Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1931 2259

PRESTO-TIMES
July. 1931
ANNUAL DINNER AND ELECTION
OF THE PIANO TRAVELERS
A Festive Occasion, Sparkling With Good Music—Jacob Schiller the
New President
The annual dinner and business meeting of the Na-
tional Piano and Music Travelers' Association, includ-
ing the election of officers, which took place on the
evening of June 8 in Room 8 at the Palmer House,
drew a large attendance of men. Some of those who
were missed at this big festival were Albert Behning
of New York, Dan Fabyan, Jack Bliss, Ray Briggs
and others of the old-timers who were always regarded
as standbys and leaders. They were absent but not
forgotten, as each of these men was mentioned at the
meeting with affection.
The "eatments" were fit for a king—a grand dinner
—and the entertainment was of the highest class in
the category of music, admitting no conditions or
exceptions. A. L. McNab, business manager of the
Chicago office of the Music Trades, was given the
credit for securing the services of Enrico Clausio, the
tenor, who is head of the music department of De Paui
University in Chicago, and his accompanist, Charles
Quint. Henry Hewitt, chairman of the evening, in
introducing these distinguished artists, said they had
been secured because the committee felt that "nothing
was too good for the travelers." Mr. Enrico Clausio
had won his spurs in Europe before he came to this
country, Mr. Hewitt explained. The singing of this
gentleman was one of the principal features of the
entertainment and elicited unstinted approval and
praise. His encores were liberal.
Another artist of distinction, who has often been
heard in the broadcasts of WGN and other stations,
was Harry Zimmerman, who also delighted his lis-
teners by playing upon the Baldwin instrument in the
room.
Frank Bennett and his wonderful concert company,
comprising one other gentleman and three ladies, gave
a delightful and melodious concert at the close of the
program.
Speech of the Evening.
Louis A. Crittenton of the W. W. Kimball Co.,
orator of the evening, delivered a speech that might
stand him as the oration of his life. William Jennings
Bryan, Col. E. S. Payson, Rufus Choate or Daniel
Webster might not have done better.
The purport of Mr. Crittenton's address was that
no other industry has made such an effect on human
hearts as the piano business. He said the most over-
worked word today was "depression." If we could
find some other word as a substitute for it the piano
business and every other activity of trade would re-
ceive new inspiration and life. He suggested that we
are passing through a readjustment and he advised
piano men to act alive, for "nobody ever bought any-
thing from a corpse." He referred the traveling men
present to the song which Mr. Clausio had just sung,
"I Love Life." He told of a sign an undertaker had
published—"Why do you go around half dead, when I
can bury you for $65?" He said sales would be vastly
increased if we'd really be alive to the great interests
that cluster around the piano industry.
"A man's a fool that talks the same to everybody
that comes into his store," said Mr. Crittenton. Some
salesmen talked too much and studied the customer
not at all. Urging discretion along this line, he told
of a girl who wrote to Marion Harland, saying she
had false teeth, and asked Mrs. Harland if she'd better
tell her lover about it before marriage or afterward.
Mrs. Harland's advice to the bride-to-be was: "Girlie,
you marry him, and afterwards keep your mouth
shut."
Selling pianos is selling the basis of a substantial
civilization and building better citizenship, according
to Mr. Crittenton. "You've got to pass out to the
dealers and the public that nobody can become an
artist without hard, grueling work. A wonderful come-
back in the piano business is on the way," said the
speaker. He then spoke of the nature of music as old
as the universe when the morning stars sang together.
The piano was only 225 years old; the piano was "too
young to die." He spoke of Superintendent Bogan
of the Chicago public schools as a friend of music.
Mr. Bogan had said that the children in the public
schools of Chicago were showing higher scholarship
than ever before, due to the study of music. "What
your business needs is your enthusiasm, your capacity
as a builder," said Mr. Crittenton in conclusion.
Reports of the officers at the business meeting
showed that the association has 192 members. Treas-
urer Jack Bliss reported by letter that there is a
balance in the treasury of $139,
Elected as Honorary Members
President Fred P. Bassett of the manufacturers and
President Otto B. Heaton of the dealers were elected
honorarv members of the association. Mr. Heaton
CONVENTION NOTES
H. Gerald Hyde, who has been representing the
Wurlitzer pianos out of North Tonavvanda, N. Y.,
for the last two years, expects to travel out of the
Chicago territory from HOW on. Mr. Hyde is a stand-
by piano man. He kept a store at Croton, N. Y., for
twelve years before joining the forces of the Wur-
litzer house.
It was amusing to see Delbert L. Loomis and Otto
B. Heaton racing about in the Palmer House get-
ting a number of group pictures of small groups taken.
In the d splay rooms of Walter M. Gotsch, 887, when
Presto-Times man was passing the photographer took
a picture in which Mr. Heaton was the principal figure.
He was shown playing an accordion, and meanwhile
not sparing the Heaton smile.
W. G. Behrens, wholesale traveler for the Tonk
Mfg. Co., from Chciago westward, including the states
of Colorado and Wyoming, was in Chicago during
the convention. He was met at the Tonk exhibit
room by a Presto-Times representative and later at
the Tonk factory in Chicago. Mr. Behrens says
trade is getting better in his territory.
Will Brinkerhoff May Return
Will T. Brinkerhoff, who has been living quietly
at his home in Oak Park, 111., since his resignation
as general manager of Ludwig & Co., of New York,
was an interested visitor at the convention in the
Palmer House. He said he came down just to meet
a lot of his friends in the trade, and his visits with
them had aroused in him a keen desire to return and
re-enter the piano game. Of course, with a live wire
like Will Brinkerhoff, the wish will probably be grati-
fied before long.
Popular J. C. Henderson
Among those in attendance at the Wurlitzer ex-
hibit was J. C. Henderson, eastern sales manager of
the piano department, who has hosts of friends. Mr.
Henderson is really a western man, having been a
co-organizer and official of a piano manufacturing con-
cern at Faribault, Minn., and later heading the Ann
Arbor Organ Co., at Ann Arbor, Mich., of which
famous university city he served as mayor. Now he
has been in the piano business so long that he might
be considered as the dean of the piano travelers.
made an address in which he said that it might be
beneficial for the travelers to "trade places with us
merchants for a while."
The most interesting thing just now Mr. Heaton
said is the increased interest in the study of music.
It had increased during the last fourteen months
almost 72 per cent. The people are interested in the
study of music as never before. "I think we're on
the eve of the greatest boom the piano has ever
known—I mean the grand piano," said Mr. Heaton.
He said there are 21,000,000 families in the United
States; 20,000,000 homes in the United States., and only
15,000,000 pianos in the United States, including
squares.
Mr. Bassett also made a few remarks when called
upon.
The secretary was instructed to send letters of
sympathy or condolence to Ray Briggs and Dan Fab-
yan, whose health is not what it ought to be.
Jacob Schiller President
The election resulted as follows:
President, Jacob Schiller, of the Lester Piano Co.
(Mr. Schiller is vice-president of the Lester Piano
Co. in charge of sales).
Vice-President, Ray Briggs.
Second Vice-President, Ben Fox.
Secretary, Albert Behning.
Executive Committee, Charles Onderdonk, William
B. Marshall.
A Badge of Honor
J. H. Shale, "acting in the place of Col. E. S. Pay-
son," presented the association's past-president's gold
badge to the retiring president, Ralph Henry Day, of
Boston,
H. P. Moller, of Hagerstown, Md., who is some-
times called "the grand old man of the pipe organ
industry." was in Chicago on June 13. Mr. Moller,
who is now 76, came from Denmark to America in
1872 at the age of 18. He built the organ for the
Philadelphia centennial which was held in 1876.
"Piano men have sold more grand pianos since the
stock-market slum]) than at any other time in the his-
tory of music," was one of the significant remarks
made by Delbert L. Loomis, executive secretary of
the National Association of Music Merchants at the
Chicago convention.
Walter L. Rhein, of the W. L. Rhein Co., Belle-
ville, 111., long-established piano dealers, was at the
convention. To a Presto-Times representative Mr.
Rhein said that Belleville has 95 factories and 17 good-
sized stores. Mr. Rhein's trade in pianos has been
fair.
WANTS TO LOCATE OLD-TIME FIRM
A correspondent asks Presto-Times where Cable &
Sons, who manufactured pianos in New York city
for many years, can be located, having sent a letter
to the company addressed to 1306 Chestnut street,
Philadelphia, and which letter was returned, marked
"not there." As the writer of the letter believed the
Cable & Sons had been taken over by the Lester
Piano Co., whose address is 1306 Chestnut street,
Philadelphia, he is now "stumped" to locate Cable
& Sons, he says.
On the back outside cover of the Presto Buyers'
Guide is an attractive advertisement of the Gulbran-
sen radios, and again Presto-Times invites its readers,
who are not too closely tied up with other radio in-
terests, to look into the merits of the Gulbransen
product. The Gulbransen Co. is a good house to tie
up to, and it gives mutual co-operation of the closest
kind to its dealers in the sale of radios as well as
pianos.
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July, 1931
P R E S T 0-T I M E S
ISSUED THE
FIFTEENTH IN EACH
MONTH
F R A N K D. ABBOTT
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PRESTO PUBLISHING CO.
Publishers
417 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, IIL
The American Music Trade Journal
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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, 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.
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 or 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-
lication day to insure preferred position. Full page
dis-
play copy should be in hand three days preceding 1 publi-
cation day. Want advertisements for current issue, to
insure classification, should be in three days in advance
of publication.
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, JULY, 1931
Player-pianos are not dead. There is a good deal
of life and fire left in the player-piano business de-
spite the opinion of many that the player-piano is
now mostly kindling wood being split up by the
hatchets of hoboes for fuel with which to heat their
soup in camps beside the railroad tracks. Many
dealers are selling players, both new and used ones,
and they are richly enjoyed by people who have not
had piano lessons, even though such homes have also
a radio. Most of the letters that reach Presto-Times
office from the dealers mention the player as part of
the regular trade of the writers. The piano manu-
facturers, too, have noticed the pick-up in player
trade from several localities, and some of them have
cleaned out accumulated stocks of this style of in-
strument, which have been stored there for some
time.
* * * *
Music dealers to a certain extent are taking hold
of the refrigerator business. About 50 per cent of
them, according to careful estimates, are now handling
refrigerators as part of their lines of goods. And
why not? The line of least resistance in trade, as in
everything else, may be the line of the greatest
power when one slides along with it. The day of
the hard-shell man who is so set in his ways that he
will never take on a side-line as a meal ticket is past.
Selling apples on a street corner may not lead a man
to the presidential chair in the White House, but it
may be a start to get part way along the route. And,
come to think of it, the piano and radio are associates
of the refrigerator, for, like the dog and the cat—
unlike in nature—they occupy a welcome and appre-
ciated place in the home.
* * * *
There has been a bit of rivalry among leading
piano corporations in making sales of their instru-
ments to broadcasting stations, but not all of them
have given out the result of such enterprising selling.
However, the Baldwin Piano Co. has had consider-
able success in that class of trade and makes free
to announce many such sales, several of which have
already been published in the trade papers.
* * * *
The Zenith Radio Corporation deficit of $482,740
for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1931, as reported
in the daily papers, doesn't seem to dampen the spirit
of the enterprising gentlemen who conduct its af-
fairs, as they say a strong financial position was shown
in the balance sheet. However, in the radio field of
late, these men seem to have several others for good
company.
WEATHER TOO HOT
TO CARRY HIS GRIP
THE PIANO'S RETURN
The editorial topic, "The Piano Coming' Back," which was set a-going several months ago
by an editorial in Presto-Times, has been making the grand circuit of the big and little dailies,
the weeklies and several other publications. This expanded publicity proves that the topic is
a live one and that it has the widest public interest. It also proves that the original assertion
was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
IMMORTALITY OF THE PHONOGRAPH
Edwin Jarrett, of New York, scholar and wit, said to a Presto-Times representative the
other day: "I have always believed that in a more leisurely age, the enjoyments from hearing
voices plucked from the dead past will have an appeal. The present 'turn on the dial and
listen to some jazz' will never be all-sufficing." Mr. Jarrett called the trade paper man's atten-
tion to a very readable and thought-creating article in the New York Herald Tribune entitled
"Musical Mortality and the Machine," written by Lawrence Gilman, in which Mr. Gilman says:
"Some of us are inclined to sneer at what is abusively called 'mechanical music'; yet the droll
and surprising fact emerges that it is precisely the machine which has conferred a kind of
deathlessness upon the mortal body of projected sound." Farther on, Mr. Gilman says: "The
day is approaching when we shall be able to say of all created musical loveliness, as the seers
have long said of another kind of immortality, 'In the midst of death we are in life.' "
HOOVER'S PLANS HELPING PIANO TRADE
The market influence of President Hoover's plan of proposing a one-year suspension of
war-debt and reparations payments by the nations that owe these millions has been working
in several instances in helping dealers sell grand pianos to well-to-do customers. The effect,
it is to be understood, is psychological, but as it is working well, who cares what name it is
sailing under? One young man in Chicago told a Presto-Times representative that he credits
the rise in the stock market caused by the proposed moratorium for directly aiding him in
closing quickly and easily four grand piano sales within this week. The buyers were so elated
over the turn in affairs that they bought easily and signed the contracts without hesitation.
This dealer added that he believed the sale of pianos to the wealthier class of customers
would continue to be the cream of his business all summer. It was a red-hot day at high
noon when the Presto-Times man was in his store and yet there were two customers in dif-
ferent parts of the room, each closing a contract for the purchase of a grand.
THE LESSONS OF THE CONVENTION
Most of the dealers are expected to put into effect some of the lessons they learned at
the recent Palmer House convention in Chicago. They came and they listened. Many of them
did more than pose as class-mates, for the more aggressive members took part in the jere-
miads, the orations, the perorations, the suggestions, the advice, the offerings of panaceas
and cure-alls, and telling of their experiences in handling their weapons of defense and offense
in waging war against the spirit of depression.
*
*
* *
They listened intently to all the good advice offered at the open forum meetings, some
of them joining eagerly in the debates that ensued from the handling of the topics. For these
open iorum meetings have proved to be by far the most aggressive and inspiring and inform-
ing parts of convention work.
* * * *
So this piano traveler adopts the novel expedient
of having his grip walk beside him.
Just how far the returned dealers, now that they are back home in the old bailiwicks, will
go in inaugurating reform methods in conducting their business remains to be seen, for a
good deal depends on the individuality of the man. and not a little depends on the community
he serves. However, as they will all admit, they learned a good deal at the Palmer House
convention—enough to set them thinking more broadly than they have been doing hereto-
fore, for there are many other things for the reflection of music dealers beside those sug-
gested or discussed at the recent convention.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/

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