Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
From a Traveler's Note Book.
POLITICAL FLOTSAM AND JETSAM — TRADE IN BOSTON THE MEN WHO ARE DOING THE BUSI-
NESS TO-DAY — THE POPULARITY OK THE SEAVERNS ACTION — S. TOWER IN A REMINISCENT
MOOD — DOWN AT THE CHICK.ERING FACTORY—JAMES W. VOSE HAS ARTISTIC TALENTS.
HENRY F. MILLER'S WHOLESALE TRADE A CHAT WITH P. H. POWERS AT THE
HALLET & DAVIS WAREROOMS — THE BOURNE PIANO — A SILVER STORY STEIN-
ERT's TEMPORARY QUARTERS FRED. J. BRAND'S GOOD WORK—SCANLAN
ON WASHINGTON STREET
GUILD
PIANO
THE NORRIS * HYDE ATTACHMENT
THE
FRANK HALE AND THE MERRILL PIANO.
HE other day, while sitting in a
parlor car on my way back
from Boston, I had the pleas-
ure of chatting with one of
the best known politicians in
New England. He firmly
believes that the Republican party will
nominate McKinley at St. Louis on a gold
platform, notwithstanding this he believes
that Mark Hanna will do all in his power
to prevent the word "gold" being used
He predicts that an unequivocal gold
standard and the banner of protection wav-
ing over all will mean the speedy return of
good times in this country. In fact, he
claims that from the very hour that the
matter is definitely settled in St. Louis
there will be an increased demand for
American securities abroad, and conse-
quently a better tone in our home markets,
which will have a reflex that will be bene-
ficial upon all of our manufacturing in-
terests. Well, the people of this country
can stand that return tide of prosperity for
a few years. They have been floating on
the ebb since 1893, and will witness with
leasure the incoming flood. No doubt the
incoming tide of prosperity will be greatly
accelerated if we have in the next Con-
gress men who are competent to deal with
the important events of the times. When
the new leaders shall have received their
credentials from the people, they should
not sit motionless in the shadow of the
colossal memories of American statesmen
dead and gone. They should realize that
America in the past has developed men who
were competent to deal with the weighty
questions of the hour.
The great men of the past have stepped
from life's stage, but their gift to the
people is in statutes and constitutional
amendments.
Never in her history did America need
more capable men in the control of her
governmental affairs than at the present
time. It is the time now; for leaders—that
is, leaders in the truest sense—men who
can compare favorably in mental stature
with the giant intellects of the statesmen
in the days agone.
There is a chance to-day for the develop-
ment of a leadership that shall win the con-
fidence of the people, because this country
is stirred to its depth, and as an eminent
politician remarks, "There never wasa time
since the abolition of slavery when the
masses were so profoundly agitated as now
by the injustice of modern society and the
unequal distribution of its privileges and
its burdens."
Let us hope that the incoming Congress
may develop men to whom the people can
turn with instinctive confidence in their
ability to successfully maintain the honor,
dignity and the credit of America at home
as well as abroad.
* *
Mi
Trade in Boston is not particularly at
variance with trade in other commercial
centers. It is all nonsense for men to talk-
even on the fringe of summer that there is
no business. There is, and some firms are
doing a satisfactory trade without even
having interjected that oft-repeated and
chestnutty phrase, "times considered."
There is trade; of course sporadic, and the
men who are specially favored are the ones
who are metaphorically divesting them-
selves of superfluous garments and going
out hustling for it.
Now. I do not wish to be misunderstood
as to the term hustling being interpreted
to mean to go out on the road and force
goods abnormally beyond the power of dis-
tribution. I do not mean in the vernacular
of the day, that it is simply to "load a
dealer up" with a lot of stock for which he
has no immediate demand, and which he
accepts with the assurance that he doesn't
have to reimburse the manufacturer for
them unless it is convenient for him to do
so; in other words, taken at his own time.
I do not mean that. Because I consider
that it is just such methods that have in
the main a demoralizing effect upon trade.
There is another meaning to the term
hustling, and that is a careful analysis of
the business environments and conditions
of the men upon whom the manufacturer
relies for the distribution of his wares, an
encouragement to him in the way of some
local aid furnished by a salesman—close
consultation as to the best methods of dis-
posing of instruments and as to the needs
of the purchasers—in the line of case effects
and of detail work in the building and con-
struction of a piano which is essential to-
day, perhaps more so than ever before in
music trade history.
It is the men who conduct the business
on those modern and progressive lines of
keeping thoroughly in touch with the
dealer, studying his wants, and not in plac-
ing a stone wall of resistance against any
suggestion made by the man who sells the
goods.
If it were possible to hold a mental au-
topsy on the men who to-day conduct
successful business enterprises, that autopsy
would disclose the fact that they are the
men who seek earnestly to keep in touch in
every particular down to the minutest with
their trade. They realize fully that the
age is evolutionistic, and that forward, not
backward, the spirit of progression runs as
we go spinning down the endless grooves
of time.
I enjoyed a pleasant morning chat with
Mr. Geo. W. Seaverns, the well-known
piano action manufacturer, of Cambridge-
port, Mass. Mr. Seaverns is one of the
veterans of the trade, and throughout his
long career he has not only worked in touch
with pianoforte manufacturers, but has also
anticipated their wants by producing up-
to-date actions in every respect. In the
course of the many years which the
Seaverns action has been before the trade
it has found a resting place in thousands of
American homes. The trade of this con-
cern has not alone been confined to the
Boston manufacturers, but the largest
manufacturers in New York and in the
West have also been extensive buyers of
the Seaverns product.
The Seaverns, father and sons, take a
pride in their work which is clearly evi-
denced in the excellence of the product
which they are turning out.
* *
Sylvester Tower was in a reminiscent
mood when I dropped in to see him. No
matter how many failures there are, or how
deeply he may be involved, Mr. Tower
never loses the equanimity of temper for
which he is noted. Five minutes after the
report of some big failure in which he is
largely interested, he can discuss a hunting
tale or fishing story with just as ir.uch ease
and apparent relish as though the failure
were removed far beyond all possibility of
contact with him. In other words, he
never permits himself to be disturbed.
When I discussed the position of the
second mortgage holders on the property
formerly owned by Napoleon J. Haines
fH s rc, he appeared as unconcerned as though
his chances of recovering his money were
not entirely wiped out by the recent sale,
which they were, by the way, beyond per-
adventure.
Down at the Chickering factory I met.
Mr. George A. Endicott, and with him dis-
cussed trade and other matters. Mr. En-
dicott is calm—logical and argumentative
in his make up. He believes in calling a
spade a spade, but just because it is a spade
he doesn't believe that it will remove much
earth unless there is sufficient physical
force behind it.
He believes that while the Chickering
name and fame is great, that without
proper administrative and executive ability
behind it it would not retain its present
proud position. In other words, only the
firms who infuse the spirit of modern en-
terprise in their business calculations can
be successful. Tradition helps and assists,
but does not insure. In these days of
close business competition a firm must be
either active or passive; if passive, then