Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
TH
MUSIC TRADE
dealer cannot establish prices that will apply outside of his local
agency and the territory he controls, and that the same piano may
be sold in adjoining territory at lower, or at cut prices, or even much
higher. In other words, the one price, if fairly worked out, must
have the support of the men who manufacture the product.
It is not "one price" in the truest sense if a dealer establishes
one price on a particular grade of piano, when another in adjoining
territory, who also has one price, is willing to mark that price several
dollars below number one.
Inasmuch as the railroads bring remote territory into quick
connection to-day, it is necessary that national prices be established
on instruments of repute, and when The Review began work along
these lines years ago, it was with the view of advancing logical argu-
ments which should win the support of the thinking element of the
trade, who would see that their interests would be best protected
by the establishment of a national one price.
W
E have conducted this one price campaign along quiet, digni-
fied lines without tlamboyancy and without pyrotechuical
effects, and it is gratifying to know that the dealers themselves are
now inclining to the establishment of one price by the manufactur-
ers. That is the real key to the one price situation.
It is not in harmony with business principles that the same
style of a certain make of leading piano shall be sold higher in
one locality ilian in another which closely adjoins. 15y permitting
the matter t* remain open and allowing the dealer to adjust his
price, the manufacturers themselves are opening the doors for pos-
sible misrepresentation of their products. The whole country is
brought into the closest touch daily, and if a certain style of piano
is worth $500, the regular market value, which permits the dealer a
handsome profit, it is not worth $550, the price named by the grasp-
ing dealer across the territorial border line. Inasmuch as the whole
business plan nowadays is that of elimination of false principles, it
will simplify the whole piano business to have one price established
by the manufacturer—it will do away at a single stroke with mis-
representation, and will place every piano in its proper class, place it
there by the men who make the goods, and who will not place other
than a fair valuation upon their product.
T
H E business man is being forced to take a more active in-
terest in the political affairs of the Nation than heretofore.
This pressure is being brought about by the fact that politics are
beginning to seriously interfere with business, hence it becomes
necessary that the business man must take an interest in the regula-
tion of public affairs in order to safeguard his own interests. In
former years the great discussions on the forum, in the halls of
legislation, or in the press, were conducted on academic lines. There
was an overabundance of theory at times evident, and a lack of
some common sense, but now that politics are beginning to directly
affect business, the merchant and manufacturer is beginning to
gradually take the place so long occupied by the lawyer, the min-
ister and the college professor. He is beginning to realize that
nine-tenths of the questions which are up for discussion in the world
of economic philosophy, are those .which touch the pocketbooks of
the individual and affect the net results of the firms, the companies,
and the corporations. In other words, this is an era in which busi-
ness questions are predominating, and the business man is having
more and more to sav as to their eventual solution.
W
E are, to-day, facing a situation in the Empire State which
is of the utmost, importance, not only to our citizens, but
to the residents of every other State in the Federal Union, for
there is nothing more dangerous in this country than to encourage
and stimulate class hatred, to tell the employee by insidious and false
statements that the men who employ them are their enemies.
No true American can support such theories, and any man who
advances them, if he is nominated by any political organization,
should be cut by every supporter of American principles. This
countrv affords an opportunity for the most humble to rise in the
intellectual and financial scale. Take in our own industry, there
are few in. it in'deed who have been born to wealth. They are all
self-made men : many of them have worked at the bench and take
pride in the fact that they have developed from humble workmen
into owners of successful manufacturing enterprises. Their pdvance
rellects honor upon their ability and is a credit to the country which
permits even man to have a square, deal. As long as any inequali-
REVIEW
ties of brain exist, there will be inequalities of wealth, and to en-
courage a socialistic belief is working incalculable harm to the true
American principles.
T
l 1E talking machine business has advanced at a phenomenal
pace in this country. It has simply eclipsed all of the early
predictions made for its growth. There is no slackening at all in
the demands for this popular product; on the contrary, there is an
increased call for talking machines from all parts of the world.
The "talker" is not only an entertainer, but it is an educator,
and now in the political campaign in this State it is being used as a
substitute on the platform for various absentee politicians. Last
year it was used in England, and several candidates had records
made of their speeches and huge lithographs of themselves which
were displayed in various cities while the talking machine was
reading off their speeches.
The same plan is being followed out this year in our own
State, and so in the political campaign which is now waxing warm
the talking machine conies in for its full share of publicity.
T
HE exposition scheme is being a trifle overdone. Next year
we are to have a show at Jamestown, Va., and now the people
of the far northwest are endeavoring to get support for the Alaskan-
Yukon Pacific Exposition in 1910. Certainly the people of that
far northwestern town have taken the initiatory in rather a deter-
mined manner. They decided that they wished to raise a half
million dollars before they could advertise the scheme, and they did
this in a single day, and before dark the amount of subscriptions
with twenty-five per cent, paid in had gone far ahead of five hun-
dred thousand. That settles the financial end of the enterprise for
a while, and now who will strive for honors at the Alaskan Exposi-
tion ? Who would have thought twenty-five years ago that an ex-
position would be held in which the name of Alaska would be a
drawing card? Strange things the whirl-a-gig of time brings forth!
T
HE law should afford every manufacturer the fullest protec-
tion in the name which he, through the outlay of energy and
capital, makes a valuable asset. We have in this trade some names
which obviously are used in order that the dealer may palm them
off upon trie public as the genuine. In fact, so close is the re-
semblance that even some of the dealers themselves get the origin
of the instruments confused. There are plenty of names to select
which do not in the slightest trespass upon the rights of other
manufacturers if the intent of the person be honest, but as a matter
of fact there are some who will attempt to profit by the work and
capital of others. Dealers can show their belief in high-minded
trade methods by emphatically refusing to handle instruments which
are intended to trade upon the reputation of manufacturers, who
have made their names trade-marks of great value.
Trade conditions to-day are such that it is not necessary, if
it ever was, to carry instruments upon which lurks the slightest taint
of dishonor. The reputation of "the industry is injured by shady
transactions, and a manufacturer should be protected by the best
element of the trade against any encroachments upon his rights, by
a hearty support from dealers in every section of the Union. If
the trade is to be made and continued on a healthy basis, it must be
by the hearty co-operation of right-minded men who are actively
engaged in making and marketing the product of this industry.
T hand this week are a number of brochures which evidence
great care and taste in their preparation, and in them are
incorporated letters from leading artists and musicians, who have
not hesitated to praise the instruments created by the firms sending
out this literature in the warmest possible manner.
All this kind of literature is helpful to the general interests of
the trade, and anything which aims to belittle or damage the en-
dorsements which artists pay to certain instruments, is calculated to
injure the standard of the industry in the estimation of the piano
purchasing public. The artistic side has been the mainstay of the
trade, it helped to dignify it, and if the piano business is to be up-
held upon a high plane it must be largely through the artistic piano,
and through its association with artists and musicians of renown.
The reason of affiliations between manufacturer and artist interests
no one, but the artistic standing of a piano is of interest to every
owner of a piano in America.
A