PRESTO
July 31, 1920.
berry vote." Isn't it a side-splitter? But where all are so fetching it
isn't worth whije, particularizing, and any publisher looking for a for-
tune may have the shop-right complete for a consideration:
,
•
I hired out to a guy for picking
Strawberries so luscious, fresh and red,
While he runs for office and licking—
The babies, or his foes, berries fed;
Hence I help all I can to him please
And try stay candidate on my knees.
And now that you have had a few samples from the "Universal
Classic," doesn't it seem that censorship is needed in more places than
the moving picture show?
OUR CROWDED CITIES
It would be worse than a mistake to "throttle the press." It
would be a crime to prevent the free speech of the sources of infor-
mation and public opinion. But it would also be a good thing if the
newspapers could realize that their measureless powers are too often
devoted to pulling down instead of building up. And the headliner
of the great daily newspaper exerts an influence beyond almost any
other, not excepting even the great guns of the editorial page. There-
fore it must seem that, in a time when the world is, according to some
of the editors, on the verge of starvation because of the lack of farm
labor, it might be well to curb the headliner who likes to spread the
hurtful census facts all over the front page.
Of late the newspapers have bemoaned the shortage of farm
•helpers. They have wept with the agriculturalist and wailed with the
housewife, because of the advancing prices of potatoes and green
garden stuff in general. The oceans of waving grain wanting the
scythe or harvester, the tasseled corn beckoning in vain for the
husker, and the lowing herd bellowing for the milker, have all had
their share in the agonies of the editorial theoretical farmers.
And what they have said has been largely nullified by the head-
liner who has persisted in telling, in great letters, how the large
towns have been growing at the expense of the little ones. It is
New York has added a million, or Chicago has increased a few hun-
dred thousand, or some other big city has grown to startling propor-
WORK OF THE WEEK
WITH THE ACTIVE DEALERS
Paul Pickerill Music Company, Evansville, Ind.;
capital, $50,000; musical instruments and accessories.
Directors: Galvin D. Pickerill, Charles A. Paul, Van
Pickerill.
The W. B. Hill Music Store, Bowling Green, Ky.,
has been opened.
Reifsnyder & Sons, Lancaster, Pa., have formally
opened the new quarters of the branch in Lebanon,
Pa. The new store in the latter city is at 16 South
Ninth street.
Stephens & Barnes, of Lumberton, N. C, are doing
a good business in all branches of the trade except
sheet music. A sheet music counter would pay.
The Charlotte Music Co., of Charlotte, Mich., is
managed by Mrs. Clifford C. Ward, and is doing a
good business with the Baldwin line.
GREAT DAILY QUOTES PRESTO,
The Kansas City Journal of Monday, July 19.
reprinted the first half of Presto's article, "Why Do
Dealers Withhold Orders?", which appeared on page
23 of Presto July 3. The headline of the reproduced
story in the Journal was "Get Your Coal and Pianos
Early; Long Hard Winter." The great dailies fre-
quently quote from Presto on matters pertaining to
the piano trade and industry, for this paper has
for many years borne the reputation of being an
authority in such things.
PIANO MAN'S WIDOW DIES.
Emma K. Colell, a musician and portrait artist and
widow of Edward Hugo Colell, a well-known Brook-
lyn musician and impresario, died from heart dis-
ease on Wednesday at her home in that city. Old-
timers in the piano trade, especially in the East, will
recall "Ed" Colell, who was for many years manager
of Chickering Hall at Fifth Avenue and Eighteenth
Street, and later of the Wissner Piano Company in
Brooklyn.
SUES WELL-KNOWN PIANO MAN.
Echo of a traffic accident on Oct. 17, 1919, came at
Lima, Ohio, last week when Harry M. Bernstein filed
suit for $5,030 damages from H. P. Maus, the well-
known Lima piano dealer. Mr.' Bernstein was thrown
from a bicycle in collision with Mr. Maus' piano
truck.
•
tions, while Podunk, and Pretty Corners, and Muldale Valley have
shrunken to almost nothing but mudholes.
That is the sort of newspaper wo_rk that pulls down, even while
it builds up. It builds up the big cities, and fills the movies, and
swells the crowds of loafers who idle away their time watching other
men work; and it pulls down by distracting the ruralists from their
healthful toil, and induces them to follow the crowd to the centers
of civilization—and crime.
And it is right here that the piano industry is doing a greater
thing than it knows. The piano factory in a small town or city is
the best builder of the farm that can be thought of. The piano fac-
tory in a small community builds the town and helps to keep the
surrounding country satisfied, and the workers on the farms willing
to stay there and help.
The piano factory employing a hundred, two hundred or more,
men, becomes the center of an activity that holds the workers in the
farm lands and serves as an object lesson in city industry and what
the toilers are doing there. The piano factory that helps to make a
center of population in the country is the best influence possible.
The cry and crush for big city life is the influence that makes the
farmer's work impossible, and keeps the denizens of the great cities
talking about what is not likely to exist—starvation and prohibitive
prices.
The newspapers can help. They do help. But too often they
help in the wrong direction. The piano factory encourages and pro-
motes the small towns, and the serious industry of the people who
live there, and in the country round about.
A good specimen of instructive advertising is that of the Hallet
& Davis Piano Co., on another page this week. There are historic
facts in it and the interest of those facts reflects special interest
upon the pianos which have survived through the years since John
C. Fremont ran for the presidency.
This is the heart of vacation season and the piano stores and
offices give evidence of the drafts made upon them by the call of
the country and summer resorts. It is reported that New York's
piano rows are quieter than before in years.
PLAYER PIANO WEEK
PLANNED FOR NATION
Promotion Is Expected to Emphasize Import-
ance of These Instruments in the Home
Life of the American People.
A national playerpiano week will be launched in
October if the plans now being formulated by a
newly organized committee are successful.
Letters have been sent out this week to manufac-
turers of playerpianos, actions and music rolls, and
others who may be interested, to get their approval
of the project and ascertain the measure of support
which may be expected.
Through concentrated effort by dealers and manu-
facturers, the accumulative benefit of country-wide
promotion is expected to emphasize the importance
of music in the home life of the American people
and suggest the playerpiano as the ideal musical
instrument for the American home.
This great co-operative effort is expected to focus
the attention of the American public on playerpianos
during the week of the campaign. It will be pro-
moted through trade paper advertising and publicity,
letters from manufacturers to dealers, circulars from
dealers to customers, newspaper advertising, mailing
folders, letters and literature, and window displays
stimulated by a cash prize contest. A special effort
is proposed to build up mailing lists of dealers.
Forms of letters and printed matter will be fur-
nished to dealers for their use. The committee is
made up of the following:
Chairman, R. P. Aldcroftt, president of the Music
Industries Chamber of Commerce; vice-chairman,
E. Paul Hamilton, president of the National Asso-
ciation of Music Merchants; secretary, Max De-
Rochemont, of the Laffargue Co.; treasurer, A. W.
Johnston, treasurer of the Musical Supply Associa-
tion of America; Arthur Conrow, president of the
National Music Roll Association; W. V. Swords, of
the Aeolian Co.; Frank E. Wade, of the Amphion
Co.; E. D. Moore, of the Pratt Read Player Action
Company; Otto Schulz, president of the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association; T. M. Pletcher,
of the Q R S Music Roll Co.; Theodore P. Brown,
of the Simplex Player Action Co.
Publicity: C. L. Dennis, secretary of the National
Association of Music Merchants; H. E. Lawrence,
of the Standard Pneumatic Action Co.
MANY DEALERS CALL AT
CHICAGO ORDERING GOODS
C. F. Heine, piano dealer of Hinckley, 111., was in
Chicago on Wednesday of this week buying goods.
William Paul, of Beecher, 111., the well known
piano dealer, called on Chicago piano manufactur-
ers on Tuesday of this week and placed orders.
Harry Hopkins, of Joliet, 111., piano dealer, was
in Chicago this week placing orders for more goods.
E. W. Strong, piano merchant, of Ottawa, III.,
came to Chicago this week and ordered a fine lot of
playerpianos and pianos.
Hope Allcorn and his partner, Mr. Adams, of the
piano merchants' firm of Adams & Allcorn, Waco,
Texas, were in Chicago a few days this week buying
pianos and playerpianos for their fall trade.
C B. Baker, of the Baker Piano House, Ottumwa,
Iowa, was in Chicago late last week. He purchased
a large amount of pianos and playerpianos.
W. G. Hay, of the Flanner-Hafsoos Piano Com-
pany, Milwaukee, Wis., has spent a week in Chicago
playing golf with his brother, Frank Hay, of Mont-
real, Que.
Fred Lehman, of the Lehman Music House, East
St. Louis, 111., was in Chicago last Friday purchas-
ing instruments.
E. L. Mills, traveler for Bell Brothers' Piano Com-
pany, Muncie, Ind., was in Chicago in the early part
of this week.
AN OLD "DECKER" PIANO.
A piano tuner who called at Presto offices this
week, told of an old piano he had repaired last win-
ter, in a small hamlet in Iowa. "It was a Decker &
Barnes square," he said, "and when I got through
with it you could hardly tell the tone from a modern
small grand." The tuner didn't know that the Decker
& Son industry is the successor to the makers of the
old piano, but he knows it now.
CLARK ORCHESTRA ROLLS.
Presto is frequently asked to recommend some
makers of 65 note rewind electric player rolls. One
of the largest and most complete manufacturers of
these rolls is the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., of De-
Kalb, 111. The industry has just issued the August
Bulletin of Rolls for nearly every automatic instru-
ment, from pipe organ to theater piano.
The piano salesman who can't be uniformly cour-
teous is a failure always.
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