At first the paper ran on its capital. But after a few months the income from circulation, advertisements, and job-printing reduced the weekly deficit to about five hundred dollars. This was met in part by the Maintenance Pledge Fund. About two thousand people, mostly members of the Socialist party, had pledged weekly contributions ranging from ten cents to a few dollars. The remaining deficit was met by pure and simple begging and by rebates from the wages. Never was a paper run on a more strenuous and flimsy basis. The lack of economy of such poverty-stricken operation would have shocked any business man, would have caused apoplexy to an "efficiency expert." The cost of every process was twice or thrice what it would have been if they had had more money. But financial worries were only a small part of what Isadore and his little band of enthusiastic helpers had to contend with. _The Clarion_ was the property of the democratically organized shareholders, who elected an Executive Committee of five to manage it. Of all phases of public life, Democracy has shown itself least prepared to deal sanely with this business of newspapers. As a whole the stockholders of the company were deeply dissatisfied with the regular newspapers and ardently desired one which would truly represent their class. But although they were making great sacrifices, were putting up an amazingly large share of their earnings to support _The Clarion_, their idea of what to expect from it was very vague. They knew nothing at all of the technical problems of journalism. The Executive Committee had stated meetings every week, and seemed to Isadore to be holding special meetings every ten minutes. More of his time went to educating this board of managers, teaching them what could and what could not be done with their limited resources, than in actual work on the paper. When the meeting of the shareholders had been called to order, Rheinhardt, the chairman of the Executive Committee, read his report. The circulation had reached twelve thousand. The weekly deficit had been reduced to $400. The Maintenance Pledge Fund had brought in $310. Gifts to the amount of $66.50 had been received. The office force had receipted for $23.50 which they had not received. For the first time in the history of _The Clarion_ a week had passed without increasing the indebtedness.