The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-07
'. W. AVER & SONS THIRTY
 FIFTH BIRTHDAY.
Great Advertising Firm Started in One Room With s25O Capital-Has Since Transacfed R1lsiness of s25 mo nm

Room With $25O Capital-Has Since
 Transacted Business of ss5. .OO0. OGO.
 The firm of N. w. Aver x Son, Q. Philadelphia, the largest advertising agency in the United States, celebrated recently the thirty-fifth anniversary of q business whose success and growth can be measured only by the progress of advertising itself in this country.
 They started, father and son, in a room only twenty feet square, on San som street, near Seventh, near the pres ent Press" building, on April ], 1869. Their capital was $25O and, as Mir. F. w. Aver. the present head of the firm, laughingly said yesterday: Father was the head, I was the office boy. and we were equal partners
 With this capital the firm proceeded to develop newspaper advertising, and in the first year did business Of S15. eco. In the thirty-four years since they have furnished to the newspapers of the United States total of more than S35,- 100000 of advertising. To-day they are dealing with 1S.OOO publications and their payments to these average $10. 900 a day, or, roughly speaking, S3,600,000 a year.
 KEPT EVERLASTINGLY AT JT.'
 This enormous business enterprise was started with the settlsd conviction that Philadelphia was the city in which it could be made a success, and that Philadelphia business methods would make 1t a success. Tn the little rocln on Sansom street father and son adopt ed the now well-known Philadelphia motto, Keeping everlastingly at it brings success" On the walls of the two entire floors of the Mariner & Mer- chant building, at Third aud Chestnut streets, and the two floors of press and work rooms in the rear, that motto is to-day engraved for the 229 employees of the big firm to read.
 In 1873 N. w. Aver passed to his rest and left the business and the name to his son, F. w. Aver, who then took into his partnership an employe named George o. Wallace, who died in 1887. Before Wallaces death another eul- ploye, Henry N. Mckinney, had been taken into the firm in 1875, and finally Albert c. Bradford and Jacgis A. Wood were made partners in 1SyS they also having come up through the business. These last three partners, together with F. w. Aver, conduct the business to- day.
 In 1876 increasing trade brought the firm to the then new Times building, at Eighth and Chestnut stre cts, where it rented one floor This was before the 'Times" moved in. During twenty Live years N. w. Aver 6 Sons gradually spread until they occupied all the upper floors. Then they moved to their pres ent quarters at Third and Chestnut, on the site, by the way, of the first alver- Using agency in America, which was established by Volney B. Palmer in 1S41 !.
 STORY OF A SUCCESS.
 Speaking of the immense growth of advertising, F. W. Aver the veteran member of the firm. said:
 There was hardly such a thing as sd tllssertisifig until after tine civil war. Then the country began to feel it's mus cle and to stretch out into new lines. We have seen great evolution in jour nalisn. When we started it was in the days of the weekly newspaper, which was a great power But now increased postal facilities have rendered the daily paper the vehicle of news ill every part of the country.
 "Yes, this is the day of the daily, and more and more is the public depending upon it for an account of what t can not personally see and hear; and more and more the advertiser is depending upon it to tell the people that he can not meet personally of the goods he has to sell
 DO think advertising will increase? Yes. We began in the days when sta- ples were not advertised, when business men thought it all right for makers of patent medicines to advertise because they were supposed to bring great profit. But for sugar, bread, biscuits and the like, on which profits were close. it was thought there was 10 mar gin for advertising.
 ADVERTISING STAPLES.
 "That was the idea we started to lis prove, and we have by no means ex- hausted the list of staples tllat will be exploited Let me tell you something the immense advertising of Uneeda Biscuit was done by setting aside Q fraction of a cent on each package.
 'Yes, the old idea that certain things will not stand advertising is passed. Men are advertising to-day who told Us five years ago that advertising would do them no good. Others who now say the same thing will themselves be ad- vertising in another five years.
 Why" concluded MT. Aver, with a smile, there were some who told us when we started that this business could not be run successfully from Phil adelphia. Think of thatl"
 That this theory has long since been exploded is well witnessed by the enor- nous success of N. w. Aver & Son, which has made the name of Philadel- phia and a Philadelphia firm known from one end of the United States to the other.
 c. E. SOCIETIES.