Presto

PRESTO
presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
. Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
cries out his business. He watches for feet
that need polishing and he invites them to walk
into his parlor and get a polish.
Don't you like the comparison? Well, it fits
all lines of business. It's only a matter of
method, but the lesson is there. The piano
man, the piano salesman, who is not sure that
there is business for the going after it, must
expect to run into very dull times. The other
kind will never worry about dull times, be-
cause they can stir up results by their own
activities. In other words times, like things,
are about as you make them.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4.
Payable In advance. No extra charge in United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday nccn.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY. JUNE 21, 1924.
TAXES AND THE TIMES
GEORGE R. HUGHES
The uncertainty of life is again brought
home to the music trade by the startlingly
unexpected death of Mr. George R. Hughes,
recently elected president of their national
association. Mr. Hughes was one of the most
universally liked members of the trade. He
was one of the men who seemed to have lit-
erally no enemies and friends without number.
He was popular in whatever gathering he
mingled and his nomination as chairman of
the Western Music Trade Convention proved
that he was as great a favorite on the Pacific
Coast as with the trade at large.
It is only two weeks since Presto announced
Mr. Hughes' election to the presidency of the
National Music Trade Association. In the
same issue of this paper his selection to pre-
side at the July convention of the Western
Music Trade Association, to be held in San
Francisco, July 22-24, was announced. The
shock to members of both associations is
great and it is generally agreed that to fill
his place will be no easy matter.
When word of Mr. Hughes' death came to
his friends in Chicago, last Tuesday morning,
it could scarcely be believed. He had seemed
so active at the New York convention, and
friends who had been with him on his way
westward had no least premonition that his
case was serious. He had been long intimately
connected with the trade in San Francisco,
and his going at the time when he promised
to be of greater usefulness than ever to the
Merchants' Association, adds to the regret,
which seems as a cloud over the memories
which made the week in New York a bright
one.
After many months of subdued excitement
over the special tax upon musical instruments,
in which commissioners haunted Washington
and the trade papers announced alternately
that the tax was on and the tax was off again,
things have settled back with the official con-
summation of the repeal so eagerly wished
for. On July 2 the enactment of the internal
revenue bureau will become effective and the
special tax bugaboo of five per cent on pianos
and sales leases will no longer annoy.
The stamp tax on drafts and notes is also
repealed and business may move right along
without the pesky little burdens which are
more often exaggerated beyond reason than
of real interference to progress in the music,
and many other lines of trade. And now it is
to be presumed that the efforts which certain
"official" hard workers have been devoting to
tax legislation in the piano business will curl
up and permit the ones really interested to
THE POCKET RADIO
proceed with their prosperity.
How long before inventive genius, now so
Of late there seems to have entered into the
piano business a spirit of doubt wholly un- actively at work on radio apparatus, will
justified by conditions that usually affect the evolve a new surprise in the way of a receiver
industry and trade. It has gradually grown so diminutive that it will fit into the coat
into a pessimistic plaint about something alto- pocket ? And then will come the dainty little
gether vague and unsubstantial that is com- boxes, like the ladies "vanity" cases, or even
monly called "rotten." It has even gone so radio watch charms or wrist ornaments.
You say it can't be. But why not? You
far that ordinarily sane and substantial men
of the trade have been heard to say that they probably would have said the same about the
would sell out and quit if they had the right little baby grand piano had you been told,
twenty years ago, that it would eventually
opportunity.
That sort of thing will bring about dullness come in a five-foot case. And perhaps you
in any business. It requires effort to do any- read the article in Presto in which was told
thing at any time. The man in the piano bus- the story about the radio receiver that was
iness who settles back in his store and tells carried around in an ordinary suitcase. Car-
himself that trade is "rotten" and not worth ried along the street, into hotels and up ele-
going out after will quickly be right in his con- vators, with the sound of music of a distant
clusion. But if the same man will forget it concert constantly issuing forth. You would
and stir up his prospects he will find enough have said, "Nonsense" if that demonstration
had been predicted even six months ago.
business to keep him going.
The pocket radio is not an impossibility.
Notice the "shoe shining palace" around on
Right
now we smile as we look up at the house
the side street. You will see that the swarthy-
tops,
and
contemplate the unsightly wiring
faced proprietor doesn't settle back when cus-
that
stretches
across countless roofs. It was
tomers are scarce. He gets out in front and
June 21, 1924.
all the work of enthusiastic radio fans, who
delighted in the simplicity of the means of
proving a marvel.
Today the music stores are displaying the
small portable receivers, and the dainty fin-
ished cabinets, so beautiful that they decorate
any parlor. And radio itself—the mysterious
force and etheric sound conductor, is invisible
—absolutely spaceless. The sounds of music
of instruments and words of the speaking
voice, travel incredible distances seemingly
without direction.
Why, then, may the pocket radio not come?
It will come, and every person may carry
around the ready means of communication
with friends far away. The wonders are mul-
tiplying. When we say that it must seem
that the end of the victories of man over the
unknown is here, we know nevertheless that
"wonders never cease." And the wonder of
radio is only just beginning to find its un-
folding.
WARM CAMPAIGN FOR
STANDARD PRICES
Advocates of System in the House Heartily
Aided by Efforts of Only Woman
Congressman.
Mrs. Mae E. Nolan, representative in Congress
for a California division and the only woman in the
House has announced her championship of the stand-
ard price cause. "The women of the country are
thorough believers in standardized branded goods.
Such goods are the yard sticks by which they meas-
ure unidentified merchandise. After long satisfactory
use they have come to regard as standards of value
in many lines articles whose names are household
words in millions of homes. All this promotes stabil-
ity and economy in production which is directly in
the public interest," said Mrs. Nolan this week.
Mrs. Nolan showed a list of two hundred well-
known women organizations representing every
state in the Union which she said favored standard
prices.
Four bills providing for the establishment of stand-
ard prices on trademarked goods were introduced at
the last session of Congress. None of these measures
became a law. Their failure was not due to active
opposition but to the unprecedented situation which
prevented the passage of nearly all other important
legislation except the essential appropriation bills.
More than eight hundred trade organizations are
now on record in formal resolutions of approval. As
further evidence of the increasing interest in the sys-
tem of standard prices on trade marked merchandise,
ninety-three new manufacturing members were re-
ported to have joined the League during the past
year, all nationally known concerns.
Congressman Clyde Kelly, one of the authors of
the Kelly-Stephens Bill, gives assurance that speedy
hearings on standard price legislation would be ob-
tained when Congress reassembles.
ALEX MCDONALD, COMMISSIONER.
Alex McDonald, of Sohmer & Co., and a member
of the Executive Board of the National Association,
was appointed by President Watkin at the recent
convention as special commissioner to represent that
association at the coming Pacific Coast Convention
at San Francisco July 22nd and 23rd. Mr. McDonald
will leave New York about July 8th, stopping at De-
troit and Chicago, thence to Los Angeles and San
Francisco He will also visit Sacramento, Portland,
Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane and Minneapolis returning.
OPENS NEW TEXAS BRANCH.
J. L. Henderson has opened temporary quarters in
704 Tenth street, Wichita Falls, Tex., but on July 1
he will open a permanent branch store in that city
for the Ross-Heyer Piano Company, of Dallas and
Fort Worth. The Steinway piano and the Duo-Art
are carried by the Ross-Heyer Piano Co. in all its
stores. Mr. Henderson is well known in Wichita
Falls.
PROMISE TO PROSPECTS.
The Schupp Music Shop was opened last week in
Mascoutah, 111. The roll and record departments are
specially featured in the announcement. "You can
now buy all your latest releases as well as old favor-
ites right at home. All your musical wants will be
cheerfully taken care of," is the promise,
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