Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
pUSIC TKADE
VOL. LXXVIII. No. 5 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York,!N.Y.
Feb. 2, 1924 ,, Sin *Jf. ( £ o £ eer8
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Widening the Merchants* Association's Scope
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T
H E decision of the Executive Committee and Advisory Board of the National Association of Music
Merchants to place a paid organizer in the field to co-operate in the formation of sectional, State and
city associations is a constructive step of the highest moment in making the Merchants' Association a
more important element for the betterment of retail music merchandising.
Since Robert N. Watkin, present head of the Association, took office he has consistently urged a wider
extension of the Association's activities through this plan and his efforts have already been so successful as to
obtain the affiliation of several State and city organizations already existing. That this movement will now be
carried on under better auspices and upon a wider scope means unquestionably a better organized and hence a
more efficient organization; one that will become a still more constructive element in meeting the problems of
the retail music dealer through co-operative action.
An association representing so large a field as music merchandising cannot perform its functions
adequately when organized entirely upon the basis of individual memberships. This has long been recognized,
and no more so than at the annual conventions when business sessions, important as they are, have failed in
many cases to obtain representative attendance. The individual member, evidently, felt no obligation to be
present, which is characteristic enough and to be expected.
But if the annual convention were attended by delegates from divisional member associations, men
charged with the duty of representing those bodies and of placing their opinions before the national organ-
ization, this situation would undergo an immediate change and the annual meeting would assume a much more
constructive place in the industry.
This is but one element of advantage in this plan. There are many others, chief of which is the fact
that many of the problems which require co-operative action are so distinctively local and affect only mer-
chants in limited territory that the national body cannot keep in touch with developments nor take action with
sufficient knowledge of local conditions to meet them adequately. A local or State association is the proper
body to act, especially when it has behind it the resources of the national body both in direct support and in
advice. This co-ordination of effort, impossible at the present time in most sections of the country, un-
doubtedly would achieve beneficial results of a magnitude that would thoroughly warrant the new plan of
organization.
State and local associations, in many cases, have had a short life in the retail music trade. Primarily
this has been due to faulty organization and to the fact that merchants themselves have been compelled
to shoulder the burden of the detail work entaile,d in :iny proper association. Where they have succeeded, and
there are some striking examples, it seems to have been due largely to the fact that this work has been accom-
plished by paid officials. This requirement, which is treated at some length by A. G. Farquharson, secretary
of the Music Trades Association of Southern California, in another section of The Review, should be given
the careful consideration of those who are charged with the responsibility of the campaign about to be under-
taken by the National Association.
The association has proved its value to the music industries and trade. There are few to-day who remain
to question that fact. But associations could be infinitely more valuable if their organization were placed on a
better basis and a still greater proportion of retail music merchants taken within the ranks. To join an or-
ganization the headquarters of which may be thousands of miles from where a merchant's warerooms are
located is an entirely different matter from joining an organization that is in the same town, city or State. The
benefits then are immediate and apparent; the benefits in the other case are perhaps indirect and but little felt,
with the result that interest is likely to wane and eventually disappear. This is said with no idea of disparag-
ing what the Merchants' Association has done but to increase its efficiency.