PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
December 11, 1920.
in the offending journal to satisfy the trade as to where the con-
testants actually stood with respect to the right and wrong of it.
Of late years Mr. Dutton had not displayed his old time en-
thusiasm in the business into which he had put his life. Naturally
of a delicate mold, and extremely sensitive in his affections, the death
of his wife, a year ago, quite overcame him and left his power of re-
sistance too much for him to bear. There have been few piano men
whose part in the industry have left a better example or influence
than the late W. Dalliba Dutton, and his going is a great loss to the
distinguished house of Hardman, Peck & Co., whose interests he
served so long and so well.
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
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Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment Is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
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Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and Industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
'GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE NEWS-
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
W. DALLIBA DUTTON
The ranks of the "old timers'' in the American piano industry are
growing thin. With the death of Mr. W. Dalliba Dutton, the last of
the original leaders in the National Piano Manufacturers' Association
of America passed away. In the early days of the organization Mr.
Dutton exercised an influence scarcely exceeded by any of his con-
temporaries. He belonged to the group of serious reformers in the
industry who were determined that the doubtful methods which had
crept into the piano business should be eradicated. In this he was
one of the group dominated by the late Henry F. Miller, A. H. Fisher,
and a few others who had taken the initiative in the first convention
at Manhattan Beach, in 1897, and had consistently worked out the
problems of the association from that time forward.
Mr. Dutton was the fifth president of the piano manufacturers'
association, in 1902. He wrote the book on "stenciling'' which
was indorsed by the association and distributed among its members
many years ago. There was never a question of his sincerity or loy-
alty to the best ideals of the industry and trade, and his influence
was always for the higher things in the trade. In his earlier years
he was engaged in the retail piano business in Philadelphia, and his
experience touched every branch of the business.
There was a time when Mr. Dutton's activities as a critic of the
biased methods employed by some members of the trade and, even
more, bv one of the New York trade papers, led to a conflict with a
late well-known music editor who had transcended fair play in re-
ferring to the piano man's motives. As a consequence, Mr. Dutton
brought suit for libel and the case attracted wide attention, not alone
because of the amount of damages claimed, but equally because of
the custom of the complainant to refuse to recognize his critics and
to retain a dignified silence that disarmed them and left no doubt as
to what he thought of journalistic mud-slingers in general, and in
the trade paper business in particular. The trade paper attack was
silenced and the suit withdrawn, but not until enough had been said
PIANOS AND PURITANISM
In a remarkable address on the indifference of the average Amer-
ican, in matters of vital importance to national progress of the higher
kind, Professor Albert Parker Fitch, of Amherst College, recently
sounded a warning which seems to especially concern the music in-
strument industries. Speaking of progress as the world has it—or
rather has it not—Prof. Fitch asked how this country has profited,
morally and intellectually, by the awful price paid in the great war.
And he declared that the very order of Prussianism that thousands
and thousands of our boys died to destroy is gaining power right here
in our own country.
He meant the Prussianism that had so long kept a part of the old
world in a state of cringing subjection to a dictatorship which de-
nied to its subjects the right of free speech or the exercise of reason-
able personal liberty. He saw in existing conditions, right here in
free America, the bearing down of a medieval order of narrow-minded
paternalism in which the waving of the flag suffices for patriotism,
and the fear of discussion keeps men from thinking.
It is, said Prof. Fitch, the cry of three thousand years ago which
arose from the fear of the Israelites who called upon Moses to tell
them the law, but not to "let God speak with us lest we die." And
so the modern world fears to dig-into the meaning of things and will
not look behind the signs to find their significance. Prof. Fitch
charged the lack of progress, of any realization of the ideals for which
the world has suffered to inertia and the willingness of men who
should think to let things drift so long as they are themselves seem-
ingly prosperous.
And how does this condition more than ordinarily concern the
interests for the furtherance of which this paper is published? Does
the drifting by which free thought, even free speech may be denied,
and the innocent delights of life be threatened under pretext of a
bigoted order of Puritanism, carry any special message to the men
who make the things of music or sell them? Does any one believe
that the too obvious effort to return to the small customs and narrow
creeds of the long ago, in matters neither moral nor spiritual, but
really material and mephistic, will exempt the instruments of music
because they have always held a place among the things sacred or
celestial?
Isn't it plain that the gradual bearing-down of the sham moral-
ists, if permitted to spread, will eventually crush the life out of
a large share of the activity in the substantial side of the "art
divine ?"
If the puritanical crusade against all of the things in life that
suggest anything but hysteria and indulgence in intellectual inqui-
sition, and usurpation of public rights by self-appointed bashaws
grows far enough, there will be little use for pianos, and even less
for the smaller musical instruments. We may have a return to the
ram's horn for martial music, and the timbrel may suffice for lovers of
the jazz. Nor will it do to passively protest that such things can not
possibly be. That is what the people of Cincinnati said years ago when
a small-minded mayor ordered all piano playing and singing to cease
promptly at 10 p. m. Did he mean it? Well, it is on record in the
Cincinnati police annals that many refined ladies were actually ar-
rested for violating Mayor Davis' order. And, then, if it can be
seriously suggested that smoking and the picture shows may fall
under the ban of prohibition, what will protect the poor piano—even
in the family parlor? According to Edgar Saltus, in the days of Peter
the Great, "nobody smoked, for tobacco was heathen." There is
an anti-smoking crusade on in this civilized age, the leaders of which
also believe tobacco is heathen, or more. And in the olden days
"nobody danced.'' It, too, was prohibited. The world revolves. So
does time and its intolerance. In the "ascetic orthodoxy of the Rus-
sian church, gaiety was sinful, instrumental music forbidden." Bos-
ton, the center of all reforms, narrow and broad, is only now calmly
considering the height of heels on the ladies' shoes. A ponderous
statesman at the Hub proposes to make it a crime for any shoe-
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