Variety (August 1913)

VAJUBTY DESPERATE STRAITS NOW FOR POP MUSIC PUBLISHERS Ten-Cent Stores Driving Wholesalers of Popular Music Distracted. No Money in Five and Six-Cent Music. Publishers Can't Pay Royalty and Other Obliga- tions. Most Said to be In Bad Way, Through Poor Business This Summer. July 1 has come and gone, and most of the song writers are still hovering around the music publishing concerns awaiting their royalties due on that date. The music publishing business is in a really serious condition. That is to £ay, the publishers are unable to meet their obligations. This condition is due, in the main, to the attitude of the ten-cent stores, which now control the bulk of the sales of sheet music. As long as these large selling syndicates were willing to pay seven cents per copy for sheet music, the publishers managed to continue at a profit The prices are now being cut to five and six cents, leaving no margin for the publisher with which to pay his honest obligations, such as royalties, printing, effice expenses and "plugging." As a result of this serious price cut- ting the publishers are in a frenzied state of stampede, rushing to and fro, in an effort to find a way out of the dilemma. Their only chance of secur- ing ready cash is to sell the ten-cent stores. Their orders are good as "Hay wheat" It is "spot cash" business, and hence highly desirable. But the ten- cent store buyers also know this and are not loath to take advantage of the situation. A more or less careful canvass re- veals but one big publisher, who is also interested in a number of smaller concerns, who insists that he will shut down rather than cut below the seven- cent rate. As a matter of fact, there is no great demand for sheet music at this season of the year, but the publishers must have money to meet their expenses. The printer doesn't care for notes; he has had them before. The song writers cannot cash them for food and lodgings. Both are becoming bothersome. The situation is becoming more and more tense each day. ROUND 2, TRIGGER VS. NEFF. The moving picture men's meeting, held at the Union Square Hotel July 28, proved but another phase of the kindergarten politics that has marked the organization of the film men of the country from the start Called by the supporters of M. A. Neff, president ot the Motion Picture Exhibitors' League of America, for the purpose of drawing back into the original body some part of the revolutionaries who walked out of the Grand Central Pal- ace convention during the recent movie exposition, or filling the places of the seceders with new timber, the Union Square Hotel meeting resolved to the farce that the most jejune of parlia- mentarians could have predicted, once the call for the meeting got to the ears of the opposition body. The Neff meeting hadn't been called to order before its promoters knew the objects designed by the gathering were impossible of attainment then. The opposition packed the meeting with supporters ready to espouse from the drop of a hat to an ambulance every angle of the opposition's side. Nothing actual was accomplished. Every time an advocate for the side of Neff arose to show why the Neff or- ganization was the simon pure article, and all others cross breeds and super- fluous, one of the champions of the Motion Picture Exhibitors' Association representing the new standard of the Samuel Trigger faction, would obtrude his business-blocking presence, and the motion, whatever it would have been if completely expressed, died on its way to a period. Save at the packed meeting of the Public Service Com- mission in the auditoriums of the city's fathers, some time ago, there never was a meeting of an organized body in this city where the motions were so re- markable for comas. The Trigger fac- tion had successfully checked every move of the Neff crowd to pass a sin- gle motion when the first half of the session adjourned at noon and in the afternoon again succeeded in pulling the plug every time the Neff adherents tried to put any legislation over. Neff, at the G. C. P. convention, showed the Trigger crowd some of the fruits of his own parliamentary train- ing in the Ohio Foraker high school, thereby winning his re-election, and Trigger, at the Union Square pow-wow showed that he's fast learning the other fellow's way of fighting. But for the manner in which the meeting illustrated this fact, and gave the em- bryo politicians opportunities for prac- tice, the gathering might just as well not have been held. KINEMACOLOR ALL OVER. The Kinemacolor company is rapid- ly extending its service throughout the country. During the recent moving picture exposition they closed for North and South Carolina, with a guarantee of 15 houses, and this week they signed a contract with A. H. Mac- Donald, in the film business in the northwest, and who owns theatres In Portland and Seattle, for Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana, covering about 25 houses, the service to begin Sept. 15. At the present time Kinema- color is practically represented in all parts of the country. The Melles player* and camera experts, now encircling the Globe on a movle-maklng ex- cursion, have completed an Interesting stay In the Dutch Bast Indies. The company got out of the romantic treadmill long enough to turn out an educational Aim showing the culture of rice In the Far EaBt. Sidney Olcott is directing pictures for the Qene Oauntier Players who are now working on their new .studio sits In temporary quar- ters near New York. ALMOST A MURDOCH. Chicago, July 30. It is reported here that Frint George, who recently made several fruitless endeavors to hitch the far west fast to the "Association" has given up all hope of converting that territory, and is> now en route to New York. George originally went west in the interests of C. £. Kohl, who had a peculiar notion that anyone could bot- tle up the Pacific Coast, but once in California the travelling missionary found to his dismay that one Bertram Levey was safely entrenched in the ex- pected territory, and try and promise as he may, George could swing nothing outside of a few "shooting galleries." Morris Meyerfeld, Jr., put a damper on Frint's work in the northwest when he sent out a statement that George had no authority to promise Orpheum bookings. It seems George had care- lessly made such promises to several prospective circuits. His latest fliv was staged around Denver, where the "Association" since Kohl's debut as a managing director, has not stood any too well. If George has really buried his ambi- tion to iron out the small time situa- tion on the coast and Kohl has con- quered his desire to ride all over the western plains, it will be a good thing for all concerned, for Frint merely an- i:oyed the western agencies and his attempts came perilously near electing him to Murdock's-^class, Murdock, of course, having the edge on him by sev- eral hundred for clean failures. PICTURING THE POPE. Arrangements have finally been com- pleted whereby the Kinemacolor Co. will shortly produce a series of reels depicting scenes of the Vatican, to- gether with glimpses of the daily habits of His Holiness, Pope Pius the Tenth. • A variety of cognate subjects will be included in the releases, among them being the Pilgrimage to Lourdes, the Blessing of the Sea at Malta, and the Papal Benediction to the People. Charles Urban has supervised sev- eral picture entertainments given be- fore the Pope, who was unusually in- terested. As stated sometime ago in Variety, James Slevin made a visit to Rome in the interests of Kinemacolor for the express purpose of securing the Pope's permission to take a series of reels dealing with life at the Papal palace. LAST "RAISE" OF SUMMER, By Darl MacBoyle, Tis the last "raise" of summer, My staff Is all gone; It has joined Its companions, They are all In pawn, So rest thou In camphor 'Till winter Is nigh. Until I redeem you. Friend "Benny," good-bye. I'll not leare thee lored one To mold on the shelf. I'll cherish the ticket While cooling myself Where the breakers are breaking On one who Is broke, I think or you "Benny," Though you are In soak." I'll try to retain you Though friendship decay. Though the plush on your collar Is wearing away. When wintry winds caper Where wintry winds do, My troubles are trifles When embraced by you. BERNSTEIN IB HAPPT. "Sam, keep all those guys penned in out there and no one is to get to me unless you see the color of his dough. Now don't forget that. Since I printed your name in my ads, you seem to be getting all swelled up. I hate to call you before company, but I have to speak while my mind is on it, Sam." "Yes, sir/' said Freeman Bernstein, as he tossed one of his worst cigars to a VxniBTr representative, "if it weren't for certain things in sight this summer, I don't know what I would have done. You can't imagine the worry I have had. Besides people pickin' on me, May had to buy a new house up in Westchester and I have had to find the money to feed an auto- mobile. "But I am happy. You know me, kid. Even booking with Sheedy is all right. I don't want to say that I am happy because May left for Seattle last night, but as a little inside info she gave me a power-of-attorney before getting away. Perhaps you don't know May has a bank account, but I do. "Gee, Steve, do you remember that summer Frank Keeney gave all those signed checks to me when he started for an outing. Little did I think his father would leave him all that coin. $15,000,000 they say, and me with his blank checks thrown right in my fist. Qh, Lordy, Lordy. "No, I can't say the coin is very fluent these days. The boys are stick- ing, but there's very little work doin\ Yes, I put over something here and there, but it's hard scratching for a man of my age. How old am I? Are you kidding or is this serious? You don't care how old I am? I am still there. Is that enough? "Wait until nexet season. If you ever see me fall again for any outside deals like that fancy suit factory on Canal street or a Bender theatre at Utica just tell them to take me away, that I am through. After this, me with a shovel and a pick every night, right in May's back yard, burying the coin I have picked up during the day. You know that I am some little picker when the pickin' is good. "May and I are not partners in busi- ness. That's a little graft of my own that I don't brag about. You see I booked May 44 weeks last season, never under three hundred, and I didn't charge her a cent. You know how a three-hundred dollar salary and me split. Well, you can figure what I passed up. Anyway, the graft is this* when I got any dough I hid it, then cried around May until she dug down to assist me. I couldn't cry with May though after six hundred for someone must have tipped her, but that six hun- dred wasn't so bad, was it, in your own family, where they all know you. "Yes, tell the boys I'm happy. I don't care. And don't pan that cigar. For Heaven's sake, is that real coin, Sam? Who is the guy with all that money? Shall we lock the door on him or do you think he'll come back? All right, kid. So long. Keep away from chickens." The Pathe Co. now employes 24 camera men to collect the pictures for the two films showing the current happenings of the week.