Presto

March, 1931
P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
FRANK D. ABBOTT
PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, 11L
The American Music Trade Journal
Editor
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 02S4.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, 111., 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.
Payment is not accepted for matter printed in the edi-
torial or news columns of Presto-Times.
Where half-tones are made the actual cost of produc-
tion will be charged if of commercial character of other
than strictly news interest.
When electrotypes are sent for publication It is re-
quested that their subjects and senders be carefully indi-
cated.
Forms close at noon three days preceding date of pub-
lication. Latest news matter and telegraphic communica-
tions should be in not later than 11 o'clock on that day.
Advertising copy should be in hand four days before pub-
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
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 issue following.
CHICAGO, MARCH, 1931
In scanning piano dealers' advertising from daily
papers and weeklies throughout the country it is in-
teresting to note how universally, these days, they
refer to and strongly emphasize the group plan of
giving piano lessons. Some of the dealers are offer-
ing free music lessons under competent teachers, and
the teacher may be chosen by the pupil. Almost
every daily paper in the country is enlisted in the
cause of extending this educational cause, while teach-
ers and piano men are securing the services of the
editors of the mightiest of the great dailies as power-
ful colleagues to bring to the attention of parents
the educational advantages of music.. The group plan
of piano lessons grows in favor and in some cities
rehearsals of piano performance are conducted with
the pupils as players.
Presto-Times' "Strip," captioned "Where They
Are—Where Are They?" for a diminutive feature of
the paper has been attracting a major amount of
attention throughout the trade. Many have written
in, saying they were very much interested in the chatty
accounts of the changes in occupations and locations
of the well-known characters who had made music
trade history, and one or two expressed the hope that
the paper would keep up the feature until the last
man had been corralled—one wit saying, "Lay on,
MacDuff, until we've had enough.". Presto-Times
always aims to please. The readers' wants are para-
mount to the desires of the editors many times in
the preparation of copy for publication; so what the
readers want, they are very apt to get.
* * * *
Alexander Findley, in a communication to the New
York Times recently, asked: "Is there any reason
why I should be compelled to listen to advertisements
and Tin-Pan Alley corruptions of well-known airs
when I want to read, study or converse? To me the
emanations from the average radio are mental odors,
and I think I have a right to be protected from
them." He said he could be prosecuted for invading
his neighbors' apartments with obnoxious odors, and
be thinks some of the ads and songs are just as
offensive.
* * * *
President Hoover spoke wisely and well in his ad-
dress to the Association of National Advertisers on
November 10, 1930, when he said: "The advertising
executive and the medium through which he adver-
tises must see to it that the desire you create is
satisfied by the article recommended. The good-will
of the public toward the producer, the goods or the
service is the essential of sound advertising—for no
business succeeds upon the sale of an article once.
And to maintain this confidence of the public you and
the mediums which you patronize have an interest
that others do not violate confidence and thereby dis-
credit the whole of advertising."
W. E. KNIGHTLY'S TRAVELS
W. E. Knightly, formerly of London, England, and
who is now associated with the Aeolian Co,, and also
with the Mason & Hamlin Co., at its factory in Bos-
ton, and who lias charge of the Mason & Hamlin
foreign trade, was recently a guest of Merle Bennett
of the Adams Bennett Music Co., Wichita, Kans. Mr.
Knightly recently returned from a South American
tour and plans to go abroad in June after the music
trade convention in Chicago, making his headquarters
at London.
BRAMBACH LINE IN SEATTLE
The Doner Piano Co. has moved to a new location
at 1901 Third avenue, Seattle, Wash. The Doner
house lias specialized in pianos for the past fifteen
years and lias just taken on the Brambach line of
pianos. H. A. Ruthven is now the sales manager.
CONSIDERING THE TARIFF ON ORGANS
George L. Catlin, of the Skinner Organ Co.: J. L. Ryan, of the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co..
and Harry Meixell. General Manager of the Music Industrie's Chamber of Commerce, appeared
before the United States Tariff Commission on February 26 and presented a brief giving in-
formation and asking tariff protection for the organ industry in America. These three men
were acting as a special committee under instructions of the following organ manufacturers :
Austin Organ Co., Hall Organ Co., Kinetic Engineering Co., Marr & Colton, Henry Pi!-
cher Sons. Spencer Turbine Co., Skinner Organ Co., Estey Organ Co., Rudolph Wurlitzer Co.,
Dennison Organ Pipe Co., Hillgreen Lane & Co., W. W. Kimball Co., National Organ Sup-
ply Co.
Several manufacturers, notably Casavant Freres, Ltd., from Canada, were represented
at the hearing and requested the Tariff Commission to reduce the rates on organs imported
into the United States substantially below the 40% which now obtains in the present act for
organs falling within classes two and three. In rebuttal to the arguments in favor of this
position the Special Committee stated that they were agreeable to the reduction 6f the rate
on organs falling in class one, as noted in the brief, from 60% ad valorem to the 40% rate,
thereby making the tariff on all classes of pipe organs uniform ; but that they were very
strongly opposed to any reduction below 40%-.
The Tariff Commission now has the entire subject under advisement and will no doubt
reach their decision in the very near future.
The brief which the Special Committee presented called attention to the importance of
the industry by citing that the United States census for 1929 showed that 61 establishments
employing an average of 2,355 wage earners during that year produced organs and other
organ products to the value of $11,213,460.
The brief, which was approved by the organ companies mentioned above, closed with
the following words :
"In view of the foregoing facts and arguments, the undersigned organ manufacturers of
the United States respectfully petition the Tariff Commission that it adopt for class one organs,
that is those designed for churches and auditoriums where it is not customary to charge
admission fees, the 60% ad valorem rate originally recommended by the Ways and Means
Committee of the House, passed by the House and later recommended by the Senate Finance
Committee.
"On the other hand, the undersigned respectfully request that in the matter of organs
in class two. that is those designed for use in theaters and other places of amusement where
it is customary to charge admissions, and class three, namely residence and all other organs
an ad valorem duty of 40% be imposed rather than 60% as at present."
*
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NO QUARREL BETWEEN RADIO AND PIANO
There can be no basis for a quarrel between the piano and the radio for, instead of rivalry,
the two forms of instrument work together in producing and spreading elemental music. At
first, some two or three years ago, when radio manufacturers were flushed with big success,
some of them seemed buoyed up with a one-sided enthusiasm and belief that radio was going
to supplant the piano. The boastings of a few of these radio enthusiasts probably actually
frightened some of the piano manufacturers who, unwisely, framed in their advertising spe-
cious desultory defenses of the piano and what it stood for.
In the meantime, the good old honest piano was standing pat on its record of achieve-
ments and its continuing worthiness as the basic musical instrument of the ages. The facts
establishing its worthiness remained unattached and untouched by radio, despite the jokes
that some radio men were putting up against it. The piano stood the cold staring, until at
last the "sauciest" of the radio men discovered that they and the piano men had drunk at
the same spring and were at work in practically the same occupation.
And now they are working hand in hand—the piano producing the music that the radio
is broadcasting to the world. The radio is sending music into the shacks of the miners in the
far-away mountains; into theaters and schools; into homes of wealth and centers of culture,
as well as into millions of modest cottages over the continents and on the islands of the sea
—in this way giving everybody a taste of real music and raising the standards by which the
average person judges music. Thus the piano helps the radio as the radio helps the piano.
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