290 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERY
other correspondents. But very soon I was making 25 per-
cent more money. The Gazette increased its size three times to
accommodate its advertising, and each time I received a very
substantial increase in salary.
In addition to this, I was given a job to gather social news
for the Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Press. Bradford Merrill,
managing editor of that newspaper, now a very important New
York newspaper executive, assigned me a big territory to cover.
This kept me busy every night in the week except Saturdays.
I was paid five dollars a column; but I averaged seven columns
every Sunday, which made me thirty-five dollars a week extra.
It was more money for me to spend, and I spent it. I did
not know anything about budgeting my expenses. I just let
it go as it came. I did not have time, or thought I hadn't, to
watch my step in spending.
A year later I was invited to join the advertising staff of
the Philadelphia Press, a big opportunity for a young man, for I
got wonderful training under the management of William L.
McLean, now the owner of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. I
still retained my job as gatherer of social news-so my income
was just about the same as I had been making in Germantown.
But before long my work attracted the attention of James
Elverson Sr., publisher of the old Saturday Night and Golden Days,
who had just purchased the Philadelphia Inquirer. I was offered
and accepted the advertising management of this newspaper.
This meant a big increase in my income. And soon after-
ward there came a happy increase in my family, the birth of a
daughter. Then I was able to do what I had longed to do since
the birth of my son. I got the family together again under one
roof--my wife and two babies, my mother and sister. At last
I was able to relieve my mother of any cares or responsibilities,
and never again did she have either as long as she lived. She