Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
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, $2.00 per year; all other countries,
$3.00.
ADVERTISErtENTS, $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 2Vew York Post Office o» Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER,
1745--E1OHTEENTH 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.
FREIGHTS AND PIANOS.
T H E news this week that the transporta-
. tion interests of the country are taking
steps to share in the benefits of advancing
prices means that another item will have
to be added to the many which have in-
creased the cost of pianos this season. The
Trunk lines have decided on a substantial
advance in their tariffs, and it now appears
that the officials of the Western roads are
at work on apian involving a readjustment
of tariffs throughout the West and North-
west. It is claimed that the existing rates
are too low, and were made, in fact, when
concessions were necessary in order to help
merchants and manufacturers.
During the past year there has been a
general appreciation in all lines and with
it an enlarged demand for transportation
facilities, so much so that there has been
a veritable car famine in all parts of the
country. Commenting on the situation
Bradstreet's says: " I n any other depart-
ment of business this would certainly re-
sult in an advance of rates. The repre-
sentatives of the carriers who urge such
views take the ground that they do not
wish to make or enforce abnormally high
rates. It is recognized that such action,
apart from the tendency it would have
to restrict general business, would be in-
judicious. What they, therefore, claim
is that rates should be readjusted upon an
equitable basis, or, to adopt a phrase which
was formerly heard in connection with the
railroad problem, that charges should be
made to a greater extent in accordance
with what the traffic can bear under the
present favorable conditions."
Whether the Western roads, now left
without any permanent association or gov-
erning body which could even partially
reconcile their divergent interests, will suc-
ceed in the attempt to secure higher rates
is questionable. The movement, however,
will stand watching.
Freights are an important item in all
departments of our industry, and concern
manufacturer and dealer alike. Higher
rates for transportation added to the in-
creased cost in the manufacture of pianos
and other products, due to the rise in the
price of raw materials, will tend still further
to augment prices. Dealers must govern
themselves accordingly.
QUESTIONABLE METHODS.
'"THE methods of advertising and selling
in the retail trade in leading cities,
are at present exciting no little notoriety.
Judging from the ways and means which
some dealers have adopted for developing
their business, they have apparently let
some of the old homely truths escape them.
The utilization of certain "tricks" in
trade may be considered clever, although
not allowable. Their palliation has un-
fortunately led many dealers to think that
success in these end-of-the-century days
means a breaking away from all that has
guided successful merchants in the past.
So it does, but not in the light in which
they view it. They proceed upon the
hypothesis that so and so, having made a
success by preaching one thing and practis-
ing another, it would be safe for them to
do likewise. The speciousness of this
reasoning is evident the moment it is
analyzed. Lincoln's trite but famous epi-
gram is pertinent hereto: "You may fool
all of the people part of the time, and some
of the people all the time, but you can't
fool all of the people all of the time."
Truth is the only reliable foundation on
which a successful business can be erected
and run permanently. A trade can, of
course, be worked up by persistent lying,
and in such a cosmopolitan country as
America, perhaps more successfully than
in most others. Fortunes, no doubt, are
made every year by the bold-faced, indis-
criminate advertising of lies. This, how-
ever, does not disprove the statement that
truth "wins out" in the end. The firm
who adopt the plan of misrepresentation
and falsehood in their advertising may
prosper for a time, but are they not build-
ing a reputation that is bound to collapse
sooner or later?
This preaching is not inspired by any
moral consideration of the circumstances.
It is based broadly upon business princi-
ples. The dealer can be as original, as
unique, even as erratic as he choses in his
methods of advertising; he can use large
type or small type, cuts or no cuts, but he
must be honest. Let not dishonesty be
mistaken for enterprise.
The dealer who in any way violates his
word—and his public announcements are
regarded as such—is evidently not in busi-
ness to stay. His methods are not of the
staying kind. They cannot win.
A WORLD POWER IN TRADE.
'"THE attention which American manufac-
turers, even in our own industry, are
now giving to the matter of export trade
continues to occasion much anxiety abroad,
and some surprise is manifested at the re-
cent demonstrations of the capacity of
American industrial establishments to meet
foreign wants promptly, and on an unlimit-
ed scale.
Current progress in industrial and me-
chanical development in this country has
evidently been largely underestimated or
unknown to our friends in Europe. Up
to a comparatively recent date it was
thought that the work of laying out farms,
railways and cities kept Americans too busy
to devote any time to capturing the mar-
kets of the world. For the last two years,
more particularly since the Spanish-Amer-
ican war, American enterprise, so well ex-
emplified in export trade, has been brought
so forcibly to the notice of all nations that
America is now recognized as a world pow-
er, and the policy of "expansion" in com-
merce, if not in politics, is recognized as
having come to stay.
This is emphasized by the fact that des-
pite the wide prosperity now prevailing in
all branches of trade in this country, and
which is keeping our factories busy night
and day, American manufacturers are not
neglecting the foreign markets, and this is
best evidenced in the remarkable volume
of exports of manufactured commodities
which is running in excess of previous year.
How manufacturers view this aspect
of the situation is revealed in the follow-
ing expressions of a member of the Nat-
ional Association of Manufacturers, recent-
ly returned from a foreign trip, who says:
"In spite of the difficulty we experience in
filling orders and the very large advance
in the cost of material I am losing no op-
portunity to strengthen and increase my
foreign business. I am leaving no stone
unturned to find a new customer, for I know
that there is sure to be a reaction and a de-
pression after our present period of pros-
perity. My foreign trade was of value
during the last period of depression, and if
I let it go now it will be beyond reach
when hard times come upon us again.
Those who are neglecting foreign trade be-
cause they are so busy at home are follow-
ing a short-sighted policy."
Another manufacturer, who has a large