Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
J4UJIG TIRADE
VOL. LXXIV. No. 5
B
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Feb. 4, 1922 ]
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Y starting on a coast-to-coast tour in the role of missionary, as it were, for the National Association
of Music Merchants, M. V. DeForeest is not only setting an interesting precedent for national asso-
ciation presidents, but is displaying a spirit of unselfishness and a faith in the retail music, business
and what it represents that is most inspiring.
Mr. DeForeest's efforts to enlist music merchants in all sections of the country in association activities
and increase their interest in the great work of music advancement should meet with unqualified success, for
Mr. DeForeest not only preaches, but is in the enviable position of having practiced what he preaches and
having practiced it with tremendous success.
Some years ago George W. Pound made a tour of the country in the interests of the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce and was received with great enthusiasm by the dealers in every city visited. Mr.
Pound delivered his message as the representative of a general trade organization, taking in all divisions of
the industry, and his appeal therefore was more or less general. Mr. DeForeest, on the other hand, goes to
the music merchants direct as the head of their own association. He talks to the men in his own line of
business and talks on his own time and at his own expense. It is, without question, one of the finest moves
that has been made in association history.
There is no question but that this is the psychological moment for bringing to the music merchants,
in their own homes, so to speak, the message of association benefits and of the great opportunities represented
in the music advancement campaign. In the first place, it is conceded that despite the many accomplishments
of the Merchants' Association as an individual body and also as a component part of the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce, there is liable to be a letting down of interest as the immediate business problems of
the individual merchant demand more of his attention. Yet, it is also conceded that the association does,
or can be made to, occupy an important position in the laying and carrying out of plans to aid the average
retailer in meeting the problems of the day and in improving his business methods and systems.
There are at the present time several thousand really live representative music merchants whose names
are not recorded among the eleven hundred or so making up the roster of the National Association of Music
Merchants. There are many, of course, who have been, and are, hard to sell on the association proposition,
but there are, at the same time, many hundreds of others who can be brought to give their support to the
organization and its work if the matter is presented to them directly and properly.
Any good for the trade accomplished by the association naturally reflects to the benefit of music mer-
chants as a class, and it means that for every man who has taken part as an association member in bringing
about some beneficial result there are several contemporaries and competitors who profit with him without
doing their part, either passively or actively, in association work. As President DeForeest aptly puts it, it
is about time many of these merchants, moved by a spirit of fairness, if nothing else, should "stop riding on
the other fellow's ticket" and pay their own fare.
Mr. DeForeest is well qualified to speak to music merchants generally in the light of experience, for
he has been an association member almost from the time he started in business and can point to definite
benefits from such membership, and his work for music advancement is too well known to require comment.
In selecting Alex. McDonald and Charles Jacob as his traveling companions for the entire trip Mr.
DeForeest will be able to present his arguments to the music merchants from several angles, and even with
a small measure of success the results, as represented by the increased attendance at the Jubilee Convention,
to be held in New York in June, should be tremendous.
The music merchants in all sections of the country who do not make elaborate plans for receiving Mr.
DeForeest and hearing his message are overlooking an unprecedented opportunity.