PRESTO
April 17, 1920.
sale dealer can not safely invite the owners of old instruments to
come in and arrange to have them taken away free of expense, with
a view to selecting a beautiful new piano later along.
In that sense the plan suggests the kind of thing the Better
Business Bureaus are striving for. We like the plan, and we believe
that in other cities and towns where thoroughly reliable piano houses
exist it is a system of selling that will be more and more popular.
At least until the production of pianos becomes normal once more,
and deliveries can be made as fast as the sales can be closed.
LABOR'S DICTATION
The present strike of the Chicago piano movers is causing some
caustic comment on the part of inconvenienced employers.
One complaint is made concerning the unreasonableness of com-
pelling an employer to continue a mover as a particular factory's
moving man, even after that mover has failed to give satisfaction. An
instance is cited of a case of compulsion of this sort on the part of
the "boss" of the movers' union in Chicago last winter. The employer
had complained that a $1,200 instrument had been taken from the
factory by the mover at 10 a. m. on a bitter winter day and had not
been delivered until after 5 p. m. that day. It had remained on the
truck in the winter blasts all that time, and might have checked, but
fortunately did not. The only excuse the mover had given was that he
had to wait for a full load before starting for the piano's destination.
The factory employer took the matter up with the "boss" of the
movers, and was told that he would have to continue to employ the
man, as he had always done their moving before. He could not send
him another mover without taking the matter up with the heads of
the whole organization of movers, and that would be a very trouble-
some matter.
"It seems to me," said the manufacturer-employer to a Presto
representative on Saturday, "that I ought to be able to hire the services
of another mover when the man who had always done our moving
failed to do the work satisfactorily; but it seems that labor is boss,
arid has the final dictum even in my case." That is the experience
also of employers in all other lines of industry. The autocracy of labor
has become unbearable and the unions are breaking their own backs.
It isn't strange that rebellion appears in the ranks, or that signs of
the beginning of the end begin to appear. Labor is entitled to a larger
share than it has been given in the years past. And with reason it will
get it. But nowhere does the fable of the goose that laid the golden
eggs apply with greater force than to the labor unions as now oper-
ated.
AN INDIVIDUAL MATTER
Perhaps it is because we are not familiar with the collateral af-
fairs of other lines of business that we feel the piano trade is, in some
respects, peculiarly favored. We have in mind the association idea, as
now applied to the piano industry and trade in the broad, if not com-
plex, administration of the various organizations, bureaus and special
purposes of the National Associations. For if there is any other de-
partment of industry and trade that is being promoted, in its ethical,
social and psychic phases with more avidity than that of the music
industry, we have failed to notice it.
We have today a central organization, due largely to the initiative
of Mr. Paul B. Klugh, from which radiate a series of auxiliary com-
mittees, controlled by strong men and sustained by a liberality which,
a few years back, would have seemed impossible. There is now, in
New York, a perfectly equipped headquarters, working with the order
and intensity of a big bank, the purposes of which are to still further
spread the popular love of music and to stimulate the retail piano
trade to higher views of their calling, and better results of their work.
The same head-center sustains a systematized effort to control the
musical columns of the newspapers and to place before the people the
kind of intellectual stimuli that fosters the desire for more music
and more pianos. And the same organization has a special department
the purpose of which is to regulate the kind of advertising done by
the retail piano merchants and to put a stop to unfair methods in the
trade.
It is a notable staff of men, of special fitness for their work, that
occupies the desks in the New York headquarters of the Musical
Industries Chamber of Commerce. As we have said, so far as our in-
formation goes, no other industry or business can make such a show-
ing. Nowhere else is there a special adviser and legal counsellor that
can surpass, in learning or experience, Mr. George W. Pound; nor is
there anywhere a more capable promoter of the higher things in any
trade than Mr. C. W. Tremaine; nor is there anywhere a more compe-
tent critic of good or bad advertising than Mr. C. L. Dennis. And
these gentlemen are but the heads of their several departments in
which a small army works in the interests of piano trade expansion,
betterment, safety and progress.
Of course the main idea of this article is to impress upon the
trade the importance of their calling, as so largely enhanced by the
enterprise of the Musical Instrument Chamber of Commerce and the
subsidiary organizations, the various associations of the music trade.
It takes money, and a great deal of it, to sustain so large a work. The
kind of men that can successfully plan and carry forward the special
work could realize a much greater personal return for their efforts
elsewhere. But they prefer the work that promises something more
than money. They have created the ways and means by which they
produce results—results of value to every member of the industry
and trade.
We know that the retailers are appreciative of the good work
of the organizations to which reference has been made. But what pro-
portion of the retail piano trade show their understanding of what
the organizations are doing for them as individuals? What propor-
tion of the retailers are members of the associations that are working
in their interests? What proportion of the so-called "small dealers"
know much about the work that is being done at, and from, 105 W.
40th street, New York, where the enthusiastic gentlemen whose names
1 ave been mentioned have their places of steadily growing responsi-
bility? Presto is read by the retailers all over the land. We want
every one of them to consider this matter. It is their matter. It is of
greater importance to them as individuals than most other matters
into which they put more time and money than is expected of them
in connection with the national associations. Make it your individual
concern and tell us how you feel about it.
It is not necessary to draw special attention to the displayed
advertising of great industries in this issue of Presto. Everyone of
the special pages is strongly suggestive of the kind of publicity genius
that wins results, not only for the advertiser but as much, also, for
the retailers who handle the lines promoted. Every page is artistic,'
in keeping with the character of the goods advertised. The piano in-
dustry has at last found its place among the enterprises that know,
by actual experience, the full power of printer's ink.
* * *
Until recent years the piano industry has not explored the adver-
tising field with the force and assurance of a great business. The
example of the Kohler Industries, the American Piano Co., the Q R S
Company, the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., the Steger & Sons Piano
Co., the Hallet & Davis Company, and a few others, has lifted the
trade forward a half-century in less than five years. Pianos and
printer's ink have become acquainted, and a new life has been injected
into the business of selling instruments of the artistic kind.
* * *
Sixty per cent of a representative group of one hundred well-
known men in the New York financial district were born in other
states than New York, says the Commerce Monthly. Twenty-eight
of the one hundred came from towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants;
twenty-eight from cities of 1,000,000 or over. And we know some
mighty good piano men among them.
*
•',-
*
s~
.
The reason that several profitable piano factories are ready to
sell just now is that business is so good that sales are easy. And be-
cause business is good, also buyers of going factories know that their
investments will yield large returns quickly and surely. When it is
a good time to buy is a good time to sell, or vice versa—it's all the
same.
* * *
Labor strikes, wage demands, lack of supplies and clamorous calls
from the dealers for more pianos, keep the manufacturers on the
jump. There are many prophecies as to how it is all going to end.
But, fortunately, there is no cause for alarm where business is done
upon good business principles.
* * *
. .
Everybody in the trade, large and small, will be glad to know
that Col. Harger, of the Chicago Musical Times, is steadily improving
in health. He expects to be back on the job before very long.
* * *
With few pianos to deliver and the movers refusing to deliver
any at all, the city dealers are fairly certain that deliveries will be
light for a brief period.
*
-!- *
The bargain sale piano houses are beginning to shout again their
"was and now" prices in the newspapers. That looks like a return to
old-time conditions, notwithstanding the shortage in supplies.
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