Unusually for Los Angeles at the time, the paper's plant was a union shop, something Vanderbilt insisted on. The paper began publication on September 3, 1923, and was helped in its launch by the fact that the Great Tokyo Earthquake had just happened; it was able to provide full coverage, though using stock photographs of Japan. The initial price was one cent a copy. The tabloid format newspaper was to be devoted to the ideal of clean journalism and was prudish to an extreme: women's skirts were retouched in photos to cover the knees, while photos of wrestlers were altered so they appeared to be wearing shirts. Vanderbilt's rivals did not take well to the new competition—saboteurs planted a graphic sex story about Charlie Chaplin in the first edition, forcing Vanderbilt, at considerable expense, to stop the presses and redo Page Two before it was published. Up to a hundred "Illustrated Daily News" newsboys were treated at local hospitals each week after being assaulted. Nevertheless, in December 1923 Vanderbilt expanded to San Francisco with the "Illustrated Daily Herald" and in February 1925 to Miami—the "Illustrated Daily Tab" was intended to cash in on the Florida land boom.