Music Trade Review
Issue: 1924 Vol. 79 N. 2 - Page 7
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JULY 12, 1924
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Cleveland Music Merchants Responding
to Appeals for Relief from Lorain, Ohio
Local Dealers Planning Big Musical Fall Campaigns—George M. Ott Heads Convention Com-
mittee Appointed by Local Trade—W. H. Bowie Heads Outing Committee
/CLEVELAND, O., July 8.—Cleveland music
^^ merchants are preparing to respond to the
appeal for financial aid which soon will be broad-
casted in Ohio, and possibly in the nation, for
relief of the stricken people of Lorain, O. They
are appreciative of the fact that Cleveland, or
at least part of it, escaped the disaster that has
visited Lorain by a narrow margin of six miles.
To-day the greater part of Lorain and the
country south of it for thirty miles is virtually
a barren waste, where death and destruction
struck in the form of a tornado on the afternoon
of June 28. The dead in Lorain alone now
numbers 100, and may be added to by the death
of some of the 1,500 injured, half of whom are
in a serious condition in Cleveland and other
hospitals in nearby cities. The property loss
will not be less than $25,000,000, and possibly
will grow to $50,000,000 in the final count. It
took ten minutes for the tornado to bring this
anguish upon the people of Lorain, and little
more than that time to wreak its destruction
upon the village, hamlet and country folk be-
tween Lake Erie and Akron.
As far as the music merchants of Lorain are
concerned they are believed to have been saved
both as to life and injuries as reported in The
Review last week. But the buildings and stocks
of the Wickens Co., largest retail establishment
in Lorain; the Witt Music Co. and the George
A. Clark Co., all directly in fhe path of the
storm, have gone down. Max Mayer, further
from the center of the business district suffered
some loss, and the Richlein-Reidy-Scanlon Co.,
about twelve blocks from the storm centre, at
Broadway and Twenty-first street, escaped en-
tirely.
Loss of life was considerably reduced by Ted
Wickens, head of the Wickens Co., through
quick action on his part when he saw the tor-
nado approaching out of the lake. Herding
some fifty customers into the basement of the
store he certainly prevented serious injury, as
many of them emerged without a scratch. The
top half and entire rear of the Wickens Build-
ing, a granite structure was blown away.
Dan F. Baumbaugh, manager of the May Co.
talking machine department, visited Lorain on
Sunday morning before daylight. He found all
familiar sections of the city obliterated, learned
that many acquaintances had been killed, and
that close friends had escaped by narrow mar-
gins.
J. H. Shartle, general manager of the Cleve-
land Talking Machine Co., was one of the first
of Cleveland individuals to offer succor in the
form of an automobile load of food, which he
took accompanied by city and military officials
from Cleveland. It is the first-hand information
that these members of the trade bring back with
them that may form the basis of a financial aid
movement in the Cleveland music industry, to be
contributed to the relief of Lorain music mer-
chants, or combined with the State or national
aid soon to get under way.
Freaks of the storm are many. Especially in
the open country south of Lorain is this so.
Edwin Holt, of the Knabe Warerooms, made a
tour of the district immediately south of the
lake, and found numerous pianos standing atop
debris, the only things intact from complete
devastation. One of these, a Bush & Gerts
piano, was found atop what was once a house.
In another location near Elyria a player-piano
stands with roll half unwound, indicating some
one had been playing when the house was de-
stroyed.
Planning Fall Musical Activities
Music merchants of Cleveland are going ahead
with their plans for a big Fall campaign in
things musical. First of these to take shape is
the double program of the Conn Cleveland Co.,
of the C. G. Conn, Ltd. A military band, a saxo-
phone band and an orchestra will be formed at
once. These groups will be divided into fifty
students each, one of each group for those who
have never played, the other for those who have
played. They will be instructed during the Sum-
mer months by a faculty of nationally known
music instructors. The instruction will be of
the class variety, this being considered more
advantageous to the pupils by the faculty than
the individual instruction method.
In September a conservatory of music will be
opened, and the results of the Summer courses
in these three dual groups will be used as an
illustration of what music instruction can do.
Indirectly, of course, this will bring a greater
interest in music, and in turn greater musical
merchandise sales.
Convention Committee Appointed
A committee of the Cleveland music trade
has been permanently organized to handle de-
tails of the convention of the Music Merchants
Association of Northern Ohio here next Sep-
tember. General chairman and treasurer is
George M. Ott, of the G. M. Ott Piano Co.
Mr. Ott also heads the finance committee. W.
H. Bowie will be chairman of the outing com-
mittee; C. H. Randolph, Randolph House of
Good Music, reception committee; E. B. Lyons,
entertainment; J. T. Shipplett, transportation.
Members of the Euclid Music Co. co-operated
in the opening of a new double dancing estab-
lishment of the Martha Lee Club, newspaper-
backed social organization. An open air roof
garden and a regulation indoor ballroom make
up this new amusement enterprise, located at
Euclid avenue and East Seventeenth street, in
the heart of the amusement, music and ultra
shopping district. J. R. Frew, general manager
of the Euclid, personally supervised the perma-
nent decorations. The Baldwin piano, featured
by the Euclid, was supplied for the new hall.
The Euclid also has supplied the Baldwin piano
for use in the broadcasting station of one of
the local daily newspapers.
Another Big Organ Ordered
Another new organ, evidence of music inter-
est, soon will be provided for Cleveland as a
result of a donation of $30,000 by Mrs. Dudley
S. Blossom, wife of the welfare director of
Cleveland. The new organ will be built for Old
Stone Presbyterian Church, of which Mrs. Blos-
som and her family before her have been mem-
bers. The new organ, to be built by the Kim-
ball interests, who supplied the organ for the
great public hall here, will be housed in the
case surrounding the present organ, and prob-
ably will continue to be known as the Florence
Harkness Memorial, for which the original
organ was designed. Florence Harkness was a
noted pioneer of Cleveland.
Victrola No. 100
$150
Mahogany, oak or walnut
Victor supremacy
is the supremacy
of performance
"The re is no way to
judge the future except by
the past." Victor suprem-
acy extends over a quarter-
century. A consideration
of vital importance to every
dealer in Victor products.
Victrola No. 410
$300
Electric, $340
Mahogany
Other styles $25 to $1500
Entertains the Democrats
An interesting music program was given in
the National Democratic Club, New York, Sun-
day evening, June 29, which was participated
in by several prominent artists, who use the
Hardman piano exclusively. Among those
taking part were Rafaelo Diaz, tenor, and
Nanette Guilford, soprano, both from the
Metropolitan Opera Co. About five artists from
the B. F. Keith vaudeville circuit were also
featured as musical numbers in the entertain-
ment, which was given for the benefit of visit-
ing delegates to the National Democratic Con-
vention.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.
'HIS MASTER]* VOICE"
There is but one Victrola and
that is made by the Victor Company
—look for these Victor trademarks.
"^•"
^ ^ ^
- TRADE MARK
^
Victrola
REG U S PAT OFF
Victor Talking
Machine Co.
Camden,N.J.
JULY 12, 1924
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Cleveland Music Merchants Responding
to Appeals for Relief from Lorain, Ohio
Local Dealers Planning Big Musical Fall Campaigns—George M. Ott Heads Convention Com-
mittee Appointed by Local Trade—W. H. Bowie Heads Outing Committee
/CLEVELAND, O., July 8.—Cleveland music
^^ merchants are preparing to respond to the
appeal for financial aid which soon will be broad-
casted in Ohio, and possibly in the nation, for
relief of the stricken people of Lorain, O. They
are appreciative of the fact that Cleveland, or
at least part of it, escaped the disaster that has
visited Lorain by a narrow margin of six miles.
To-day the greater part of Lorain and the
country south of it for thirty miles is virtually
a barren waste, where death and destruction
struck in the form of a tornado on the afternoon
of June 28. The dead in Lorain alone now
numbers 100, and may be added to by the death
of some of the 1,500 injured, half of whom are
in a serious condition in Cleveland and other
hospitals in nearby cities. The property loss
will not be less than $25,000,000, and possibly
will grow to $50,000,000 in the final count. It
took ten minutes for the tornado to bring this
anguish upon the people of Lorain, and little
more than that time to wreak its destruction
upon the village, hamlet and country folk be-
tween Lake Erie and Akron.
As far as the music merchants of Lorain are
concerned they are believed to have been saved
both as to life and injuries as reported in The
Review last week. But the buildings and stocks
of the Wickens Co., largest retail establishment
in Lorain; the Witt Music Co. and the George
A. Clark Co., all directly in fhe path of the
storm, have gone down. Max Mayer, further
from the center of the business district suffered
some loss, and the Richlein-Reidy-Scanlon Co.,
about twelve blocks from the storm centre, at
Broadway and Twenty-first street, escaped en-
tirely.
Loss of life was considerably reduced by Ted
Wickens, head of the Wickens Co., through
quick action on his part when he saw the tor-
nado approaching out of the lake. Herding
some fifty customers into the basement of the
store he certainly prevented serious injury, as
many of them emerged without a scratch. The
top half and entire rear of the Wickens Build-
ing, a granite structure was blown away.
Dan F. Baumbaugh, manager of the May Co.
talking machine department, visited Lorain on
Sunday morning before daylight. He found all
familiar sections of the city obliterated, learned
that many acquaintances had been killed, and
that close friends had escaped by narrow mar-
gins.
J. H. Shartle, general manager of the Cleve-
land Talking Machine Co., was one of the first
of Cleveland individuals to offer succor in the
form of an automobile load of food, which he
took accompanied by city and military officials
from Cleveland. It is the first-hand information
that these members of the trade bring back with
them that may form the basis of a financial aid
movement in the Cleveland music industry, to be
contributed to the relief of Lorain music mer-
chants, or combined with the State or national
aid soon to get under way.
Freaks of the storm are many. Especially in
the open country south of Lorain is this so.
Edwin Holt, of the Knabe Warerooms, made a
tour of the district immediately south of the
lake, and found numerous pianos standing atop
debris, the only things intact from complete
devastation. One of these, a Bush & Gerts
piano, was found atop what was once a house.
In another location near Elyria a player-piano
stands with roll half unwound, indicating some
one had been playing when the house was de-
stroyed.
Planning Fall Musical Activities
Music merchants of Cleveland are going ahead
with their plans for a big Fall campaign in
things musical. First of these to take shape is
the double program of the Conn Cleveland Co.,
of the C. G. Conn, Ltd. A military band, a saxo-
phone band and an orchestra will be formed at
once. These groups will be divided into fifty
students each, one of each group for those who
have never played, the other for those who have
played. They will be instructed during the Sum-
mer months by a faculty of nationally known
music instructors. The instruction will be of
the class variety, this being considered more
advantageous to the pupils by the faculty than
the individual instruction method.
In September a conservatory of music will be
opened, and the results of the Summer courses
in these three dual groups will be used as an
illustration of what music instruction can do.
Indirectly, of course, this will bring a greater
interest in music, and in turn greater musical
merchandise sales.
Convention Committee Appointed
A committee of the Cleveland music trade
has been permanently organized to handle de-
tails of the convention of the Music Merchants
Association of Northern Ohio here next Sep-
tember. General chairman and treasurer is
George M. Ott, of the G. M. Ott Piano Co.
Mr. Ott also heads the finance committee. W.
H. Bowie will be chairman of the outing com-
mittee; C. H. Randolph, Randolph House of
Good Music, reception committee; E. B. Lyons,
entertainment; J. T. Shipplett, transportation.
Members of the Euclid Music Co. co-operated
in the opening of a new double dancing estab-
lishment of the Martha Lee Club, newspaper-
backed social organization. An open air roof
garden and a regulation indoor ballroom make
up this new amusement enterprise, located at
Euclid avenue and East Seventeenth street, in
the heart of the amusement, music and ultra
shopping district. J. R. Frew, general manager
of the Euclid, personally supervised the perma-
nent decorations. The Baldwin piano, featured
by the Euclid, was supplied for the new hall.
The Euclid also has supplied the Baldwin piano
for use in the broadcasting station of one of
the local daily newspapers.
Another Big Organ Ordered
Another new organ, evidence of music inter-
est, soon will be provided for Cleveland as a
result of a donation of $30,000 by Mrs. Dudley
S. Blossom, wife of the welfare director of
Cleveland. The new organ will be built for Old
Stone Presbyterian Church, of which Mrs. Blos-
som and her family before her have been mem-
bers. The new organ, to be built by the Kim-
ball interests, who supplied the organ for the
great public hall here, will be housed in the
case surrounding the present organ, and prob-
ably will continue to be known as the Florence
Harkness Memorial, for which the original
organ was designed. Florence Harkness was a
noted pioneer of Cleveland.
Victrola No. 100
$150
Mahogany, oak or walnut
Victor supremacy
is the supremacy
of performance
"The re is no way to
judge the future except by
the past." Victor suprem-
acy extends over a quarter-
century. A consideration
of vital importance to every
dealer in Victor products.
Victrola No. 410
$300
Electric, $340
Mahogany
Other styles $25 to $1500
Entertains the Democrats
An interesting music program was given in
the National Democratic Club, New York, Sun-
day evening, June 29, which was participated
in by several prominent artists, who use the
Hardman piano exclusively. Among those
taking part were Rafaelo Diaz, tenor, and
Nanette Guilford, soprano, both from the
Metropolitan Opera Co. About five artists from
the B. F. Keith vaudeville circuit were also
featured as musical numbers in the entertain-
ment, which was given for the benefit of visit-
ing delegates to the National Democratic Con-
vention.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.
'HIS MASTER]* VOICE"
There is but one Victrola and
that is made by the Victor Company
—look for these Victor trademarks.
"^•"
^ ^ ^
- TRADE MARK
^
Victrola
REG U S PAT OFF
Victor Talking
Machine Co.
Camden,N.J.
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