The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-24
BIC FIRM GIVES UP
 . THE MANUF FACTURE OF BAR FIXTURES
Demand Falls Off and Brunswick-Balke Begin Making Cases for
 Pianos

Birmingham and other Alabama cities
 will soon have a large supply of bar fix-
 lures for sale because the new prohibition
 laws go into effect on June 30. Alabamians
 will be interested to know that the bar
 fixtures market is badly overstocked Sentiment favoring temperance and the
 restricted sale of alcoholic liquors which
 has been sweeping over the United States
 during the last five years has caused the
 Brunswick Bake Colender company, the
 largest manufacturers of stock bar fix
 tutres in the country, to abandon that
 branch of it's business, says the Chicago
 Of the company-Chicago, Long Island and
 San F'rancisco-which manufactured bar
 fixtures exclusively, have been closed and
 the plant at Dubuque, la. has been
 turned into factory for the manufacture
 of talking machine cabinets and piano
 cases. Big manufacturers of pianos are
 said to have been hit hard by the entry
 of this company into the making of piano
 cases. as small manufacturers are now enabled to compete with the big ones on better than even terms.
 More than $500 employees Of the com pany, all skilled mechanics, have lost their positions through the closing of these plants and the cutting down of the forces in those factories still operated. Warehouses in Chicago are also said to be loaded with thousands of dollars worth of stock bar fixtures returned to the breweres that owned the saloons that have been forced to quit owing either to the total prohibition of the sale of liquor or to laws restricting the number of sa- looms and bars permitted based on the population.
 l H. F. Davenport, secretary of the | Brunswick- Balks-Coll ender company. !! has sent letter to all branches of the company throughout the country which says:
 We have discontinued the manufac- ;ure of stock bar fixtures for the req son that there is not TOW sufficient de- mand We are convinced that the fu- ture of the liquor business will De in the cafe and hotel. After disposing of our present stock of fixtures we will discontinue the line absolutely" Discussing the situation, Mir. Daven- port said today:
 We do not believe that the saloon is doomen; on the contrary, there is more liquor consumed than at any time within the last 20 years. But conditions have changed Many saloons have gone out of business owing to temperance territory; others have been forced to quit because of population restrictions.
 "This has caused a lack of demand for stock fixtures and accordingly we
 have quit the manufacture of them. Neither will we do any making of spe- cial fixtures. There is no money in that work.
 "The immediate result of this is that about $500 of our employees have had to be laid off. At our northside plant. Or leans and Huron streets. which Is closed we formerly had 1700 mem at Long Island. now closed, we had 300
 men: at San Francisco. also closed, we had 300 men. We have also reduced the
 number in our other factories-at our westside plant here in Chicago. Twen- ty-second street and Ford avenue, we have cut down from 500 to 200,- anc at Dubuque from TOO to 300. Manufacturers of pianos have been hit harder than we have by this tenn perance wave. We are particularly well prepared to make pianos cases and can do 1t cheaper and better than such big manufacturers as Kimball X Conover, for instance. The result is that the little manufacturer or rather those who assemble piano parts and put them together, as is done so much in the automobile trade. can now get
 their cases cheaper than the big man. ufacturer can produce them, and this puts the little fellow in the inside track of the big one. It has been a hard blow to some of the piano makers.
 "Breweries all over the country have thousands of dollars worth of stock bar fixtures that have been turned back to them when saloons in which u ey had financial interests were closed. Warehouses are filed full of these fix lures. for there Is no market for them. "Our billiard table trade is normal and there has been no cut in the force working in our Muskegon factory, where POO mechanics are employed. At Toronto, of course, there is depression, due to the war, but it is normal, even there. considering the situation"