Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, JULY 30, 1921
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An Analysis of the Conditions at Present Existing in the Economic World,
With Some Conclusions Drawn Therefrom, Particularly With Reference to
the Player-piano Trade and the Various Problems Which Now Confront It
Business men are not noted for imagination,
although a man cannot be a great business man
unless he be gifted with the creative imagina-
tion to a very high degree of intensity. When
the lower side of business life, the side of easy
profit and loose ethics, is uppermost, as it was
during the two years which immediately suc-
ceeded the Armistice, it is almost impossible to
get business men to do any constructive think-
ing. Their imaginations become atrophied and
their thought weakens into a sort of fatty de-
generation. They are too busy raking in the
money to care about anything else.
But when business is in a different state, when
it is a case of worry and fret over what is going
to happen next, then it is not so difficult to
secure a hearing. The business man will listen,
because he is worried and afraid. He may not
have much anticipatory confidence in one's ad-
vice, but he will listen in the hope that some-
thing may develop. Wherefore we anticipate
that the observations which follow will be read
and pondered. They, too, may develop into
something.
Substitutes for Thought
The trouble with most men is that they do
not know how to think. They find it much easier
to repeat what someone else has said than to
think out their own conclusions independently.
When one finds a man who does his own think-
ing and resolutely refuses to accept substitutes
for thought in the shape of pet phrases and
slogans one finds there a big man, a man who
either is, or will be, a leader in his chosen work.
The small men find it easier to repeat someone
else's words, and that is why they remain small
men.
The music industries have their share of small
men, though they are fortunate also in having
some big men, too. At present the small men
are highly distressed over the "state of busi-
ness." The people, they say, are not buying.
What is the matter? What can we do to make
them buy?
Now, when one finds a man talking this way
one may be sure that one of his pet phrases is
something like this: "Business Is War." Busi-
ness, he will tell you sagely, is a battle and the
victory is to the big battalions. The law of the
survival of the fittest, he will say still more
sagely, works all the time, and the weaker always
goes under. Therefore, in times like these the
man who is not bolstered up by huge fortifica-
tions of money may confidently look forward to
annihilation. How shall he save himself from
the ruin which impends? Somehow he must
induce the people to buy. Obviously the thing
to do is to reduce prices, to cut terms in all direc-
tions, to scream loudly, "Cheap! Cheap!" So he
may win by cunning what he cannot win by open
fight.
Now, these ideas are just at this time quite
prevalent in our industry and a great many men
who ought to know better are allowing them to
take possession of their thinking. Yet they are
utterly and completely false, every one of them,
and to follow them is to walk straight into the
very Slough of Despond. That may seem a hard
saying, but we think we can make its truth rea-
sonably clear.
Not one in a thousand of those who mouth the
phrase about "survival of the fittest" has ever
looked inside the covers of the "Origin of
Species" or has the faintest notion what Dar-
win meant when he propounded his theory of
"Natural Selection." Darwin was a naturalist,
not a sociologist, and the extravagances which
were committed in the name of his biological
theory by men who ought to have known bet-
ter distressed him even before his death, and
must have made him turn in the grave a hun-
dred times since.
What Is "Survival of the Fittest"?
"Survival of the fittest" means simply that
the organism which is most in harmony with its
environment will be able to overcome conditions
otherwise adverse to its development. And that
is a good statement of business development,
too.
Survival of the fittest does not mean that
you and Neighbor Jones, both in the piano busi-
ness, must conduct a business fight to a finish
to see which of you is fittest to survive. You
don't have to think about any foolishness like
that. All you have to do is to go about your
affairs and the one. who disobeys the laws of
progress and development will be quite effec-
tually suppressed • without any aid from his
neighbor. Per contra, if both obey those laws,
both will survive and continue to prosper.
Of course, the inevitable objector will arise to
say that this is all "theory." Well, so it is; but
without theory there would be no practice. Co-
lumbus was a theorist before he put his theories
into practice. So were Galileo, Newton and
James Watt theorists, every one; but where
would the world be to-day if they had not theo-
rized? Sure, this is all theory; but it is also
all true, and that is all one needs to care
about it.
The Law of Business Progress
What is the law of business progress in this
industry of ours and in every other industry?
Simply this: that successful business is successful
exchange. It is not war, it is not battle, it is
not mutual throat-cutting. It is just simply suc-
cessful exchange. If A has something which B
wants and a basis for the transfer can be found
which will satisfy both parties, then the busi-
ness is done. Each is satisfied. Each has made
a profit, strange to say. And no one is the loser.
Now, when it seems that the people do not
buy, that they do not want our goods, let us
ask ourselves not what is the matter with the
people, but what is the matter with our goods
or with ourselves. Do we, each of us, believe
in our own goods? Does each of us, for instance,
teally believe in the player-piano? Does he
really think it a good thing, something which
does good in every home where it goes (or can
be made so to do, at least)? Does he possess a
player-piano himself at home, and play it and
get fun and pleasure and mental recreation out
of it? If he can answer in the affirmative then
he knows, as the writer of this article knows,
by actual experience, and so fundamentally that
no amount of argument can destroy his convic-
tions, that the player-piano is really a desirable
article of commerce, which does good in the
world and which spreads its benefits wherever
it goes. If he knows this then he is half-way
towards overcoming any adverse business con-
dition that may arise. If he does not believe it.
he had better go into some other business.
Fighting vs. Confidence
But there is undoubtedly a reluctance on the
part of the people toward buying at this time.
So there is. Why? Because the people as a
whole have been pretty well frightened. Each
group, and indeed each individual, is wor-
ried about losing something and is afraid
of some unknown calamity. W'ell, in face
of that sort of public feeling, what is
the business man's remedy? Is it to yelf, and do
ghost dances and hustle and push and fight?
We don't think so. Candidly, that "1921 Will
Reward Fighters" slogan does not appeal to us.
It sounds like another one of those substitutes
for thought. Worried, frightened people don't
want to have a yelling Indian coming around
screaming, "Buy! Buy!" They don't want you
to come around and fight them. They don't
want to see a "fighter," whether he be a busi-
ness fighter or any other kind. What they want
is to be shown that the business men are not
afraid. They want the example of quietness,
confidence and strength. That is all they want:
confidence. Let them know that Mr. Business
(Continued on page 7)