Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
Mexico and Canada, $2.00 per year ; all other countries,
$3.00.
ADVERTISEnENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special dis-
count is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite read-
ing matter $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Clast Matter,
NEW YORK, AUGU>T 20, 1898.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 174S--EIQHTEENTH SIREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review will
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
PEACE AND PROSPERITY.
""THE war clouds are broken, and the
sunshine of prosperity is flooding the
land. The calamity howler has gone into
permanent retirement. The glorious out-
look which now opens before the Nation is
too much for him. From manufacturers
and dealers, in nearly every industry
North, South, East and West, come the
good tidings of an immediate renewal of a
great revival of trade, with fall prospects
brighter than they have been since 1892.
The views expressed are not the result
of enthusiasm or an ultra-optimistic feel-
ing over our great triumphs on land and
sea and the conclusion of the war, but are
rather based on a sober analysis of condi-
tions as they exist to-day in public places,
in mills, in factories and railroad and gen-
eral trade. In this connection can be in-
cluded the settlement of the tariff, the en-
largement of our territory, the good crops,
the prosperity of the Government in its
revenue, the balance of trade in our favor,
and the remarkable force with which our
products, fostered by a protective tariff,
are pushing out to all the markets of the
world.
. . ..:
It would be wrong and unwise to unduly
exaggerate the present bright outlook, for
"booms" are always unhealthy and the
re-action from them is apt to be serious,
but no one who has considered this matter
in its all-important phases can deny that
unless all signs fail the United States will
do a larger business in the next six months
than during any like period for the last
five years.
Some months ago we published a com-
prehensive review of business conditions
and prospects in the. music trade industry
contributed by leading dealers and manu-
facturers. The predictions then made are
already being realized, and the best fea-
ture of the present day situation is that busi-
ness this fall will be based on absolutely
substantial conditions. There will be a
large and healthy volume of trade in all
lines and little skyrocket inflation of ma-
terial valtres.
With the era of prosperity we trust will
disappear the era of "cheapness" which
has been too prevalent in many lines of
industry, more particularly the music
trade. Better prices must be obtained.
There must be a reform in the business
methods of the last three years and a new
order of things inaugurated in the matter
of prices. The people are wealthy enough
to pay a fair price for a fair article, and
manufacturers and dealers should present
a united front in demanding it.
" STICKTOITIVENESS."
OTICKTOITIVENESS" is a charac-
teristic which always wins success
in this world. The man who takes up any
line of work and sticks to it through thick
and thin is absolutely certain to succeed,
provided, of course, he has the qualifica-
tions necessary to command success. And
we do not believe there are many men who
can not succeed in making a fair compe-
tence at least, provided they keep persist-
ently at it and do not allow discourage-
ments or difficulties of any kind to stop
them. The trouble with so many men is
that they become discouraged at the out-
set and give up. But the difficulties they
have to encounter and which are sufficient
to cause them to desist are no greater than
those other men, now in the front ranks of
industrial workers, have been compelled
to encounter. They kept pegging away
in spite of them and finally surmounted
them, and so can every man. Pluck, pa-
tience and persistence are the qualities
needed, and armed with these there is no
need for any man to say that he can not
succeed. Business is bound to come to the
man who keeps everlastingly after it.
u
MAY LEAD THE WORLD.
O AYS a London paper: " A new United
States, now one of the great powers
of the world, has' been created by the
Spanish-American war." While this trib-
ute is as true as it is well deserved, it
must be understood that we have always
been a great power, but it is only now
that the world is realizing it—realizing it
as much in the commercial field as through
the great achievements of our arms.
. For twenty-five years the American
manufacturer has confined himself to do-
mestic trade, and the foreign markets
have been to a large extent ignored by
him. Now, however, rapidly increasing
production, and resultant competition at
home, have diminished in a measure the
large percentage of profit in business, so
that, in order to dispose of our large pro-
duction, we have been compelled to get
out into the world's markets, and compete
with the goods of other nations.
The showing made for the past twelve
months in this connection is cheering. It
has stimulated the manufacturers of the
entire country; it has given them courage
and has been a lesson to the over-cautious
and skeptical, and the result is, we are all
commencing to realize the value of a
foreign market—in fact, the necessity of
being a greater and a more influential fac-
tor in that field than was thought of as
late as twelve months ago.
And it can be safely relied upon that the
spirit of industry and energy so inherent
in the American character will enabje the
manufacturer of this country to obtain at
least a fair share of the foreign markets in
all parts of the world, and his activity will
not be deterred by the prospects of the
long term of prosperity and fair profits
now in view at home.
We only need the assistance and the
moral support from Governmental author-
ities and American manufacturers will
lead the world. Of course to secure
foreign markets our manufacturers must
make a study of the wants, tastes and
customs of the peoples to whom it is
proposed to sell their wares, and after this
knowledge is gained those tastes must be
catered to.
We have left much undone in this mat-
ter; therefore, there is much to be done.
Our young men should be sent to South
America, not only to our new possessions,
Porto Rico and Cuba, but to all the promi-
nent countries in the South American con-
tinent, to learn the Spanish language and
to study the tastes and wishes of the
people by living among them for a term of
years. The same course should be observ-
ed in the matter of European and Oriental
markets. Then we might follow Germany's
example by establishing and fostering
trade schools. Thus it can be seen that
American manufacturers have much to do
to achieve that success which should be of
the fullest measure.
In the music trade field the European
papers concede the possibility of our
pianos, organs and small musical instru-
ments becoming a still more influential
feature of their import trade. The main