Music Trade Review

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TWENTY-FIRST YEAR.
• EDWARD LYMAN BILL-
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
Mexico and Canada, f axxs per year ; all other countries,
$300.
ADVERTISEriENTS, $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 Clou Matter.
NEW YORK, -SEPTEMBER 16, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745-EIGHTEENTH STREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review wilt
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.
BUSINESS CONDITIONS.
""THE stars in the piano firmament are
shining brightly, and everyone is
brimful of business buoyancy. There is
activity in every department of the indus-
try, and the reports which come from
every mart of trade as to the conditions of
business covering retail and manufactur-
ing interests, are most encouraging. They
give emphasis to the fact that we have
reached a most successful and prosperous
era, and that the piano trade is now enjoy-
ing conditions to which it has been to a
large extent a stranger for some years
past.
As we cast retrospective glances back
we are forced to admit that the route tra-
versed was at times exceedingly difficult,
but we may now congratulate ourselves
that we have reached the turn in the road
which promises to lead to greater things
than all that has gone before.
Manufacturing activity is confined to no
particular section of the country. East,
West, North and South, the piano fac-
tories are busily engaged trying to keep
up to the orders which are pouring in upon
them and which show no signs of dimin-
ishing. Many manufacturers are unable
to cope with orders now on hand, and
there are others simply snowed under,
the product of their factories being sold
for months to come.
In retail warerooms there is a surprising
activity when we consider that September
is still young. From reports which have
reached us from the largest cities of the
Union we may say that there has been no
year for a long time that has chronicled
such a healthy movement of goods so early
TRADE REVIEW
in September. New* York, in which the
trade season has been growing later and
later every year has shown a surprising
spurt during early September. In outside
lines there is also every encouragement,
and the last quartet of this year should
score in aggregate sales the highest point
ever reached in the history of industrial
America.
This latter statement is emphasized by
reports from the railroad companies which
have been caught short of cars already in
the season. The shipment of goods from
the factories in some lines has been largely
delayed owing to this special cause.
In the West, too, railroad managers admit
of their utter inability to supply cars to
carry the crops to the sea-board.
Take it all in all there is every reason
for the encouragement of the most optimis-
tic feeling. One thing is certain, the men
or corporation that fail to make a fair
showing in 1899 will De ruled out of the
race entirely hereafter.
THE MISSION OF TRADE PAPERS.
TT is a pretty difficult matter for a trade
paper to satisfy everyone, and if it
were published with that stole intent, the
editor would probably be in the hot water
of argument during his occupancy of the
editorial chair.
Happily though there are but compar-
atively few members of this industry who
doubt that trade papers have a definite
mission to accomplish. Nearly all piano
manufacturers have come to look upon the
journals which are progressive, fair and
independent as being of material benefit
to them; still, there is a little missionary
work to perform, as there are some who
are still languishing in the outer darkness
of doubt. There are also others who make
singular comments and criticisms upon
the work of trade journals. They wonder
why so and so's name is mentioned so fre-
quently and a report is made of his where-
abouts. They do not understand why the
fact should be chronicled that he is out of
town. They want to let Smith of Smith-
onia die without hardly noticing it. They
fail to understand why it should be chron-
icled when Jones of Jonesville takes a vaca-
tion. They don't want the topics of the
day touched upon. Strikes should go
unmentioned. Personals should be ex-
cluded; write-ups never should appear—
they are as gross an imposition upon the
reader as the stories which open up with
an extract of Kipling and close with a
Radway's Ready Relief advertisement.
And there are others who say, why write
things just as they are? Talk good times
whether they are good or not.
It is of little use to remonstrate with such
men. Jones, of Jonesville, would feel it a
personal injury if his friend Smith wasn't
"sumptuously obited" and even his ene-
mies would also enjoy his obituary and
characterize the paper as valueless which
failed to give all this pleasurable informa-
tion.
They forget that members of the trade
constitute a family, and are known to each
other, if not always personally, then by
reputation, and that family news is more
or less interesting to the family.
As far as personal write-ups go, when a
trade paper has reached a sufficiently com-
manding position to exclude all work of
this character from its columns, then it
will be ample time to think about the mil-
lennium, which just now appears a trifle
distant. The fact is, the work of the edi-
tor who seeks to build an interesting pub-
lication is a long ways from being a sine-
cure. There is hard and serious. work
which he encounters sixteen hours out of
the twenty-four; work which never comes to
the-fellow, who, with scissors and pot, turns
out a paper in an hour's careless work.
We claim, too, that it is not good jour-
nalism to always paint things in glowing
colors. The Review has advanced materi-
ally in trade esteem, because it has always
endeavored to portray things as they actu-
ally exist, and not just as we would desire
them. Our means of information are ex-
tensive, and while our utterances may not
have at all times been agreeable reading,
yet they have come to be looked upon by a
large portion of the trade as representing
fairly accurate statements of conditions as
they really exist.
A most important feature in trade paper
work is the trade report. We ask, is it
good judgment to say trade is good when
everybody in the business knows to the
contrary ? We do not believe it is, and
while it is best to refrain from painting
gloomy conditions, we believe that no
picture at all is better than one which is a
travesty on truth. If trade is slow, then
it does no harm to say so. There is no
use to cover everything with the white-
wash of untruth. There has been too
much of that in times past, and the mem-
bers of the industry are being educated to
the point when they know there are trade
papers in this industry whose utterances
fairly reflect the conditions of the times as
they actually exist.
A few years ago the trade paper was an
innovation. To-day it is a necessity. New
conditions create new needs, and the trade
paper is one. The merchant requires to
know what others are doing, what goods
are selling, and what are the latest ideas