Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
C
ASES have been brought to our notice where certain dealers
have asked exorbitant prices for high-grade instruments in
certain instances amounting to $100, and even $150, more than the
manufacturer .asks for the same pianos in his own warerooms. This
is simply for the purpose of making the gap wide between the repu-
table high-grade instruments and the "just as good" which the
dealers offer as a substitute. The dealer who indulges in the game
of substitution is open to criticism from many points of view. In
the first place, he is ungrateful to the men who manufacture and
who through widespread publicity promote the piano man's business
and profits. They have created instruments which lend luster to the
industry and help to dignify it. If a man spends hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in advertising, and as a result sends customers to a
piano establishment, it is extremely ungrateful, as well as dishonest,
for the piano man to prevent the normal sale and, for the sake of a
few extra dollars, substitute an inferior piano, cheating the customer
thereby—a customer who had confidence in his honesty because the
well-known piano name was flaunted as a badge of mercantile honor.
S
UBSTITUTION is dishonest toward the public, whether it is
pianos or anything else. If a customer asks a dealer for a
certain piano, he expects that the piano merchant will be honest with
him. He has a right to demand it, but in many cases they have
something which is substituted as "just as good," or better, in the
way of a special brand piano, which they put out with the state-
ment that "it is made bearing my own name and made under my
patents, and I know just what it contains. I have been in the piano
business many years, and I have the concentrated knowledge of all
of the manufacturers in the business, and as a result of this great
knowledge on my part, behold the piano, and only half the price of
the original!"
A customer is won over to the idea of saving a fair amount of
dollars, and buys the cheap instrument which was put forth as "just
as good." As a matter of fact, the dealer whose name is on the
piano simply patronizes one of the numerous concerns that make a
business of putting on the market the cheap pianos, with any name
thereon and at any old price.
better class of dealers all over the country should unite in
JL the various cities, and insert a card in the local papers caution-
ing the people to only buy pianos bearing the name of the makers.
The expense when divided among several would be very slight as
compared with the tremendous benefits which might be secured
theref rcm.
Suppose, we will say, that the dealers in Cleveland would carry
a card in the papers of that city headed "Caution to piano buyers."
Then to follow with a brief argument stating why the people should
insist upon having instruments bearing the makers' name only, and
to not be taken with the "just as good" argument. The names of all
the dealers could appear in connection with the advertisement.
I
F this plan were followed it would have the effect of driving the
dealer who relies upon the "just as good" argument to make
his living by deceiving the public out of business. And there could
be no better way in which to call the attention of the public to the
fact that the name of the maker should be a shield which should
protect the home purchaser. This system of substitution encourages
dishonesty and misrepresentation. It discourages the work of ener-
getic and ambitious men. It is the duty of the best trade element
to stop the practice, which it can easily do by cultivating the belief
that piano purchasers should only patronize those merchants who
sell the genuine article, and not the "just as good."
O
UR attention has recently been drawn to a practice adopted by
a dealer in an Ohio town who has been charged with show-
ing the wholesale invoices of pianos received from a large piano
manufacturing firm whose agency he formerly held. This was
withdrawn from him for good reason .some time last year. This
man should know better than to adopt such a course to injure the
firm, and he hardly realizes what dangerous ground he stands on ;
because if this firm desired to retaliate it could place a combina-
tion of salesmen in and around his town, so that the trade of the
offending dealer would be entirely cut off, and perhaps it would be
only fair to give this man rather a severe lesson. It would be
a costly one, and there are times when it requires something more
than tufts of grass to bring the bad piano boy down from the. tree,
E
VEN the railroad leaders now admit the value of good will as
an asset. Theodore P. Shonts, the new head of the Inter-
borough Rapid Transit Company, and late chief engineer of the
Panama Canal, speaking at a dinner of the Iowa Society at the Wal-
dorf-Astoria last week, admitted that the railroad corporations have
done much to justify hostility against them, and that in the upbuild-
ing of their properties they have done things which were morally
wrong, although legally right.
He pronounced the situation extremely grave, and declared it to
be absolutely necessary for railroad corporations to have the good
will of the public.
"It is the best and biggest asset any corporation can acquire,"
he said, "and personally I believe that if you treat the public fairly
you will get its good will and fair treatment in return. No stream
can rise higher than its source, and public sentiment is the foun-
tain head of all things American. If we cannot trust it we had
better go out of business, or sooner or later it will put us out.
"The American public is willing to pay reasonable rates," he
declared, "but it wants and is entitled to adequate returns. Nothing
so appeals to it as good service."
S
ICKNESS, like politics, interferes seriously with business, and
we wonder sometimes whether the Pullman officials, through
their system, are not great contributors to the spread of disease, and
thus through their instrumentality depress business at times. To
illustrate: Thirty human beings sit in a parlor sleeping car; they
approach their destination, and in comes the colored porter with the
national American desire to accumulate wealth. He figures that
each passenger should help to pay the salary which Pullman does
not, and he desires to do something to earn it. He says to the first
man, as he lifts his hat from the hook, "Brush you off?" Up gets
the man, and stands with a very foolish expression, while the porter
vigorously brushes off the dust into the lungs of the twenty-nine
other passengers. Then one after the other they breathe a sample
of the other's dust in order that the busy porter may get his reward.
It ought to be possible to give the porter what he deserves and at
the same time avoid spreading the disease germs and dust through
the lungs of his clients. It should not be necessary to tell a civilized
American that he looks and acts like a boor when he permits his
clothes to be brushed in the presence of women seated near him.
The porter who does the brushing and the man who is weak enough
to be brushed should go out on the platform and do their brushing
there. The bacilli, microbes and other destructive agencies are suffi-
ciently active without being hurled into one's face by the porter in
pursuit of a piece of silver.
W
HENEVER you hear a man in any business or profession
speaking slightingly or abusively of men who are in his
same line and of the trade or profession as a whole, it is pretty safe
to assume that the real reason for his attack lies in the fact that he
has made a failure of the business himself. For it may be admitted
as a dead certainty that the successful man has not time to enter
into lengthy chapters of abuse upon his trade or profession. He is
filled with optimism and sees sunshine all about him, but the fellow
who looks through indigo-hued glasses cannot see a bit of trade
sunshine, hence the business must be the worst on earth, and the
men in it, of course, of the lowest type.
T
HERE is no place in a trade for sensationalism, and papers
which endeavor to create an impression through the exploita-
tion of sensational items which directly relate to individuals in the
trade will fail absolutely. They hope by this means to attract atten-
tion to their publications, which without flamboyancy would pass
unnoticed. Such methods win no permanent position. The trade
paper is read by serious-minded business men, and its directors can-
not therefore successfully pursue yellow journal methods. The
matter which it contains must be germane to the industry and re-
liable in every particular, and only such papers which hold strictly
to these lines can win the respect and confidence of the men whose
interests lie in a special industry.
OYALTY to a business or loyalty to an organization is an
essential requisite to achieve success. This is the very foun-
dation of the business structure; without it, naturally, the structure
will crumble and fall into deep ruins of failure. A salesman cannot
succeed unless he is loyal to the house which he represents and loyal
tg the instruments which that house produces.
L