Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
WHEN
THAT
FIRE
COMES
ARE
YOUR
RECORDS
SAFE?
J
UST ten years ago, fire starting at 3
lowed an explosion in an oil station, which
By ROBERT K. DORAN
o'clock in the morning on June 24
killed three men. And still later a hotel,
destroyed nine businesses in Knox-
which had been operated for forty years
ville, Iow T a. Knoxville is a typical town of 3,000 people without a fire, was wiped out of existence in a few hours.
and with about the average fire dangers and the average fire
Having paid Fire's fearful price, Knoxville, of a sudden,
department. They never had had a serious fire and the danger became thoroughly alive to the ever-present danger from fire
seemed a remote possibility. They were not concerned about and became also awake to the after-the-fire value of records.
the after-the-fire value of records.
More than twenty of the business men who had previously
As is so often the case, the cause of their fire is unknown— thought they could not have a fire took immediate steps to
a whole row of buildings caught fire and quickly burned to safeguard their valuable business records.
the ground. The firms destroyed included a meat market,
We have chosen this incident as a more or less perfect ex-
a bakery, a grocery, a music store, a lawyer, an insurance ample to prove that Fire is no respecter of types of business
office, a jeweler, a millinery store and a real estate office.
it chooses to destroy. We now repeat the question: Could
Records which had been taken as a matter of course and fire burn your records?
given no special thought suddenly became of vital impor-
Every record that contributes to the welfare of a business
tance. Insurance money and accounts had to be collected if is a valuable and, usually, irreplaceable asset, and after a fire
the destroyed businesses were to be reestablished.
these records assume even greater value. Then every depart-
The meat merchant rented the only vacant store in town, ment of the business is calling for help. The work of months
the jeweler made arrangements
and years must be rebuilt
to move into the front part of
quickly.
a clothing store. The real
It is then that record loss
In practically every case of a
estate man, the lawyer, the
spells disaster. In getting
meat merchant and the jew-
started again the information
business fire, proper adjustment of
eler re-established their busi-
records contain is perhaps the
nesses. Only five out of the
biggest help a business can
insurance claims and the actual
nine businesses burned were
have. The loss of this help is
able to continue—four were
always a serious handicap for
recovery of the business itself
wiped out of existence. The
the future, and too often a
fire fiend had claimed them
penalty that wipes out the ac-
depends upon the preservation
for his own.
cumulations of a lifetime.
Only one firm, which was
Some time ago a leading
of the company records .
greatly underinsured, was
safe manufacturer with the
able to collect all its insur-
cooperation of R. G. Dun &
ance and no one has since
Company compiled a chart
discovered how much money was lost because accounts from a mass of fire and record loss reports. This chart analysis
burned. A merchant who told a safe-cabinet salesman he of the results of fire and record loss showed that 43 per cent
could easily get duplicate invoices to prove his loss to the did not resume business; 17 per cent who furnished financial
insurance adjuster settled after the fire for what the insur- statements before the fire no longer do so; 14 per cent suffered
ance company offered because he could not take the time it a reduction of 30 to 66 per cent in their credit ratings, and
would have required to write to wholesalers in different parts 26 per cent were unaffected as to credit rating—but they, too,
of the country—he had to get back into business. The firm lost in other ways.
that succeeded in collecting its insurance was so badly under-
Later individual cases were studied in the field. The cases
insured that it was unable to continue business.
considered ranged from a two-and-a-half-million-dollar manu-
Having tasted of Knoxville's business and found it good facturer to a crossroads store, and they were scattered from
the Fire Fiend returned a few weeks later and burned the Quebec to California.
top off a garage, damaging fifteen automobiles. Then fol-
(Please turn to page 12)
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
December,
1932