"Every improvement," she said, "seems to depend on getting more money. And that's got to be done by increased circulation. Our financial condition will never be sound so long as we are dependent on gifts and friendly loans. We've got about 12,000 circulation now, and I guess that's as many Socialists as we can count on. If we're to grow, it must be among non-Socialist working-men. So it seems to me that we must put our best efforts on the labor page. That page is very weak now. It's full of stuff about the unions, but it's written to interest Socialists. It ought to be the other way round. Until it is made interesting to working-men who are not yet Socialists it's useless as a circulation-getter." Paulding leaned forward and broke in impulsively. "Comrade, everybody has knocks! Every page in the paper is weak. We don't have to be told that. How can it be improved with the resources at hand? That's the question." "Nothing can be done without some money. But if we could raise one man's salary, I think we could make a great improvement. What's needed is a man who can give all his time to it, some one who has an idea of news-value, of up-to-date journalism, who understands the labor movement and can write about it without an offensive Socialist bias." "And," Paulding growled, "how much would a man like that cost us? There aren't half a dozen men with those qualifications in the city. How much would Karner pay a man, who could make real circulation for _The Star_ out of a labor page?" "The kind of man I mean would value the freedom we could give him. Nobody who's sincere likes to work for Karner. We can get him for less." "Well, I'm doubtful," Paulding said. "We're sweating our staff now worse than any sweat-shop. Look at this rotten office where we ask them to work. We're overworking them, underpaying them, and about every week asking them to sign off some of their wages." "They do it willingly," one of the nonentities put in, "the Great Ideal--" "Oh! that Great Ideal talk makes me tired," Paulding interrupted. "We can't get high-class men at such terms. I know two really able men; they give us a lot of stuff gratis. They've got the Great Ideal as strong as anybody, but they've also got families! They'd be glad to work for us if we could give them, not fancy salaries, but decent ones. We can't. The men we've got are wonderful. I take off my hat whenever I think of them. They're devoted to the limit. Very likely they're of high moral character"--his voice rose querulously--"good to their mothers, and all that. But there is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that they're not newspaper men. Braun had some experience on the _Forwaertz_. But there isn't a man in the office who ever saw the inside of a modern metropolitan daily. "What can we offer a man? Twenty-five dollars a week--at most. That's what Braun is getting--sometimes. It's a joke. A hundred a month to our editor-in-chief! That's our whole trouble. What we--"