Presto

PRESTO
June 23, 1923
TO CELEBRATE SEVENTIETH
ANNIVERSARY OF FOUNDING
Dreher Piano Company, Cleveland, Planning for Big
and Historic Event in Fall.
THINGS SAID OR SUGGESTED
By HENRY McMULLEN.
When we turn away wretches sunk to a state of
greasy desperation from the doors of our handsome
stores, are we not as selfish as the road-hog motorist?
Are we not far from the spirit of music week? That
spirit is, Let music swell the breeze and ring from
all the trees; let radio send forth the cheering words,
so that the wayfarer, though a fool, may hear them
and delight in them. But too often the honk of the
car of the road-hog is more like the howl of death
than sweet music.
* * *
There can be no great achievement without large-
ness of vision, mastery over men and capacity for
work. The men who lead must be strong and ener-
getic in body and mind. Too many men have believed
in the mistaken theory of Thomas Jefferson that all
men were born equal. Men who have won in the
"piano game" were born to lead. You know many of
them and you know why they won. Were it not that
they might feel flattered, a long list might be printed
here of the leaders in the piano industry among the
living. The dead are secure.
* * *
The export trade in pianos is increasing somewhat.
Yet it is but little to what it will be. The time is
coming when all tropical countries will be governed
by the people of temperate zones. When that good
time comes many pianos will have to be built to
withstand the various hot climates of the world.
*
*
*•
After a man has allowed debts and mortgages to
accumulate, as they will, and finds that he must go
to jail or through bankruptcy., he generally gladly ac-
cepts the latter alternative. Even then he feels more
at peace from without than from within. Although
regarded by his creditors as an offender, he feels
that the world has treated him in a brutal and bar-
barous manner. It all depends on the side for which
he is fighting and the justice of the cause.
* * *
A few talking points are necessary in selling pianos
but the fewer the better—the points should be scarce
enough to disengage the buyer and seller from con-
troversies. There should be no necessity for the cus-
tomer to accept every discrepancy in the salesman's
statements as veracious; the seller shouldn't make any
statements with holes in them. Every real salesman
has found real customers enough; he has found them
at once so scanty and so abundant, so uncertain and
yet so indisputable; as evasive one day as the person-
ages of Etruscan Mythology, and the next day so up
and coming that the loss of one is less inconveniently
felt than the frown of one would have been the day
before. But, the guy of today becomes the genius
and the pride of tomorrow. The drummer and the
doorbell ringer have come into their own as archi-
tects of many of our peculiar institutions.
* * *
A few words seem appropriate about compulsory
savings on the installment plan in building associa-
tions, in life insurance and in piano purchases. Most
people have an aversion to entering into an engage-
ment to pay so much money a week, or a month.
But the engagement is only compelling enough to
operate one's conscience, and it is found that a great
majority of men will keep such an engagement punc-
tiliously to the end. The compulsory principle, which
is only a sort of constrained conscience to keep up
with the rest, is found to be one of the best prin-
ciples in the world to enforce upon oneself regular
and systematic savings. It never becomes irksome,
and is like a duty well performed, which grows the
more satisfactory the more it is done. It might be
well even to teach the principles in the public schools.
The plan develops character through self-reliance and
self-help.
* * *
So far there are only five industrial plants devoted
to the manufacture of pianos or their supplies located
in the cities of Louisville, Ky., and its biggest suburb,
New Albany, Ind. But there ought to be more. If
a man will devote himself sincerely to an inspection of
southern industrial conditions, he will be forced to
the conclusion that there are endless opportunities in
the South to start piano-making plants. Produce
something that everybody wants. And everybody
wants food, clothing, shelter and music. Southerners
are among the best fed and highest cultured people in
the world. They are no longer plain, either in dress
or address. The loafing habit is passing away in all
towns where manufacturing enterprises have been es-
tablished. Southerners have learned that genius is
mostly application; that the joy of work is the great-
est of human satisfaction. In but few southern towns
now can one find a daily newspaper that serves poli-
tics to its readers as their accustomed diet. But
where the dailies do produce this diet the town of
their publication will be found dead from the neck
upwards, if not also downwards.
* * *
By the way, what has become of all the schemes
for musical autohorns? They used to be as musical
as Oprheus' flute. Today the honk which scares the
life out of you on a city street is about as strident
as a German Bertha. Still there was a big corpora-
tion formed this week for the purpose of manufac-
turing ''motor horns" in vast quantities.
* * *
The next convention will be held in New York. It
is said that the eastern trade papers are already get-
ting ready for extra-fat issues. No enterprise like the
enterprise of the trade papers in pre-convention days.
Good that it is so, for the piano needs more invest-
ment in printer's ink.
* * *
Tell me of a piano that has made a lasting success
and I'll point to full-page trade paper advertising.
Show me the piano that hoped to climb by means of
a little card in all the light literary journals on earth,
and I'll point to a piano that is as little known as the
stars behind the sun!
* * *
Summer is the good old time for the agile piano
salesmen who drive out into the country from the
small cities and towns and "visit" with the farmers'
families. Every now and then you see them on the
roads, with a Bowen or Atwood loader hitched be-
hind, as bright as the dewy morn itself.
NEW BOISE MANAGER.
W. C. Carnes, until recently manager of the Web-
ber Music Co., St. Cloud, Minn., has been appointed
manager of the Sampson Music Co., Boise, Idaho.
C. B. Sampson, who formerly had direct control of
the operations of the business intends to take things
easier for the future. "I've had my hand on the
old wheel for seventeen years and think I'm entitled
to rest. But I suppose I'll be digging in at something
else right away. There are too many interesting
things to do in Idaho to lay back and rest."
The Dreher Piano Co., Cleveland, O., will cele-
brate the seventieth anniversary of its founding next
fall and plans to that effect are now being prepared
by the company. The anniversary will really be a
state event in that the fine old house is closely as-
sociated with the early history of Ohio. People in
the farthest corners of Ohio are familiar with the
character of the Dreher Piano Co., so long known to
them as the B. Dreher Sons Co. The change was
made to more distinctively mark the house as a piano
concern.
The business had its beginning in 1853 when it was
founded by Baptiste Dreher under the firm title of
the Kenard-Dreher Mclodion Co. The melodion field
was an important one in those days and the house
went after the melodion business and got it. When
in time the melodion favor gave place to that of the
piano the energetic Cleveland house was in at the
start. And when the present head of the Dreher
Piano Co., Henry Dreher, entered the business in
1879 the mclodion business was only an interesting
memory.
The officers of the Dreher Piano Co., are Henry
Dreher. president; H. R. Valentine, vice president,
and M. E. Smith, secretary and treasurer. The board
of directors is composed of: Henry Dreher, H. R.
Valentine, E. S. Rogers, Wm. McLaughlin and H. D.
Messick.
LEASE BUILDING JOINTLY.
The Vessey Piano Co and Reinhardt's, Inc., Mem-
phis, Tenn., have jointly taken a lease of the building
at 104 South Main street, considered one of the
most desirable locations in the Tennessee city. The
building, which will be remodeled, will also house
the Reinhardt Band and Orchestra School and sound-
proof studios for pianos and vocal teachers will be
provided. Reinhardt's, Inc., will occupy the first
Moor where a big line of talking machines and musi-
cal merchandise will be shown. The Vesey Piano Co.
will show its piano and playcrpiano lines on the
second floor.
OLD HARTFORD FIRM.
Owing to the plans of the property owners to erect
a new modern structure to house a big furniture
firm, the Karris Music Store, 173 to 181 Asylum
street, Hartford, Conn., must move to a new location
by July 1. The choice of a new location for the
business will be decided upon this week. The busi-
ness was established by the late John Farris in 1851
and has been located in the present store since 1891.
Since the death of Mr. Farris in 1911 the business
has been conducted by his daughters, Mrs. H. L.
Kenyon and Miss Alice M. Farris.
Factory
Standardization
on One Type of Piano
Makes Miessner the Leader
With the building of the first small piano 5 years ago, W. Otto Miessner opened
a big, new field of profit for music dealers, one that in no way interferes with
regular business. The Miessner was built originally for schools. But right from
the start its appropriateness was seen for use in smaller homes, apartments,
hotels, clubs, churches, theatres, etc.
It filled a need of the times and opened up these new fields of selling for retail-
ers. A growing demand for the Miessner type of instrument followed and soon
other manufacturers began to build small uprights.
But the Miessner is not merely a smaller instrument. It is scientifically built by a
firm that has always specialized in making this one type of piano exclusively.
All the energy and ingenuity of the Miessner Organization is concentrated on
making the small upright better and better.
That is the secret of the Miessner's big, full tone. The Miessner clearly leads
its field. Just as it was the first of its kind, it is also first in development and
improvement.
Compare the business-building possibilities of such a piano with those of an in-
strument put on the market just to get some of the small piano business. The
wise dealer realizes on Miessner leadership in this fast-developing new field.
Our dealer proposition will interest you greatly.
MIESSNER PIANO CO., 126 Reed St., Milwaukee, Wis.
The Little Piano with the Big Tone
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