Presto

20
PRESTO
could reply to this speech of an hour and forty-five
minutes and take all the air out of the bubbles.
Ingalls Imagined the Airplane.
They finally decided on Senator John Ingalls of
Kansas. If someone said to me, "We are going to
give you a ride over the Jordon tonight without a
return ticket," and if I had an opportunity to give
a message to the people, I wish this could be graved
in letters of gold all over the country, and in electric
lights by night. You can imagine something of the
hush of the Senate when Ingalls rose to reply. He
had a twang in his voice, and he said: "If the very
eloquent gentleman from Indiana would pluck the
feathers from the wings of his imagination and stick
them into the tail of his reason, he would pursue
a straighter course." Now, that is the great need
today.
In closing, T want to thank Mr. Bent for sharing
his evening with the Constitution. I do not think he
could have shown any greater evidence of good cit-
izenship. I thank you for your patience, and I hope
now the real enjoyment of the evening may begin.
I thank you. (Great applause, the audience rising.)
J. A. BATES' ADDRESS.
Mr. Toastmaster. and this beautiful collection of
antiques from way back: As Artemus Ward remarked
when someone threw a thrashing machine at him and
put his upper works out of business, "this is tew much."
I see that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are here, but
Father Noah is missing. He, however, has sent the
following telegram which I will read:
'"Boozers' Row, Hades, June, 1925.
"Prof. R. A. Jates,
"Hotel Gander, Chicago:
"Give regrets to Brother Bent—stop—Every joint
here . padlocked tight and as I couldn't bring my own
'twas no use to go—stop—and besides, I hear that
Chicago is hotter than hell so I'll stay right here—stop
—Best regards to all old patriarchs who get there.
"FATHER NOAH, O. J. H. V. (Original
Jewsharp Virtuoso)."
To be here, at this royal banquet, as a guest of honor,
to be accorded such warm greeting and such recogni-
tion of my half-century's effort to make America musi-
cal, to bring back to me those old golden days of my
life, so stirs my emotions that I can hardly find
voice to express my appreciation and my thanks.
It's mighty fine of you to thus remember the Old
Man and his past.
My long life has been comparatively uneventful and
unmarked by any great things accomplished. I have
simply "sawed wood" and given the best that was in
me. just as all of you have, and are doing year in and
year out, and many of you have far out-classed me
in achievements.
Grand Old Square.
It's great to be living and enjoying life at 83 years
of age, and its great, also, to be able to be here to-
night, right at home, with this kindred bunch of grand
old squares, good as ever in tone and action, who in
spite of their years are "still carrying on" and as able
as ever to meet the brash competition of young kids
in the piano trade, whose only idea of salesmanship is
to charge double price for stools, scarfs, piano lamps
and cabinets and throw in the piano.
Your toastmaster wrote me that I was to be honored
with a seat at the head table and was expected to do
my prettiest. Some stunt, that, for one unused to
after-dinner speaking, and if you urchins are expect-
ing anything wise, brilliant, or witty, you have another
guess coming, for my antiquated, smooth bore talker is
loaded only with incidents and reminiscences pertaining
to my journey through life. And if I fail to fill the
occasion, be merciful and don't kill the fiddler who is
doing the best he can.
I undertook this, to me, quite arduous trip, from
my home in Middletown, N. Y., mainly to attend this
reunion of Old Timers, but there were also other at-
tractions which strongly appealed.
It was io 1861 that I responded to Father Abraham's
first call for volunteers, and it's a matter of history
that after I had slaughtered about half the Confeder-
ate army I was called off and sent home, for fear I'd
end the war too soon, and there wouldn't be glory
enough left to go around. For six years after that, and
until 1868, Chicago was my home and the desire to
again tread the old camping ground and recall "thim
happy days" when I had youth, pep, and gall to burn
was strong within me.
Old Chicago Trade.
That was long before the great fire, and in those days
one-half of Lake street was on stilts and the other
half down in the mud. and it was climb up and climb
down until your toggle joints cried for lubrication and
rest.
Root & Cady were then the leading music house;
W. W. Kimball was just butting in with J. P. Hale
Grand Union pianos, and Lyon & Healy and Smith &
Nixon were occupying an old abandoned church oppo-
site the Old Court House, where I sang all one day
at Lincoln's funeral, and from the rotunda gallery
could look down upon his strong, kindly face. The rec-
ollection of his loved features has never left me, and as
I speak, I can vision them.
This new, great Chicago seems very strange to me.
Most of the old landmarks are gone, but in memory's
eye I see again the Old Crosby Opera House, and again
hear Brignoli, the then great tenor, and Gottschalk
playing the "Last Hope," and the grand voice of Jule
Lumbard in the Elijah oratorio.
And how I recall the delightful, enthusiastic years
when I was singing in the old Third Presbyterian
Church and studying voice culture with my respected
old partner, Wm. Ludden.
And my first business
venture, when I ran a grocery store on West Madison
street. Here, too, I courted my good wife (she's good
yet) and on our wedding day, 57 years ago, left for
Savannah, Ga., where the best 26 years of my life
were spent.
Eighty-three Years Young.
And what pleasure to again greet my valued old
friend. Will Bates Price, who forty years ago graduated
from my employ and has since carved out a name and
a record that he can well be proud of. Aud, further,
to think how hungry I was and now ain't! In re-
sponse to my invitation to this feed I wrote friend Bent :
"There's an aching void under my jacket that's crying
to be filled, as T haven't had a good square meal since
the banquet at the Commodore, in New York in 1922,
and I'm mortal hungry. My curiosity ain't so much-
ness, but I'm hollow all the way down, with lateral ex-
tensions too numerous to mention, and if you will but
consider me as twins, entitled to a double serving, and
will change my seat from the head table to one nearest
the kitchen, and give me a half hour's start ahead of
all the bunch, then, in such case, that aching void will
ever remember you in its prayers." And he has filled
the bill, or rather, the Bates, until he feels a mile
bigger than he used to be. It was in 1869 that I started
business in the South and, as far as I can learn, Mr.
Jesse French and myself are the only old pioneers left
on the firing line.
And, though life still has its joys for us, old age is
a lonesome time, and, as we look back down the long
years and recall the many dear old friends and co-
workers who have dropped out of the race, sadly can
we say, with Tom Moore:
When I remember all
The friends so linked together
I've seen around me fall.
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
They say I'm 83 years young, but somehow I doubt
the report for I don't feel the weight of any such
years. I work fourteen hours daily without vacations.
I roll ten pins with the boys, and I'm in for all the fun
that's lying around loose.
Fifty-three Years in Harness.
They say, also, that I am the "dean" of the piano
trade. That may be true, as far as years in actual
business are concerned, for as yet I have found none
who could outclass my 56 years in the harness, but
there are many who, in fewer years, have accomplished
greatly more. Honors are easy. In those years of stren-
uous business I've had my ups and downs, good and
plenty. I've weathered yellow fever epidemics, earth-
quakes, cyclones, fifteen years of nervous breakdown,
and been knocked out three times with financial dis-
asters. But I came back, and while I have not achieved
prosperity, yet I have the satisfaction of feeling that
I have made a good fight and won that respect and
esteem which, to me, is far better than great riches.
I built the Ludden & Bates' Southern Music House
on the solid rock foundation of square and absolutely
honest dealing. I gave the best 26 years of my life
to this end, while this fine business has passed out of
my hands, and others have reaped the harvest of my
sowing, yet it is a great satisfaction to me that my
name is still on the sign and that the prestige I gained
for the old house still holds good.
If you ask me how I've held my own so well, I'll
answer: "by keeping in harness, forgetting past trials
and everlastingly hoping for better things to come."
Twenty years ago. when in broken health and
knocked out for the third time, I wrote my creed in
these four verses, and it still holds good:
When bitter troubles come your way,
Don't despair, get sore and glum,
Take a hitch in your grit and say
"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."
Never mind what hard knocks you get,
Don't flunk, lose your nerve or run;
Get busy, fight, you may win yet.
"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."
So be you're knocked out, done to death,
And get what Paddy gave the drum;
Fight on and say with your last breath,
"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."
And when you land "way down below"
Where Old Satan makes things hum,
Just remark, as in the fire you go,
"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."
Life's Compensations.
My 83 years' trail has not been altogether an easy
jaunt, but there have been compensations and, after
all, this is a pretty good world; anyhow, it's the best
world I ever lived in and, so long as pianos can be
June 13, 1925.
sold, I'm satisfied to stick around and, when the call
comes to join all the great pioneers who have gone
before, I hope it will find me right on my job.
I thank you for your patient attention, and may I
leave with you this thought :
Man's destiny and man's happiness is to go on, and
if he stops, or lies down in the race, it's all over with
him. Calendars mark the passage of time, but they
do not mark a man old and, even if 70 or 80 years
have frosted one's hair, they should not frost his spir-
its. If any of my friends here feel old, broken, and
as if life were not worth living, my advice is to forget
it, to take a hitch in their grit, and make the century
mark their goal. And may you all get there with
bells on !
W. B. PRICE RECALLS EARLIER DAYS.
As I look around this beautiful room and note the
different personages assembled, how my heart and
mind turn back the pages of memory! For Mr. Bent,
our genial host, has brought together tonight many
that I have known for a long, long time, and have
passed delightful and happy hours in their com-
pany.
There's Mr. J. A. Bates. The "B" in my name
stands for "Bates," and he named me that. Along in
the '80's he gave me a job in his store as general
correspondent. That was in the days when type-
writing machines were NOT in flower. I can see
him now riding his favorite horse to the big Savan-
nah store, in the morning, and from which estab-
lishment 'twas no trick at all to sell from two to three
thousand pianos and organs per annum. They were
the old square pianos too. This man Bates put the
Chickering and Mathushek pianos and Mason &
Hanilin organs 'on the map" in Georgia, South Caro-
lina, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida and Missis-
sippi. He was a leader on a big scale and that's
"going some" for a man who at the close of the Civil
War paid William Ludden in Chicago a dollar to
give him his first singing lesson. Later on, in New
York State he ran one of our renowned removal
sales and just when the time expired to vacate his
store, he coolly took big space in the newspapers and
in his ad. announced "Got good news for you. Don't
have to move after all." I'm so proud Mr. Bent in-
vited him here tonight.
Some Other Fine Boys.
Then I see Gilbert Smith here, who used to travel
for Mr. Bates. Gilbert would send his laundry to
Augusta, Ga., 50 to 100 miles away from where he
was traveling, and then have to go after it Saturday
nights so as to spend Sunday in the big Augusta
hotel. Gilbert never lost a trick.
And over there is Joe Gressett, whose father, Mr.
A. Gressett, obtained his stock of instruments from
Mr. Bates.
Then we have Bro. Charles H. Parsons, whom I
remember telling at a Chicago piano man's banquet,
how proud he was when he received a dealer's four
months' note in settlement for pianos, confidently ex-
pecting the note to be paid at maturity, and how
he "came to" when the request was made the very
day the note fell due for a renewal. How blessed it
is to expect much.
Now, when this all-around-the-world nobleman,
George P. Bent informed me lie intended giving this
dinner to the aged, including some of the boys who
yet have a long ways to go to catch up with us
youngsters of the sixties," I said to myself "now
that's just like Geo. P.—always doing something
to make somebody happy." I recalled the many big
evenings he has so graciously and generously con-
tributed to bring about bright snots in the lives of his
myriad of friends, and in my musings, I said "here
indeed is a real man." How well I recall when he
first opened his retail store in his present location on
Wabash avenue, and how his jolly, bright smile
would light the atmosphere of the basement in the
old Wellington Hotel, where the piano men would
congregate for lunch, and discuss the merits and de-
merits of lots of things, including L. M. French's
Plectraphone, until dear Mr. P. J. Healy would sud-
denly break into the conversation and say "here
comes Bent. He can tell us how French's contrap-
tion compares with the Bent Combinola." And say!
George P. would enlarge upon the wonderful Com-
binola something like this: "Why, gentlemen, I've
got 'em all beat before they start, with my Com-
binola attachment. With it you can imitate the
sweet harp tones just as they did in the time of Da-
vid. You can hear the mandolins mandolute as they
do in the streets of old Madrid. Jn fact one can pro-
duce most any quality of tone at will, including the
ringing of the banjos and the jews-harps on the old
Southern plantations round about Natchez. Why
gentlemen, it's a world beater, and much as I like our
friend French and his rare old "fine cut" tobacco,
I cannot hide my light under a bushel any longer."
And Geo. P. believed it, and what's more, he put it
over, and made a barrel of money out of it, some of
which he lost later on, when at the Hoffman House
during a piano men's convention in New York; he
lost his pants one fine morning, but later found them
hanging at the top of the fire escape.
First of the "Crown."
I seem to kinder hitch friend Bent up with hotels
and restaurants, and that reminds me of when he
first launched the Crown organ. Now, Geo. P. was
always in a hurry on business days. One of his rush
days he dashed into Kohlsaat's where food was for
sale on quick delivery, and found himself riding in
a jam of people propelling himself by means of his
elbows. Long counters extended from front to rear
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