Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
SOME CHRISTMAS AND BUSINESS THOUGHTS.
{Continued from page 8.)
In brief, the total value of these eight staple crops this year is 6 per cent, greater than last year,
although their quantity is 22 per cent. less.
This Christmas should be reasonably merry for the fanner.
Surely with such a showing the farmers are not in need of sympathy, if the consumers are.
Therefore, the agricultural 1 districts of America should afford the best possibilities for the sale
of those home accessories which make life enjoyable, and, of course, no home is complete nowa-
days without a piano, and I believe that the dealers located in the great farming districts of America
will find that their holiday sales will loom up bigger than ever before.
The fundamentals are right, and only need careful treatment on the part of the dealers them-
selves, and there is no reason why the Christmas trade should not be pleasing in many sections of
the country.
Of course men cannot sit down and expect that sales will come to them without effort—that
is impossible; but there are opportunities for good Christmas business for active, hustling trade
representatives.
There is no doubt of that!
But if men get imbued with the idea of business sluggishness, and conduct their effairs accord-
ingly, they will find that it will be returned to them in kind.
Christmas trade can be developed along satisfactory lines, and constant efforts should be put
forth on the part of piano merchants everywhere in order to stimulate interest in the trade demand
for this holiday season.
Christmas is nearly here, with all its influences which tend to soften and to expand mankind
along gentler lines.
Breathes there a man among us with soul so dead that he does not often, when the Yuletide
season comes round, recall with boyish delight the good old days when he firmly believed in a real
Santa Claus, and, best of all, in the reindeer and sled piled high with the bulging pack.
Modern realism and the cut-and-dried spirit that has fallen upon the age has done few more
questionable things than to attempt to rob the old world of that ancient myth dearest of all to the
heart of childhood—our Santa Claus!
What pictures of childhood delight us more than those of the fat, rosy-cheeked old gentle-
man, soft and fur-coated, benevolence radiating from every portion of his anatomy? But even
more interesting than the man was the wonderful reindeer, with his bristling fantastic antlers, and
his own warm-looking coat that could well withstand the bitter cold of that polar country which
was supposed to be the home of dear old Santa.
Impressions of childhood come back to me as I write, and I am sure that my own boyhood
would have been robbed of some of its indescribable charm—its fancies and its wonderful pictures
—had I been told that there was no Santa Claus and no reindeer.
Christmas without Santa Claus for the young people is a very commonplace and tame affair.
I remember how I used to dress up as Santa Claus in order to delight my children, and I remem-
ber with what regret I realized that they were at last disillusioned.
Again the cold, destroying touch of realism.
The commercial importance of the holidays looms up larger than ever before, and everywhere
in this broad land of ours there is activity—there is an increased desire on the part of men engaged
in all lines of trade to place in the homes all of the wonderful products of the loom or factory.
They profit by the Christmas spirit, which is a buying spirit—a softening spirit, a spirit which
tends to scatter happiness everywhere.
Another Christmas is almost here, and another year, for we are on the last lap of 1913, and
shortly we will be reviewing the old year and making plans for the new.
There will be disappointments and discouragements for some—there will be joy and delight
for others.
Our discouragements grow sometimes out of the limitations of our own vision.
The progress of humanity cannot easily be measured by hours or years. Centuries only can
tell the story, and he who can scale some mountain peak of history where not years but centuries
stretch out before him finds himself exulting in the triumph of his cause.
Since the first Christmas was celebrated the world was compelled to acknowledge that there
was a new date from which it must number the years.
Away back in those distant days only here and there was a voice raised in the name of human
freedom and human rights, but to-day there is no civilized land where freedom has not unfurled
her banner, or where thousands of voices are not heard in defense of suffering humanity.
There is to-day a clearer recognition of the rights of men, a desire to do for others, a widen-
ing of human appreciation which sustains and inspires the heart.
The Christmas spirit is as evasive as the light—it can no more be quenched than can the sun
that burns above us. It is as resistless as the dawn—the clouds do not stay it—it comes on through
all the mists and shadows of the night!
Another Christmas and another year; and back of us stands Father Time, scythe in hand, bar-
ring our retreat, with the undeniable declaration that the past is gone and we cannot retrace our
steps, and forward we must move. There is no halting—the caravan
of life moves on—and the scenes are ever shifting.
Christmas! may the hearts of my readers be full of Christmas
cheer, and may the New Year be bright and gladsome.