Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
whistling it. At the first corner a street musician was singing it,
and then it flashed over me all at once that this was the song that
had made the success of Lyon & Healy's 'Signet Ring-' It was,
in short, the song that was to become one of the most popular ever
written, the song that, but for the great heart of Patrick J. Healy,
might never have seen the light of day, 'The Sweet By and By.' "
T
HEN the biographer tells how Mr. Healy went through the
great fire of '71.
To the regard, admiration and personal loyalty with which
Mr. Healy never failed to inspire all his close associates, must be
ascribed the readiness with which his Eastern friends faced the
rebuilding of the business. In the case of almost anyone else they
would have abandoned a field so fruitful of appalling disaster. As
it was, they brought about pressure to bear upon him to make cer-
tain changes, but he stood firm. "The house of Lyon & Healy must
go on just as it is," were his words, uttered with a determination
which carried all before it. The new store was located right in the
heart of the retail shopping district. The rent at that time seemed
enormous, and signs of an approaching panic were not wanting.
But somehow during these troublesome days of the early '70's,
Mr. Healy managed not only to keep afloat, but to make some
progress. In looking back, it is hard to realize the conditions of
business in those days, and hard to understand that many things
that are now a matter of course were then daring experiments.
Mr. Healy did things. Older men in the trade shook their heads
and presaged failure. He sold pianos for almost nominal payments
down, gave long time on the balance, and scarcely ever repossessed
a piano. "Men who want to steal," he said, "have no use for
pianos." He sold sheet music at a heavy discount from list prices.
C. A. Zoebisch, the leading small-instrument importer of the time,
in one of his early trips to New York hunted him up and said:
"Healy, I see you have gotten out a picture book. I am sorry about
it. You will surely ruin your business. And Mr. Zoebisch was
considered the oldest, shrewdest and wealthiest man in the musical
importing trade.
The "picture-book" to which he referred was an illustrated
catalog, by far the most elaborate and expensive of the kind issued
by a business house up to that time. Contrast this method of
merchandising with the secret-cost and sales-from-samples-only
style, and one sees why Lyon & Healy went forward by leaps and
bounds. Later, the first catalog ever printed containing half-tone
engravings of goods, and portraits of prominent artists recommend-
ing them, upon each page, was issued by Lyon & Healy. News-
paper advertising was handled by Mr. Healy in the same broad
manner. His ideas were many years ahead of the times. From
the first he had the true advertising instinct. "A good advertise-
ment of a good thing, in a good paper, is a good investment/' was
one of his maxims.
r
I ^HE biography is rich with many of the clever sayings of Mr.
L
Healy. Here is one on the subject of banking. He said:
"Never defer borrowing money from a bank until you actually need
the money."
Here's a story which will show his quickness of thought:
"A certain seminary not far from Chicago had decided to put in
a number of high-grade pianos, and one of the salesmen was sent
to endeavor to sell them. Next day this young man telegraphed
Mr. Healy: 'What shall I do for a starter?'
"Quick as a flash Mr. Healy telegraphed back: 'Start home' "
Another story:
" 'What do you think of the effort of Blank to make an artistic-
piano?" he was once asked. He replied: 'He will change a first-
class second-class piano into a second-class first-class piano.' "
M
R. HEALY was thoroughly practical and did not believe in
paternal treatment of workmen. He stated, "pay cash to
the workman for everything he does. Do not attempt to spend
money that is not yours to spend for the bettering of his condition.
Pay him the highest market price and let him work out his own
salvation. The moment you begin to handle trust funds or to build
up benefits the workman becomes suspicious."
Mr. TTcaly lived to see the Lyon & Healy banner carried to
every part of the civilized world. One of his maxims were: "Be
conservative in your speech and eventually your wisdom will receive
credence where the claims of the boastful man will he passed by.
REVIEW
He was extremely modest and with advancing years his desire
to evade publicity became more marked. At the dinner given by
Lyon & Healy to the dealers' and piano manufacturers' Convention
in the Chicago Athletic Club in 1901 on account of his extreme
diffidence he did not address his guests. He said afterwards: " I
could not for the life of me get on my feet and say even a few
words, though never had I so desired to put in strong language
what my heart felt."
O
N asking favors of any kind he agreed with Emerson, "pay
in the beginning for pay you must in the long run." On the
ever recurring idea of discharging uncompromising clerks and fill-
ing their places, he stated, "it is better to shake hands with a devil
you know than the devil you don't."
Of truthfulness in advertising, he said: " I was seldom more
pleased than when an old Scotchman, who happened to be in our
store, said to me, T see ye advertise ye sell Everything Known in
Music. I'd like to see a pair o' bagpipes,' and I could turn to a
clerk and directed him to bring down those Edinburgh bagpipes
that had been appearing in our inventory for heaven knows how
many years." On judging ability: "Judge by results. Many a
man holds his peace to good purpose."
Mr. Healy was a generous giver and none were ever turned
away from his door without alms having been granted by the tender-
hearted Healy.
Recently his secretary was asked why a certain charity com-
mittee was closeted with him, as the same committee had been there
a few mornings before:
"Well," the secretary said, "Mr. Healy gave them a carriage
the last time they were here, and to-day they came for the horses."
O
NE incident will serve to show Mr. Healy's boundless confi-
dence in advertising. Tn the early days of his house, about
1876, he made a single contract with an advertising agency to ad-
vertise band instruments to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars.
This was a very large sum thirty odd years ago to the young house,
and Mr. Healy said it completely staggered some of his associates
when he reported his action. "Did it pay?" he was asked in the
year 1901, twenty-five years later. "Well," he replied, "the returns
are not all in yet."
Mr. Healy amassed a fine library. His taste for reading
naturally ran along extremely solid lines, and his knowledge of
the world's history was gleaned from a hundred sources. For
Thomas Babington Macaulay's narratives and style he had great
admiration. No detail was too small to interest him when he
undertook to read up on a subject, no speculation too great to dis-
courage him in following the master minds of literature. As in
everything else, he had his bon mot in connection with his reading.
"Of all my books," he said, "Gibbons 'Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire' is the most valuable. It usually puts me to sleep."
ERE are some beautiful sentiments expressed in this work:
"The seeds P. J. Healy planted were Integrity, Industry and
Kindness, and the world of affairs owes more to him than
can be computed. For here was a man who, beginning with noth-
ing but his strong right hand and clear brain built up the greatest
business of its kind in the world ; a man who early in life tasted of
the sweetness of success, and yet remained unspoiled and unsullied;
a man who carried honesty to that rare degree that he scorned to
have his money work for him in enterprises in which he could not
personally sanction every move; a man who was loyal to every
trust and to every friend.
"His name will endure when names of mere fortune builders,
mere amassers of wealth, shall have been forgotten. Far greater
than the traits of shrewdness and business ability he displayed was
his example of stern virtue in affairs both private and public. He
was not clever in concealing things, but wise in having nothing to
conceal, and his spotless character will illumine the pages of Chi-
cago's history for all time.
H
HE full measure of success won by Mr. Healy is vouchsafed to
but few in this world. He believed in encouraging young men
and to his remarkable understanding of human nature may be
attributed many of the reasons for his great success. He was in
truth a splendid example of the American business man who, while
creating a great business structure, never forgot to scatter seeds of
human kindness all about him.
T