Music Trade Review
Issue: 1919 Vol. 68 N. 17 - Page 5
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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
APRIL 26, 1919
Consisting of Various and Sundry Observations on Things In and Out of the
Industry, the Whole Combined, Moulded, Quarter-sawed and Assembled by
that Tame Optimist and Plain Philosopher Who Edits This Player Section
On Nervous Prosperity
I can remember, not without amusement, how
it used to be extremely fashionable to go in for
"break-downs" every so often. The more im-
portant one happened to be, the more necessary
it was, al reasonably long intervals, of course, to
"collapse" and be hauled away from one's ma-
hogany desk in a state which required a long
session in an expensive collapse-refinery. It
used to be much the same sort of thing when 1
was a boy about dirt and smoke, garbage and
junk in a city. The dirtier, noisier and smokier
the town the more it was supposed to represent
abounding activity and consequent prosperity.
It never occurred to anybody save a few fa-
natics in those days that perhaps one could be
busy and clean at one and the same time. So
also it never occurred to our patent-medicine
swigging ancestors that one could be busy and
healthy at one and the same time! Well, glory
be. we have learned something about cleaning
up our towns without noticeably diminishing
their commercial importance, and it begins to
look as if our business men were determined
not to collapse in future, but to go on being
more and more active without being in the least
less jolly and well. It is a pleasant and a sig-
nificant change. Our supply of fine young old
fellows, good for many a long year and as young
as they look, is just now decidedly above ordi-
nary market expectations, and one is filled with
much joy. This is a good business of ours, and
we have simply to insist that we make it a still
better one by keeping it as clean forever here-
after as we made and kept it during the war
period. Then we shall have still a larger pro-
portion of smiling, happy, strong and clean fel-
lows running the destinies of the whole fine
music industry game. What Elbert Hubbard
used to call "nervous prosperity" is decidedly
not au fait just now.
On Nervousness About Prosperity
The American people are a great people.
They admit it, and judging by appearances they
believe.it, too. Well, so they are, but they
worry too much. No people in the world worry
as do they over their own ability to stay alive.
As a nation we are always either up in the
clouds or down in the dumps. If the sun
shines to us, we burn all the umbrellas and cut
up the rain-coats. If it rains we are already
at the bottom of the sea and hope is gone. The
colored soldier person who, three days out from
New York on the big transport, was heard
moaning, "Good Lawd, jus' le' me see one li'l
lone pine-tree once mo', jus' one li'l lone pine-
tree," was convinced without a doubt that the
Flood had come again and that the entire
habitable globe was submerged. When he got
to France he waked up. So it is with us. We
have with us this and many another morning
(also evening) certain parties who are worrying
about the continuance of the prosperity which
the piano and especially the player trade is just
now experiencing. A few days ago I was one
of a gathering which was discussing this very
matter. Some of the crowd would take the
view that all the present prosperity is artificial,
that prices will climb down, then wages and
then buying power; one after another till we
are all back again in the bad old days and the
clammy silence (can silence be clammy, though?
Memo., look this ifp) of the cold tomb sur-
rounds us all. It was just the cue for David
Bispham or Reinald Werrenrath to sing "In
questa tomba." Then up rose William Riley, or at
least a breezy person whose name was something
else, and laid metaphorical hold upon the gloom-
exuders. He told them that the piano business, so
far from being in an artificial condition of pros-
perity, had been placed by the action of events
upon a firm foundation for the first time in half
a century. He showed how we don't yet be-
gin to sell the number of player-pianos the
country is capable of absorbing annually, and
that our present jump into real business meth-
ods represents just one benefit the war has
handed out to us. "Why, you fat-heads," quoth"
he, or words to that effect, "don't you see that
if you will now simply sit tight and stick to the
business methods you have had to adopt as a
result of war conditions, you will actually be
unable to lose anything of your prosperity, no
matter what conditions may appear to look like
ip. some dim and distant future? Don't you see
that the elimination of poor business methods
alone will always save a business like ours its
margin of profit; and that anyway the American
people want music even when they cannot get
coal? Haven't you found out yet that they will
buy your player-pianos no matter what else they
cannot get; and that music is actually as much
a staple as bread and salt? Didn't the war teach
you that much? When will you guys (sub-
stantially) learn to be Bulls on the U. S. A.?
Bull you can give us, we know; but we want you
to be Bulls; not bull-artists but Bulls; Bulls,
the opposite of Bears, Bulls on the U. S. A. All
together, three loud and hearty cheers for pros-
perity!"
Bahram, Bolsheviki and Bunk!
read this paper weekly, is accustomed to use the
words Bolsheviki, Bolshevism and Bolshevist at
least fifty times daily. The press is full of it and so
are the thoughts of us all. For the thing we think
we mean is very close to us. But mostly we don't
think the right thing. Thousands of reputable
piano men have excessively vague ideas of what
this mysterious menace that frightens them,
quite unnecessarily, really means. Wherefore,
consult the oracle. The word Bolsheviki, good
friends, is Russian and means simply the Ma-
jority. Its opposite is Menshiviki, which means
the minority. In another sense Bolsheviki
means the party of the maximum and Menshiviki
the party of the minimum. Maximalist and
Minimalist are words well expressing this second
sense. The Russian Bolsheviki are simply that
left wing or extreme side of the Socialist party
which believes in catastrophism; that is to say
in a reconstruction of society by revolution.
The Minimalist or Menshiviki party believes in
the same ultimate ideal, obtained by slower
evolutionary methods. The Bolshevist want to
burn down the house, and build anew; the Men-
shivist wants to re-plan without tearing down
or burning down. Both, however, have the same
ideal; and this should be thoroughly understood.
That ideal is simply the setting up of a prole-
tarian dictatorship on the ruins of the present
order of society. The proletariat, be it noted,
are simply the moneyless hand-workers; in ef-
fect the factory workmen of the wholly non-
propertied type and the poorest peasants. I have
had occasion to see some Bolshevik govern-
ment documents, translated by a friend who is
translating many of them for our Government,
in which it is stated, over and over again, that
the Soviets are to be elected only by the Work-
men of the cities and the poorest peasants,
those who are too poor to employ even one hired
man on their land. Bolshevism aims to build a
complete dictatorship of the proletariat; and will
kill off every other member of society to achieve
its aims. That, and that only, is Bolshevism.
I. W. W.ism is Bolshevism, too; but its program
is still a little vague. Lenine, however, has the
most definite of programs. Shall we have a
Soviet government here? No, because we have
not a class stratification on which to found the
idea of a class war. Still we shall have our little
experiences. What has this to do with the
player business? Nothing at all save as con-
cerns every man, woman and child in the civil-
ized world.
"And Bahrain, that great hunter, the wild ass,
Stamps o'er his grave, but cannot break his
sleep."
"Which may all be," the editor of this journal NEW MANAGER OF WATSON PIANO CO.
remarked as he set his eyes upon the above
couplet filched from Omar, "but I know at least
The Fred P. Watson Piano Co., Marion, 111.,
one wild ass who can break my sleep, and whose has announced a new manager for the stores of
head I should dearly like to break. What is the the company in the person of D. G. Garrison, of
idiot up to now, with a heading like this?" Softly, Mt. Vernon, who is one of the oldest men with
fair chief, is the gentle reply. Each and every the Watson Co. in point of service, and is thor-
one of the thousands of business men, tuners, oughly acquainted with # all branches of the music
piano makers, and ordinary honest men who business.
Greatest Annual Output^
TANDARD PLAYER^CTIOK
jSrtandard th
Over
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
APRIL 26, 1919
Consisting of Various and Sundry Observations on Things In and Out of the
Industry, the Whole Combined, Moulded, Quarter-sawed and Assembled by
that Tame Optimist and Plain Philosopher Who Edits This Player Section
On Nervous Prosperity
I can remember, not without amusement, how
it used to be extremely fashionable to go in for
"break-downs" every so often. The more im-
portant one happened to be, the more necessary
it was, al reasonably long intervals, of course, to
"collapse" and be hauled away from one's ma-
hogany desk in a state which required a long
session in an expensive collapse-refinery. It
used to be much the same sort of thing when 1
was a boy about dirt and smoke, garbage and
junk in a city. The dirtier, noisier and smokier
the town the more it was supposed to represent
abounding activity and consequent prosperity.
It never occurred to anybody save a few fa-
natics in those days that perhaps one could be
busy and clean at one and the same time. So
also it never occurred to our patent-medicine
swigging ancestors that one could be busy and
healthy at one and the same time! Well, glory
be. we have learned something about cleaning
up our towns without noticeably diminishing
their commercial importance, and it begins to
look as if our business men were determined
not to collapse in future, but to go on being
more and more active without being in the least
less jolly and well. It is a pleasant and a sig-
nificant change. Our supply of fine young old
fellows, good for many a long year and as young
as they look, is just now decidedly above ordi-
nary market expectations, and one is filled with
much joy. This is a good business of ours, and
we have simply to insist that we make it a still
better one by keeping it as clean forever here-
after as we made and kept it during the war
period. Then we shall have still a larger pro-
portion of smiling, happy, strong and clean fel-
lows running the destinies of the whole fine
music industry game. What Elbert Hubbard
used to call "nervous prosperity" is decidedly
not au fait just now.
On Nervousness About Prosperity
The American people are a great people.
They admit it, and judging by appearances they
believe.it, too. Well, so they are, but they
worry too much. No people in the world worry
as do they over their own ability to stay alive.
As a nation we are always either up in the
clouds or down in the dumps. If the sun
shines to us, we burn all the umbrellas and cut
up the rain-coats. If it rains we are already
at the bottom of the sea and hope is gone. The
colored soldier person who, three days out from
New York on the big transport, was heard
moaning, "Good Lawd, jus' le' me see one li'l
lone pine-tree once mo', jus' one li'l lone pine-
tree," was convinced without a doubt that the
Flood had come again and that the entire
habitable globe was submerged. When he got
to France he waked up. So it is with us. We
have with us this and many another morning
(also evening) certain parties who are worrying
about the continuance of the prosperity which
the piano and especially the player trade is just
now experiencing. A few days ago I was one
of a gathering which was discussing this very
matter. Some of the crowd would take the
view that all the present prosperity is artificial,
that prices will climb down, then wages and
then buying power; one after another till we
are all back again in the bad old days and the
clammy silence (can silence be clammy, though?
Memo., look this ifp) of the cold tomb sur-
rounds us all. It was just the cue for David
Bispham or Reinald Werrenrath to sing "In
questa tomba." Then up rose William Riley, or at
least a breezy person whose name was something
else, and laid metaphorical hold upon the gloom-
exuders. He told them that the piano business, so
far from being in an artificial condition of pros-
perity, had been placed by the action of events
upon a firm foundation for the first time in half
a century. He showed how we don't yet be-
gin to sell the number of player-pianos the
country is capable of absorbing annually, and
that our present jump into real business meth-
ods represents just one benefit the war has
handed out to us. "Why, you fat-heads," quoth"
he, or words to that effect, "don't you see that
if you will now simply sit tight and stick to the
business methods you have had to adopt as a
result of war conditions, you will actually be
unable to lose anything of your prosperity, no
matter what conditions may appear to look like
ip. some dim and distant future? Don't you see
that the elimination of poor business methods
alone will always save a business like ours its
margin of profit; and that anyway the American
people want music even when they cannot get
coal? Haven't you found out yet that they will
buy your player-pianos no matter what else they
cannot get; and that music is actually as much
a staple as bread and salt? Didn't the war teach
you that much? When will you guys (sub-
stantially) learn to be Bulls on the U. S. A.?
Bull you can give us, we know; but we want you
to be Bulls; not bull-artists but Bulls; Bulls,
the opposite of Bears, Bulls on the U. S. A. All
together, three loud and hearty cheers for pros-
perity!"
Bahram, Bolsheviki and Bunk!
read this paper weekly, is accustomed to use the
words Bolsheviki, Bolshevism and Bolshevist at
least fifty times daily. The press is full of it and so
are the thoughts of us all. For the thing we think
we mean is very close to us. But mostly we don't
think the right thing. Thousands of reputable
piano men have excessively vague ideas of what
this mysterious menace that frightens them,
quite unnecessarily, really means. Wherefore,
consult the oracle. The word Bolsheviki, good
friends, is Russian and means simply the Ma-
jority. Its opposite is Menshiviki, which means
the minority. In another sense Bolsheviki
means the party of the maximum and Menshiviki
the party of the minimum. Maximalist and
Minimalist are words well expressing this second
sense. The Russian Bolsheviki are simply that
left wing or extreme side of the Socialist party
which believes in catastrophism; that is to say
in a reconstruction of society by revolution.
The Minimalist or Menshiviki party believes in
the same ultimate ideal, obtained by slower
evolutionary methods. The Bolshevist want to
burn down the house, and build anew; the Men-
shivist wants to re-plan without tearing down
or burning down. Both, however, have the same
ideal; and this should be thoroughly understood.
That ideal is simply the setting up of a prole-
tarian dictatorship on the ruins of the present
order of society. The proletariat, be it noted,
are simply the moneyless hand-workers; in ef-
fect the factory workmen of the wholly non-
propertied type and the poorest peasants. I have
had occasion to see some Bolshevik govern-
ment documents, translated by a friend who is
translating many of them for our Government,
in which it is stated, over and over again, that
the Soviets are to be elected only by the Work-
men of the cities and the poorest peasants,
those who are too poor to employ even one hired
man on their land. Bolshevism aims to build a
complete dictatorship of the proletariat; and will
kill off every other member of society to achieve
its aims. That, and that only, is Bolshevism.
I. W. W.ism is Bolshevism, too; but its program
is still a little vague. Lenine, however, has the
most definite of programs. Shall we have a
Soviet government here? No, because we have
not a class stratification on which to found the
idea of a class war. Still we shall have our little
experiences. What has this to do with the
player business? Nothing at all save as con-
cerns every man, woman and child in the civil-
ized world.
"And Bahrain, that great hunter, the wild ass,
Stamps o'er his grave, but cannot break his
sleep."
"Which may all be," the editor of this journal NEW MANAGER OF WATSON PIANO CO.
remarked as he set his eyes upon the above
couplet filched from Omar, "but I know at least
The Fred P. Watson Piano Co., Marion, 111.,
one wild ass who can break my sleep, and whose has announced a new manager for the stores of
head I should dearly like to break. What is the the company in the person of D. G. Garrison, of
idiot up to now, with a heading like this?" Softly, Mt. Vernon, who is one of the oldest men with
fair chief, is the gentle reply. Each and every the Watson Co. in point of service, and is thor-
one of the thousands of business men, tuners, oughly acquainted with # all branches of the music
piano makers, and ordinary honest men who business.
Greatest Annual Output^
TANDARD PLAYER^CTIOK
jSrtandard th
Over
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