Music Trade Review
Issue: 1916 Vol. 62 N. 24 - Page 3
mm
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXH. No. 24 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, June 10, 1916
Sln 1
i * Co Si" ft. crentj
Advertising
H
UMAN nature does not get worse, it gets better. That is because human nature by degrees is
becoming more civilized and civilization is just a process of rising out of ignorance. All the evil
in the world is the result of not knowing.
To advertise is to inform. To advertise facts and no more than facts, to tell the patent truth
and to rely on that, is simply to tell what the public want to know; and that is, what one has to sell, what it
is like, how good it is, and what it costs. To advertise falsely is, in essence, not to advertise at all, for false
advertising tells the public what one has not.
What is the use of misleading the public? There can be no use, in the end. Certainly, in a business like
the piano business, where the personal reputation of the merchant is the biggest asset in his success, it is plain
that the most shortsighted of policies is that of misleading, for the simple reason that a business which depends
so much on the merchant's public repute for fair dealing cannot possibly stand very much foul play. Once let
the idea get abroad that So-and-So is tricky in his dealings and his reputation is gone forever.
That is one side of it. But there is another still more pointed. The man or corporation that pursues a
policy of misrepresentation regarding its goods plays on only two possible systems: The one who has a lie to
sell may resort to false and misleading advertising because he believes that he is playing on the cupidity of
his prospective purchasers on their hope of getting something for nothing; and he considers, by a sort of
semi-humorous philosophy, that they deserve what they get for being greedy.
Again, he may believe that he cannot sell his goods on a plain statement of their value. He may say he
has to mislead because otherwise people won't buy. That is only another way of saying that businss is a skin
game from start to finish. But does anybody care to admit that it is?
Of course, the millenium is not here yet. And there are dishonest people in the world, both sellers and
buyers. There are sellers who are crooked in selling shoddy goods and buyers who are crooked in trying to
scheme their way into getting more than their money's worth. There is not a penny's worth of difference
between the two.
But—and this is the big point—human nature gets better every day, because the world is less ignorant
each day than it was the day before. The world learns. Now, to learn is always in effect to begin to see
truth, more or less. Therefore, the more we know the less we care for cheap schemes, because we see their
hollowness.
The more civilized the world grows the more it sees that honesty is not a policy, but the truth; not like
a game, but like arithmetic, where the sum of two and two always comes to four, whether you like it or not.
So, even now, the cheap and misleading advertiser is going out of fashion. He and his works are no
longer applauded. The clean business man comes into his own. People are beginning to shun the gaudy lie,
the cheap clothed in the outer garments of the good, the shoddy masquerading as wool. Why? Because they
are learning; because they are better educated; because they no longer believe the old wives' tales they used to
accept as gospel. Also because the plain, simple truth is beginning to penetrate human consciousness, that
business transactions are exchange.
Now, let us mark this fine point! As truth in advertising, as truth in business transactions, begins grad-
ually, painfully, slowly, but surely for all that, to emerge from the darkness, the fact is seen that the more
people know the better goods they want. Old-fashioned souls may bewail the "loss of simplicity"; but in
reality—allowing for a certain extravagance inevitable in this exuberant age—this growth in luxury is really
only a growth in knowledge. We want finer things because we have learned to appreciate them.
(Continued on page 5)
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXH. No. 24 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, June 10, 1916
Sln 1
i * Co Si" ft. crentj
Advertising
H
UMAN nature does not get worse, it gets better. That is because human nature by degrees is
becoming more civilized and civilization is just a process of rising out of ignorance. All the evil
in the world is the result of not knowing.
To advertise is to inform. To advertise facts and no more than facts, to tell the patent truth
and to rely on that, is simply to tell what the public want to know; and that is, what one has to sell, what it
is like, how good it is, and what it costs. To advertise falsely is, in essence, not to advertise at all, for false
advertising tells the public what one has not.
What is the use of misleading the public? There can be no use, in the end. Certainly, in a business like
the piano business, where the personal reputation of the merchant is the biggest asset in his success, it is plain
that the most shortsighted of policies is that of misleading, for the simple reason that a business which depends
so much on the merchant's public repute for fair dealing cannot possibly stand very much foul play. Once let
the idea get abroad that So-and-So is tricky in his dealings and his reputation is gone forever.
That is one side of it. But there is another still more pointed. The man or corporation that pursues a
policy of misrepresentation regarding its goods plays on only two possible systems: The one who has a lie to
sell may resort to false and misleading advertising because he believes that he is playing on the cupidity of
his prospective purchasers on their hope of getting something for nothing; and he considers, by a sort of
semi-humorous philosophy, that they deserve what they get for being greedy.
Again, he may believe that he cannot sell his goods on a plain statement of their value. He may say he
has to mislead because otherwise people won't buy. That is only another way of saying that businss is a skin
game from start to finish. But does anybody care to admit that it is?
Of course, the millenium is not here yet. And there are dishonest people in the world, both sellers and
buyers. There are sellers who are crooked in selling shoddy goods and buyers who are crooked in trying to
scheme their way into getting more than their money's worth. There is not a penny's worth of difference
between the two.
But—and this is the big point—human nature gets better every day, because the world is less ignorant
each day than it was the day before. The world learns. Now, to learn is always in effect to begin to see
truth, more or less. Therefore, the more we know the less we care for cheap schemes, because we see their
hollowness.
The more civilized the world grows the more it sees that honesty is not a policy, but the truth; not like
a game, but like arithmetic, where the sum of two and two always comes to four, whether you like it or not.
So, even now, the cheap and misleading advertiser is going out of fashion. He and his works are no
longer applauded. The clean business man comes into his own. People are beginning to shun the gaudy lie,
the cheap clothed in the outer garments of the good, the shoddy masquerading as wool. Why? Because they
are learning; because they are better educated; because they no longer believe the old wives' tales they used to
accept as gospel. Also because the plain, simple truth is beginning to penetrate human consciousness, that
business transactions are exchange.
Now, let us mark this fine point! As truth in advertising, as truth in business transactions, begins grad-
ually, painfully, slowly, but surely for all that, to emerge from the darkness, the fact is seen that the more
people know the better goods they want. Old-fashioned souls may bewail the "loss of simplicity"; but in
reality—allowing for a certain extravagance inevitable in this exuberant age—this growth in luxury is really
only a growth in knowledge. We want finer things because we have learned to appreciate them.
(Continued on page 5)
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