Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
tions which stand for business purity
should be commended and heartily en-
dorsed.
Owing to the lack of authentic informa-
tion concerning financial standing of indi-
viduals and firms credit bureaus have been
organized by different industries and have
been already productive of incalculable
benefit to the legitimate trade.
Our own trade organization is moving
along correct lines when it encourages the
credit system idea. Many of the best
dealers have endorsed the system.
«
The necessity of united action on impor-
tant questions of the day becomes more and
more apparent with the passing of the years.
The isolated manufacturer is beginning to
learn that he has much in common with his
brother manufacturer, and that on certain
lines it pays to act together. Thus is
much energy saved which would be ex-
pended with more satisfactory results in
other ways.
THE VALUE OF TRADE PAPERS.
DECENTLY while discussing trade top-
ics with The Review, Wm. Steinert
remarked: "I read my music trade paper
as carefully as I read the financial reports
in the daily papers. There is many a bit
of information which I glean from them
which I find at once of advantage to me in
my business, and I do not see how
any intelligent dealer can be without at
least two trade papers. They not only
keep one informed upon what is going on
in the trade, what our competitors are do-
ing, what our manufacturers are produc-
ing, and all of that, but there are many
times when a suggestion is made or a theo-
ry presented which we can quickly shape
to our own business. I believe that manu-
facturers receive the best kind of return
T H E question of credits is a very impor-
for money spent in the legitimate trade
tant one and has recently been taken
press, and I believe further that a good
up by regular associations of credit men
many would advance their position materi-
having local branches in the leading cities
ally if they would spend more rather than
of the United States. In this way they are
less money with the trade papers."
getting at the foundation of facts concern-
A PIANO merchant, writing from Des
ing merchants and business men, for prob-
Moines, la., says: "Business has
ably one-half of the mercantile agency re-
ports are not based upon facts, but merely been unexampled. Nothing to equal it in
are iinsupported statements made by some our history, nor do we see anything pend-
individuals for the purpose of obtaining ing to check it. Elections certainly will
credits.
not, for with us there is no apprehension or
The aim of the National Piano Manu- excitement. With prosperity so evident
facturers' Association in this direction is the people cannot be induced to favor a
most commendable. It is the intention change. Better let well enough alone,
evidently of this organization to throw the seems to be the almost universal feeling
network of protection around the legitimate here." How exceedingly pleasant! If all
and honest dealers and shield them against thought the same, would there be the least
the dead-beat.
slackening in enterprise if the continuance
There is no question but that concerted of the present administration were assured?
action will eliminate entirely the. dead-beat Would even the smallest enterprise be
dealer from all lines of trade and organiza- endangered?
There is no reason that New Orleans, now
that she has entered upon an evolutionistic
era, should not occupy a more prominent
position commercially than ever before.
There is a time coming too in the history
of the Crescent City, when its relations with
other parts of the world will be greatly
enlarged. When the Chicago Drainage
Canal is extended so that there is a deep
water way to the Mississippi, the channel
widened to New Orleans, it will mean that
the commerce of the great heart of the
country can be drained southward and
sent to all the world by the way of the
Gulf of Mexico.
To those of us who viewed the wonder-
ful results of modern engineering as evi-
denced in the great Drainage Canal during
the Piano Manufacturers' Convention in
Chicago, it became evident that the future
of that wonderful river—for it certainly
reaches the dignity of a river—in the dis-
"Just think what a great card it would tribution of the agricultural and manu-
have been. I could have printed on those factured products of the heart of the Con-
books: 'The rough road to Jordan will tinent in years to come, can scarcely be
seem smooth if you will ride over it on a estimated. With the scheme which is well
:
wheel'; or 'Ride
bicy- begun carried to completion, ocean-going
cles over the straight and narrow path'; or vessels could carry through cargoes from
'Coast to celestial bliss on
wheels.' the great lakes South through the Canal,
My, it would have been great! But I am Des Plaines and Mississippi Rivers to New
not sacrilegious; and, besides, the books Orleans, from thence to the different parts
were going to people who would hardly of the world.
know a bicycle if they met one in the
It may be a decade before these changes
road."
are brought about, but they will come
T N the magazines and weeklies for the eventually, and then New Orleans will play
month appears prominently displayed a vastly important part in America's grow-
cards of various advertisers who have won ing commercial relations in the different
awards at the Paris Exposition. There is parts of the world. The dreams of her
one thing, the premiums were not so uni- early founders as a city of future com-
versally distributed, therefore cannot be mercial greatness will then be realized.
used so generally as were those granted at
Chicago.
CREDIT REPORTS.
miscuous advertising meets many queer
schemes for booming business, 99 per
cent, of them being absolutely worthless.
A boomer of a well known cycle company
is visited every day by an average of 200
people of this kind. It requires a special
knack to be able to turn them down with-
out making them angry.
"The oddest scheme that has been pre-
sented to me in a long time," he said,
"came from a clerical-looking man who
announced his business in a most serious
tone. 'I am,' said he, 'a missionary,
working in a rough section of Illinois. I
could make a bicycle useful in my business.
I have just secured a lot of 200 bibles to
be distributed among the poor of my sec-
tion, and if you will give me a wheel I
will let you print an advertisement on the
fly-leaf of the bibles!' I had to turn the
good man down, but I was sorely tempted
to take him up.
FUTURE GREATNESS.
TIRADE in the South, according to the
views of some piano dealers, is the
best ever known. One of the prominent
merchants in New Orleans remarked
recently: " T h e South is enjoying a
boom unexampled in her history. Every-
thing has favored us, and New Orleans in
particular. Perfected drainage, thorough
street cleaning and other sanitary improve-
ments have materially lowered the death
rate of our city, which marks a new era for
New Orleans. Yellow fever has long been
our bugaboo; nothing has so retarded our
growth as the direful association in the
minds of the public—New Orleans and
yellow fever. The new sanitary era now
entered upon is a proclamation to the
world that the bonds heretofore existing
between our city and yellow fever are about
to be broken, and a divorce thus applied for
will undoubtedly be gran-ted. '•'