January, 1930
P R E S T O-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
F R A N K D. A B B O T T
- - - - - - - -
(C. A. D A M ELL—1904-1927.)
PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, I1L
The American Music Trade Journal
Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 0234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, III., under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $1.25 a year; 6 months, 75 cents; foreign.
$3.00. Payable in advance. No extra charge in United
States possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for adver-
tising' on application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and If of
general interest to the music trade will be paid for at
space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen in the
smaller cities are the best occasional correspondents, and
their assistance is invited.
lication day to insure preferred position. Full page dis-
play copy should be in hand three days preceding publi-
cation day. Want advertisements for current issue, to
insure classification, should be in three days in advance
of publication.
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torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
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tion will be charged if of commercial character or other
than strictly news interest.
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Forms close at noon three days preceding date of pub-
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Advertising copy should be in hand four days before pub-
Address all communications for the editorial or business
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Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press at 11 a. m.
three days preceding publication day. Any news trans-
piring after that hour cannot be expected in the current
issue. Nothing received at the office that is not strictly
news of Importance can have attention after 9 a. m. of
that date. If they concern the interests of manufactur-
ers or dealers such items will appear the isBue following.
CHICAGO, JANUARY, 1930
PEERING INTO THE FUTURE
As the bells and whistles, the horns and other screechers rang
in the new year—1930—the thoughts of men and women flew forward
peering into the future. It was like peering into an upper New York
Bay fog, as the arriving immigrant sometimes does to try to get a
glimpse of the United States—everything a promise, nothing def-
inite. Every year when speculated about in advance is uncognizant
to the individual, and the believer in predestination ought to be the
happiest although no surer of what will happen than anybody else.
Every new year promises resumption of activities that may have
been drooping at the close of the old year. Here is hope. What if
production is slightly shorter in actual quantity; if prices are good
there will be more time to manufacture the goods right. There are
oceans of possibilities for sales in the new year. It is January—the
time of year for the salesman who imagines himself an eagle to fly
down from his aerie and pick up a living along the surface of the
valleys.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
Those who made resolutions to bind themselves to do better
work during 1930 might profit by following a plan of the boy scouts
—do one good deed every day. The boy scouts have found this to be
a great advantage in fixing character and in inducing activities in
their complex lives. It gives a stimulus to attention; it puts mental
activity in operation. Doing one good deed each day requires per-
sistent attention, directed by will. It creates new activities; it pre-
vents falling into a subconscious cellar or expecting a hit-or-miss
coincidence to save the day. By taking one forward step every day
the habit becomes more surely automatic. With piano men the good
resolution might be extended to one week—be sure to sell at least
one piano every week. With house-to-house men, the good resolu-
tion is twenty contacts daily.
TURNOVER AND UPTURN
Too many men of late years have been passing out gems of
sarcasm at the way "the other fellow" conducts his business, instead
of studying how to better their own. Shafts of ridicule freely passed
out about rivals in the piano or radio trade have in some instances
brought back boomerang darts and arrows to pierce the heart of
their own trade and cause its life-blood to gush forth. The power
for success is- in a man himself and he ought to realize his own possi-
bilities. By his own superior adaptation to his surroundings a man
can build up a business almost anywhere, and he will find that what-
SHERWIN MURPHY'S NEW JOB.
Sherwin Murphy, who five years ago was assistant
advertising manager for Steger & Sons Piano Manu-
facturing Co., has joined the copy and merchandising
staff of Buckley, Dement & Co.. the direct mail ad-
vertising house, 1300 West Jackson boulevard, Chi-
cago.
LEIPZIG SPRING FAIR.
The International Leipzig Trade Fair will hold its
Spring sessions from March 2 to 12, according to an
announcement from the New York representatives
of the fair. More than 100 important products of
American industry will be included in the 10,000 or
more exhibits to be shown. The average attendance
ever measure of success he attains is due to this adaptation and is
not to be found elsewhere. He certainly stands to lose when he
starts slamming his rivals. There is no such thing as a cheerful
idiot; no such this as a fool-proof business. But a merchant who
looks upon his rivals cheerfully and is a pleasant fellow-townsman to
all, frequently is surprised at the way his business lifts him; it bom-
bards him into unfoldment, as light bombards the seed and makes it
sprout. His weekly turnover is so great that he tells all his friends
that business is on the upturn.
RADIO AND PROGRESSIVENESS
There are more wonders in the world than have been reduced
to absurdity in Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Ann Arbor, Stanford or
the University of Chicago. Years ago, professors contented them-
selves with discovering, arranging and classifying the heavenly
bodies, the fauna and flora of the earth and its rocks and chemicals,
but today their work is to help men to try to explain things which
they had previously been content to describe and arrange. The prog-
ress of civilization is the record of displacement of animal excellences
by human ones and of savage virtues by civilized ones. Man is now
trying to arrange the facts to fit his theories, and all reasoning is of
the nature of explanation. A readjustment of our prejudices is neces-
sary before much progress can be made. We are too apt to count
the man best educated who can best do his own small fraction of
the world's work, but this is reasoning like an insect, as Mutt would
say to Jeff. Radio is showing the world at large how little it knew r
before. It is tearing the mask off conceited persons. It is democrat-
izing the snobs of great cities and small towns. It is staring the
ignorant and indifferent and the illiterate to think. In short, it is
working as an element of enlightenment and progress.
THE COURAGE OF HABIT
Habit is ten times nature and the courage of habit is ten times
habit. Courage makes a man sincere and loyal to the essential spirit
of habit. Courage comes into existence in the interactions of inborn
mechanisms or those that are later acquired. The courageous piano
or radio salesman never crawled under a bed, nor became a parlor
snake. The successful salesman was not always courageous. Per-
haps when he began years ago he was the most timid and retiring of
men. But try, try again was his method, without thinking of chang-
ing the formula to test, test once more or up and at them, Andy.
Now he is a firm believer in the law of averages for any territory
whatever.
of 185,000 buyers drawn from forty nations is ex-
pected to increase materially this Spring. An addi-
tional great hall has been erected on the grounds for
the display of the building fair.
PROFITING BY EXPERIENCE.
If you find, through experience, that some loss is
due to lack of proper care on your part, you can help
to avoid further losses by the exercise of care, though
the circumstances differ in each succeeding instance.
This is what is meant by learning from experience,
not that we should wait for an exact duplicate of the
conditions, but that we should apply to any similar
experience the basic principle involved in the original
one.—Exchange.
DISK RECORD INVENTOR DIES.
William B. Hollingshead, a recluse, who, early in
this century owned a metallurgical factory in Bronx-
ville, N. Y., was found dead on Christmas Eve on
the steps of his modest home at 9 Seift avenue, East
Chester, by a passing milkman. He was 81 years
old. Friends say Mr. Hollingshead was acclaimed
years ago as the original inventor of the disk phono-
graph record and that at one time his fortune, derived
from successful experiments in metallurgy, exceeded
$500,000. It is understood that he was penniless at
his death. He is credited by his friends with pos-
sessing a medal from the Franklin Institute of Phila-
delphia for devices aiding in the development of
printing.
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