Number II. 
 
 m j 
 
 Series XII. 
 
 BULLETIN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of Notre Dame 
 
 NOTRE DAME, INDIANA 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM 
 
 “BUSINESS MANAGEMENT OF A NEWSPAPER” 
 
 By Wm. H. Field, Business Manager of The Chicago Tribune 
 
 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 OCTOBER. 1916 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, Notre Dame, Indiana, as second class matter, 
 July 17. 1905 
 
DIRECTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 The FACULTY—Address: 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, 
 
 Notre Dame, Indiana. 
 
 The STUDENTS—Address: 
 
 As for the Faculty, except that the name of the 
 Hall in which the student lives should be added. 
 
 There are at the University a Post Office, a Telegraph 
 Office, a Long Distance Telephone, and an Express 
 Qffice. 
 
 The University is two miles from the city of South 
 Bend, Indiana, and about eighty miles east of Chicago. 
 The New York Central, the Grand Trunk, the Van- 
 dalia, the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa, the Chicago and 
 Indiana Southern, and the Michigan Central Railways 
 run directly into South Bend. A trolley line runs cars 
 from South Bend to the University every fifteen 
 minutes. 
 
 The Latitude of the University is 41 degrees, 43 
 minutes, and 12.7 seconds North, and 86 degrees, 
 14 minutes and 19.3 seconds West of Greenwich. 
 
 The elevation is about 750 feet above the sea. 
 
 From this it is clear that the location is favorable 
 for a healthful climate where students may engage in 
 vigorous mental work without too great fatigue or 
 danger to health. 
 
THE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT OF 
 A NEWSPAPER* 
 
 ] N the minds of most of those who read newspapers 
 without having anything to do with their 'making, 
 and indeed in the minds of many of those who have 
 to do only with the news and editorial side of news 
 papers, the romance and human interest of the news¬ 
 paper business are confined to those who find and write 
 the news. The newspaper in fiction is usually illustrated 
 by the adventures of either the star reporter or the 
 cub reporter, whose thrilling experiences and eventual 
 promotion might lead one to believe that upon them 
 only rests the success or failure of their particular news¬ 
 paper. 
 
 There are, however, just as many interesting assign¬ 
 ments, just as many unexpected happenings, just as 
 much of gratifying success and of discouraging failure 
 in the day’s work of the advertising man and the cir¬ 
 culation man, as in the experience of the reporter. 
 
 For the better presentation of the subject, the busi¬ 
 ness side of a newspaper may be considered as consisting 
 of four divisions which are respectively, Accounting, 
 Advertising, Circulation and Manufacturing. 
 
 In the management of any business, no matter what 
 its size or nature, one has to deal with the same human 
 qualities, the same enthusiasm (or lack of it), the same 
 loyalty, energy and efficiency with which the captain 
 of a football team has to deal. The first thing that 
 
 *An address by Wm. H. Field, Business Manager of The Chi¬ 
 cago Tribune, delivered before the students in the school of 
 Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, March 12, 1913. 
 
4 
 
 bulletin of the 
 
 the head of any business must recognize is the fact 
 that no one man, no matter of what ability or energy, 
 can accomplish by himself all that is necessary to accom¬ 
 plish in the management of that business. The secret 
 of successful management lies in the happy choice of 
 subordinate department heads; the assignment to 
 them of a proper amount of authority and responsibility; 
 encouragement, praise and helpful criticism when it 
 is due, and the requiring of results. 
 
 The Accounting Department of a newspaper deals 
 with three main items, each one of which includes an 
 almost infinitesimal number of detail branches. It 
 must be confessed that of all the divisions of the business 
 side of a newspaper, that of accounting is the driest 
 and least interesting to the layman, although certainly 
 not the least important. The three elements with which 
 the Accounting Department has especially to do are, 
 Receipts, Disbursements and Accounts. In dealing 
 with this branch of the newspaper business I shall 
 refrain from mentioning the phases of accounting 
 work by their technical names, in the belief that a 
 subsequent lecture in this same course will cover the 
 subject of accounting completely and will be scholarly 
 and valuable, whereas whatever I might say would be 
 of less technical worth. 
 
 Under the head of Receipts the Accounting Depart¬ 
 ment has the highly important function of determining 
 that the proper charge is made for all advertising 
 printed and for all copies of the newspaper sold. When 
 one considers that a single daily issue of a newspaper 
 like the Tribune frequently contains as many as 2,500 
 separate advertisements, each one of which must be 
 checked and rechecked several times,, one can get some 
 idea of the enormous amount .of detail that is necessary. 
 
 After the charges have been made, it is also necessary 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 5 
 
 for the Accounting Department to see that they are 
 collected from advertisers and newsdealers. This 
 involves a detail of billing and collection work that 
 in itself is no small task. Our Accounting Department 
 renders about 24,000 bills every month. 
 
 Having determined that the newspaper is charging 
 and collecting for all the service rendered to its advertisers 
 and its newsdealers, it is also necessary for the Account¬ 
 ing Department to make sure that the disbursements 
 are handled in the proper manner. All bills must be 
 audited, prices checked against the requisitions for 
 supplies, and remittances made at the proper times to 
 take all discounts wdiich are allowed. In this connection, 
 it may be interesting to note that The Tribune pays 
 about 3,500 bills per month. To the uninitiated the 
 single precaution that each bill should be paid only 
 once is of itself sufficiently staggering. 
 
 The third function of a newspaper Accounting 
 Department is that which I have designated as Accounts. 
 By this I mean the actual accounting itself, which 
 includes the distribution of charges against the proper 
 departments and the credits of collections in the same 
 way. This division of the Accounting Department’s 
 work is extremely vital because the results of it show 
 the management whether or not the Company is making 
 a profit, and which of the vast number of departments 
 and sub-departments needs a check or an impetus. 
 We have between 700 and 800 separate accounts to 
 which charges or credits are made. 
 
 You will appreciate that I have touched upon news¬ 
 paper accounting in the most casual way. If I were 
 talking to the students of a business college, I should 
 go more into detail, but I take it that you are more 
 interested in the human side of the business manage¬ 
 ment of. a newspaper and in the nature of the work 
 
6 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 that you who graduate may expect to do in the news¬ 
 paper business. Few, if any of you, will do actual 
 newspaper accounting, although I hope that some of 
 you will eventually have supervision over it. If you do, 
 you will be fortunate if you find an auditor or chief 
 accountant who will look upon his work as the poet 
 or the painter looks upon his. I know of only one such 
 man and he is as interested in this somewhat dry subject 
 of accounting, and as devoted to it, and as proud of his 
 shortcuts, time and labor saving devices and other 
 innovations as a poet or an artist could possibly be of 
 his masterpieces. Such a man will organize and train 
 his department toward its maximum efficiency, as will 
 the captain of an athletic team organize and train his 
 men toward the big event of the season. 
 
 Another division of the business side of a newspaper, 
 and the most important one from a revenue-producing 
 standpoint, is the Advertising Department. Practically 
 all the revenue of a newspaper comes from two sources, 
 advertising and circulation. Of the total revenue 
 of a penny newspaper about 70 per cent comes from 
 advertising and 30 per cent from circulation. The 
 Advertising Department of a metropolitan newspaper 
 offers a splendid field of work for young men who are 
 not afraid of work. Ten or fifteen years ago the adver¬ 
 tising business was on a much lower plane than it is 
 to-day. In the old days the successful solicitor of 
 advertising was the middle-aged man with a big voice 
 and hearty manner, fine clothes and a liberal expense 
 account. Such men flourished in the days when news¬ 
 paper and magazine space was sold in bulk to a com¬ 
 paratively few so-called advertising agents, who in 
 turn jobbed it out to the less fortunate advertiser, 
 taking as their profit the difference between what they 
 had contracted to pay the publication for the space 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 7 
 
 and what they were able to wring from the advertiser 
 in the way of excess charge. There was no fixed rate 
 for advertising space and in many cases the publisher’s 
 representative was not able to tell his prospective 
 customers what they would have to pay for space in 
 his publication. The matter of price was largely in 
 the hands of a few of these advertising agents. 
 
 Business for their respective publications was secured 
 in those days by such representatives largely through 
 personal acquaintance and good-fellowship. Logical 
 argument, sound reasoning and service to the advertiser 
 were conspicuously absent. The advertising business 
 in those days did not have a very good reputation and 
 for such reasons as the foregoing, did not deserve one. 
 
 Today the situation has materially changed. The 
 old-fashioned publisher’s representative has given way 
 to the energetic young man who must give sound 
 reasons before he can secure the business of any adver¬ 
 tiser. Acquaintance is still and always will be a desirable 
 qualification, but its chief value # to-day is to give credence 
 to the claims and arguments of the fortunate repre¬ 
 sentatives who possess it. If a man is known to be 
 honest and clean in his habit of thought and manner of 
 life, the statements that he makes on behalf of his 
 publication are believed. If he is known as a careless, 
 reckless individual, it is only natural to accept what 
 he has to say with a mental reservation. 
 
 Young men of to-day are starting in the newspaper 
 advertising business at a minimum salary of from $10.00 
 to $15.00 a week, and it is not unusual to find adver¬ 
 tising managers or special representatives of single 
 newspapers who are paid as much as $15,000.00 to 
 $20,000.00 a year. Soipe of the so-called specials, who 
 represent a list of newspapers, are said to make even 
 more money than this. 
 
8 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 The Tribune's advertising department is composed 
 of two broad divisions, both under the jurisdiction of 
 the advertising manager. One division looks after the 
 so-called classified business, which is composed of- the 
 small Want Ads, and the other has to do only with the 
 larger advertisements, which are known as display. 
 The total volume of advertising printed in the Tribune 
 is about equally divided between classified and display, 
 although the former brings a much lower rate than the 
 latter. 
 
 The classified advertising department has at its head 
 a manager who has under him approximately eighty 
 representatives. This department is really a school 
 for young men and young women who seek experience 
 in the newspaper advertising business. We have a wait¬ 
 ing list of forty or fifty names from which the newcomers 
 are selected from time to time as occasion demands. We 
 have what amounts almost to a civil service system in 
 our advertising department and nearly every one of 
 the higher paid representatives is a graduate of the 
 classified department. 
 
 These eighty representatives may be roughly divided 
 into four branches, which are: the main office solicitors, 
 the solicitors at the counter in the business office, the 
 telephone solicitors and the solicitors who work from 
 two branch offices, one in the Northwest, and one in 
 the Southwest sections of the City. 
 
 The main office solicitors meet every morning in a 
 large room which is arranged like a school room. They 
 have desks and blackboards and upon the latter are 
 written various statistical records which indicate the 
 work of the more successful individuals among these 
 representatives, the figures of the same day in the 
 previous year and in the previous week, which serve 
 as an incentive, and various bits of interesting informa- 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 9 
 
 tion concerning the current work in hand. At this 
 meeting the assignments for the day are made and usually 
 one special topic is discussed which has reference to 
 some new soliciting point, comment or objection which 
 has been met by some of the representatives in their 
 day’s work. Sometimes we stage a little drama and 
 assign to chosen representatives the parts of An Obdurate 
 Merchant, The Merchant’s Advertising Manager, and 
 The Tribune Representative. The latter endeavors 
 to. convince the Obdurate Merchant that he should 
 advertise. The Merchant gives his reasons for not 
 advertising and criticizes The Tribune as well as news¬ 
 papers in general. The colloquy is usually interesting 
 and instructive, many points of argument being brought 
 out on each side that are helpful to the other members 
 of the department. 
 
 These solicitors who work from the main office follow 
 a system of helping the advertiser expand to his possi¬ 
 bilities, which is at once helpful to the advertiser and 
 profitable to the Paper. The first step in securing an 
 advertiser’s business is taken by the cash solicitors, 
 who cover the City with the exception of those sections 
 served by the two branch offices. For the purpose of 
 simplifying the work, the City is divided into a number 
 of districts, to each of which one or more men are 
 assigned. These men handle the many minor branches 
 of Want Ads such as: Rooms To Rent, Board & Lodg¬ 
 ing, etc., and collect in advance from their customers 
 for the advertising to be done, turning in the copy and 
 cash at the main office each night. 
 
 Whenever these cash solicitors run across customers 
 who are willing and able to sign contracts for regular 
 advertising, such customers are then turned over to 
 the second division, known as the contract solicitors. 
 These contract solicitors obtain the signatures of the 
 
IO 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 advertisers to contracts calling for a minumm amount 
 of space to be used each day for one year, for which 
 certain specified reductions in price are made. 
 
 After these contracts have been secured by the 
 contract solicitors and the advertisers signing them are 
 thus established as regular users of space, the third 
 division swings in and takes the advertiser off the hands 
 of the contract solicitors. The third division is composed 
 of the charge solicitors whose duty it is to see that the 
 advertisers who have signed contracts begin gradually 
 to use each day more than the minimum space contracted 
 for. Care is always exercised to see that the advertiser’s 
 interests are considered first, and these charge solicitors 
 are under strict instructions not to attempt to persuade 
 an advertiser to increase his space unless increased 
 returns are probable. 
 
 This system of passing the advertiser from hand 
 to hand has proved to be a great success, especially 
 for the advertiser who, without the constant pressure 
 brought to bear upon him by these young men, might 
 be satisfied to let well enough alone, which in this day 
 of keen competition is not a wise policy. Many a mer¬ 
 chant doing business in Chicago today has a young 
 classified representative to thank for spurring his 
 ambition. You can readily see, therefore, that there 
 is an excellent opportunity for a young man of parts 
 to show his ability even in this primary school of news¬ 
 paper advertising. The nature of the work is such that 
 ability is quickly apparent. 
 
 Another division of the classified work is that of the 
 counter solicitors in the business office. The business 
 office of a newspaper is its chief point of contact with 
 that part of the public which is quickest to criticize. 
 Uniform courtesy, tact and intelligence are the chief 
 qualities required of those newspaper representatives 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 11 
 
 who stand behind the counter in the business office 
 and receive the Want Ads brought in voluntarily by 
 the public. There is much more to this work than the 
 mere receiving of Want Ads and giving of information 
 concerning costs and insertions. The man who shows 
 himself to be really interested in the particular problem 
 of th£ individual who brings in a Want Ad, will be able 
 to suggest a change in its wording or in the date and 
 number of its insertions, which will render a greater 
 service to the advertiser than if his Want Ad had been 
 merely accepted and a receipt issued for the money. 
 You have heard of the personal service which The 
 Tribune endeavors to render to its readers. This per¬ 
 sonal service is not confined to the news, editorial and 
 feature departments alone. We have just remodeled 
 our business office and removed from it a number of 
 cashiers and clerks, leaving only those employes who 
 actually come in contact with the public. We have 
 established what we call an Advertising Service Bureau, 
 consisting of several sub-divisions under which fall all 
 the Want Ads brought into the business office by the 
 public. Each one of these sub-divisions is presided 
 over by a young man carefully trained and experienced, 
 whose sole duty it is to study the problems confronting 
 those who come into the business office to place Want 
 Ads, and to help them secure what they seek, or sell 
 what they have to offer. The purchase of space is only 
 a small part of successful advertising. What goes 
 into that space is vastly more important, and if the 
 newspaper is far-sighted enough to realize that through 
 the success of its advertisers comes its own reputation 
 as a profitable advertising medium, its advertising 
 receipts will grow. 
 
 One of the most interesting branches of the classified 
 department is that which solicits and accepts Want 
 
2 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 Ads over the telephone. Many newspapers have now 
 taken advantage of the opportunities offered by the 
 service of local telephone companies and established 
 departments which not only receive, but also solicit 
 advertisements over the telephone. The voluntary 
 advertisements received in this way are stimulated 
 through the announcements in the newspapers them¬ 
 selves. Telephone subscribers are urged to save their 
 time and carfare, call up the office of the newspaper, 
 ask for an ad taker and give their advertisements over 
 the telephone. Any telephone subscriber whose name 
 is in the telephone directory is privileged to do this and 
 a bill is sent after the insertion of the advertisements. 
 At first thought, the collection of the charges for such 
 telephone advertisements might seem to be problemati¬ 
 cal. As a matter of fact men and women are naturally 
 honest and the proportion of uncollectable telephone 
 charges to the total telephone charges with us is only 
 about 2 per cent. 
 
 In our own office we are not content with merely 
 accepting voluntary advertisements over the telephone 
 but we also have a corps of young women whose duty 
 it is to receive assignments furnished them by the 
 manager, call up and solicit advertising from those who 
 have already advertised in other newspapers. This 
 branch of the telephone work requires tact, training 
 and long experience. 
 
 The remaining division of the classified department 
 is that of the branch offices. Many newspapers printing 
 a large amount of classified advertising have agencies 
 among the drug stores in the various sections of the 
 city, at which advertisements may be left and from 
 which they are in turn transmitted to the main office 
 of the newspaper. In addition to about 500 of these 
 agency branches, we have two branch offices of our 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 13 
 
 own which are miniature reproductions of our main 
 business office. Facilities are offered in these two 
 branch offices for the receipt of voluntary advertise¬ 
 ments over the counter and over the telephone. We 
 also employ a number of schoolboys who live in the 
 respective neighborhoods and who work after school 
 hours soliciting business from the merchants and 
 business men in the district. These offices are still 
 in the experimental stage. 
 
 In the Want Ad columns of a newspaper are to found 
 dozens of tabloid human interest stories that those who 
 do not read the classified columns are unfortunate 
 enough to miss. There is an appeal from a convict 
 whose term in prision is about to expire and who must 
 find work before he can be set free. A father, with 
 memories of his own childhood days, seeks a rocking- 
 horse for his small son and, dissatisfied with the modern 
 make of rocking horses, wants to find one of the old- 
 fashioned kind, perhaps stored in some dusty corner 
 of an attic. A housewife, discouraged with the ineffi¬ 
 ciency of her cook, seeks a recipe or an actual pie such 
 as mother used to make. A distracted mother pleads 
 for information concerning her wayward son. These 
 and dozens of other little heart-stories are to be found 
 from day to day in the Want Ad columns of a great 
 metropolitan newspaper. Shall we leave all the romance 
 of the newspaper business to the Local Room? 
 
 The other main division of the advertising department 
 is that which secures the publication of display adver¬ 
 tising. With us, this department is composed of a much 
 smaller number of representatives than are engaged in 
 the classified department. There are about twenty-five 
 in all and practically every one of them is a graduate of 
 our primary school of newspaper advertising. To carry 
 out further the idea of personal service to our advertisers 
 
4 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 as well as to our readers, we have found it desirable to 
 specialize in this branch of the advertising department. 
 The various lines of business endeavor with which our 
 representatives come in contact, are assigned among the 
 display solicitors. For example, all the musical instru¬ 
 ment advertising that emanates from Chicago, is looked 
 after by one man who has nothing else to do. This 
 man knows as much about the manufacture and mer¬ 
 chandising of pianos as the average retailer of pianos 
 in the City of Chicago. He is therefore in a position 
 to be helpful to the piano advertiser and to offer per¬ 
 tinent suggestions, not only as to the size of space to be 
 used, the days on which to advertise and the kind of 
 copy to write, but also as~to methods of handling and 
 training salesmen, advantages in purchasing and in 
 some cases even in manufacturing. In the same way 
 we are constantly training specialists in the advertising 
 of automobiles, financial, railroads, summer and winter 
 resorts, furniture, clothing, shoes and many other 
 minor branches. 
 
 The men in the display department meet each day 
 with the advertising manager for a brief conference. 
 New points of solicitation are brought up and discussed. 
 Answers to objections on the part of advertisers are 
 prepared for use by those who have been confronted 
 with them. As in the classified department, statistical 
 records are kept of the business of the same day in the 
 preceeding year and week and efforts made to top these 
 figures. Competition in the newspaper business is 
 keen. With us in Chicago a daily report is kept by 
 an independent audit company whose sole business is 
 to measure and furnish to its subscribers, who are 
 the newspapers themselves, the advertising which 
 appears each day in all Chicago papers. By 9 :30 every 
 morning a report is laid on my desk which shows the 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 15 
 
 volume of business in each of the four morning papers 
 for that morning and in each of the four evening papers 
 for the day previous. This report is divided so as to 
 show how much of the advertising is display and how 
 much classified; how much comes from Chicago; 
 how much from the West and how much from the 
 East. Each classification of business is compared with 
 the same day a year ago and you may be sure that the 
 gains and losses are followed with, interest. A monthly 
 report is also received, which for display advertising 
 gives the name of every individual advertiser in every ‘ 
 one of the eight Chicago papers and the amount of space 
 each one has used in each of the papers for the month. 
 This enormous list is classified according to the kind of 
 business advertised. No attempt is made to keep the 
 name of the individual classified advertisers, but this 
 business is divided by classifications and the amount 
 printed by each one of the papers under each one of 
 about three hundred and eighty classifications appears 
 on this monthly report. While the Business Manager 
 who has real supervision over all the business side of a 
 newspaper has little time to solicit advertising himself, 
 he must follow these reports closely and be able to put 
 his finger on the weak spots in short order. 
 
 In addition to the solicitors who look after the adver¬ 
 tising placed from Chicago only, which is known as 
 local advertising, there is a separate office which has 
 charge of the securing of business from the so-called 
 national advertisers who are located west of Pittsburgh. 
 A similar office is maintained in New York City to 
 look after the advertising East of Pittsburgh. The men 
 who are engaged in this work of securing national 
 advertising are usually the “oldest living graduates” of 
 our primary school of newspaper advertising. They must 
 compete, not only with the other newspapers in their 
 
16 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 own cities but also with other forms'of advertising, such 
 as magazines, trade papers, bill boards and street cars. 
 Among such men in the newspaper business are to be 
 found an increasing percentage of college graduates 
 who have been attracted to this phase of the publishing 
 business by the good pay and the opportunity to meet 
 and engage in a battle of wits with some of the brightest 
 and ablest business men in the United States. 
 
 The representatives of our display department, 
 while they will always be known as solicitors as long as 
 newspapers are published, are really engaged, not so 
 much in selling neswpaper space as in an honest and 
 earnest effort to help the advertiser increase his business. 
 They are instructed to talk to the advertiser about his 
 own business rather than about our business. They 
 are instructed to discuss with him the possibility 
 of securing new trade and the best methods to adopt 
 to go about it, rather than to discuss the extent and 
 quality of The Tribune's circulation. We aim to have 
 the representatives of our advertising department 
 received eagerly and gratefully on the occasion of their 
 visits, rather than given a hearing with impatience or 
 reluctance. Time was when the advertising solicitor 
 was classed with the book agent and the life insurance 
 man. The time is rapidly approaching when the adver¬ 
 tising representative of a great newspaper will come down 
 to his office in the morning and find a line of advertisers 
 waiting for him outside his own door. Every man 
 wants to succeed. Every man wants to increase his 
 business. When he learns that he can secure helpful 
 advice from the publisher’s representative, the latter 
 will have come into his own. 
 
 No small part of a newspaper’s personal service to 
 its advertisers and to its readers is to be found in the 
 advertising of advertising itself. Advertising is news. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 17 
 
 as well as that part of the contents of a newspaper 
 which is printed in the news columns. Advertising is 
 the news of the stores. It is set in a type which differs 
 from the regular body type of the news columns and is 
 paid for by the advertiser. The newspaper which prints 
 a great volume of clean, honest advertising news is 
 far more valuable to its readers than another news¬ 
 paper in whose columns are to be found a comparatively 
 small number of opportunities to purchase. 
 
 Realizing that a large volume of advertising was an 
 asset, not only in creating further advertising but also 
 in rendering a newspaper of greater value to its readers, 
 we sought for many months for a suitable plan by which 
 we could explain to the people of Chicago the economic 
 value to them of our large advertising patronage. We 
 offered a series of prizes for the best true stories of how 
 money had been saved by our readers through reading 
 and buying from the display advertisements in our 
 paper. The response to this offer was genuine and 
 generous and we soon had a number of extremely 
 interesting and valuable accounts of actual money¬ 
 saving through the reading and answering of adver¬ 
 tisements in The Tribune. These were published as a 
 series of advertisements, not only in our own paper 
 but also in several of the evening papers of Chicago. 
 This human appeal to the natural instincts of economy, 
 especially in this age of the high cost of living, produced 
 a great deal of interest, and before the campaign had 
 progressed six weeks we had actually added circulation, 
 merely upon the strength of the fact that we printed 
 a large volume of advertising. To the best of my 
 knowledge, this is the first time that any publication 
 has successfully sought to obtain additional circulation 
 by this method. Included in the series was the testi¬ 
 mony of a bride who was able to save nearly a hundred 
 
BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 dollars on her first purchase of furniture for the new 
 home; the testimony of a resident of a nearby town who 
 came to Chicago as the result of an advertisement in 
 The Tribune and, deducting his railroad fare and expen¬ 
 ses both ways, saved over fifteen dollars on an outfit 
 of clothing. A lady who had been invited to attend her 
 brother’s wedding was at first discouraged because of 
 the fear that her sister-in-law-to-be, who w^as a petted 
 child in a luxurious home, might look with scorn upon 
 her outfit of clothes. As she herself said in her letter, 
 
 ‘ ‘ I could not think of appearing before her in anything 
 but the best.” After having put off the matter from 
 time to time, this woman finally, from an advertisement 
 in our paper, found a suitable gown, ordered it by mail 
 and was able to attend the wedding. She said in con¬ 
 clusion, “I do not know why my sister-in-law was so 
 delighted with me, but I am vain enough to think 
 that it was on account of that beautiful suit The Tribune 
 helped me to secure.” These and dozens of other 
 instances show the human side of the advertising busi¬ 
 ness of a metropolitan newspaper. 
 
 The third main division of the business side of a 
 newspaper is that of circulation. There is a continuous 
 circle of dispute in the history of newspapers as to which 
 side of the business is the most vital to a newspaper’s 
 success. The advertising department claims that 
 without the revenue from advertising space a newspaper 
 could not live. The circulation department claims that 
 without circulation there would be no advertising. 
 The news and editorial departments claim that without 
 their services there would be no circulation and con¬ 
 sequently no advertising. It might be said in passing 
 that this famous dispute has not as yet been settled. 
 
 For some time we have viewed our business as that of 
 a manufacturing concern with a definite product to 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 19 
 
 manufacture and to sell. We have consequently 
 organized our circulation department as the sales force 
 of our manufacturing business, with the simply-stated 
 duty of selling the product which our machinery turns 
 out from the various kinds of raw material received. 
 In addition to this duty, which is not as simple as it 
 sounds, the head of the circulation department of a 
 metropolitan newspaper should also be a judge of the 
 news value of a story or the human interest value of a 
 feature or a cartoon. Especially is it the case with 
 evening papers that the circulation manager’s views are 
 consulted upon the question of the prominence that 
 should be given to stories or features. Certain it is 
 that the co-operation between the circulation depart¬ 
 ment and the news and editorial departments should 
 be close. When a story, or a feature or a picture which 
 will be especially interesting to a particular section of 
 the city, or to some section outside of the city, is about 
 to be printed, the circulation department should know 
 about it and consequently arrange to obtain an espec¬ 
 ially careful distribution in the neighborhood affected. 
 
 The city circulation of a metropolitan daily may be 
 roughly divided into two groups. First that which is 
 distributed by carrier to the homes, and second, that 
 which is sold at stores, corners and hotels. Carrier circu¬ 
 lation is eagerly sought by every morning newspaper 
 for the reason that home-delivered copies of the paper 
 are considered especially desirable by advertisers. 
 
 In some cities each newspaper has its own carriers 
 who are either on the regular pay-roll of the newspaper 
 or are subsidized in such a way as to make their services 
 exclusive. In such cases the newspaper has the name and 
 address of every person to whom copies of the paper 
 are delivered by carrier. This is of course a desirable 
 thing to have, but as you can readily appreciate, a very 
 
20 
 
 bulletin of the 
 
 troublesome and expensive record to keep. In Chicago 
 all the morning newspapers are delivered by what are 
 known as official carriers, who are really retailers of the 
 paper. These carriers have a standing order wdth each 
 newspaper for the required number of copies at dealer’s 
 rates and in turn retail the papers to the subscribers, 
 hiring boys and young men to deliver them. The 
 carrier’s profits are confined to the difference between 
 the dealer’s price and the retail price of the paper 
 which, in the case of Chicago newspapers, all of which 
 sell at one cent retail, is not large. These carriers are 
 not paid any money by the newspapers themselves and 
 consequently no newspaper has in its possession the 
 names and addresses of those to whom papers are 
 delivered by carrier. 
 
 Papers sold at stores, corners and hotels are purchased 
 by those who conduct news stands and who obtain 
 their profits in the same way as do the carriers. 
 
 The main factor in the city circulation of a newspaper 
 is the driver. We have a stable about twenty minutes’ 
 drive from our main office, in which we keep about 
 seventy horses and an equal number of wagons. We have 
 in addition half a dozen automobile trucks which are 
 kept in a separate garage. Each driver brings his 
 wagon to the office of publication at the appointed 
 hour, takes on his load of papers with his delivery 
 sheets, and makes his schedule delivery, whether to 
 railroad stations, carriers or newsdealers. 
 
 In addition to being delivery men, most of our 
 drivers are also collectors and salesmen. All city cir¬ 
 culation is collected for in advance, and upon two 
 certain days of the week it is the driver’s duty to take 
 orders for the following week’s supply, and to collect 
 in advance for this supply, which serves as a standing 
 order for the ensuing week. Of course a few extra 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 21 
 
 copies are carried to arrange for any extra demand that 
 the newsdealer may have. These are sold on the C. O. D. 
 basis. Copies of our paper are not returnable and it is 
 therefore necessary for the dealer to be especially careful 
 in specifying his orders, because he cannot return 
 unsold copies and get credit for them. The question 
 of whether or not a daily newspaper should be returnable 
 is one of the great problems before the metropolitan 
 newspapers of the United States. It cannot be settled 
 arbitrarily, the conditions in each city being different. 
 We have found it to be a cleaner and more economical 
 way of doing business to have our paper non-returnable, 
 thus eliminating the possibility of the large waste 
 which creeps in and continually increases in connection 
 with the manufacture of a returnable newspaper. 
 
 As a delivery man, a driver need possess merely the 
 same grade of intelligence that is required of a delivery 
 man in any kind of merchandising business. As a 
 collector, a trifle more tact and diplomacy are required. 
 But it is as a salesman that the qualities of the efficient 
 driver are most in demand. Young Johnny Jones 
 operating a news stand at a certain corner, places an 
 order for the ensuing week for one hundred copies of 
 The Daily Tribune for each day. The driver who 
 delivers the district in which Jones’ stand is located, 
 knows that Jones can sell one hundred and twenty-five 
 copies each day if he will stay at his stand a little later 
 in the morning or come to it a little earlier. He knows 
 that Jones is afraid of being stuck with papers which he 
 cannot return. It is up to the driver to sell one hundred 
 and twenty-five copies instead of one hundred copies a 
 day to Jones, without intimidation or any other influence 
 except what can be exerted by true salesmanship. 
 Exactly at this point is determined the difference 
 between a capable and an inefficient driver. 
 
22 
 
 bulletin of the 
 
 As a rule, those engaged in the retailing of newspapers 
 in large cities include many foreigners, some of whom 
 cannot even write their names. In some cities news 
 vendors include a rough element wdiich is quick to 
 avenge fancied wrongs by the methods usually adopted 
 by such people. During the newspaper strike in Chicago, 
 the men who drove newspaper wagons, delivered and 
 collected for the newspapers, were like the advance 
 guard of an army, whose isolated position is likely to 
 be cut off at any time by the enemy. They have to do 
 their work in the dark hours of the morning and I can 
 assure you that there were some routes in the City 
 of Chicago for which drivers of an especially coura¬ 
 geous nature had to be selected. 
 
 In addition to the drivers, many metropolitan news¬ 
 papers employ a corps of inspectors, or as they are 
 called in Chicago, division men. It is the duty of these 
 men to watch the sale of newspapers in their respective 
 divisions, and to determine whether or not the drivers 
 are successful in selling as many copies of their par¬ 
 ticular newspaper as the public demands. These men 
 must watch and verify the work of the drivers, adjust 
 complaints and petty grievances and make sure that 
 their newspaper is properly represented on the streets. 
 The best division men are naturally graduates from 
 among the drivers. 
 
 While the city circulation of a metropolitan news¬ 
 paper is characterized by the keenest kind of compe¬ 
 tition, the securing and maintenance of country cir¬ 
 culation is much less strenuous. I do not mean by this 
 that there is no competition for country circulation, 
 because there is a great deal of it. Country circulation 
 is of two kinds, that among subscribers by mail and 
 that among dealers. The subscriber may be solicited 
 or he may send in his subscription voluntarily. In either 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 23 
 
 event his name and address is merely entered upon the 
 records and upon receipt of payment in advance for 
 the period specified, the paper is mailed to him. Where 
 formerly papers mailed to subscribers were addressed 
 by hand and later by a hand stamping device, nowadays 
 there are several makes of machinery which address, 
 fold, and wrap individual papers and slide them into 
 mail bags ready for transportation to the trains. We 
 have four of these machines in our office, each one of 
 which has a capacity of about 9,000 single papers 
 per hour. 
 
 Country circulation among dealers is shipped upon 
 standing orders obtained both voluntarily and by 
 means of a corps of traveling men who are continally 
 visiting the surrounding territory in an endeavor to 
 obtain more circulation, to adjust complaints and to 
 check up slow payers. Country circulation among 
 dealers is not as a general rule upon the paid in advance 
 basis, bills being rendered monthly and those dealers 
 who are financially irresponsible deprived of their supply 
 of papers. 
 
 The methods of obtaining circulation,’ both city and 
 country, are as numerous and as varied as the stars in 
 the skies. Premiums, contests, prizes, bribes and gifts 
 of every conceivable nature have been and are still 
 employed by some newspapers. Every one of these 
 methods has its advocates and nearly every one of them 
 will bring results if a newspaper is willing to spend a 
 suffieent amount of money to obtain them. It not 
 infrequently happens that a newspaper will pay out 
 to obtain circulation nearly as much as its gross circu¬ 
 lation revenue. This practice, if persisted in, spells 
 ruin for any newspaper. We of The Tribune believe that 
 it is consistent with our policy of considering ourselves 
 a manufacturing concern and of selling our papers 
 
24 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 through our circulation department accordingly, to 
 use no one of the methods which are commonly employed 
 as an artificial stimulus. For some time past, we have 
 not used so much as a two-cent stamp as an inducement 
 to buy our paper. We do, however, spend a good many 
 thousands of dollars in advertising to the public what 
 we have to-sell, in exactly the same way as any manu¬ 
 facturing concern advertises its product to the public. 
 In printed advertisements placed in other newspapers 
 we exploit the merits of our newspaper. We tell of its 
 sources of obtaining news, of its features and of its 
 cartoons. We also tell of the amount of advertising it 
 carries, as I have previously described to you. Through 
 this method and this alone we seek to create a constantly 
 increasing demand for our product among the people, 
 whose increased demand upon the carriers, the newsboys 
 and our own subscription department tend to give us 
 the increased business that we seek. 
 
 From this very brief outline of the kind of work 
 required of the circulation department of a metro¬ 
 politan daily, you can obtain some vague idea of the 
 qualifications sought for in a circulation manager who 
 shall have immediate supervision over all the many 
 phases of the work of his department. It is small wonder 
 that the efficient circulation manager is consulted by 
 the news department for his opinion concerning the 
 news value of stories. With the coming of the auto¬ 
 mobile, the circulation manager now finds it convenient 
 to cover his city in the early hours of the morning, 
 much as a general inspects his troops after they have 
 been placed in the field and are ready for the battle. 
 
 The remaining one of the four broad divisions of the 
 business side of a newspaper is that of Manufaeuturing. 
 The business manager who exercises supervision over 
 this branch as well as over the other three, must surround 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 25 
 
 himself with foremen who are efficient and trustworthy 
 if he expects to produce the maximum results. The 
 technical knowledge required of a man who could operate 
 or assist in operating each one of the pieces of machinery 
 in the office of a metropolitan newspaper, would mean 
 not only years of book learning but also years of practi¬ 
 cal experience. There are mighty few business managers 
 connected with big newspapers who have such know¬ 
 ledge. Lacking it, one must rely upon his subordinates 
 in charge of the various divisions of the mechanical de¬ 
 partment and upon the common sense which is, after all, 
 the basic principle in the mangement of any business, 
 whatever may be its nature. In buying supplies for the 
 manufacturing department someone, in the first place, 
 must determine whether or not the supplies are neces¬ 
 sary; then where they can be purchased to the greatest 
 advantage and finally, whether the prices are the lowest 
 that can be obtained for the requisite quality. In opera¬ 
 tion, someone must judge the requisite number of men 
 to be employed in each branch of manufacturing and 
 the efficiency of the work of the men who are thus 
 employed. It must be determined whether or not the 
 output of each piece of machinery is as great in quantity 
 and as good in quality as it should be. Comparisons 
 must be made between each of several machines doing 
 the same kind of work in order to determine the com¬ 
 parative efficiency of each machine and of its particular 
 crew. On these and many other points, statistics and 
 reports should continually be at hand, through even 
 a cursory examination of which the business manager 
 may be able to determine whether the results sought 
 are being produced. If these results are forthcoming, 
 judicious commendation and ultimate financial reward 
 will insure their continuance. If they are not forth¬ 
 coming, the business manager must talk to his foremen, 
 
26 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 and if a satisfactory explanation is not produced and 
 if the unsatisfactory results continue, there is no 
 recourse except to change foremen. In a business where 
 one has to depend upon the efficiency and loyalty of 
 subordinates, there is but one course to pursue and that 
 is to give these subordinates, within reason, full power 
 to manage the details of their respective departments 
 as long as results are satisfactory. Care must be exer¬ 
 cised to transact all the business of each department 
 through the subordinate in charge of it. If a business 
 manager attempts to interfere by transacting business 
 without the knowledge of his department heads, con¬ 
 fusion and dissatisfaction are bound to result. If the 
 subordinates to whom such authority is delegated do 
 not produce satsifactory results, the only method to 
 follow is to replace them with others who will accept 
 similar responsibility and produce results. 
 
 The manufacturing or mechanical department of a 
 newspaper falls readily into four divisions. These are 
 respectively, the work of the etching room, the compos¬ 
 ing and proof rooms, the stereotype room and the press 
 room. 
 
 In the etching room are made all the cuts of illustra¬ 
 tions that appear in the news and feature columns of 
 the paper, and in the case of newspapers equipped to do 
 commercial work, many of the cuts of illustrations 
 which appear jn the advertisements of local houses. 
 The work of the etching department is of an especially 
 delicate and technical nature and skilled employes 
 are secured only from the ranks of those who have 
 served a long apprenticeship. I think I am safe in saying 
 that there is no business manager of a metropolitan 
 newspaper who could go into an etching room, roll 
 up his sleeves and succeed in making a cut from a photo¬ 
 graph, a wash drawing or a pen-and-ink sketch. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 27 
 
 As everybody knows, in the composing room is set 
 either by machines or by hand, all the matter that is 
 contained in a newspaper and that does not come into 
 the office in plate form, as does a certain portion of the 
 advertising. To the uninitiated, the fact that some of 
 the news printed in the paper which is delivered at one’s 
 house at six o’clock in the morning is frequently received 
 in the composing room in manuscript form as late as 
 three o’clock in the morning, is difficult of belief. Of 
 course all copy to be set does not come in at one time, 
 and indeed advertising is frequently set up several 
 days before the day on which it actually appears in the 
 paper, in order that the advertiser may have ample 
 time to see his proofs and make corrections. Even 
 with the most careful arrangement for spreading the 
 work of the composing room over the greatest possible 
 length of time, the dead line for closing the last form 
 is always at hand too soon and the frantic efforts to 
 close the last page and send it to the stereotypers would 
 indicate to the layman that there was no possibility 
 whatever of getitng out the newspaper on time and in 
 good order. I shall not take up your time by a detailed 
 description of the various steps in the transition from a 
 written story to the printed page, believing that a better 
 way of bringing this matter to your attention would be 
 through a visit to our office in Chicago while this work 
 is being done, and I hope that we may have such visits 
 from you in groups, in the near future. 
 
 As each page of tomorrow morning’s newspaper is 
 made into its form, it is passed on to the stereotype 
 department which takes from it the “blotting paper” 
 impression known as a matrix, from which the curved 
 plate is finally cast from whose surface the actual print¬ 
 ing is done. In order to obviate the necessity of sending 
 the heavy forms themselves down into the basement 
 
28 
 
 bulletin of the 
 
 where the plate casting and printing are done, a part 
 of the stereotype department’s work is usually done in 
 the same room as that occupied by the typesetters, 
 or in an adjoining room. The matrices thus made from 
 the type forms are then sent into the basement by chute 
 or lift and the actual plate casting is done in a room 
 adjoining the press room, so that the transfer of the 
 heavy plates, each of which weighs about forty pounds, 
 may be done with the least possible effort. In the com¬ 
 posing room, and in the upstairs work of the stereotype 
 room, machines have taken the place of hand labor 
 to a large extent. Where once all the type, both news 
 and advertising, which appears in a newspaper was 
 set by hand, today only a part of the advertising matter 
 is still hand set and even that part is set from type which 
 is made in the newspaper office itself upon machines 
 especially designed for that purpose. In former days 
 the impression on the paper matrix laid upon the type 
 form was taken by beating with mallets held in the 
 hand. To-day the same effect is produced by submitting 
 the type forms with the paper matrices superimposed, 
 to tremenduous mechanical pressure. 
 
 The downstairs work of the stereotype department 
 consists of the casting of the curved plates from the 
 paper matrices. It is only a short time ago that this 
 work was done by hand casting boxes into which the 
 molten metal was poured by ladles held in the hand. 
 This mechanical process, which was considered at the 
 time of its adoption as pretty nearly the last word in 
 plate casting, has now been superseded by a big machine 
 into which the paper matrix is placed and by wdiich 
 an almost unlimited number of plates from a single 
 matric can be cast, one after another in rapid succession, 
 every bit of the work except a simple trimming of the 
 edges at the end of the process being mechanically done. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAIvIE 
 
 29 
 
 The plates thus cast are carried by hand into the press 
 room, which is usually adjoining the stereotype room, 
 and there are locked upon the cylinders of the presses 
 in the proper order to produce a newspaper of the 
 requisite number and proper succession of pages. .As 
 the type forms are received in succession by the upstairs 
 end of the stereotype department, so the metal plates 
 are received in succession by the press room, each one 
 being locked in its proper position upon the press cylin¬ 
 ders to await the arrival of the final plate, which is 
 known as the starter. Each press as it finally receives 
 the starter, is put in motion and the grind of the final 
 stages of the night’s work begins. 
 
 After the starters for the first edition of the daily 
 issue of a morning paper are all upon the presses, 
 there comes a brief lull all along the line except in the 
 press room, and the chance to draw a brief breath 
 between editions. The presses are kept running until 
 a sufficient supply of papers has been printed to fill 
 the demands of those dealers and subscribers who 
 obtain the first or fast mail edition. In the meantime, 
 later news is coming in and being set up in the composing 
 room, where a certain number of fresh pages are made 
 up to take the places of the corresponding pages in the 
 earlier - editions. These pages are sent through the 
 usual course and finally emerge into the press room 
 at the proper moment when they must be substituted 
 for their predecessors upon the press cylinders. As 
 these plates are finally changed, each press starts up 
 again and the final or city edition, unless there are later 
 extras on account of later news, is run off. On an 
 ordinary day the presses clear about four o’clock in 
 the morning. 
 
 In the case of practically all metropolitan newspapers 
 the management has to deal with organized labor in 
 
30 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE 
 
 all the mechanical departments. Wages, hours and 
 working conditions are settled in advance by written 
 contract between the newspapers and the local and 
 international bodies in the respective mechanical news¬ 
 paper trades. Disputes occasionally arise concerning 
 certain technical points, which are adjusted by com¬ 
 mittees representing the two parties, or in the case 
 of disagreement, by arbitration boards organized either 
 locally or nationally as the case in question may be 
 susceptible of decision. The business manager, in addi¬ 
 tion to his other duties, finds it necessary to sit as a 
 member of these committees and negotiate on behalf 
 of his newspaper concerning such disputes, or upon their 
 expiration, concerning the renewal of agreements with 
 organized labor. During these meetings one is impressed 
 with the intelligence and cleverness of those who 
 represent the' organized newspaper trades and one 
 frequently finds among .such men, those who know their 
 history, their literature, their law and their politics 
 to a degree that would considerably embarass the aver¬ 
 age college graduate. 
 
 In giving you the foregoing outline of the business 
 side of a metropolitan newspaper, you will observe 
 that I have not invaded the field of the news and edi¬ 
 torial department, I believe that this is the policy for 
 a business manager to adopt. I believe that no business 
 manager of a metropolitan newspaper should seek or 
 be given any voice whatsoever in connection with what 
 is printed in the news, editorial or feature columns. 
 The business manager, in my opinion, should confine 
 himself strictly to producing and selling his output 
 and leave what is printed in or what is ommitted from 
 the news columns to the discretion of someone else.