Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
REVIEW
fflJJIC TIRADE
VOL LXX. No. 8
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Feb. 21, 1920
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the annual meetings of the associations in our industry many men expressed many opinions. Every
visitor had his views as to the business and economic prospects of the year ahead of us, and those
views were fr-eely expressed. Comparatively few men, however, have the habit of looking below the
surface of things before they give forth opinions concerning the probable future course of commerce
in this country. A little of such examination may go a long way, nor is any opinion on industrial matters very
likely to be valuable unless preceded by something akin to this.
The world is in a feverish state. There is great demand for every sort of manufactured goods, and
the so-called luxuries are being freely bought at higher prices than have ever been known within the memory
of living men. Meanwhile the economic and financial conditions of every nation in the world, not excluding
our own, are highly abnormal. Currency is inflated and there has been a very great, in fact an extraordinary,
expansion of loans to private business. Business men everywhere have striven to increase physical facilities
and speed up production.
Now "production" is at the moment the most important word in the language. To get ourselves into
normal condition without rough traveling we must increase the production of manufactured goods of all sorts
and of food products in every kind. Yet the nations of the world—and all are guilty in the same way, though
not in the same degree—are under a sort of mesmeric influence as to this vital matter. The workers are
having a literally terrible time getting themselves back to a normal frame of mind as to production; in a
word, they hate to think of work again.
Fortunately the fire is burning itself out. The economic impossibilities of this bad dream (for such it
is) are beginning to assert themselves, if the somewhat tangled phrase may be allowed. The absurdities of the
exchange situation are stopping American exports, but they are for that very reason releasing goods needed
in the home markets. The stoppage of exports means that the European countries are being forced into
production, willy-nilly. This in turn will stabilize the international situation sooner than is supposed by some.
The future, then, should awake no feelings of uneasiness. The world's need is work, production,
common sense. The economic heresies of a Lenine are plausible, like all heresies; but even the Russians are
finding they will not work. Those who allow themselves to be betrayed into fear of further international
troubles should learn that the threat of Bolshevism is now a recognized element in the trickery of the enemy.-
Meanwhile, the music industry has stood the storm and stress of both war and post-war conditions, and
is now sailing on an even keel. No one who attended the various sessions of the trade associations held last
week could doubt that the piano men as a whole, from the biggest manufacturers to the smallest dealers, were
conducting their several affairs in a better, more businesslike and more progressive manner than ever before, and
the effect of this mode of procedure was amply shown in the vigorous, healthy atmosphere which surrounded
the trade gatherings.
Differences between capital and labor, always rampant at the close of any period of military activity, have
had some effect on the trade, but these difficulties seem to have been solved sanely and satisfactorily, in a great
majority of cases at least, and there seems to be little danger of any serious disturbance arising to hinder the
progress of the trade during the coming year. .
In short, we are stabilizing ourselves. There may be some disturbances, but the music industries are
not going to suffer. Only profiteers will have any cause to complain, and music men, whatever else they may
be, are certainly not profiteers. A dollar will still buy more of piano than of anything else in the world.
And the world is just beginning to appreciate the lure of music. The music industry is just beginning the
most prosperous era it has ever known.