember this fact.
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