Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
FIGHTING FOR THE BONE.
(Continued from page 3.)
very business life was by tolerance. He lacked the brains and blinded himself to the changing con-
ditions.
Every man should realize that life and activity are about him. We see it from the vegetable
creation straight up to the highest animal type—man.
The ancestor of the present cactus was a different type from the plant of to-day, but in order
to shield itself from its enemies produced a series of tiny bayonets.
The man who figures that by inactivity, by failure to do things, he is entitled to a living had
better eliminate such a thought from his cranium, and the quicker the better!
Business is more scientific—hence more relentless, and it cannot permit disorganized effort to
long resist it.
The day of the small man who uses with his fundamental honesty, brains, courage and adhe-
siveness is here to-day as it always has been in the past and will always remain in the future. The
small man of to-day will become the big man of to-morrow; but for the small man who sees noth-
ing but defeat and failure is gone already. His mental attitude has doomed him to business death,
and probably an unappreciative world will never even put up a marker over his grave.
The world wants small men if they are of the right composition. They may not all wear the
shoulder straps of command, but there is a place for all of them on the firing line.
When Mr. Tausig talks about big business taking all the stone walls away, it is the stone walls
behind which the timid wish to hide. They are the wallflowers of the trade world. Instead of
standing out manfully, meeting the attack of competition, they sulk behind the breastworks and
complain about big business.
Big business has been created by master minds, and those enterprises which are energetically,
scientifically and intellectually handled, have a crushing power, no doubt of that, but they do not
mean the annihilation of the honest man. On the contrary, they need the support of the honest
man.
Every individual and every organization is dependent upon the success of the business health
of communities.
_. .
The prosperity of the farmer means the prosperity of manufacturer and merchant.
The prosperity of the merchant is dependent upon the prosperity of the people in his particu-
lar vicinage. If the factories are humming with industry it means the distribution of money through
large payrolls.
Replying to the latter question of Mr. Tausig. There is no such thing as "spinelessness in
activity," because activity in itself shows that the individual possesses no chocolate eclair vertebra.
It shows that he possesses some backbone support, and is willing to go out in the world and meet
men and conditions manfully, bravely. He is not inclined to sit down and moon in a corner over
the desperate conditions which mean his absorption and extinction.
Of course, everything is not to our liking, and never w r ill be, in this old world of ours, and
if the whole thing were changed to-morrow there would be just as much fault finding next year
as there is to-day.
We must accommodate ourselves to conditions and make the most of them.
Some men will tell you that there are too many piano factories—that there is a forcing out of
pianos in an unsound way upon the public. But what man is going to close his factory obligingly
to accommodate his competitors?
Others will tell you that there are too many piano merchants, but everyone is struggling for a
position.
Too liberal credits are granted. Yes, undoubtedly.
Too many trade papers, some will say. Yes, of a kind.
Some will say that manufacturers spend too much money in trade paper advertising—money
which ought to be paid in concessions to dealers. Ah! but that is a selfish viewpoint again.
The nations,of Europe kept crying peace, and yet they were preparing for war! Rank insin-
cerity somewhere, was there not?
^
Of course, there is much to criticise in this world, but when we criticise do not let us retire
into the inner shell and bemoan our sad fate; because when we crawl out again we will find that
the world will have progressed and that we will have been left in the procession.
It is true that the master dog may get the bone, but invariably he has to fight for it; and if
there is anything that comes easy in life I do not know just exactly how to name it. Even criticism
requires some effort, and that is~ about the easiest thing that comes to my mind at this writing. In
the meanwhile most of us with red blood in our veins are fighting for the bone, neither seeking
nor asking protection.
"Fortune, the great commander of the world,
Hath divers ways to advance her followers;
To some she gives honor without deserving,
To others, some deserving, without honors.** ,