Presto
Issue: 1920 1777 - Page 5
August 14, 1920.
their stores. And the wise ones will not advance the prices beyond
the increase represented by the new freight tariff. The excessive de-
mand for pianos has settled back. It would be a mistake to try to
revive it in the old way—by cutting prices and advertising "bar-
gains," which meant sacrifice of profits. Nor is that necessary.
The dealers who know how to make use of the inevitable increase
in the cost of their pianos, will benefit, rather than meet wiht loss, be-
cause of the freight increase. The kind that try to lead their trade
to believe that the new tariff kills their profits, and then swell the
selling prices accordingly, will turn away business. Keep the prices
where they belong, but don't make a small addition to the cost of
doing business a pretext for mulcting your customers and killing your
business.
SUCCESSFUL SEEBURG
It was old Bovee, ancient philosopher, who defined the secret of
success in just as many words as form the minimum in a modern tele-
graph message, thus: "Successful minds work like a gimlet—to a
single point." The application just now is to a recent transaction in
the piano industry by which a younger member of the Chicago group
becomes head of a two-factory combination. And the amalgamation
is more interesting because the successful man is the same that organ-
ized and established both of the factories.
The story of Mr. J. P. Seeburg's securing control of his old com-
pany, and his plans to combine it with his newer Marshall Piano Co.,
was told last week. To many in the trade and industry it created
surprise, because it was so comparatively recently that Mr. Seeburg
disposed of his interests in the older industry and, with the proceeds
of the sale, commenced to do business as the Marshall Piano Co.
Others, who had knowledge of the fact that the management of the
J. P. Seeburg Piano Co. was long ago looking around for a new loca-
tion, realized that a change was pending and easily foresaw that Mr.
Seeburg was "coming back."
But of more interest even than the combination of the two See-
burg industries, with their founder in control, are the career and
activities of the man himself. It is probable that in a crowd J. P.
Seeburg would not be picked out for a winner of the determined,
persistent and forceful type. He fits Bovee's definition of a success-
ful mind. He works with the silent, tireless insinuation of the gimlet.
His left hand no doubt knows what his right hand doeth, but he
doesn't pause in his boring, in the adamant of ambition, to cry out
his purposes to other borers just below or at either side of him.
Only when the gimlet emerges from the other side, and the light
shines through, does he tell why he has been at work, and what the
purposes of it may be. And that is the way with most successful
workers. They have definite aims, but they say little about them till
success has come and the liability of overthrow by interference is
past.
When many members of the piano business first knew Mr. See-
burg he was at work in the factory of the Smith, Barnes & Strohber
Co., in Chicago. He was quite young at that time, but he knew
where he was heading. And soon he was heard of as one of the pro-
moters of a piano action industry at Rockford, 111. He was an action
expert—a practical piano maker. The action factory was successful
but the gimlet did not just like the boring. So it wasn't long before
a new player-piano industry was launched in Chicago. It was known
as the Marquette Piano Co., and electric pianos were the product.
The company's name was due to the fact that Mr. Seeburg had inter-
ested his capital in the copper country of which the town of Mar-
quette, Mich., is a center. The industry still exists, but its founder
has long been out of it.
The next his friends knew of his persistent boring, Mr. Seeburg
was selling electric pianos at retail, putting them into places of recrea-
tion and disposing of the installment paper to capitalists who quickly
reposed confidence in the secure sagacity of the young salesman.
Naturally, that kind of association suggested a new industry by which
the selling of electric pianos direct, and in, larger numbers, might
quickly lead to fortune. Mr. Seeburg was not slow in getting started
along the very lines he had fixed his gimlet mind upon years before.
The industry set a new record in the speed of its development.
When Mr. Seeburg sold out his interests in the J. P. Seeburg
Piano Co., he had acquired a comfortable fortune. But his ambitions
had not yet been satisfied. He was still a young man with his ener-
gies unimpaired. What more natural that when this opportunity
arose he seized it rapidly and prepared to continue boring, with an
auger replacing the insinuating gimlet of earlier days?
OPENING OVERTURES OF THE CANDIDATES
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE'S CREED.
(Continued from page 3.)
more production, honest production, patriotic production, because
patriotic production is no less a defense of our best civilization than
that of armed force. Profiteering is a crime of commission, under-
production is a crime of omission. We must work our most and
best, else the destructive reaction will come. We must stabilize and
strive for normalcy, else the inevitable reaction will bring its train
of sufferings, disappointments and reversals. We want to forestall
such reaction; we want to hold all advanced ground and fortify it
with general good fortune.
Let us return for a moment to the necessity for understanding,
particularly that understanding which concerns ourselves at home.
I decline to recognize any conflict of interest among the participants
in industry. The destruction of one is the ruin of the other, the
suspicion or rebellion of one unavoidably involves the other. In con-
flict is disaster, in understanding there is triumph. There is no issue
relating to the foundation on which industry is builded, because
industry is bigger than any element in its modern making. But the
insistent call is for labor, management and capital to reach under-
standing.
OBLIGATIONS TO HUMANITY.
The human element comes first, and I want the employers in
industry to understand the aspirations, the convictions, the yearn-
ings of the millions of American wage earners, and I want the
wage earners to understand the problems, the anxieties, the obliga-
tions of management and capital, and all of them must understand
their relationship to the people and their obligation to the republic.
Out of this understanding will come the unanimous committal
to economic justice and in economic justice lies that social justice
which is the highest essential to human happiness,
DEMOCRATIC PROMISE OF PEACE.
(Continued from page 3.)
widening flow of American commerce. We will soon have a merchant
marine fleet of 11,000,000 tons aggregate, every ship flying the Amer-
ican flag and carrying in American bottoms the products of mill and
mine and factory and farm.
This would seem to be a guaranty of continued prosperity. Our
facilities for exchange and credit, however, in foreign parts should
be enlarged, and under the federal reserve system banks should be
established in important trading centers.
There is unrest in the country; our people have passed through
a trying experience. The European war before it engulfed us aroused
every racial throb in a nation of composite citizenship. The conflict
in which we participated carried anxieties into every community, and
thousands upon thousands of homes were touched by tragedy.
VISION OF THE FUTURE.
We want to forget war and be free from the troubling thought of
its possibility in the future. We want the dawn and the dews of a
new morning. We want happiness in the land, the feeling that the
square deal among men and between men and government is not to
be interfered with by a purchased preference. We want a change
from the old world of yesterday, where international intrigue made
the people mere pawns on the chessboard of war. We want a change
from the old industrial world, where the man who toiled was assured
"a full dinner pail" as his only lot and portion.
My vision does not turn backward to the "normal" desired by the
senatorial oligarchy, but to a future in which all shall have a normal
opportunity to cultivate a higher stature amidst better environment
than that of the past. Our view is toward the sunrise of tomorrow,
with its progress and its eternal promise of better things. The op-
position stands in the skyline of the setting sun, looking backward
to the old days of reaction.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
their stores. And the wise ones will not advance the prices beyond
the increase represented by the new freight tariff. The excessive de-
mand for pianos has settled back. It would be a mistake to try to
revive it in the old way—by cutting prices and advertising "bar-
gains," which meant sacrifice of profits. Nor is that necessary.
The dealers who know how to make use of the inevitable increase
in the cost of their pianos, will benefit, rather than meet wiht loss, be-
cause of the freight increase. The kind that try to lead their trade
to believe that the new tariff kills their profits, and then swell the
selling prices accordingly, will turn away business. Keep the prices
where they belong, but don't make a small addition to the cost of
doing business a pretext for mulcting your customers and killing your
business.
SUCCESSFUL SEEBURG
It was old Bovee, ancient philosopher, who defined the secret of
success in just as many words as form the minimum in a modern tele-
graph message, thus: "Successful minds work like a gimlet—to a
single point." The application just now is to a recent transaction in
the piano industry by which a younger member of the Chicago group
becomes head of a two-factory combination. And the amalgamation
is more interesting because the successful man is the same that organ-
ized and established both of the factories.
The story of Mr. J. P. Seeburg's securing control of his old com-
pany, and his plans to combine it with his newer Marshall Piano Co.,
was told last week. To many in the trade and industry it created
surprise, because it was so comparatively recently that Mr. Seeburg
disposed of his interests in the older industry and, with the proceeds
of the sale, commenced to do business as the Marshall Piano Co.
Others, who had knowledge of the fact that the management of the
J. P. Seeburg Piano Co. was long ago looking around for a new loca-
tion, realized that a change was pending and easily foresaw that Mr.
Seeburg was "coming back."
But of more interest even than the combination of the two See-
burg industries, with their founder in control, are the career and
activities of the man himself. It is probable that in a crowd J. P.
Seeburg would not be picked out for a winner of the determined,
persistent and forceful type. He fits Bovee's definition of a success-
ful mind. He works with the silent, tireless insinuation of the gimlet.
His left hand no doubt knows what his right hand doeth, but he
doesn't pause in his boring, in the adamant of ambition, to cry out
his purposes to other borers just below or at either side of him.
Only when the gimlet emerges from the other side, and the light
shines through, does he tell why he has been at work, and what the
purposes of it may be. And that is the way with most successful
workers. They have definite aims, but they say little about them till
success has come and the liability of overthrow by interference is
past.
When many members of the piano business first knew Mr. See-
burg he was at work in the factory of the Smith, Barnes & Strohber
Co., in Chicago. He was quite young at that time, but he knew
where he was heading. And soon he was heard of as one of the pro-
moters of a piano action industry at Rockford, 111. He was an action
expert—a practical piano maker. The action factory was successful
but the gimlet did not just like the boring. So it wasn't long before
a new player-piano industry was launched in Chicago. It was known
as the Marquette Piano Co., and electric pianos were the product.
The company's name was due to the fact that Mr. Seeburg had inter-
ested his capital in the copper country of which the town of Mar-
quette, Mich., is a center. The industry still exists, but its founder
has long been out of it.
The next his friends knew of his persistent boring, Mr. Seeburg
was selling electric pianos at retail, putting them into places of recrea-
tion and disposing of the installment paper to capitalists who quickly
reposed confidence in the secure sagacity of the young salesman.
Naturally, that kind of association suggested a new industry by which
the selling of electric pianos direct, and in, larger numbers, might
quickly lead to fortune. Mr. Seeburg was not slow in getting started
along the very lines he had fixed his gimlet mind upon years before.
The industry set a new record in the speed of its development.
When Mr. Seeburg sold out his interests in the J. P. Seeburg
Piano Co., he had acquired a comfortable fortune. But his ambitions
had not yet been satisfied. He was still a young man with his ener-
gies unimpaired. What more natural that when this opportunity
arose he seized it rapidly and prepared to continue boring, with an
auger replacing the insinuating gimlet of earlier days?
OPENING OVERTURES OF THE CANDIDATES
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE'S CREED.
(Continued from page 3.)
more production, honest production, patriotic production, because
patriotic production is no less a defense of our best civilization than
that of armed force. Profiteering is a crime of commission, under-
production is a crime of omission. We must work our most and
best, else the destructive reaction will come. We must stabilize and
strive for normalcy, else the inevitable reaction will bring its train
of sufferings, disappointments and reversals. We want to forestall
such reaction; we want to hold all advanced ground and fortify it
with general good fortune.
Let us return for a moment to the necessity for understanding,
particularly that understanding which concerns ourselves at home.
I decline to recognize any conflict of interest among the participants
in industry. The destruction of one is the ruin of the other, the
suspicion or rebellion of one unavoidably involves the other. In con-
flict is disaster, in understanding there is triumph. There is no issue
relating to the foundation on which industry is builded, because
industry is bigger than any element in its modern making. But the
insistent call is for labor, management and capital to reach under-
standing.
OBLIGATIONS TO HUMANITY.
The human element comes first, and I want the employers in
industry to understand the aspirations, the convictions, the yearn-
ings of the millions of American wage earners, and I want the
wage earners to understand the problems, the anxieties, the obliga-
tions of management and capital, and all of them must understand
their relationship to the people and their obligation to the republic.
Out of this understanding will come the unanimous committal
to economic justice and in economic justice lies that social justice
which is the highest essential to human happiness,
DEMOCRATIC PROMISE OF PEACE.
(Continued from page 3.)
widening flow of American commerce. We will soon have a merchant
marine fleet of 11,000,000 tons aggregate, every ship flying the Amer-
ican flag and carrying in American bottoms the products of mill and
mine and factory and farm.
This would seem to be a guaranty of continued prosperity. Our
facilities for exchange and credit, however, in foreign parts should
be enlarged, and under the federal reserve system banks should be
established in important trading centers.
There is unrest in the country; our people have passed through
a trying experience. The European war before it engulfed us aroused
every racial throb in a nation of composite citizenship. The conflict
in which we participated carried anxieties into every community, and
thousands upon thousands of homes were touched by tragedy.
VISION OF THE FUTURE.
We want to forget war and be free from the troubling thought of
its possibility in the future. We want the dawn and the dews of a
new morning. We want happiness in the land, the feeling that the
square deal among men and between men and government is not to
be interfered with by a purchased preference. We want a change
from the old world of yesterday, where international intrigue made
the people mere pawns on the chessboard of war. We want a change
from the old industrial world, where the man who toiled was assured
"a full dinner pail" as his only lot and portion.
My vision does not turn backward to the "normal" desired by the
senatorial oligarchy, but to a future in which all shall have a normal
opportunity to cultivate a higher stature amidst better environment
than that of the past. Our view is toward the sunrise of tomorrow,
with its progress and its eternal promise of better things. The op-
position stands in the skyline of the setting sun, looking backward
to the old days of reaction.
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).