MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1881
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
10 Cents a Copy
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1928
SLOGAN CONTEST TO
BE BROADCASTED
Federal Radio Corporation Over Station WGR
at Buffalo to Announce Event Twice a
Week Until Date of Contest De-
cember 1.
The $1,000 Music Slogan Contest
will be broadcasted, it has been an-
nounced by the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce. Twice a week
until the close of the contest, Decem-
ber 1, announcement of it will be
made by the Federal Radio Corpora-
tion over Station WGR at Buffalo, the
Chamber was informed in a letter from
the corporation, which in its announce-
ment offers to supply to its listeners
leaflets containing all information about
the contest. This is the first company
to have adopted this means of assisting
the contest, but it is expected that
others will do so and that in time the
contest announcement will be broad-
cast from stations in all sections of the
country.
Slogan Entries Pour In.
Meanwhile slogan entries are pouring
in in great volume from all parts of the
country, every state in the Union being represented
by hundreds of suggested slogans from big and little
communities. To date, it is estimated, not less than
20,000 entries have been received, written in a medley
of languages, including besides English, German,
French, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and
Czechoslovakian. One of the entries received early
in the contest was from a small town in Germany.
While no attempt at classification has been made,
preliminary examination of the entries reveals that
they come from persons in all walks of life, including
physicians, lawyers, journalists, clergymen, business
men, clerks, students, professional musicians, artists
and men and women obviously engaged in humbler
avocations. It is apparent, too, that the great major-
ity of those who so far have submitted slogans have
been actuated by a keen love of music and the desire
to aid in its general advancement, rather than by the
hope merely of obtaining the prize.
Some Submit Several.
Almost without exception the contestants have not
been satisfied to submit only one slogan. In most
cases several have been sent in, and in quite a number
of cases as many as one hundred have been submitted
by a single contestant. They are written on every
conceivable sort of stationery, from monogrammed
note paper, coarse "scratch" sheets to the printed form
attached to the leaflets supplied to dealers by the
Chamber. The great number of entries written on
paper other than the forms supplied by dealers seems
to indicate either that prospective applicants were un-
able to obtain leaflets from their dealers or that they
were unwilling to wait until the dealer was able to
supply them with leaflets.
Majority from Women.
Perhaps a majority of the entries so far received
have been women, who apparently have taken a great
interest in the contest from the very start. One rea-
son for this probably has been because of the atten-
tion given to it by women's clubs, one such organiza-
tion in Ocean City, N. J., having announced in the
local newspaper that the slogan contest would con-
stitute an item on the agenda for the next meeting
of the club.
In many cases the entries are accompanied by a
letter from the contestant, voicing approval of the
contest and elaborating upon the slogan submitted. In
several instances the writers give sketchy biographical
details concerning themselves. One notable instance
among the latter was that of a young girl, high school
student in a little town in Wisconsin, who enclosed
a photograph of herself garnished with a multitude
of little red satin hearts fastened all about the snap-
shot.
Two prominent concerns in the music industries
trade have evolved a practical method of promoting
dealer interest in the $1,000 Music Slogan Contest
which is being conducted by the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce. The Harmony Company
and M. Hohner, Incorporated, have announced the
offer of a prize of $50 each to the traveler or salesman
obtaining the largest total of orders from deal-
ers for leaflets descriptive of the slogan contest.
The only condition to the offer is that to be eligible
for the prize of $100 the total orders must not be
less than 50,000, and the offer will stand until Novem-
ber 15. Anv salesman or traveler in the industry
MATS FOR NATIONAL
$1,000 SLOGAN CONTEST
Supplied FREE of Charge
may compete for the prize, and the chamber has
mailed letters to all notifying them of the offer.
C. D. Bond's Statement.
Strong indorsement of the Music Slogan Contest as
a means of keeping the products of the music indus-
tries trade before the public is contained in a state-
ment by C. D. Bond, president of the National Piano
Manufacturers' Association of America, which has
been made public by the Music Industries Chamber
of Commerce:
"As president of the National Association of Piano
Manufacturers, also as a member of the board of
directors of the Music Industries Chamber of Com-
merce, I am very much interested in the musical in-
strument slogan contest which has been launched by
the chamber, and which has had such remarkable
returns to date.
"A slogan in the industry that has such close con-
tacts with the public is extremely valuable and worth
while, as we know from the experience of some other
manufacturing groups. In addition to this, the inter-
est aroused in the public's mind by a contest of this
type is valuable to the trade in general, because it
has a tendency to make them piano conscious. With
all the other articles demanding the attention of the
people of our country, it is necessary that we keep
our product before them, and this is one of the best
ways of doing it, because we all like to beat the other
fellow, and the contest idea is extremely popular
with the public.
Need for Publicity.
"However, to make this contest successful, the pub-
lic must be informed as to what is going on, and
this is the job for the piano manufacturer, the piano
merchant, and the piano salesman, and everyone of
us should get busy and see to it that his community
is informed regarding the contest with the hope that
some member of his community will be the elected
possessor of $1,000, and the work that we do will be
paid for by the increased activity in our business.
"Therefore I urge every member of the industry to
see that the public in his community is fully advised
regarding this contest."
Interest in Scheme Grows
Interest in the contest on the part of the trade and
participation in it by the general public continue to
grow. Orders for descriptive leaflets are daily being
received by the chamber in increasing volume from
dealers in all sections of the country, and in many
instances reorders have followed very soon after the
initial shipment had been made, indicating that the
demand for them by the public was greater than had
been anticipated.
$2 The Yeai
R. K. MAYNARD DIES
IN CALIFORNIA
End Comes Suddenly to Popular Western and
Pacific Coast Representative of M. Schulz
Company—Sketch of His Versatile
Career.
R. K. Maynard, western representative of the M.
Schulz Company, of Chicago, died suddenly on Fri-
day night of last week—October 26—at his home, 1006
Cambridge place. South Pasadena, Calif. Mr. May-
nard was about 69 years of age.
He had not been feeling very well lately, but he
thought it only a form of indigestion and expected to
be all right soon. But he got up after he had gone
to bed and toppled over and was gone immediately.
The doctor, when called, said it was his heart.
Mr. Maynard was one of the most beloved men in
the trade; one of the most widely acquainted and best
posted. His boyhood was spent in Waukesha, Wis.,
and then he went to Chicago to seek his fortune. His
first job was as an office assistant in the office of Story
& Camp, which firm afterwards changed to Estey &
Camp through the purchase by the Estey Organ
Company, of Brattleboro. Vt., of the interests of
Hampton L. Story in the company.
Mr. Story then formed a partnership with Melville
Clark, who had been manufacturing reed organs in
rather a moderate way with somewhat limited capi-
tal, and thus the Story & Clark Organ Company
came into existence. In later years it developed into
the Story & Clark Piano Company and has made
mi lionaires of several men, including E. H. Story,
the president and principal owner.
At Estey & Camp's Mr. Maynard rose to the
position of bookkeeper, then auditor. Later, when
the firm went out of business, Mr. Maynard had
charge at Chicago for the Hallet & Davis store and
managed that Boston corporation's branch in Chicago
for a number of years. He was also manager of the
piano department of a big department store in Chi-
cago for several years.
His venture in the piano manufacturing field in
Chicago under the name of R. K. Maynard & Son is
well-remembered. With a fine factory going in the
manufacturing district of Chicago near Ashland ave-
nue and West 39th street, and his son as superintend-
ent, Mr. Maynard was all set for a bigger career.
But loan sharks got his finances into a tangle and
the business came to an end.
His next appearance was as general western trav-
eler and wholesale man for the M. Schulz Company
of Chicago, and he served that great manufacturing
concern faithfully for the last ten or twelve years of
his eventful life.
The funeral was held on Monday of this week.
The M. Schulz Company telegraphed an order for
flowers, and sent condolences to the relatives. At the
Schulz headquarters his loss is felt keenly, as expres-
sions from Otto Schulz, Fred P. Bassett, Henry
Hewitt and others indicate.
The death of R. K. Maynard removes from the
trade one of the most versatile and popular men
the piano business has ever produced. He knew
something about almost every retailer of pianos on
the North American continent; was familiar with
special features of their working plans and knew the
methods of most of their salesmen. His arrival at a
store was the occasion for a glad reception like that
accorded an ambassador, and he always talked busi-
ness up, not down.
He did not pile up a large fortune for himself,
although contributing of his ability to make much
success for others. But he left behind him a record
for friendliness that has hardly been equalled by
any in the music trade.
Surviving him are his wife, his son Ray, who holds a
good position with a telephone company in San
Francisco, and his daughter, Miss Mabel E. Maynard,
a business woman.
George P. Bent, who is in Chicago at present,
talked with Mr. Maynard over the telephone only a
few days ago. Mr. Bent said that Mr. Maynard told
him he'd had a pretty hard time with poor health,
but that he thought he'd now be able to pull through.
He had lost 30 pounds in his sickness.
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