Music Trade Review

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NEW YORK, OCTOBER 29, 1921
A Protest Against the Popular Admonition to Imitate the Kilkenny Gats in
Order to Achieve Success During the Present Year, and a Preachment on the
Value of Thinking, Rather Than Fighting, as an Aid in the Business World
A common weakness of the human mentality
is displayed in the pathetic dependence which
business men and persons of like nature or occu-
pation are wont to place upon words. When
business goes a bit wrong the first call is for
some rhetorical one to arise and propound some
unfailing remedy for the depression. The pro-
nunciamiento is usually epigrammatic. It is
always what the human parrots call "terse" and
inevitably what they delight in terming "aggres-
sive." It is in the nature of the case "forceful"
and frequently even reaches the height of the
sublime by becoming epigrammatic, forceful and
aggressive all at once. There is an idea among
us that a man who has a loud voice, the habit
of banging on a table and the custom of say-
ing "Now, you men," where once it was con-
sidered proper to say "gentlemen," is necessarily
possessed of mysterious wisdom which enables
him to diagnose industrial ills and to tell us
where we must go and what we must do in order
that we may all reach prosperity again.
The last few months have witnessed a veri-
table irruption of these industrial apostles. They
have talked a river-full of talk. But they have
not lifted the depression. And apparently our
trade associations are beginning to realize that
nothing- is easier than to conceal a paucity of
thought under a prodigality of verbiage. In a
word, the ready talker is not always the deep
thinker.
Abstract vs. Concrete
Of course, the truth is that general state-
ments, however true they may abstractly be,
amount to very little in concrete instances un-
less they arc founded upon principles of uni-
versal applicability. In the present case there
is no principle in mere talk about "fighters." The
music industries are suffering from slack busi-
ness. That much we are all agreed to admit.
But when a man tells you that the remedy is
"aggressiveness" and the "go-getter" spirit and
ajll that sort of thing he is making statements
which arc wholly useless until they have been
supplemented with diagrams showing how they
may be applied to our particular problem. If
the current spellbinding about rewards for
fighters means anything at all- it means that the
spellbinders recognize the contrasting facts, (1)
that there is much money in the country appar-
ently doing nothing and (2) that the old hustling
spirit of the merchants and salesmen of pre-
war times is no longer in evidence, or at least
appears to represent the exception rather than
the custom. But while all that is true, can it be
rightly concluded that nothing is necessary save
what is vaguely called "aggressiveness"?
Coming to Definitions
When one tells a salesman that he is not
"aggressive" enough he may readily ask one
just what that means. If it can be shown to
mean in any particular case that the salesman is
not combing over his prospects carefully, is not
actually going after them or is allowing him-
self to be hypnotized by the common mob-sug-
gestion of the moment about depression then
"aggressiveness" is a legitimate term to apply in
describing a remedy. But if it can be shown,
as usually it can be, that the salesman is trying
all the "aggressiveness" he possesses, without
much result, it is evident that something more
definite is needed in the way of a remedy.
There is undoubtedly a great deal of unem-
ployment in the country just now, more than
there has been since the beginning of the war
prosperity in 1915. But it is very doubtful if
there is more to-day than there was during the
corresponding period of 1913. Let those whose
memories run back that far try to remember the
condition of business in general eight years ago.
Yet the present general popular feeling about
business, employment and kindred matters is
more gloomy and less reasonable than it was
during 1913. Why? Mainly because people gen-
erally expected much from the outcome of the
war, and their hopes have been disappointed.
Restoring Balance
However all that may be, the fact remains
that the let-down from the war activities has been
too sudden and has surprised a people still un-
balanced, still hysterical. The task of recon-
struction is the task primarily of reducing the
hysteria and restoring the balance, a task which
must be tackled from the mental plane, for that
is the plane on which the origins and sources
of the problem are to be found.
The task of restoring business—any business
—our business, especially—is, in principle, the
task of restoring public confidence.
The country is not generally in distress, nor
are the people generally without means to buy.
Purchasing power has not gravely been reduced
in the United States, although in Germany, Aus-
tria and Central Europe generally it has suf-
fered marked reduction. In the United States,
despite the check to commercial activity brought
about through the collapse of foreign trade on
account of the condition of foreign exchange,
etc., the popular purchasing power has not been
markedly reduced and there is no mathematical
reason why buying should be slow. Yet buying
is slow. And it is slow because the people are
timid and suspicious. They are timid because
they believe they were exploited during the war-
time buying craze. They are suspicious because
they do not believe that prices have even yet
been fairly reduced. And above all, by reason of
these causes of suspicion and timidity they are
nervous and apprehensive of the future.
Yet the fact cannot be doubted that the ner-
vousness and apprchensiveness would not stand
for a moment in the way of a resumption of buy-
ing if the general public confidence in business
men and in business methods were restored.
The Practical Thing to Do
Can the music industries, especially can the
player industry, do anything now, anything prac-
tical and useful, of immediate value, to bring
about a restoration of that public confidence,
for lack of which they are now suffering from
slack business?
Yes, they can! By telling the truth about
music and the music business. By being honest,
straightforward and truthful. By this, and by
no more or less than this!
If every music house will from this day hon-
estly resolve to take its losses, to clean down
its inventory, to meet, as far as possible, the
national demand for a price revision, there will
be a public response.
If every music house that professes to sell
player-pianos will try to remember during the
future that player-pianos are music-makers,
which demand music lovers to demonstrate them
to a public which does not generally understand
them, there will be an immediate response.
If every music house that professes to sell
player-pianos will try to remember that you
cannot sell players unless you sell music, too,
and will install a music roll department where
rolls are sold by intelligent sales people, there
will be an immediate response. The salesman
who can neither demonstrate nor tell one what
is in the catalog is a back number.
There is a great difference between a mere
"fighter" and a strategist. The one works with
his muscles and the other with his brains. A
battle directed only by "fighters" would show a
terrible disproportion between the carnage and
the attainment. It is time to abandon the policy
of the Kilkenny cats and to adopt the policy of
reason. T'erhaps Y)12 will reward fighters, but
we are willing to bet some of our material sub-
.'•taifce on the proposition that 1922 will reward
thinkers more handsomely by far.