I learned about it in the late 1930s. After covering a freelance sports assignment for the News, I submitted my expense voucher listing my actual bus fare to and from my assignment. My voucher was rejected by Emmet Kluxon, the paymaster, and when I asked him why, he sent me to talk to Sports Editor Len Elliott. I did and Elliott told me in effect: You can't put down your actual bus fare; you make the rest of the staff look like a bunch of thieves. Put down four or five bucks and resubmit it. I did and promptly collected.

A former Newark News reporter, William Gordon, who worked in the News building for a dozen years in the 1950s and 1960s would confirm my expense account recollection in a January 2, 2004 retrospective when he wrote:

"The Newark News was parsimonious with salaries. Staffers frequently got around that by inflating their overtime and expense reports, with management's tacit sanction. After all, they could deduct it as a business expense."