PRESTO
A BIG BOOST FOR
WESTERN PIANOS
Newspaper Editorial Plays Up Chicago's
Greatness in the Manufacture of Every-
thing Musical, From Jews-Harps to
Player Pianos and Pipe Organs.
When the much-criticized mayor of Chicago felt
that he should do or say something to stiffen again
his waning popularity with the people of what he
had termed the "third largest German city in the
world," he conjured this phrase: "Throw away your
hammer and get a horn." And it is natural that the
newspapers proceed to do some of the blowing.
In consequence it is not surprising to find an
admixture of exaggeration in the facts set forth in
an editorial which appeared in last Saturday's Chi-
cago American which, bearing upon musical instru-
ments, is worthy of a place in a music trade paper.
Here is the editorial, and it is presented with apol-
ogies to the eastern musical instrument industries,
for it is top lop-sided to be fair, even if it is instruc-
tive as well as interesting.
Instruments That Boost Chicago.
When Miss I Will, "the best dressed woman in
the world in her homemade finery," foregathers
with other sisters of wealth in European centers of
pleasure and art, does there come to her ears the
taunt that the only music her Chicago soul appreci-
ates is the squeal of the dying pig or the shriek of
the whistles of the thirty-nine railway systems that
make her home their termini?
Does there come the question of her companions?
What can this child of steel and of beef and of cold
finance know of the finer things of life? What strain
in her blood is attuned to her new surroundings?
Let Miss I Will's critics seek the answer in the
orchestra to which they are listening. Ask the
beautiful harpist where her instrument came from.
Ask the long-haired genius whence came the piano
on which he plays. Ask the man whose manipula-
tion of the keys and pedals give life to the great
pipe organ. The answer will be from each and all:
"Chicago gave them to us."
The Great "Piano Row."
For under the smoke cloud of the thousands of
puffing locomotives and factory stacks Chicago
makes most of the musical instrument of Europe—
and the world.
"Piano Row," in Wabash avenue, and the other
groups of music houses spattered about are the
source from which a great part of the world's music
comes.
Chicago's leadership in the making and selling of
musical instruments, thanks to the orchestra founded
by Theodore Thomas and the opera built up by
Campanini and his backers, is rapidly being followed
by a leadership in the production of music and
musicians.
As a center for the manufacture of harps Chicago
is first, and orchestras in all European centers use
instruments made here. The harp is quite a factor
in the $20,000,000 worth of musical instruments man-
ufactured in Chicago every year.
One million of this value goes into the manufac-
ture of pipe organs, and of the better grade of pianos
made in the United States Chicago and its nearby
towns produce approximately 65 per cent.
Twenty years ago "the Mayor of Englewood" or
some one else started the manufacture in Chicago of
player pianos, and today 60 per cent of the pianos
made have player attachments. Chicago in twenty
years has taken and holds the position of the largest
maker of player pianos in the world. All the rest
of the world does not exceed the number of music
rolls for these instruments made here.
Small Instruments, Too.
Chicago also supplies all parts of the world with
smaller instruments, such as mandolins, guitars and
band instruments.
Talking machines of all kinds are made here in
quantities, and other quantities of machines made
elsewhere are distributed from here.
Chicago owes much to the squeal of the dying pig
and the shriek of the locomotives and the smoke
clouds of the factory stacks, and Miss I Will must
not be ungrateful for these, but Chicago knows other
and finer music as well and gives to all the world
what it would not have otherwise, the means by
which to produce that music.
The horn is not the only instrument through
which Chicago speaks. Every time an orchestra
plays in any part of the civilized world one or more
of the instruments in it is boosting Chicago.
How About New York?
It would be equally interesting to hear what New
York might have to say on the subject. No one any
longer questions the great proportion of pianos,
player pianos and other instruments produced in
Chicago and nearby towns. No one questions that
the Lyon & Healy harps lead the world. No one
doubts the great distribution of Chicago's small
musical instruments. But without a careful esti-
mate, it would be unfair to claim for Chicago "ap-
proximately 65 per cent'' of the "better grade of
pianos made in the United States." Presto has the
figures as closely as any authority and in an early
issue of this paper pains will be taken to get the
figures as accurately as possible.
Meantime the Fourth of July oration of the Chi-
cago American may stand for the suggestion that is
in it, and the glory of the industry in which the East,
as well as the West, must be proud.
NEW VENTURES SHARE
FAVOR OF BUYERS
Late Additions to Forces of Piano Distribution
Show Liveliness of Trade.
The West Towns Brunswick Shop, an exclusive
music shop, has been opened at 7004 Roosevelt road
and Home avenue, Oak Park, 111.
Mrs. Ida Hancock has bought an interest in the
McNabb Music store in the Pace block, Mt. Vernon,
Illinois.
Sol Levitt, dealer, Shenandoah, Pa., has moved to
a new location. His store now is at 26 Main street.
The Harmony Shop has been opened at 1557
Haight street, San Francisco. T. W. Brackett is
manager.
Ed. Plum is manager of the Clement Music Co.,
recently opened at 536 Clement street, San Fran-
cisco.
Oscar Way & Son is a new music firm at Hudson,
New York.
Considerable improvements have been made in
the store of the Turner Mvisic Co., Wallace, Idaho.
July 10, 1920.
COL. W. B. BRINKERHOFF
BACK FROM SIX WEEKS' TRIP
He Saw Great Crops in Far West and Says Business
Generally Is Good.
Just as full of pep and ginger as ever, Col. W. B.
Brinkerhoff, who will be 78 years old on the 25th of
this month, is in Chicago once more after his long
trip through the far West. It was a successful sell-
ing trip for the M. Schulz Company and the Magnola
talking machines, and the Colonel made his first call
at El Paso, Tex., and his last one at Fargo, N. D.
His rounds included New Mexico, Arizona, Cali-
fornia, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Utah,
Wyoming and North Dakota.
Col. Brinkerhoff had been over most of the ter-
ritory many times before, so that it was not new to
him. But the new buildings that he saw going up in
many of the cities attracted his interest. These
structures in the far West are mostly factory struc-
tures, like those that are being erected in the East.
Residence structures are not going up either West
or East this year, although rents are continuing to
soar skyward.
"I saw great crops everywhere," said Col. Brink-
erhoff to a Presto representative. "And abundance
of crops. Mr. Richey, of LeGrand, Wash., showed
me 140 acres of wheat that he owns and of which
he was particularly proud. It was the finest crop
of wheat I ever saw, and I'm a good judge of wheat.
I never saw better wheat. Trade generally is good.
I was gone nearly six weeks, and got back on
June 25."
LIGHTNING STARTS PLAYERPIANO.
A dispatch from Petersburg, Ind,, says that light-
ning played a feat there last Sunday when a build-
ing was struck during an electrical storm, and an
electrical piano set to playing. The correspondent
may be imaginative, but he says it took an hour be-
fore neighbors could notify the proprietor and have
it stopped.
AN UP=T0=DATE Q R S WERLEIN WINDOW
Typical of modern New Orleans is this display
to be seen just now in the Werlein window. A
most artistic Q R S window, we would say.
The history of the Werlein house is closely inter-
woven with the history of New Orleans. When the
traveler walks proudly.today along Canal street and
past the beautiful Werlein store, he does not realize
the days when Chartres street was the Broadway of
New Orleans, and when ships landed on the levee
nearly opposite the Rue Marigny. This was long
before Canal street grew to be the leading business
street of the city. The old French quarter of New
Orleans is disappearing—that old quarter where the
dwellings had, running through their center, a broad,
high-arched passage, with huge folding-doors or
gates leading to a paved court in the rear, which
was usually surrounded by sleeping-rooms and
offices, communicating with each other by galleries
running down the whole square. In the center of
this court usually stood a cistern, and placed around
it in large vases, were flowers and plants of every
description.
The characteristic scenery of the Mississippi river
above and below New Orleans remains, but gone
in the city are the days of the lottery, gambling,
cock-fighting and slave-trading. Gone are the days
of the open-kettle sugar houses, although the sugar
and cotton industries help the Crescent City today
to command trade as the metropolis of the South.
In 1810 the population of New Orleans was but
24,552, and there was then not a paved street in
the city. The Mardi Gras was established in 1857,
and with the exception of the Civil War period, and
the World's War period, has been an annual event
ever since. The king of the carnival vs the offspring
of Old King Cole and the Goddess of Terpsichore,
who, in imitation of Jove, is wooed and carried off in
the form of an Irish Bull.
Philip Werlein's was an old house in 1873. It
was then located at 80-82 and 90 Baronne street, and
in that year it advertised square and upright pianos,
comprising the Weber, Dunham, Hale, Zeigler, Ma-
thusek, Colibri, Grovesteen and Pleyel, and the Need-
ham organs.
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