PRESTO
December 16, 1922.
palatial piano department in New York. There, too, he repre-
sented a fine line of instruments, still with the Chickering in the
lead. He secured the best capacity there also, in the selling depart-
ments, and the Wanamaker store became one of the headquarters
for big musical events in the metropolis, where he had even put in
one of the largest, if not the very largest pipe organs in the country,
with which to entertain his customers and the public in general.
The American Music Trade Weekly
Chicago might have had an equally large department store piano
establishment
but that the late Marshal Field would not embark
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL. in the musical instrument line because his close friend and associate,
P. J. Healy, had already entered the business and made a success
Editors
C. A. OANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
of
it. Looking out over the lake, from his office window, Mr. Field
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
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once said to this writer: "No, as long as Lyon & Healy exist, I would
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
no more consider putting in pianos than I would steamboats."
under Act of March 3, 1879.
John Wanamaker had no such obstacle to overcome. He was
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the first great general merchant to introduce a piano department into
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1922.
PRESTO CORRESPONDENCE
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HAVE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN NEW YORK, BOSTON,
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A GREAT PIANO MAN
The trade papers can add little to what the great daily news-
papers have said about the late John Wanamaker. But to the piano
world, in the industrial sense, the late Philadelphian has more than
the significance of a great merchant. For he was the first of them
all to recognize that pianos belong to commerce no less than to art.
He was the first to view the musical instrument in the light of an
essential in which the people have the same purchasing interest as
in other things which for years were classed among the exclusives.
John Wanamaker, unlike his western counterpart, the late Mar-
shal Field, never permitted sentiment to dictate his trade to policies.
When he was approached with the proposition that his great stores
would be still more complete, and would make a still larger appeal
to the kind of customers he most wanted, he did not hesitate long.
He saw that, if he could start the piano business right, it must
prove a suitable acquisition, and he had little trouble in starting
right.
He secured the representation of the Chickering piano. That
was the first essential to his piano success. And then he secured
the Emerson piano. That was a good second. He found in his home
city, the "gold string" Schomaker piano rapidly declining. He bought
it, factory and all, and so kept a good piano industry for Philadel-
phia. He secured the right kind of ability to manage his piano
department, and he gave his piano manager every possible facility
for building up the business. He engaged the late Mr. Woodford
and kept him as long as he could. And then he introduced his
TALK IT UP
There are only two ways to talk things. Whether art, industry,
music, character, religion or trade we must talk it up or we may talk
it down. Goldsmith—the English literary light, not the Chicago piano
manufacturer—said that "Error is always talkative." And what Gold-
smith said applies to the piano trade at this particular time as it prob-
ably never did before.
The world is filled with the discussion of psychology. Even the
business psychology is supposed to exercise a very potent influence.
Piano salesmen like to tell how much the psychic forces have to do
with their success. And people who do not know the dictionary defini-
tion of the word are often heard telling of the "psychology" of this
subject or that. It has become one of the over-worked terms and yet,
on the whole, the very essence of its meaning seems to have escaped
the men who really exert its power in their daily work.
If one of the functions of the mind is to think, then men whose
business it is to influence'people in the desire for life's better things,
should know that the way they talk largely shapes the degree of their
success or failure in their work. To talk success is one of the ways
for winning success. To talk failure is a certain invitation to failure.
Apply this to the piano trade and see how it works out.
Unfortunately for the piano trade, there is no lack of opportunity
to find illustrations at this time. We hear piano men every day, and
almost everywhere, talking about conditions that are not satisfactory.
Piano men are to be heard complaining about their business—the busi-
ness in general—as if it were something to want to get out of, to es-
cape from. It is even possible for retail piano dealers to hear manu-
facturers talking about their own troubles as if no other industry car-
ried so great a burden. And yet it would be impossible to induce the
same dealers or the same manufacturers to consider any other busi-
ness. They love the piano and they know that trade opportunities in
the business surpass those of men in most other lines of business.
Why, then, continue to talk of the darker side of the piano busi-
ness? If we must talk let's talk up, not down! "I think the first wis-
dom is to restrain the tongue," said Cato. It may be folly to be silent.
It is worse folly to talk when the only impulse is to talk your own
business down. Talk it up or don't talk at all. It is still the best busi-
ness in the world if you go about it right. It is not the best business
if you feel as a late New York manufacturer had a habit of seeing it
when he said that he was "ashamed to have his friends in social life
know that he was in the piano business." That is about the worst
way of talking a man's business the wrong way.
What business is there in which there are not some depressing,
even degenerating, influences? You find the undesirables even in the
manufacture of Christians! Even the pulpit now and then discloses
discouragement, failure and contempt. But that doesn't change the
good of the church, nor materially lessen the influence of religion.
Talk up, not down! Tell the best side of your business, not the
worst side of it. Keep a stiff upper lip always. Play fair with your-
self as well as with your customers and your creditors. You can tell
the truth, and the whole truth, without talking your business down.
The world needs your business. There can never come a time when
music will not be as essential to worthwhile people as food and rai-
ment. And there can never come a time when the world can make
music without musical instruments. More and more the world will
want pianos, and now that the days of peace have come again, and
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