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MUSICAL MERCHANDISE
Conducted By Thomas W. Bresnahan
Stabilizing the Demand
for Musical Instruments
Address of H. C. Lomb, President of the Musical Instrument
& Accessories Manufacturers' Association, Before
the Manufacturers' Luncheon in New York
E all hope that these annual get-together meetings of musical merchandise manufacturers
will continue to be a regular feature of the National Music Trades Conventions. We
manufacturers have good cause to commune with each other at this time, for we all
know that the music business is in great need of improvement. This is neither the time nor the
place to go into great detail concerning our problems, and I will mention only one subject which
to my mind eclipses all others in its importance to the manufacturing industry at this moment.
That is the balancing of production and dis-
tribution, or the regulation of supply and de- music industry itself to interest the great mass
H. C. Lomb
mand. Put more concretely, the problem is to of the American people in musical activities and
President Musical Instrument & Acces-
prevent a huge over-production of our goods at to stimulate the sale of musical instruments at
sories Manufacturers' Association
one time and an overwhelming shortage at an- the source of the demand, namely, among the
other. In other words, to discover a method youth in the schools and social organizations.
Now, remembering that we are speaking here of the industry. There must be a unity of pur-
of keeping our factories profitably employed
at all times. A lean period brings hardship and as one manufacturer to another, it may be said pose, a unity of thought on certain essentials
distress directly, while an inflation, although that it is not the manufacturer's business def- where mutual interest plainly exists.
Stern economic necessity demands that all
perhaps momentarily profitable, brings even initely to place his goods, and that it is solely
more evils in its train. Under-supply or under- the affair of the distributor, that is the whole- available efforts and resources of the industry,
production brings inferior merchandise, duplica- saler and the retailer, to see that the manufac- and of every branch of it, be used construc-
tion of orders, ultimate cancellations. Over- tured goods finally and quickly reach the ulti- tively and co-operatively for common beneficial
supply or over-production brings on price- mate consumer. The manufacturer may say, and ends and not be wasted in fruitless, senseless
cutting, mutual recriminations and a set-back with some measure of truth, that he is already strife.
operating under such a low margin of profit
1 bespeak, therefore, your strong moral and
to the industry.
financial support of the measures which are
This condition of alternating periods of panics that he cannot afford to spend large sums of
or booms, or business cycles, has existed so money to help the distributor dispose of his being proposed to get at the bottom of the
long that it came to be looked upon as a matter merchandise and that if the jobber or dealer situation as regards the demand for musical
of course, as a kind of economic law. Within cannot or will not sell the goods, he has ceased instruments among the people.
One other factor has a distinct bearing on
the last decade, however, and particularly since to justify his existence and should be elimin-
the problem of over-production especially as
the calamitous days of 1921, business men have ated altogether.
In saying that we would, however, ignore an regarded from the manufacturing standpoint.
asked themselves whether such periods of ex-
treme activity and extreme dullness were really all-important fact, a fact that is of special sig- When we speak of the over-production of an
unavoidable. Realizing that a reasonable and nificance in times like these when the wheels of article, we must include only the output of
safe speed, constantly maintained, brings us to the music industry need to gather more mo- those factories which have adopted modern
our destination in practically the same time and mentum. That fact is that no industry can methods and modern equipment, and we cannot
with greater certainty of ultimate arrival than nowadays carry on successfully unless the include the output of those plants which, for
a wild breakneck rush with its unforeseen de- greatest spirit of united effort toward a com- one reason or another, have neglected to do
lays, they have wondered whether there was no mon end exists among all its branches. The this. Idle factories or idle equipment do not
way of stabilizing business. Under the able interdependence of the manufacturer and dis- necessarily indicate an oversupply of manufac-
guidance of Herbert Hoover, the business men tributor has become* so real, so crucial, that the tured goods in the market, but may indicate
of this country have found such a way, and it failure to recognize this fact may be disastrous. obsolete machinery and methods.
The ultimate consumer is being wooed so
The manufacturer who has neither the sagac-
is of this that I "wish to speak.
This newly-found tool of business is the an- ardently and seductively by rival industries that ity nor the courage to discard them cannot
alysis of the wants of the ultimate consumer. the successful swain cannot rely on his per- wonder if he loses business. For the modern
Instead of blindly piling up heavy inventories sonal charm alone, but must be able to appeal plant, under the merchandising principles men-
of raw materials and goods in process or of to reason also, and that on a united front. In tioned above, the saturation point will never be
assembling great stocks of finished merchandise short, there must be no disaffection in the ranks reached. Of the music industry this is indeed
in the belief that the public must and will take
them, the far-seeing leaders of business and in-
dustry are to-day studying their public, iwquir-
ing into their tastes and their desires and are
then adapting their factories and their sales
Trade
policies to meet these wants. This does not
Mark
mean that the buying public will necessarily
become the sole arbiter in the matter of goods
to be manufactured and sold, because, as often
a,s not, this same public may demand things
which are impossible. At such times the manu-
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MAKERS
facturer and the distributor must make their in-
SINCE 1883
fluence felt by intelligent direction and education
of the consumers' tastes and through the printed
page and the spoken word guide and create de-
sires which are already latent or dormant, but
require a vehicle or medium for expression. One
of the best examples of such procedure is the
splendid effort now being put forth by the
W
GRTTSCH
MUSICAL MERCHANDISE
The Fred Gretsch
6O Broadway BrooU.yif.NY