Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
DECEMBER 7, 1918
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
The General Trade Situation as Viewed in Washington
Latest Developments in Problems of National Import Indicate that the Music
Trade, as well as All Other Industries, Will Be Helped Rather Than Ham-
pered in Future Expansion, Says the Washington Correspondent of the Review
WASHINGTON, D. C, December 4.—From the
standpoint of music trade interests the situation
in official quarters at Washington is clearing
much more rapidly than most persons would
have believed possible. Leaving out of consid-
eration certain possibilities in the labor situation
(which are beyond official jurisdiction) there
would appear to be nothing to prevent prompt
response to a "Full Speed Ahead" signal in
every branch of the music trades.
One of the developments that will bring about
immediate favorable reaction in the trade is, of
course, the removal by the Council of National
Defense of its ban on Christmas giving. Re-
ports coming to Washington have indicated that
from the date that righting ceased the major
portion of the consuming public has regarded
the recommendation against Christmas buying
as automatically removed. However, the for-
mal action by the National Council is wel-
come in that is absolves all merchants from
their promise not to employ additional salesmen
or saleswomen during the holidays and not to
lengthen the regular or normal store hours. The
removal of all restrictions as to store hours, to-
gether with the abolishment in most districts of
the "lightless nights," will allow all merchants
who desire to do so to adopt the "Open Eve-
nings" practice.
Equally to the point in restoring the music
trade to a normal peace basis is the action of
the Pulp and Paper Section of the War Indus-
tries Board in wiping out at one swoop all re-
strictions and regulations that have operated to
limit the use of book paper for catalogs, sup-
plements, circulars, house organs, etc. This
means that music tradesmen will no longer be
restricted in the tints or colors of paper that
they employ for advertising and that piano
manufacturers will not be held down in the
weight of the paper stock employed for advertis-
ing inserts in trade journals and popular maga-
zines. Similarly the sheet music industry is
freed from all injunctions to economize that had
been laid upon it and a music merchant need
give no further heed—unless his own pocketbook
counsels it—to the paper conservation program
that was recently issued from Washington and
which called for economy in the use of station-
ery, avoidance of double wrappings in packaging
goods, etc., etc. Finally, the conservation of
metal no longer being necessary the trade will
not be called upon to keep its promise to order
no metal signs other than of zinc and to cease
the distribution of metal display racks for talk-
ing machine records, etc.
With so many of the hampering restrictions
upon trade a thing of the past and most of the
others on the way out, the thoughts of many
tradesmen in the music field will naturally turn
to the tax situation. Here, too, there are pros-
p-ects of relief, due to the recognition at the
Capital that it will not be necessary to raise as
much money as it would have been had the war
continued. The Senate Finance Committee has,
in its redraft of the bill, wiped out the "occupa-
tional" tax, eliminated the tax on bank checks,
put letter postage back to the 2-cent basis, and
granted other concessions in addition to the ac-
tion with respect to floor taxes., etc., already
reported.
However, it is only honest to admonish that
even with this encouragement the trade is not
out of the woods because the House of Repre-
sentatives—notoriously more drastic in its ideas
of taxation—will have to be brought to accept
the Senate Committee's readjustments. Thus,
even if the Upper House of Congress agrees
without a tremor to the modified program, there
will be many points of divergence to be threshed
out in conference. Most dubious of all is the
outlook as to just when the new tax measure
will finally be enacted and what plan of taxation
will be followed in the meantime, presuming
that 1919 is ushered in with no prospect of an
agreement at the Capital as to what is what in
taxes.
As the curtain goes up on the final session of
the present Congress, Republicans and Demo-
crats in Congress are far apart in their ideas
on certain features of the tax program, notably
the proposal to mortgage the future by making
the tax bill of 1919 also applicable, under cer-
tain conditions, to 1920. The U. S. Bureau of
Internal Revenue must proceed not later than
January 15 with the collection of 1919 taxes. At
this writing the chances seem to be all against
the passage of the new bill by that date and
some experienced observers at Washington are
predicting that an agreement on taxes cannot
be reached by March 3, and that the whole issue
would thus be thrown over to the new Congress
which would presumably have to be summoned
;
in extra session to dispose of it. If anything of
this kind comes to pass music tradesmen may be
expected to be called upon to pay taxes under
the old law heretofore in force. ;
Meanwhile, everyday business men in the
music industries are likely to be prompted by
circumstances to take more than a passing in-
terest in the issue of Government ownership of
railroads, telegraphs and telephones which is
shortly going to be disclosed as one of the big
questions that loom just ahead in the pathway
of national progress. The recently announced
increase in express rates is calculated to impress
the business man with the fact that this issue
is. to a considerable extent, his nut to crack.
So likewise is the admission at Washington
that the discontinuance of additional passage
charge for travel in sleeping and parlor cars can-
not be taken to forecast that there will be any
remission of the increase in freight rates that
went into effect when the Government took over
the railroads.
Incidentally, it may be noted that there is lit-
tle ground for hope that Congress will get
around at this short session to consideration of
the Stephens bill, for all that Chairman Colver,
of the Federal Trade Commission, has pointed
out anew that specific legislation is the only
remedy for price cutting on merchandise.
G. W. POUND PROTESTS TAX ON PIANOS AND ORGANS
In Forceful Letter to the Senate Finance Committee, the General Counsel of the Music Industries
Chamber of Commerce Points Out the Hardships Which the Proposed Tax Will Work
A number of members of the trade have made
inquiry of George W. Pound, general counsel of
the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, re-
garding his attitude in the matter of the War
Revenue bill, as redrafted by the Senate Finance
Committee, and particularly his views on the
question of including pianos and organs in the
taxable list, in addition to piano players as in
the present law. The inquiries of the trade are
best answered by referring to the following let-
ter which was sent by Mr. Pound to Senator
Reed Smoot, of the Senate Finance Committee,
under date of November 30, wherein he pro-
tests against the tax on pianos and organs. The
letter reads:
"I wish to urge the elimination by the Senate
P'inance Committee of the proposed tax upon
pianos and organs, otherwise this Section—
900(4)—is satisfactory to our industry.
"The present act taxes 'piano players.' We
have adjusted our business for the past year and
for the future to meet that language, and the
proposed addition of the words 'pianos and or-
gans' would be very confusing and a real hard-
ship.
"We have had a hard struggle to preserve
our industry and our factory organizations dur-
ing these days of war and industrial menace.
We cannot compete in wage prices with war-
products plants. The ban on labor, on rail and
ocean shipping, on exports, on almost every
phase of our industrial activity, has been a se-
vere trial to us. But we have tried to meet the
enforced, and as we concede the necessary, cur-
tailments of a time of war with equanimity and
with courage, and we have 'carried on' to the
best of our ability without complaint.
"And permit me to! say in passing that at all
times we have had an abiding faith in the pa-
WINTER & CO.
PIANOS AND PLAYER-PIANOS
tient determination and good-will of the Sen-
ate Committee on Finance to so impose this
burden of taxation as to lay as light a hand as
possible upon industry in general and upon our
industry in particular.
"We have responded whole-heartedly and
without stint to the call of the Government for
help in maintaining the morale of the soldier
and of the people in these times of stress. To
every trench, to every camp "Somewhere in
France," to every camp and j cantonment in
America, we responded gladly and freely to the
constant demand for music and always more
music. In the last Liberty Loan drive, here in
New York City alone, we raised $6,617,000.
"In all things helpful to our country in these
days of peril, we tried earnestly to do our part.
We are entirely willing and hope to do our
part always. We only ask that you so impose
our tax as to make the least disturbance in our
business.
"It is not alone the actual amount of the
tax. Far more is it the confusion and hardship
of changed conditions. Our contracts for future
delivery have long been made and upon the
basis of the language of the present act, that
is upon the 'piano player.'
"It would be a hardship for us to be put upon
with another and wholly different tax just at a
time when our business is attempting to readjust
itself to changed conditions, and when we are
hoping to go out into the markets of the world
and there forced to come into the keen and
long-prepared competition in our trades with
England and Germany."
• George Rocker, at one time an employe of
Sohmer & Co., passed away recently at his home
in Brooklyn, aged fifty-two years.
RUDOLF
PIANOS AND PLAYER-PIANOS
22O SOUTHERN BOULEVARD, NEW YORK