Music Trade Review

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MUSIC TRADE
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28, 1918
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In Preparing for Business During the Coming Year, the Members of the Player
Industry Should Remember That the Public Wants Music, and That This
Want Can Be Supplied Profitably Through the Medium of the Player-Piano
A great deal of time will be consumed and
much paper used in preparing articles and
speeches in which the members of all sorts of
industries will be told what they should or may
expect for the coming year. It is probable, we
may say, as cynics made so by long and bitter
disappointment, that very few of these articles
will be worth reading or these speeches worth
hearing. The truth is that the man who can
really see ahead is the rarest of birds, and it is
at the moment not less true that the peculiar
conditions of the industrial situation make any
attempt at prediction almost certainly doomed
to failure.
. ' ';
This does not, however, alter the essential
fact that the underlying conditions of the in-
dustrial and economic situation point to a con-
tinuation of general activity and to the steady
employment of labor. What cannot be fore-
told is, of course, the most interesting part of
it all; namely, the probable conditions of the
labor market, the wage level and the relation of
prices to wages.
; A sensitive industry like ours reacts readily
to changes in the industrial condition of the
country, and it is to our advantage consequent-
ly to look ahead as far as we can.
"Getting Out From Under"
It should not be denied that there is decided-
ly' a tendency apparent in governmental circles
to "get out from under" too quickly and to dump
on to the market a lot of workers released from
military service; doing this on a scale large
enough to disturb business conditions and thus
to reduce the scale of wages. Against this,
however, must be put the evident intention of
the labor unions to fight any reduction of wages
not accompanied by a reduction of prices. To
any one who will realize that the purchasing
power of money constitutes its only value, the
logicality of the labor men's proposals will be
plain. If the questions which must arise in
this way are sanely and calmly met, we shall
have no reason to worry about a labor crisis
this year or any other year.
There is also the suspicion in many quarters
that the war contract cancelations will have a
very bad effect upon the employment of labor.
But as to this and the above point as well, there
is something to be said on the other side of the
question.
The Labor Shortage
Our own industry, the manufacture of pneu-
matic mechanism for piano playing and the re-
tailing of player-pianos and cognate instru-
ments, has seen during the past twelve months
the most serious labor shortage it has ever
known. Other industries have suffered in sim-
ilar ways, and if the shortage now existing at
this very moment were entirely relieved, to the
extent of having the factories running as they
were, say, in 1916, it is certain that the fear
of a glutted labor market lowering wage levels
all round would be proved inadmissible. In
other words, the problem will be to get the
men back, each to his own job or to one as
near as possible identical with the old one. If
some sane method of redistribution of labor can
be worked out we shall have nothing to fear in
the future." ,
' War Order Cancelations
Much the same remarks may be made con-
cerning the possible disorganization of busi-
ness through the cancelation of war orders. The
Government is promising that this process shall
be carried out gradually, and in such a way as
not to inflict noticeable hardship, but there ap-
pears to be considerable doubt as to how far
the Government will be able to carry out these
excellent intentions. Here, again, however, it
must be pointed out that an enormous amount of
this Government work was being done by fac-
tories which had to abandon all or most of their
regular work for the purpose. Hence to them
the change will not be vital and they can get
back the more easily to work which the nation
badly needs for present requirements.
Such points as these must be discussed if we
are to judge what lies before us. We shall not
have an entire absence of friction, one judges,
but there is no reason whatever to anticipate
any hard times. On the contrary, the indica-
tions are all towards great activity in all lines
of peacetime production.
Saving Factors
It must be remembered that this nation has
learned for one thing something of the meaning
of saving. The people will never again be quite
so spendthrift as they have been in the past,
and more of their money will go into perma-
ment investment. Pianos, furniture, houses are
permanent investments.
It must also be remembered that the United
States will have a continued shortage of certain
labor, due to the restriction of immigration from
abroad, which is almost certain to be imposed
by European nations if not by our own. Then,
also, the many important public works which
have been suspended must again be taken up
and the large amount of construction work as
well as of foodstuffs which the country will
have to send abroad to fill orders from the Euro-
pean countries, will all be elements in keeping
us active and happy.
Advice Is Cheap; But—
In all these circumstances may we venture on
a word of suggestion if not of advice? During
the past eighteen months we have learned that
the goods we sell—player-pianos—have a gen-
uine value, that they do not have to be sold by
any doubtful methods, and that in'reality, just as
soon as there is a scarcity of them and we have
to stop our push-sale methods, the people begin
to come around and do the buying on their own
initiative. We have found that we can get the
right prices and very good terms indeed. We
have found that the people have actually taken
to the player-piano and actually want it.
Well, now shall we not be foolish if we let
them slide back into the old indifference now
that they have educated themselves into some-
thing like enthusiasm? But one may have
enough knowledge of the music trades to sus-
pect that if left to themselves, those trades are
quite capable of dropping back to pre-war meth-
ods through sheer lack of energy. Yet it need
not be so.
Let Us Sell Music!
Music has been one of the great world-fea-
tures during this war, and the selling of music,
in one form or another, has been of the utmost
importance. We know now that the people
really want player-pianos. We shall be ex-
tremely foolish if, with the steel mills of the
country booked up two years ahead, and healthy
fundamental conditions thus assured, we do not
continue to advertise to the people music; not
how cheap a player-piano can be had, but
music! If we get that idea to the people we
shall not have to worry about business. The
people want music, and if we do not give it to
them, via the player-piano route, at fair prices
and on fair terms, that will be our own fault.
Let us cut out the cheap advertising, forget that
we ever thought we had to force pianos on the
people, hold up our prices and our terms, sup-
port the Music Industries Preservation Fund
and the National Bureau for the Advancement of
Music, and advertise music. That is the big
program for 1919.
TO SPEND HOLIDAYS AT HOME
George W. Pound, general counsel of the
Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, left on
Saturday for his old home in Lockport, N. Y.,
where he will spend the holiday season, return-
ing to his office shortly after New Year's.