Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR.
• I t F P W A P n LYIYIAN BILL-t—s
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,
$300.
ADVERTISEHENTS, &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 Setmd
Clasi Matter,
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 30, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER, t745-«EIGHTEENTH STREET.
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.
by some. We take the position that great
celebrations in such a city as New York
are really a source of demoralization to
business raiher than an acceleration. Trade
becomes disorganized—fitful—and it is a
long time before the city assumes its nor-
mal condition. The fever has been high
and it must be reduced before the patient
is in good form. Still there will be bar-
rels of money change hands in our city,
and red lights will be burned galore, yet
to our minds, in a business way, the city
would be infinitely better off without all
this fuss and feathers.
T~\EWEY, Dewey, Dewey everywhere,
and, owing to the fact that we must
join with the procession, The Review is
issued on Thursday morning instead of
Saturday—this in order that we may strain
our necks looking, and hoarsen our voi-
ces shouting, for Dewey.
TRUSTS AND TRADE MARKS.
1VJO man who is familiar with the busi-
TRADE BENEFITS.
ness situation to-day can deny the
'T'HE benefits of the Dewey celebration fact that while the trust craze has subsided
to the piano industry of this city will to a considerable degree, there is still a
be felt, we believe, only in an indirect way. marked inclination on the part of the peo-
The tens of thousands of people who will ple to enter into combinations which we
crowd New York for the next few days modernly term trusts.
will not come here for the purpose of mak-
This is the age of combination or con-
ing such serious purchases as pianos and centration of capital. The cry of the hour
other expensive home accessories. Their is the lessening of expense in every de-
patronage will be immediately felt by the partment of business activity. There is
hotels, the cafes, the theatres and in cer- one line, however, that thus far even the
tain departments of the great dry goods management of trusts have not been suc-
establishments.
cessful in cutting down. That is the legit-
A number of dealers have been postpon- imate advertising expense.
ing their fall visit to New York until the
The argument has been advanced that
city put on its holiday garb to receive as trusts control the market there will be
Dewey, therefore there will be a goodly no necessity thereafter to advertise the
number of orders left at the factories. goods, inasmuch as the people must neces-
Still, these orders would have come any- sarily call for the article.
how, and cannot be credited to the Dewey
Let us see whether this will bear analy-
influx.
sis. To begin with, there are very few
As far as the warerooms go, visitors to commodities, so termed, that are so abso-
the city will be overtaxed too much with lutely essential to mankind that people
excitement to become liberal patrons of cannot enjoy life in a moderate way with-
industrial art. They will rather seek en- out them. We hear the cry made now and
joyment, for that is what they are here for, then that certain individuals both in the
making, perhaps, a few trifling purchases. industrial and political world are indispen-
On the whole, we cannot expect much re- sable, yet when they die or are crushed out,
tail trade during the week. On the con- it is astonishing how this old world swings
trary, in our opinion, the week in local down the grooves of time without their
warerooms will be decidedly off color in presence. Take some of the great men of
every way. Our own people are in too this trade and it was thought that their
much of a state of nervous enthusiasm to loss would be keenly felt. Some how or
think seriously about purchases at present. other the industry swings right along, and
The week following, too, will be dull, for it is so of the necessaries of commerce,
a surfeit of good things always brings and "out of sight out of mind" is largely
about a re-action.
true of most of them.
These great celebrations we do not
If a piano is not well advertised and con-
consider a benefit to the local trade in stantly kept before the trade and the pub-
the way that they are generously estimated lic it loses its hold, and consequently its
demand. This holds good in the case of
any particular or unique article, and it is
doubly true where the commodity in itself
is only one of a class where in the usual
course of business there would be brisk
competition. It would be suicidal under
such conditions for any combination, how-
ever long on money it might be, or appa-
rently having control of the market, to
stop advertising.
i
It would be more true in the case of
pianos than in almost any other article
which we may mention, inasmuch as the
trade mark or good name of a piano
figures as an important item in the assets
of the corporation possessing it. To ignore
this and permit it to become lost from
memory is to destroy one of the chief
assets of a business.
There are many ways to advertise
pianos, and some of our great institutions
have been fertile in their resourceful ad-
vertising because they have realized that
certain classes of advertising raise their
wares above ordinary competition, that is
above purely a price competition, and they
know too that to once let the well earned
reputation of an article be forgotten, or let
the idea creep out that such and such a
concern is a back number, it loses valu-
able ground which will cost an immense
amount of money to regain in days to
come.
No, it pays to keep prominently before
the world in which one is transacting busi-
ness. This is the age of keen-cut compe-
tition, and of combinations, but no com-
bination can ever be made which can af-
ford to ignore publicity. In other words,
it is publicity which counts in every enter-
prise, and it is through the medium ship of
the press that publicity is gained. Even
the prowess of Dewey would only have
reached a very ordinary prominence had
it not been through the mediumship of
the papers which have placed him promi-
nently before every people on earth. Dewey
is the most popular and best advertised
man of the day.
DEWEY WEEK.
T^HIS is Dewey week, and New York is
going to do herself proud in receiving
the great Admiral, who will have been
sighted off our shores ere this issue of
The Review reaches its readers. Every
war has had its popular hero, and the
national sentiment to-day is crystallized in
the hero of Manila, who was comparatively
unknown when he sailed away from these
shores, and who upon his return is the
most talked about — the most popular
American of to-day. Probably no face of
the present time is more familiar to the
people throughout America than that of