Presto

P R E S T O - T I M ES
May, 1930
SCHNEIDER HONORED
Trade Glance* and Observations ADAM
BY TESTIMONIAL DINNER
Lucien Wulsin, president of the Baldwin Piano
Co., Cincinnati, was in Chicago on April 15 en route
home from a trip which extended to the Rocky
Mountain States and California.
Mr. Wulsin visited the Baldwin Divisions in San
Francisco, Dallas and Denver, and at all of them he
found business in pianos so much improved that it
tilled him with enthusiasm.
The condition which Mr. Wulsin ran across in the
West and Southwest is extending to other parts of the
nation as seasonal work is putting money in circula-
tion and as the speculative markets in the big money
centers are beginning to resume a stride nearer
normal. In other words, the U. S. A. is a great
nation in its wants, and when it wants anything, be
it pianos or peanuts, it buys them and makes the best
possible use of them.
* * *
Radio has been having its own difficulties to keep
its head above the water in these times of specula-
tive smashups and general uncertainty. Quite a
number of radio manufacturers have discontinued
their operations, but the two big ones that went to
the wall in Fort Wayne—the Steinite and the Conti-
nental—made the rest of the radio men gasp and sit
up and take notice. Both these concerns had put up
great modern factories and the sailing seemed very
smooth for several months.
* * *
For something like twenty miles around about South
Bend, Ind., the big Templin Piano Co. signs attract
the attention of the motorist and other passers-by,
which sign still read: "Mason & Hamlin, Knabe,
Chickering Pianos." The thought comes to mind, Will
this sign and this line of pianos be in evidence a year
hence or will any change be necessary?
* * *
Two decades of continuity in well-doing, and that
faithful piano dealers renew their youth "like the
eagles," are the memories enlivened as the visitor in
South Bend, Ind., reads in the daily papers of that
city the notice of Elbel Bros., piano dealers, that
they are now occupying their new store. For in The
Presto of April 14, 191(1, appeared an item concerning
the same house, saying "We are just about to remodel
our store."
* * *
That 25 per cent of the American people incur
monthly obligations in excess of their incomes is an
estimate made by Dr. C. W. Phelps, of the University
of Chattanooga, Tenn. But the good professor will
have to get new statistics to prove that easy-payment
buying is an unmitigated evil. Without the install-
ment plan, the average American home would never
have had a piano, a sewing machine or any of the
modern improvements that have put the average
American modes of living far and away beyond any-
thing that any other land under the sun can show.
The miser cheats himself.
* * *
W. B. Price, formerly president of the late Price &
Feeple Piano Co., is now in a line entirely outside of
the piano industry. He is associated with Otis & Co.,
a large investment and brokerage house of Chicago,
Cleveland, New York and other cities. His office is
at 105 West Adams street, Chicago.
* * *
R. B. Oslund, known by many who have had deal-
ings with him as "Hustling Oslund," proprietor of the
Oslund Piano House, Spokane, Wash., has the sa-
gacity to get trade all the time, for when one line
gets slow, he hitches onto another angle of the music
business and "keeps on by keeping on." When the
piano trade slackened up some months ago, he went
in strong for radio and ordered as high as 100 sets
a day for awhile. Now that the piano business is
coming back, he is going in for pianos with his old-
time vigor. Not at all like a weather-vane are these
changes, for there is nothing fickle or inconstant in
this wide-awake music dealer's make-up, nor is he
an unreliable opportunist. He is simply a mercantile-
minded business man who takes time by the forelock
and by taking advantage of circumstances as they
arise in front of him, paves new highways of success.
The trade in things musical needs many more men
of this type.
* * *
As one motors about the country and sees, here
and there, automobiles parked outside of this and that
factory, a mass of cars at some great electric estab-
lishment, many cars at an automobile plant and a
gxiodly number at some of the radio factories he
instinctively sizes up the activities going on within.
Thus, when a Presto-Times correspondent drove up
to the Schumann piano factory, at Rockford, III., a
few days ago and encountered quite a little congestion
of cars in the parking place around that factory it
appeared to him that there must be activity within.
What he saw within the walls of the factory and in
the office gave proof of at least normal conditions.
No great rush but "active activity."' President Van
Matre said that particularly the new line of grands
were in excellent demand. The Schumann Piano
Company is fortunate in having many faithful, stick-
to-it representatives; dealers who have built up a
good trade and many of them made snug fortunes in
selling the Schumann piano; real dealers in the true
sense and who continue their activities with success.
Mr. Van Matre admits that he would like more
business, yet, without bragging, he knows that the
Schumann trade is keeping his house right in the
front row in the country today. He said: "Remember
our motto is, 'One piano and that the best that can be
made.' "
* * *
The final meeting of the creditors of the defunct
H. C. Bay Piano Co. was held in the office of Harry
A. Parkin, referee in bankruptcy, 137 South La Salle
street, Chicago, on April 25.
* * *
W. C. Heaton, one-time prominent piano man, now
well along in radio, while reluctantly admitting that
he is out of the piano game, salutes his former asso-
ciates with the salutation: "But don't forget that I
am still in the music business."
* * *
The manner in which some piano manufacturing
corporations are tackling radio manufacturing sug-
gests courage of a kind that some of their contem-
poraries speak of as "nerve." In view of conditions
in marketing radio and the boiling pepper-pots of
Wall Street, not to speak of the wars among the
Orientals nor the extravagant spending of cash by
the young at home, it is nerve. Radio seems to be
an uncertainty save for those big concerns that go
in for it backed by big capital and by men whose
whole lives and energies are thrown into the radio
hopper. The great National Carbon Co.'s side-line of
making the Eveready radio was discontinued, not be-
cause it had to but because it had gigantic man-
ufacturing interests in other directions upon which
it wanted to concentrate its energies. It was an
instance of voluntary withdrawal. Several of the
piano makers who began manufacturing radios
some time ago are meeting with at least fair
success. Gulbransen Co., Bush & Lane, and Jesse
French & Sons for instances. But piano firms
that would engage in that line of manufacture
now must be prepared to compete with such giants
as the Atwater Kent, the RCA, the Majestic, the
Crosley, the Zenith, Thomas A. Edison, and where
are they going to "fetch up at" with such powerful
and experienced and very successful rivals?
Piano manufacturers entering radio making would
naturally look for their best customers among the
long-established piano retailers while catering to some
of the rift-raffy clientele. Music dealers are the ones
who know the musical needs and prospect lists of
the communities. No new radio manufacturer can
pick up a business by appointing cobblers, garage
men, druggists, grocers or recent high school grad-
uates as his agents—and these are just samples of the
classes to whom he would be obliged to look if he
turned down the able, well-known and reliable piano
salesmen and piano dealers.
* * *
Reverting again to a comparison of putting capital
into musical enterprises, it is conceded by people of
experience in the trade that an investment in piano
manufacturing is rather more favorable for ultimate
success and profit than a like investment in radio
manufacturing. And even with some of the so-called
nickel-in-the-slot combinations — electro-phono-radio
machines, the supporting principle of construction
and usefulness is liable to change in a season or a
month, and leave the warehouses stocked with an
unsalable article.
Such changes never befall the piano. Look at the
assignments and bankruptcies in the radio manufac-
turing field. A dozen radio failures in as many
months. The failures in piano manufacturing, which
has four or five times as many units as radio, do not
foot up to this list, in fact hardly approach it.
Notable among the bigger radio failures two idle
factories stand in one Indiana city as mute evidences
of wrecked hopes. These are modernly-built plants
which opened only a short time ago, supplied with
all kinds of modern equipment, manned by skilled
operators who had set a lively manufacturing pace—
buildings now ghosts of a brief and brilliant oc-
cupancy.
* * *
In the J. M. S. building. South Bend, Ind., a call
was made by a Presto-Times representative a few
days ago on I. F. Dolk, who is with the advertising
agency of Lamport, Fox & Co. Mr. Dolk represents
the Pan-American band of Elkhart, Ind., and the
Straube Piano Co., of Hammond. Ind. He says the
trade is expecting quite a goodly pick-up as the
summer comes on.
One of the Most Likable Men in the Chicago
Trade Is Made the Guest" of Distinction
at Gala Night in Medinah Athletic
Club, Chicago.
The testimonial dinner tendered to Adam Schneider
at Medinah Athletic Club, Chicago, on the night of
May 19, was a voluntary expression of appreciation
for the man as well as for his work. The attendance
was large and represented every organization in the
music industry—the Chicago Piano & Organ Asso-
ciation, the Piano Club of Chicago, the Chicago Pi-
ano Manufacturers' Association, the National Piano
& Music Travelers' Association and the National Pi-
ano Manufacturers' Association being a few of the
organizations having representatives in attendance.
Mr. Schneider has been treasurer for almost every
association in the piano business, local and national,
and at present he does yeoman work as executive
secretary of the Chicago Piano & Organ Association.
He has friends by the thousands and not an enemy
in the world, and his record abounds in achievements
for the betterment of the piano trade. He has even
done more than ever before for the interests of piano
men in general since he resigned from the treasurer-
ship of Julius Bauer & Co. some two years ago.
Instead of going on a long, idling vacation, as
many another man who had retired from active busi-
ness would have done, Mr. Schneider is working
harder than ever—devoting his time and talents to
Chicago's better life and institutions. In this great
work he is not grouped with a knot of systematic
artists but broadly, with vigor of mind and the ir-
resistible persistence and perseverance that is
Schneider-esque.
He is credited with some very remarkable results
in getting pianos into the public and parochial schools
of Chicago, and his interest in piano class teaching
leads him on to do more to promote the plan. He
has helped Dr. J. Lewis Browne, director of music
in the public schools of Chicago, and Supt. Bogan to
kindle the imagination of the children and inspire
them for useful exertion at their piano lessons.
In this work Mr. Schneider realizes that stubborn
resistance to any worthy improvement does not break
down until it is no longer possible to deny what
the world has accepted. He is broadminded enough
to realize that the piano gives a culture that modifies
the organism of cities, of states and of nations. So
he is helping to introduce practices which encourage
and foster a valuable variety of education; habits and
tastes which contribute to form real character—to
build a citizenry that despises the sot and the bandit,
the bootlegger and blah-blah music; that has some
veneration for parents and home and that realizes
that mere smartness is the antithesis of true culture.
The party was a "stag." The dinner was gay and
after the official program the dining room was cleared
for those who wished to play cards. J. V. Sill, presi-
dent of the Chicago Piano and Organ Association,
said of Mr. Schneider: "We are all so much indebted
to him for his great contribution toward the welfare
of the Chicago trade during the past year, not to
mention the previous years he has served so well.
Many a good sale on the 'street' during the past year
can be traced to Mr. Schneider's efforts. He has
given generously to us and we are glad to honor
him."
Several of the leaders in the trade attended as well
as Dr. W'illiam J. Bogan, superintendent of schools,
Chicago and Dr. J. Lewis Browne, director of music,
Chicago public schools.
The Dinner and Presentation
Presto-Times not being able to get to press until
the morning after the dinner, now tells what hap-
pened there.
The dinner was attended by a representative group
of about friends of Mr. Schneider. Letters and telegrams of
regret came from absent ones, including Albert Behn-
ing, Frank Edgar, C. E Byrne, Mark P. Campbell,
James T. Bristol, George P. Bent and Harry Bibb.
Mr. Bibb wired three cheers for Mr. Schneider. E. B.
Bartlett was toastmaster. He said that he and Mr.
Schneider were born only a few miles apart. He
introduced two of Mr. Schneider's sons and some
one in the audience said, "The Schneiders have it."
Supt. William J. Bogan of the Chicago public
schools characterized Mr. Schneider as a go-getter,
who had led in the fight for piano instruction, and
12,000 children were now taking piano lessons in
Chicago's schools. "I long for the day when music
will take its place as a regular study in the schools."
he said
Dr. J. Lewis Browne, director of music in the
Chicago public schools, said: "I don't know what
I could have done without Adam Schneider." He
had put 189 pianos in the public and parochial schools.
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