Presto

PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234. Private Phones to all De-
partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office,
:
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Chicago, Illinois,
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable in advance. No extra
charge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
Advertising Rates:—Five dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insertions.
Complete schedule of rates for standing cards and special displays will be furnished
on request. The Presto does not sell its editorial space. Payment is not accepted for
articles of descriptive character or other matter appearing in the news columns. Busi-
ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" In accordance with the
Act of August 24, 1912.
Rates for advertising in Presto Year Book Issue and Export Supplements of
Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and Industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
July 31, 1920.
what Mr. Murray's letter means. That is why others in the trade
are beginning to ask for longer terms and more liberal "support"
by the manufacturers.
It is easy for the retailer to make demands upon the source of
his supplies. But it is hard for the manufacturers to comply, espe-
cially when in addition to the call for easy terms there comes a
cry for lower prices. The manufacturers cannot demand that the
supply industries sell their raw or finished materials at figures any
lower than conditions justify. The law of competition still survives.
But no supply industry has command of nature's resources, nor
can any manufacturer of either supplies or finished pianos command
a change in the scale of high wages.
Things have changed since Mr. Murray and all the other deal-
ers could buy pianos at prices and on terms familiar enough six
years and less ago, but wholly impossible today. The retailer has
the best of the situation still. He can sell his pianos at a good profit
—as good as ever. But the manufacturer must figure closely if he
is to pay the first cost of his materials, the increased "overhead"
and the higher wages and still keep his original capital intact.
Presto certainly is working in the interests of the dealers, and
we know what their troubles are. This is one reason why we ad-
vise against such demands as Mr. Murray gives voice to. The only
way is to co-operate with the manufacturer, study the situation
from his standpoint as well as from your own, and, by treating the
public fairly and intelligently, make more money on the high-price
selling plans than was ever possible on the no-bottom price, endless
payment plan of the days gone by, we hope, forever.
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE "MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
THE RETAILER'S PROBLEMS
An established piano merchant, in a great city of the West, writes
to Presto in complaint of the methods of the manufacturers and
their prices. This letter appears in the "Where Doubts Are Dis-
pelled" columns this week, and its writer is Mr. Thomas J. Mur-
ray, of Denver.
Evidently Mr. Murray would like to have things in the trade
turn back ;lgain to the time when the piano manufacturers sent
travelers out to find lodging places for their instruments wherever
they might, and on any terms possible, however ruinous to them-
selves. I t was a preposterous condition. It began with four months'
credit to the retailer; then came the privilege of one renewal of
the note settlement; then followed the renewal of the renewal. It
was but a step to the consignment plan, by which the dealer paid
when he made a sale—or almost any other time he could, or even
thought he wanted to or had to.
There came the time when the manufacturers began to realize
that the local banks were not strong enough to carry all the install-
ment paper there was, and a change seemed desirable. The change
came in the one-year's sale, note settlements, which was in time
stretched to two years and finally to three years. That seemed
the limit and troubles piled so high that even the greatest of the
piano industries began to haul in their long-drawn-out terms of
settlement.
And then came the cataclysm, which changed every process in the
industrial and commercial world. Pianos were not so easy to get and
the dealers found that their customers had money with which to pay
for whatever instruments it was possible to deliver. Almost sud-
denly the piano became an article of cash business. The manufac-
turers stiffened, their terms and the retailer had to follow suit. The
business prospered as never before within the memory of the vet-
erans. Of course, as the world rolls around again to somewhere
near the starting point, the old-time conditions w^ll return.. That is
THE LIMITLESS LIMIT
Is there no end to the "song wanted" schemes? Must it forever
be a sinless crime to perpetrate the offenses that belittle the "art di-
vine" and bring the makers of popular music into disrepute ? And can
any intelligent member of the music trade believe that the limit has
finally been reached in the limitless pursuit of the dollar with the
"song wanted" as the bait?
Nevertheless it seems to have arrived if it is ever coming, and it
bears the name of the "Universal Classic" and is a small-sized publica-
tion modestly described on the title page as "a magazine of greatest
interest to song writers, publishers and dealers." And the sole contents
is a lot of silly verse, halting and decrepit, the author of which
proposes to sell his inspirations- on some basis of "publication and
promotion offers for all or part rights."
When Mr. Theodore R. Lyons was engaged in his expose of the
song-wanted finds he let more light in upon the scheme than has ever
been shed before or since. And, as a result, there was a considerable
slowing up of the flood of what was termed the "Hit Alley" slop. But
that was several years ago, and Presto's efforts at purification have
been in a sense forgotten.
The principal, perhaps, the only, value of the latest plan of the
song verse genius is, that it presents a fine example of how song
verse should not be written. Mr. Sam Rud Cook, of Rockport, In-
diana, seems not to have discovered that to be successful a song must
present an idea, or possibly two of them, in so simple a manner as to
at once tell the story. And the verses must so nearly sing themselves
that the "composer" finds at once his inspiration. The "classics" pre-
sented by the Indiana gentleman are elongated, and the "choruses"
contain no fewer than from twelve to fifteen lines of awkward rhym-
ing. Even worse, if possible, there is lack of sane construction and dis-
regard of grammatical expression. See these.lines, as a specimen,
speaking of "Cranberry Sauce":
To the bog cranberry fields I hied
At Cape Cod when the May blossoms bloomed,
And I saw how the peat strength supplied
While the sand kept all weeds so well doomed—
That bugle berries red, tart and fine
Ripened by September fit to dine;
There neat girl I soon found as the boss
And she sang for my hopes this good sauce.
Wouldn't that crinkle you if set to music befitting the "pome"?
And what about this, from the gem entitled "I Want to be a Sailor
Boy":
I'm tired of reading stories,
Of men with names of fame,
I'm tired of dreams of glory,
That to me have never came.
But to show that even the critic may have been, discovered in ad-
vance of publication, here are the concluding lines of the song entitled
"The Strawberry Vote," a tale in verse in which are told the advent-
ures of a "guy" who hired out to some political boss and took a "straw-
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