Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
JULY 23, 1921
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
EXTREMELY HOT WEATHER SLOWS UP MILWAUKEE TRADE
Hottest Summer Season in Years Has Deterrent Effect on All Lines of Activity—Better Busi-
ness Bureau's Good Work Producing Results—State Fair Attracting Attention
MILWAUKEE, WIS., July 20.—With temperatures
ranging from 95 to 100 degrees above zero
nearly every day, and humidity high, the people
of Milwaukee who have remained in the city this
Summer are passing through the hottest season
in years. As a consequence business of all kinds,
including the music trade, is lacking in snap and
"pep," although the degree of the lack varies
widely, according to the reports made at dif-
ferent stores.
Piano business is slow, as might be expected
in the middle of the hottest part of Summer, and
in view of existing conditions. The high-priced
lines are selling better than medium or low-
priced instruments. Talking machine trade is
relatively much more active, although the vol-
ume of transactions is rather limited. The best
trade is in records. Music rolls also are in
moderate demand and helping materially to
maintain general store volume until business
picks up late in the season.
It has been feared in some quarters that a
period such as that of the last six or seven
months might produce a wholesale lot of illegiti-
mate merchandising and fake advertising, espe-
cially in view of the fact that the public is a
victim of "bargainitis" to a more intense degree
than ever before. The latest report of the Mil-
waukee Better Business Bureau, conducted by
the Advertisers' Council of the Milwaukee Asso-
ciation of Commerce, says, in part:
"There has been little activity among fake
advertising salesmen in Milwaukee recently. A
few of them circulated about the city a short
time and some were stopped. The warning sent
out by the Bureau that prospective advertisers
make inquiry of it before signing contracts for
advertising except in known publications still
holds. Unless an endorsement or approval card
is held by the solicitor it would be well for the
person solicited to communicate with this office
before paying any money."
The Lyric Music Co., 86-88 Wisconsin street,
an old-established Kimball representative, has
been appointed also distributor of the Seeburg
line of instruments in Milwaukee and fourteen
adjoining counties in southeastern Wisconsin.
J. M. Roussellot, president, and Merle R. Rous-
sellot, secretary and treasurer of the Lyric Co.,
spent several days in Chicago during the past
week in conference with officials of the Seeburg
Co. A stock of instruments is now on the way
and will be installed in the company's display
rooms by the end of the week. It will include
the Seeburg automatic pianos, orchestrions, pipe
organ orchestras, the Seeburg-Smith unified or-
gan for large theatres and halls, as well as the
Marshall and Marshfield pianos and players.
The board of directors of the Milwaukee
Chamber of Commerce has committed itself in
favor of a sales tax on all turn-overs to take
the place of the excess profits tax on corpora-
tions by voting affirmatively on Referendum No.
36 of the Chamber of Commerce of the United
States. In a previous referendum, No. 34, the
Milwaukee Association likewise voted affirma-
tively on the question of the repeal of the excess
profits tax. In answering No. 36 the Associa-
tion' took pains to point out that it favors the
substitution of a sales tax on turn-overs only
with the express understanding that the excess
profits tax on corporations will be repealed.
The long-standing fight of Milwaukee busi-
ness for better railroad facilities appears to have
borne fruit. The Pennsylvania system, after
several months of negotiation, has completed
preliminary arrangements to use the new termi-
nal at Muskegon, Mich., being established by the
Muskegon Railway & Navigation Co., which will
operate a fleet of car ferries across Lake Michi-
gan between Muskegon and Milwaukee. This
also will give an outlet for Milwaukee goods
and an inlet for Eastern manufacturers through
other Eastern trunk lines. The Muskegon Co.
already has completed a belt line of about six
miles and a dock at a cost of $1,000,000.
The Milwaukee music trade is looking for-
ward with much interest to the annual Wiscon-
sin State Fair, which this year will be held
August 29 to September 3 at West Allis. For
several years the Milwaukee Association of
Music Industries has employed the State Fair
for demonstrations which have attracted atten-
tion throughout the music world. Just what
will be done this year has not been definitely
decided, but activities probably will not be so
elaborate or expensive as in 1920 and 1919.
The usual number of music stores of Mil-
waukee plan to make displays of their goods
in booths in various buildings at the Fair
Grounds this year, as in the past. Among them
is Edmund Gram, Inc., the music departments
of Gimbel Bros., the Boston Store, Edward
Schuster & Co. and several others. If the
Temple of Music project is ever carried to com-
pletion there will be space available under a
11
.single roof for all dealers as a group. At pres-
ent the music exhibits are scattered among half
a dozen buildings and it is not uncommon to
see a piano or talking machine adjacent to a
livestock building and sweet strains of music
competing with the moo of cows or the squeal
of pigs for the attention of the public ear.
The methods which are being employed by
business men's associations and other commer-
cial organizations in some of the smaller com-
munities of Wisconsin are noteworthy as proof
that not only are such organizations justifying
their existence in every respect, but making his-
torical efforts to accomplish worth-while things
for their constituencies.
At Green Bay, Wis., for instance, the Associa-
tion of Commerce has just completed and placed
in operation a plan of trade extension that is of
wide interest to business men. A card index of
18,000 names of consumers in Brown, Kewaunee,
Door and Oconto counties, which comprise the
retail trade territory of the city, has been com-
piled and made available to all members of the
Association. About $3,000 worth of additional
addressing and circularizing equipment has been
added by the secretary, Horace Baker, to enable
members to get quick action on the list. The
names were taken from the tax assessment rolls
of the city and county governments, so that
the list is up to date, accurate and trustworthy,
avoiding waste in mailing.
The Milwaukee Association of Commerce has
resumed the publication of a monthly news-
paper to keep members in close contact among
themselves and with the headquarters, which
are in the Athletic Club Building, 106 Mason
street.
WANAMAKER CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY TRADE NEWS FROM PORTLAND, ORE.
Friends and Business Associates Shower Great
Merchant With Congratulations and Presents
on His Eighty-third Birthday Last Week
Bush & Lane Branch Store Reports Banner
Business—Knabe and Ampico Lines in Good
Favor—Personals and Other News
John Wanamaker, head of the great Wana-
maker stores, celebrated his eighty-third birth-
day in Philadelphia on July 11. During the day
his office was crowded with a continual flow of
friends and employes bearing good wishes. His
desk was heaped high and banked all around
with flowers and telegrams. Letters and pres-
ents from business associates and friends ar-
rived in an uninterrupted stream throughout the
day. One hundred and fifty Sunday school
leaders, members of the World's Sunday School
Association, of which Mr. Wanamaker is presi-
dent, sent letters of congratulation. Messages
came from all parts of the world, including
Japan, China, Korea, Philippine Islands, India,
Great Britain, South America and Australia.
Mr. Wanamaker was one of the first big busi-
ness men to see the possibilities of selling musi-
cal instruments in a department store. When
the piano industry was still in its infancy he
established a piano department in his store in
New York and also inaugurated a complete
change in piano advertising methods. During
the first six years of the existence of the new
department sales of pianos advanced by leaps
and bounds until at the end of that period he
was selling more pianos than any other store
in the city.
Although he has reached the age when most
men have retired from active business, Mr.
Wanamaker appears at his desk in Philadelphia
regularly and still keeps in touch with the af-
fairs of his business. His attitude toward life
can best be expressed by the following state-
ment made on his birthday: "It seems to me
that birthdays come every six months, so swiftly
does time pass. But I am glad to say that I
have found life filled with more sunny days
than rainy days. The man who frets never gets
anvwhere."
PORTLAND, ORE., July 16.—The manager of the
Bush & Lane branch, H. T. Campbell, said that
the past month was one of the largest in piano
sales in the history of the store. The Bush &
Lane Welte-Mignon sales were excellent and
the other departments held up well. Mr. Camp-
bell said: "There is plenty of business if you
will only go and get it, and that is what we are
doing, and results show that we are getting it."
Mr. Campbell is greatly pleased with his force
of employes and says that he has one of the
finest organizations in the piano business. He
meets his salesmen in his office every morning
and talks over the plans for the day, and twice a
month there is a meeting of the entire organiza-
tion, when they have heart-to-heart talks. He
finds this a very effective way to obtain the
best results.
The Portland Piano Co. (Lipman, Wolfe's)
has received a large shipment of Knabe grands
and Haines Bros. Ampico pianos, which the man-
ager of the company, W. A. Erwin, says are
sold as fast as received.
J. C. Gallagher, sales manager of the Bush
61- Lane Co., negotiated the sale of a Bush &
Lane Welte-Mignon by mail to Bert Simon, of
San Francisco. Mr. Simon's brother, in that
city, has a Welte-Mignon, and after the sale was
completed Mr. Simon stopped off at Portland
and selected the style he desired shipped to his
home in San Francisco.
The town of Pasco has added a second pipe
organ. The instrument was installed in the
Liberty Theatre, of that place, which was taken
there in a special car from the factory of the
American Photo Player Co., at Van Nuys, Cal.
Vivian Melichior, sales woman in the record
department of the Wiley B. Allen Co , surprised
her friends upon returning from a three weeks'
vacation by announcing that she had been mar-
ried on July 2 in Seattle to Richard R. Warinner,
a member of one of Portland's prominent
families.
INCORPORATED IN VIRGINIA
The Granby Phonograph Corp. has been
granted a charter of incorporation under the
Slate Laws of Virginia, with a capital of $2,-
500,000.
The new store of the Tri-State Piano Co. was
recently opened at Andover, O. H. A. Copeland
is president of the firm.