Presto

June 13, 1925.
PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. D A N I E L L and F R A N K D. A B B O T T
.
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), " P R E S T O , " Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879.
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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-
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Address all communications for the editorial or business
d e p a r t m e n t s to P R E S T O P U B L I S H I N G
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
representatives, eligible to attend, grow and
this year the combined trades organizations
embrace more men than ever before. And
some of the branches of the music business
this week turned out stronger than at any
earlier convention.
There was some unofficial talk during the
week about the advisability of splitting up the
Music Industries Chamber of Commerce and
a return to the original plan of independent
associations, to meet at different times, just
as the sheet music men, the tuners and some
other branches are doing. The argument in
most instances was that the present combina-
tion is almost unwieldy and presents complex-
ities which make it difficult for the various
departments to cover enough ground in the
brief time of the convention.
But that is something the heads and com-
mitees of the organizations will look after,
and individual members can help most by sus-
taining the interests of the industry and trade
in whatever manner the recognized officers
may elect. When Mr. Paul B. Klugh first pro-
posed the present plan of a Chamber of Com-
merce, he could have had little idea to what
an extent his suggestion might eventually
expand.
CO., 417 South
SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1925.
CHEERFUL SOUNDS
In one important respect at least this week's
convention was the best in the history of the
trade. It was in the fact that the feeling with
nearly every man present was one of cheerful
optimism. The general remark was to the
effect that things are brightening up in the
piano business. The managers of the displays
in the Drake rooms, almost without exception,
reported orders, some of them in almost sur-
prising numbers.
In fact, it would have been difficult to wring
a groan out of any piano men who attended
this week's meeting. The keynote was dis-
tinctly that of the major scale, without the
suggestion of the minor.
It was good to be present and to hear the
remarks, often enthusiastic. The only impres-
sion was one of satisfaction with things as
they are, and still more satisfaction with what
is promised. Of course there were the regular
calamity howlers, but they were not singing
very loudly and the chorus of cheer was such
as to drown out any other sounds.
THIS WEEK
It has been a big week. There have been
more of the leaders in the music business
gathered together than has been customary
since the annual conventions attained their
greatest momentum in the times of the Buf-
falo and Atlantic City meetings.
The conventions have assumed a more se-
rious tone than formerly. This week, while
there has been enough of the spirit of a vaca-
tion, and good feeling generally, it has not
been like the older meetings of the kind that
made memorable the Baltimore affair of 1902,
and a few others. But no music man who has
been in Chicago will have any regrets on the
score of a good time. It has been a succession
of events without one hour's dullness.
It is too early yet to say that the week's
gathering was vastly larger than those at
earlier conventions. This applies especially to
the piano men, because as the interests, or or-
ganizations, multiply and increase, the trade
ALL YOUNGSTERS
When Mr. Geo. P. Bent characterized his
event of Tuesday night as a "dinner to and
for the aged," he probably had no idea that he
was—as is usual with him—giving the trade
something to talk about along many more
lines than the feast itself suggested. When
the invitation first appeared in Presto a lot
of wit was let loose, and where before we all
confessed to some age to the aft of rosy
youth, it later became apparent that there
wasn't an old man within the entire circle of
the trade. Even such as were ready to admit
that Time had made familiar advances,
laughed him off and wrote jolly jingles in de-
nial of any effects of his dalliance.
There wasn't a crutch, cane, ear-trumpet or
set of adjustable molars anywhere in sight.
All the acceptances to Mr. Bent's party were
but skittish youngsters who marvelled at the
symbols "B. Y. O." by which the invitations
were embellished. Only age, and a good deal
of it, could decipher a sign like that. The
nearest to an answer was "Bring your onions"
which, considering that a banquetter's breath
is no longer a question of cloves, was not in-
telligible to many of them.
And when Tuesday night came, and the
"dinner for the aged" was on, there was jus-
tification of the presumption of youth. For
the gathering bubbled with animation, and not
a man present gave any more evidence of
Time's inroads than in the days when the
same guests to the same host met to celebrate
the first of his several famous dinners a good
many years ago.
Certainly Time seems to deal kindly with
the piano men. And had Mr. Bent failed to
make it clear that his dinner also marked an-
other birthday of his own, no one present on
Tuesday night could have guessed that he had
passed any milestone of Time since the time
when, as president of the association of piano
manufacturers, he told them what was good
for them as long ago as the 1904 convention.
It is easy to say, also, that no one who shared
in Tuesday's "dinner for the aged" will forget
it, even if, because of it, he is not really as
much younger as the occasion made him feel.
Anyway, "the youth of the soul is everlasting,
and eternity is youth." So there really could
be no "dinner to the aged"—not for men of
music.
A very full report of Mr. Geo. P. Bent's
dinner to the Youngsters appears in this issue.
It deserves the space, and more than a full
thousand extra copies of this week's Presto
were required to fill the demand. Last Sun-
day's special convention train from New
York alone brought enough to make a good
meeting.
* * *
Suppose the convention had been in some
inland town, where good old Lake Mich, could
not swish upon the sandy shores. In Chicago
the breeze from over the waters kept things
well cooled off, in and near the Drake. Next
year the old Atlantic may do it for us at
Little Old New York.
* * *
It was the largest in the history of the
trade. The first invoice of manufacturers
from the east came in on Monday and every
train thereafter brought a lot more. It has
been a warm week in more senses than one.
* * *
There was certainly a demand for The Min-
iature Presto, copies of which were in every-
one's hands. If you need more copies tell us
so. Someone said it is a "trade tonic." We
dunno.
* * *
The convention week had just started when
an order for 1,000 pianos—and good ones—
was given to the representative of a mid-west
industry. Is business so bad?
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(June 13, 1895.)
Mr. If. L. Story, who has resided at San Diego,
California, for several years past has located at Alta-
dena. near Pasadena, that state.
The Lester Piano Co. are about completing an addi-
tion to their plant at Lester, in Tinicum township,
near Chester, Pa. The plant will be doubled in size
and the list of employes increased to one hundred.
It is not that pianos cannot be made cheaply
enough in New York. The danger to the Eastern
piano manufacturers lies in quite a different direction.
They have been making them too cheaply. They
have forced a condition which in self defense the Chi-
cago manufacturers have endeavored to meet and
overcome.
We believe that the first attempt at producing a
miniature upright piano with overstrung bass, and
the other modern features, is that of the Apollo Piano
Co., of Bloomsburg, N. J. We have examined the
little five-octave instruments of this concern and
found their tone, all things considered, really sur-
prising.
20 YEARS AQ0 THIS WEEK
(From Presto, June 15, 1905.)
Arrangements for the big Put-In-Bay Convention
are about perfected. It will be a great event and one
never before equaled in the annals of the piano trade,
if the present promise is fulfilled.
Doctor Thaddeus T. Cahill has perfected at his
laboratory in Holyoke, Mass., a mechanism to make
and distribute music by electricity. By Dr. Cahill's
invention, which represents his life work, music, he
claims, with full, clear tones may be sent hundreds of
miles from the central station and produced in a thou-
sand or ten thousand hotels, clubs, apartments or
homes simultaneously.
Michigan is fast becoming a piano producing state.
Another of Chicago's big industries has made ar-
rangements to remove the factory across the lake and
work will be begun at once to that end. The Bush
& Lane Piano Co. is the latest to migrate from the
West Side in Chicago to the east side of the inland
sea. The location chosen is Holland, Mich., a thriv-
ing little city populated largely by descendants of the
sturdy race suggested by the name.
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