Mr. Burlingame was known in the publishing world for his singularly keen literary appreciation, and was accepted as one of the best judges of good fiction. Bok entered the Scribner employ as Mr. Burlingame was selecting the best short stories published within a decade for a set of books to be called "Short Stories by American Authors." The correspondence for this series was dictated to Bok, and he decided to read after Mr. Burlingame and thus get an idea of the best fiction of the day. So whenever his chief wrote to an author asking for permission to include his story in the proposed series, Bok immediately hunted up the story and read it.

Later, when the house decided to start Scribner's Magazine, and Mr. Burlingame was selected to be its editor, all the preliminary correspondence was dictated to Bok through his employers, and he received a first-hand education in the setting up of the machinery necessary for the publication of a magazine. All this he eagerly absorbed.

He was again fortunate in that his desk was placed in the advertising department of the house; and here he found, as manager, an old-time Brooklyn boy friend with whom he had gone to school: Frank N. Doubleday, to-day the senior partner of Doubleday, Page and Company. Bok had been attracted to advertising through his theatre programme and Brooklyn Magazine experience, and here was presented a chance to learn the art at first hand and according to the best traditions. So, whenever his stenographic work permitted, he assisted Mr. Doubleday in preparing and placing the advertisements of the books of the house.

Mr. Doubleday was just reviving the publication of a house-organ called The Book Buyer, and, given a chance to help in this, Bok felt he was getting back into the periodical field, especially since, under Mr. Doubleday's guidance, the little monthly soon developed into a literary magazine of very respectable size and generally bookish contents.

The house also issued another periodical, The Presbyterian Review, a quarterly under the editorship of a board of professors connected with the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries. This ponderous-looking magazine was not composed of what one might call "light reading," and as the price of a single copy was eighty cents, and the advertisements it could reasonably expect were necessarily limited in number, the periodical was rather difficult to move. Thus the whole situation at the Scribners' was adapted to give Edward an all-round training in the publishing business. It was an exceptional opportunity.

He worked early and late. An increase in his salary soon told him that he was satisfying his employers, and then, when the new Scribner's Magazine appeared, and a little later Mr. Doubleday was delegated to take charge of the business end of it, Bok himself was placed in charge of the advertising department, with the publishing details of the two periodicals on his hands.

He suddenly found himself directing a stenographer instead of being a stenographer himself. Evidently his apprentice days were over. He had, in addition, the charge of sending all the editorial copies of the new books to the press for review, and of keeping a record of those reviews. This naturally brought to his desk the authors of the house who wished to see how the press received their works.

The study of the writers who were interested in following the press notices of their books, and those who were indifferent to them became a fascinating game to young Bok. He soon discovered that the greater the author the less he seemed to care about his books once they were published. Bok noticed this, particularly, in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose work had attracted him, but, although he used the most subtle means to inveigle the author into the office to read the press notices, he never succeeded. Stevenson never seemed to have the slightest interest in what the press said of his books.

One day Mr. Burlingame asked Bok to take some proofs to Stevenson at his home; thinking it might be a propitious moment to interest the author in the popular acclaim that followed the publication of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bok put a bunch of press notices in his pocket. He found the author in bed, smoking his inevitable cigarette.

As the proofs were to be brought back, Bok waited, and thus had an opportunity for nearly two hours to see the author at work. No man ever went over his proofs more carefully than did Stevenson; his corrections were numerous; and sometimes for ten minutes at a time he would sit smoking and thinking over a single sentence, which, when he had satisfactorily shaped it in his mind, he would recast on the proof.

Stevenson was not a prepossessing figure at these times. With his sallow skin and his black dishevelled hair, with finger-nails which had been allowed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco—in short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so Bok felt, was an author whom it was better to read than to see. And yet his kindliness and gentleness more than offset the unattractiveness of his physical appearance.

After one or two visits from Bok, having grown accustomed to him, Stevenson would discuss some sentence in an article, or read some amended paragraph out loud and ask whether Bok thought it sounded better. To pass upon Stevenson as a stylist was, of course, hardly within Bok's mental reach, so he kept discreetly silent when Stevenson asked his opinion.

In fact, Bok reasoned it out that the novelist did not really expect an answer or an opinion, but was at such times thinking aloud. The mental process, however, was immensely interesting, particularly when Stevenson would ask Bok to hand him a book on words lying on an adjacent table. "So hard to find just the right word," Stevenson would say, and Bok got his first realization of the truth of the maxim: "Easy writing, hard reading; hard writing, easy reading."

On this particular occasion when Stevenson finished, Bok pulled out his clippings, told the author how his book was being received, and was selling, what the house was doing to advertise it, explained the forthcoming play by Richard Mansfield, and then offered the press notices.

Stevenson took the bundle and held it in his hand.

"That's very nice to tell me all you have," he said, "and I have been greatly interested. But you have really told me all about it, haven't you, so why should I read these notices? Hadn't I better get busy on another paper for Mr. Burlingame for the next magazine, else he'll be after me? You know how impatient these editors are." And he handed back the notices.

Bok saw it was of no use: Stevenson was interested in his work, but, beyond a certain point, not in the world's reception of it. Bok's estimate of the author rose immeasurably. His attitude was in such sharp contrast to that of others who came almost daily into the office to see what the papers said, often causing discomfiture to the young advertising director by insisting upon taking the notices with them. But Bok always countered this desire by reminding the author that, of course, in that case he could not quote from these desirable notices in his advertisements of the book. And, invariably, the notices were left behind!

It now fell to the lot of the young advertiser to arouse the interest of the public in what were to be some of the most widely read and best-known books of the day: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy; Andrew Carnegie's Triumphant Democracy; Frank R. Stockton's The Lady, or the Tiger? and his Rudder Grange, and a succession of other books.

The advertising of these books keenly sharpened the publicity sense of the developing advertising director. One book could best be advertised by the conventional means of the display advertisement; another, like Triumphant Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a novel like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream lady and a tiger to the author, and the whole company watched which he chose.

"And which did you choose?" asked the advertising director.

"Et tu, Brute?" Stockton smilingly replied. "Well, I'll tell you. I asked the butler to bring me another spoon, and then, with a spoon in each hand, I attacked both the lady and the tiger at the same time."

Once, when Stockton was going to Boston by the night boat, every room was taken. The ticket agent recognized the author, and promised to get him a desirable room if the author would tell which he had had in mind, the lady or the tiger.

"Produce the room," answered Stockton.

The man did. Stockton paid for it, and then said: "To tell you the truth, my friend, I don't know."

And that was the truth, as Mr. Stockton confessed to his friends. The idea of the story had fascinated him; when he began it he purposed to give it a definite ending. But when he reached the end he didn't know himself which to produce out of the open door, the lady or the tiger, "and so," he used to explain, "I made up my mind to leave it hanging in the air."

To the present generation of readers, all this reference to Stockton's story may sound strange, but for months it was the most talked-of story of the time, and sold into large numbers.

One day while Mr. Stockton was in Bok's office, A. B. Frost, the illustrator, came in. Frost had become a full-fledged farmer with one hundred and twenty acres of Jersey land, and Stockton had a large farm in the South which was a financial burden to him.

"Well, Stockton," said Frost, "I have found a way at last to make a farm stop eating up money. Perhaps it will help you."

Stockton was busy writing, but at this bit of hopeful news he looked up, his eyes kindled, he dropped his pen, and eagerly said:

"Tell me."

And looking behind him to see that the way was clear, Frost answered:

"Pave it solid, old man."

When the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Little Lord Fauntleroy were made into plays, Bok was given an opportunity for an entirely different kind of publicity. Both plays were highly successful; they ran for weeks in succession, and each evening Bok had circulars of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield's method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the Stevenson play, and with anecdotes about the boy Tommy Russell in Mrs. Burnett's play. The sale of the books went merrily on, and kept pace with the success of the plays. And it all sharpened the initiative of the young advertiser and developed his sense for publicity.

One day while waiting in the anteroom of a publishing house to see a member of the firm, he picked up a book and began to read it. Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last admitted to the private office. When his business was finished, Bok asked the publisher why this book was not selling.

"I don't know," replied the publisher. "We had great hopes for it, but somehow or other the public has not responded to it."

"Are you sure you are telling the public about it in the right way?" ventured Bok.

The Scribner advertising had by this time attracted the attention of the publishing world, and this publisher was entirely ready to listen to a suggestion from his youthful caller.

"I wish we published it," said Bok. "I think I could make it a go. It's all in the book."

"How would you advertise it?" asked the publisher.

Bok promised the publisher he would let him know. He carried with him a copy of the book, wrote some advertisements for it, prepared an attractive "broadside" of extracts, to which the book easily lent itself, wrote some literary notes about it, and sent the whole collection to the publisher. Every particle of "copy" which Bok had prepared was used, the book began to sell, and within three months it was the most discussed book of the day.

The book was Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward".



XI. The Chances for Success

Edward Bok does not now remember whether the mental picture had been given him, or whether he had conjured it up for himself; but he certainly was possessed of the idea, as are so many young men entering business, that the path which led to success was very difficult: that it was overfilled with a jostling, bustling, panting crowd, each eager to reach the goal; and all ready to dispute every step that a young man should take; and that favoritism only could bring one to the top.

After Bok had been in the world of affairs, he wondered where were these choked avenues, these struggling masses, these competitors for every inch of vantage. Then he gradually discovered that they did not exist.

In the first place, he found every avenue leading to success wide open and certainly not over-peopled. He was surprised how few there were who really stood in a young man's way. He found that favoritism was not the factor that he had been led to suppose. He realized it existed in a few isolated cases, but to these every one had pointed and about these every one had talked until, in the public mind, they had multiplied in number and assumed a proportion that the facts did not bear out.

Here and there a relative "played a favorite," but even with the push and influence behind him "the lucky one," as he was termed, did not seem to make progress, unless he had merit. It was not long before Bok discovered that the possession of sheer merit was the only real factor that actually counted in any of the places where he had been employed or in others which he had watched; that business was so constructed and conducted that nothing else, in the face of competition, could act as current coin. And the amazing part of it all to Bok was how little merit there was. Nothing astonished him more than the low average ability of those with whom he worked or came into contact.

He looked at the top, and instead of finding it overcrowded, he was surprised at the few who had reached there; the top fairly begged for more to climb its heights.

For every young man, earnest, eager to serve, willing to do more than he was paid for, he found ten trying to solve the problem of how little they could actually do for the pay received.

It interested Bok to listen to the talk of his fellow-workers during luncheon hours and at all other times outside of office hours. When the talk did turn on the business with which they were concerned, it consisted almost entirely of wages, and he soon found that, with scarcely an exception, every young man was terribly underpaid, and that his employer absolutely failed to appreciate his work. It was interesting, later, when Bok happened to get the angle of the employer, to discover that, invariably, these same lamenting young men were those who, from the employer's point of view, were either greatly overpaid or so entirely worthless as to be marked for early decapitation.

Bok felt that this constant thought of the wages earned or deserved was putting the cart before the horse; he had schooled himself into the belief that if he did his work well, and accomplished more than was expected of him, the question of wages would take care of itself. But, according to the talk on every side, it was he who had the cart before the horse. Bok had not only tried always to fill the particular job set for him but had made it a rule at the same time to study the position just ahead, to see what it was like, what it demanded, and then, as the opportunity presented itself, do a part of that job in addition to his own. As a stenographer, he tried always to clear off the day's work before he closed his desk. This was not always possible, but he kept it before him as a rule to be followed rather than violated.

One morning Bok's employer happened to come to the office earlier than usual, to find the letters he had dictated late in the afternoon before lying on his desk ready to be signed.

"These are the letters I gave you late yesterday afternoon, are they not?" asked the employer.

"Yes, sir."

"Must have started early this morning, didn't you?"

"No, sir," answered Bok. "I wrote them out last evening before I left."

"Like to get your notes written out before they get stale?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good idea," said the employer.

"Yes, sir," answered Bok, "and I think it is even a better idea to get a day's work off before I take my apron off."

"Well said," answered the employer, and the following payday Bok found an increase in his weekly envelope.

It is only fair, however, to add here, parenthetically, that it is neither just nor considerate to a conscientious stenographer for an employer to delay his dictation until the end of the day's work, when, merely by judicious management of his affairs and time, he can give his dictation directly after opening his morning mail. There are two sides to every question; but sometimes the side of the stenographer is not kept in mind by the employer.

Bok found it a uniform rule among his fellow-workers to do exactly the opposite to his own idea; there was an astonishing unanimity in working by the clock; where the hour of closing was five o'clock the preparations began five minutes before, with the hat and overcoat over the back of the chair ready for the stroke of the hour. This concert of action was curiously universal, no "overtime" was ever to be thought of, and, as occasionally happened when the work did go over the hour, it was not, to use the mildest term, done with care, neatness, or accuracy; it was, to use a current phrase, "slammed off." Every moment beyond five o'clock in which the worker was asked to do anything was by just so much an imposition on the part of the employer, and so far as it could be safely shown, this impression was gotten over to him.

There was an entire unwillingness to let business interfere with any anticipated pleasure or personal engagement. The office was all right between nine and five; one had to be there to earn a living; but after five, it was not to be thought of for one moment. The elevators which ran on the stroke of five were never large enough to hold the throng which besieged them.

The talk during lunch hour rarely, if ever, turned toward business, except as said before, when it dealt with underpaid services. In the spring and summer it was invariably of baseball, and scores of young men knew the batting averages of the different players and the standing of the clubs with far greater accuracy than they knew the standing or the discounts of the customers of their employers. In the winter the talk was all of dancing, boxing, or plays.

It soon became evident to Bok why scarcely five out of every hundred of the young men whom he knew made any business progress. They were not interested; it was a case of a day's work and a day's pay; it was not a question of how much one could do but how little one could get away with. The thought of how well one might do a given thing never seemed to occur to the average mind.

"Oh, what do you care?" was the favorite expression. "The boss won't notice it if you break your back over his work; you won't get any more pay."

And there the subject was dismissed, and thoroughly dismissed, too.

Eventually, then, Bok learned that the path that led to success was wide open: the competition was negligible. There was no jostling. In fact, travel on it was just a trifle lonely. One's fellow-travellers were excellent company, but they were few! It was one of Edward Bok's greatest surprises, but it was also one of his greatest stimulants. To go where others could not go, or were loath to go, where at least they were not, had a tang that savored of the freshest kind of adventure. And the way was so simple, so much simpler, in fact, than its avoidance, which called for so much argument, explanation, and discussion. One had merely to do all that one could do, a little more than one was asked or expected to do, and immediately one's head rose above the crowd and one was in an employer's eye—where it is always so satisfying for an employee to be! And as so few heads lifted themselves above the many, there was never any danger that they would not be seen.

Of course, Edward Bok had to prove to himself that his conception of conditions was right. He felt instinctively that it was, however, and with this stimulus he bucked the line hard. When others played, he worked, fully convinced that his play-time would come later. Where others shirked, he assumed. Where others lagged, he accelerated his pace. Where others were indifferent to things around them, he observed and put away the results for possible use later. He did not make of himself a pack-horse; what he undertook he did from interest in it, and that made it a pleasure to him when to others it was a burden. He instinctively reasoned it out that an unpleasant task is never accomplished by stepping aside from it, but that, unerringly, it will return later to be met and done.

Obstacles, to Edward Bok, soon became merely difficulties to be overcome, and he trusted to his instinct to show him the best way to overcome them. He soon learned that the hardest kind of work was back of every success; that nothing in the world of business just happened, but that everything was brought about, and only in one way—by a willingness of spirit and a determination to carry through. He soon exploded for himself the misleading and comfortable theory of luck: the only lucky people, he found, were those who worked hard. To them, luck came in the shape of what they had earned. There were exceptions here and there, as there are to every rule; but the majority of these, he soon found, were more in the seeming than in the reality. Generally speaking—and of course to this rule there are likewise exceptions, or as the Frenchman said, "All generalizations are false, including this one"—a man got in this world about what he worked for.

And that became, for himself, the rule of Edward Bok's life.



XII. Baptism Under Fire

The personnel of the Scribner house was very youthful from the members of the firm clear down the line. It was veritably a house of young men.

The story is told of a Boston publisher, sedate and fairly elderly, who came to the Scribner house to transact business with several of its departments. One of his errands concerning itself with advertising, he was introduced to Bok, who was then twenty-four. Looking the youth over, he transacted his business as well as he felt it could be transacted with a manager of such tender years, and then sought the head of the educational department: this brought him to another young man of twenty-four.

With his yearnings for some one more advanced in years full upon him, the visitor now inquired for the business manager of the new magazine, only to find a man of twenty-six. His next introduction was to the head of the out-of-town business department, who was twenty-seven.

At this point the Boston man asked to see Mr. Scribner. This disclosed to him Mr. Arthur H. Scribner, the junior partner, who owned to twenty-eight summers. Mustering courage to ask faintly for Mr. Charles Scribner himself, he finally brought up in that gentleman's office only to meet a man just turning thirty-three!

"This is a young-looking crowd," said Mr. Scribner one day, looking over his young men. And his eye rested on Bok. "Particularly you, Bok. Doubleday looks his years better than you do, for at least he has a moustache." Then, contemplatively: "You raise a moustache, Bok, and I'll raise your salary."

This appealed to Bok very strongly, and within a month he pointed out the result to his employer. "Stand in the light here," said Mr. Scribner. "Well, yes," he concluded dubiously, "it's there—something at least. All right; I'll keep my part of the bargain."

He did. But the next day he was nonplussed to see that the moustache had disappeared from the lip of his youthful advertising manager. "Couldn't quite stand it, Mr. Scribner," was the explanation. "Besides, you didn't say I should keep it: you merely said to raise it."

But the increase did not follow the moustache. To Bok's great relief, it stuck!

This youthful personnel, while it made for esprit de corps, had also its disadvantages. One day as Bok was going out to lunch, he found a small-statured man, rather plainly dressed, wandering around the retail department, hoping for a salesman to wait on him. The young salesman on duty, full of inexperience, had a ready smile and quick service ever ready for "carriage trade," as he called it; but this particular customer had come afoot, and this, together with his plainness of dress, did not impress the young salesman. His attention was called to the wandering customer, and it was suggested that he find out what was wanted. When Bok returned from lunch, the young salesman, who, with a beaming smile, had just most ceremoniously bowed the plainly dressed little customer out of the street-door, said: "You certainly struck it rich that time when you suggested my waiting on that little man! Such an order! Been here ever since. Did you know who it was?"

"No," returned Bok. "Who was it?"

"Andrew Carnegie," beamed the salesman.

Another youthful clerk in the Scribner retail bookstore, unconscious of the customer's identity, waited one day on the wife of Mark Twain.

Mrs. Clemens asked the young salesman for a copy of Taine's Ancient Regime.

"Beg pardon," said the clerk, "what book did you say?"

Mrs. Clemens repeated the author and title of the book.

Going to the rear of the store, the clerk soon returned, only to inquire: "May I ask you to repeat the name of the author?"

"Taine, T-a-i-n-e," replied Mrs. Clemens.

Then did the youthfulness of the salesman assert itself. Assuming an air of superior knowledge, and looking at the customer with an air of sympathy, he corrected Mrs. Clemens:

"Pardon me, madam, but you have the name a trifle wrong. You mean Twain-not Taine."

With so many young men of the same age, there was a natural sense of team-work and a spirit of comradeship that made for successful co-operation. This spirit extended outside of business hours. At luncheon there was a Scribner table in a neighboring restaurant, and evenings saw the Scribner department heads mingling as friends. It was a group of young men who understood and liked each other, with the natural result that business went easier and better because of it.

But Bok did not have much time for evening enjoyment, since his outside interests had grown and prospered and they kept him busy. His syndicate was regularly supplying over a hundred newspapers: his literary letter had become an established feature in thirty different newspapers.

Of course, his opportunities for making this letter interesting were unusual. Owing to his Scribner connection, however, he had taken his name from the letter and signed that of his brother. He had, also, constantly to discriminate between the information that he could publish without violation of confidence and that which he felt he was not at liberty to print. This gave him excellent experience; for the most vital of all essentials in the journalist is the ability unerringly to decide what to print and what to regard as confidential.

Of course, the best things that came to him he could not print. Whenever there was a question, he gave the benefit of the doubt to the confidential relation in which his position placed him with authors; and his Dutch caution, although it deprived him of many a toothsome morsel for his letter, soon became known to his confreres, and was a large asset when, as an editor, he had to follow the golden rule of editorship that teaches one to keep the ears open but the mouth shut.

This Alpha and Omega of all the commandments in the editorial creed some editors learn by sorrowful experience. Bok was, again, fortunate in learning it under the most friendly auspices. He continued to work without sparing himself, but his star remained in the ascendency. Just how far a man's own efforts and standards keep a friendly star centred over his head is a question. But Edward Bok has always felt that he was materially helped by fortuitous conditions not of his own creation or choice.

He was now to receive his first public baptism of fire. He had published a symposium, through his newspaper syndicate, discussing the question, "Should Clergymen Smoke?" He had induced all the prominent clergymen in the country to contribute their views, and so distinguished was the list that the article created wide-spread attention.

One of the contributors was the Reverend Richard S. Storrs, D.D., one of the most distinguished of Brooklyn's coterie of clergy of that day. A few days after the publication of the article, Bok was astounded to read in the Brooklyn Eagle a sensational article, with large headlines, in which Doctor Storrs repudiated his contribution to the symposium, declared that he had never written or signed such a statement, and accused Edward Bok of forgery.

Coming from a man of Doctor Storrs's prominence, the accusation was, of course, a serious one. Bok realized this at once. He foresaw the damage it might work to the reputation of a young man trying to climb the ladder of success, and wondered why Doctor Storrs had seen fit to accuse him in this public manner instead of calling upon him for a personal explanation. He thought perhaps he might find such a letter from Doctor Storrs when he reached home, but instead he met a small corps of reporters from the Brooklyn and New York newspapers. He told them frankly that no one was more surprised at the accusation than he, but that the original contributions were in the New York office of the syndicate, and he could not corroborate his word until he had looked into the papers and found Doctor Storrs's contribution.

That evening Bok got at the papers in the case, and found out that, technically, Doctor Storrs was right: he had not written or signed such a statement. The compiler of the symposium, the editor of one of New York's leading evening papers whom Bok had employed, had found Doctor Storrs's declaration in favor of a clergyman's use of tobacco in an address made some time before, had extracted it and incorporated it into the symposium. It was, therefore, Doctor Storrs's opinion on the subject, but not written for the occasion for which it was used. Bok felt that his editor had led him into an indiscretion. Yet the sentiments were those of the writer whose name was attached to them, so that the act was not one of forgery. The editor explained that he had sent the extract to Doctor Storrs, who had not returned it, and he had taken silence to mean consent to the use of the material.

Bok decided to say nothing until he heard from Doctor Storrs personally, and so told the newspapers. But the clergyman did not stop his attack. Of course, the newspapers egged him on and extracted from him the further accusation that Bok's silence proved his guilt. Bok now took the case to Mr. Beecher, and asked his advice.

"Well, Edward, you are right and you are wrong," said Mr. Beecher. "And so is Storrs, of course. It is beneath him to do what he has done. Storrs and I are not good friends, as you know, and so I cannot go to him and ask him the reason of his disclaimer. Otherwise I would. Of course, he may have forgotten his remarks: that is always possible in a busy man's life. He may not have received the letter enclosing them. That is likewise possible. But I have a feeling that Storrs has some reason for wishing to repudiate his views on this subject just at this time. What it is I do not, of course, know, but his vehemence makes me think so. I think I should let him have his rein. Keep you quiet. It may damage you a little here and there, but in the end it won't harm you. In the main point, you are right. You are not a forger. The sentiments are his and he uttered them, and he should stand by them. He threatens to bring you into court, I see from to-day's paper. Wait until he does so."

Bok, chancing to meet Doctor Talmage, told him Mr. Beecher's advice, and he endorsed it. "Remember, boy," said Doctor Talmage, "silence is never so golden as when you are under fire. I know, for I have been there, as you know, more than once. Keep quiet; and always believe this: that there is a great deal of common sense abroad in the world, and a man is always safe in trusting it to do him justice."

They were not pleasant and easy days for Bok, for Doctor Storrs kept up the din for several days. Bok waited for the word to appear in court. But this never came, and the matter soon died down and out. And, although Bok met the clergyman several times afterward in the years that followed, no reference was ever made by him to the incident.

But Edward Bok had learned a valuable lesson of silence under fire—an experience that was to stand him in good stead when he was again publicly attacked not long afterward.

This occurred in connection with a notable anniversary celebration in honor of Henry Ward Beecher, in which the entire city of Brooklyn was to participate. It was to mark a mile-stone in Mr. Beecher's ministry and in his pastorate of Plymouth Church. Bok planned a worldwide tribute to the famed clergyman: he would get the most distinguished men and women of this and other countries to express their esteem for the Plymouth pastor in written congratulations, and he would bind these into a volume for presentation to Mr. Beecher on the occasion. He consulted members of the Beecher family, and, with their acquiescence, began to assemble the material. He was in the midst of the work when Henry Ward Beecher passed away. Bok felt that the tributes already received were too wonderful to be lost to the world, and, after again consulting Mrs. Beecher and her children, he determined to finish the collection and publish it as a memorial for private distribution. After a prodigious correspondence, the work was at last completed; and in June, 1887, the volume was published, in a limited edition of five hundred copies. Bok distributed copies of the volume to the members of Mr. Beecher's family, he had orders from Mr. Beecher's friends, one hundred copies were offered to the American public and one hundred copies were issued in an English edition.

With such a figure to whom to do honor, the contributors, of course, included the foremost men and women of the time. Grover Cleveland was then President of the United States, and his tribute was a notable one. Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Argyll, Pasteur, Canon Farrar, Bartholdi, Salvini, and a score of others represented English and European opinion. Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, T. De Witt Talmage, Robert G. Ingersoll, Charles Dudley Warner, General Sherman, Julia Ward Howe, Andrew Carnegie, Edwin Booth, Rutherford B. Hayes—there was scarcely a leader of thought and of action of that day unrepresented. The edition was, of course, quickly exhausted; and when to-day a copy occasionally appears at an auction sale, it is sold at a high price.

The newspapers gave very large space to the distinguished memorial, and this fact angered a journalist, Joseph Howard, Junior, a man at one time close to Mr. Beecher, who had befriended him. Howard had planned to be the first in the field with a hastily prepared biography of the great preacher, and he felt that Bok had forestalled him. Forthwith, he launched a vicious attack on the compiler of the memorial, accusing him of "making money out of Henry Ward Beecher's dead body" and of "seriously offending the family of Mr. Beecher, who had had no say in the memorial, which was therefore without authority, and hence extremely distasteful to all."

Howard had convinced a number of editors of the justice of his position, and so he secured a wide publication for his attack. For the second time, Edward Bok was under fire, and remembering his action on the previous occasion, he again remained silent, and again the argument was put forth that his silence implied guilt. But Mrs. Beecher and members of the Beecher family did not observe silence, and quickly proved that not only had Bok compiled the memorial as a labor of love and had lost money on it, but that he had the full consent of the family in its preparation.

When, shortly afterward, Howard's hastily compiled "biography" of Mr. Beecher appeared, a reporter asked Mrs. Beecher whether she and her family had found it accurate.

"Accurate, my child," said Mrs. Beecher. "Why, it is so accurate in its absolute falsity that neither I nor the boys can find one fact or date given correctly, although we have studied it for two days. Even the year of Mr. Beecher's birth is wrong, and that is the smallest error!"

Edward Bok little dreamed that these two experiences with public criticism were to serve him as a foretaste of future attacks when he would get the benefit of hundreds of pencils especially sharpened for him.



XIII. Publishing Incidents and Anecdotes

One evening some literary men were dining together previous to going to a private house where a number of authors were to give readings from their books. At the table the talk turned on the carelessness with which the public reads books. Richard Harding Davis, one of the party, contended that the public read more carefully than the others believed. It was just at the time when Du Maurier's Trilby was in every one's hands.

"Don't you believe it," said one of the diners. "I'll warrant you could take a portion of some well-known story to-night and palm it off on most of your listeners as new stuff."

"Done," said Davis. "Come along, and I'll prove you wrong."

The reading was to be at the house of John Kendrick Bangs at Yonkers. When Davis's "turn" in the programme came, he announced that he would read a portion from an unpublished story written by himself. Immediately there was a flutter in the audience, particularly among the younger element.

Pulling a roll of manuscript out of his pocket, Davis began:

"It was a fine, sunny, showery day in April. The big studio window—"

He got no farther. Almost the entire audience broke into a shout of laughter and applause. Davis had read thirteen of the opening words of Trilby.

All publishing houses employ "readers" outside of those in their own offices for the reading of manuscripts on special subjects. One of these "outside readers" was given a manuscript for criticism. He took it home and began its reading. He had finished only a hundred pages or so when, by a curious coincidence, the card of the author of the manuscript was brought to the "reader." The men were close friends.

Hastily gathering up the manuscript, the critic shoved the work into a drawer of his desk, and asked that his friend be shown in.

The evening was passed in conversation; as the visitor rose to leave, his host, rising also and seating himself on his desk, asked:

"What have you been doing lately? Haven't seen much of you."

"No," said the friend. "It may interest you to know that I have been turning to literary work, and have just completed what I consider to be an important book."

"Really?" commented the "reader."

"Yes," went on his friend. "I submitted it a few days ago to one of the big publishing houses. But, great Scott, you can never tell what these publishers will do with a thing of that sort. They give their manuscripts to all kinds of fools to read. I suppose, by this time, some idiot, who doesn't know a thing of the subject about which I have written, is sitting on my manuscript."

Mechanically, the "reader" looked at the desk upon which he was sitting, thought of the manuscript lying in the drawer directly under him, and said:

"Yes, that may be. Quite likely, in fact."

Of no novel was the secret of the authorship ever so well kept as was that of The Breadwinners, which, published anonymously in 1883, was the talk of literary circles for a long time, and speculation as to its authorship was renewed in the newspapers for years afterward. Bok wanted very much to find out the author's name so that he could announce it in his literary letter. He had his suspicions, but they were not well founded until an amusing little incident occurred which curiously revealed the secret to him.

Bok was waiting to see one of the members of a publishing firm when a well-known English publisher, visiting in America, was being escorted out of the office, the conversation continuing as the two gentlemen walked through the outer rooms. "My chief reason," said the English publisher, as he stopped at the end of the outer office where Bok was sitting, "for hesitating at all about taking an English set of plates of the novel you speak of is because it is of anonymous authorship, a custom of writing which has grown out of all decent proportions in your country since the issue of that stupid book, The Breadwinners."

As these last words were spoken, a man seated at a desk directly behind the speaker looked up, smiled, and resumed reading a document which he had dropped in to sign. A smile also spread over the countenance of the American publisher as he furtively glanced over the shoulder of the English visitor and caught the eye of the smiling man at the desk.

Bok saw the little comedy, realized at once that he had discovered the author of The Breadwinners, and stated to the publisher that he intended to use the incident in his literary letter. But it proved to be one of those heart-rending instances of a delicious morsel of news that must be withheld from the journalist's use. The publisher acknowledged that Bok had happened upon the true authorship, but placed him upon his honor to make no use of the incident. And Bok learned again the vital journalistic lesson that there are a great many things in the world that the journalist knows and yet cannot write about. He would have been years in advance of the announcement finally made that John Hay wrote the novel.

At another time, while waiting, Bok had an experience which, while interesting, was saddening instead of amusing. He was sitting in Mark Twain's sitting-room in his home in Hartford waiting for the humorist to return from a walk. Suddenly sounds of devotional singing came in through the open window from the direction of the outer conservatory. The singing was low, yet the sad tremor in the voice seemed to give it special carrying power.

"You have quite a devotional servant," Bok said to a maid who was dusting the room.

"Oh, that is not a servant who is singing, sir," was the answer. "You can step to this window and see for yourself."

Bok did so, and there, sitting alone on one of the rustic benches in the flower-house, was a small, elderly woman. Keeping time with the first finger of her right hand, as if with a baton, she was slightly swaying her frail body as she sang, softly yet sweetly, Charles Wesley's hymn, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and Sarah Flower Adams's "Nearer, My God, to Thee."

But the singer was not a servant. It was Harriet Beecher Stowe!

On another visit to Hartford, shortly afterward, Bok was just turning into Forrest Street when a little old woman came shambling along toward him, unconscious, apparently, of people or surroundings. In her hand she carried a small tree-switch. Bok did not notice her until just as he had passed her he heard her calling to him: "Young man, young man." Bok retraced his steps, and then the old lady said: "Young man, you have been leaning against something white," and taking her tree-switch she whipped some wall dust from the sleeve of Bok's coat. It was not until that moment that Bok recognized in his self-appointed "brush" no less a personage than Harriet Beecher Stowe.

"This is Mrs. Stowe, is it not?" he asked, after tendering his thanks to her.

Those blue eyes looked strangely into his as she answered:

"That is my name, young man. I live on this street. Are you going to have me arrested for stopping you?" with which she gathered up her skirts and quickly ran away, looking furtively over her shoulder at the amazed young man, sorrowfully watching the running figure!

Speaking of Mrs. Stowe brings to mind an unscrupulous and yet ingenious trick just about this time played by a young man attached to one of the New York publishing houses. One evening at dinner this chap happened to be in a bookish company when the talk turned to the enthusiasm of the Southern negro for an illustrated Bible. The young publishing clerk listened intently, and next day he went to a Bible publishing house in New York which issued a Bible gorgeous with pictures and entered into an arrangement with the proprietors whereby he should have the Southern territory. He resigned his position, and within a week he was in the South. He made arrangements with an artist friend to make a change in each copy of the Bible which he contracted for. The angels pictured therein were white in color. He had these made black, so he could show that there were black angels as well as white ones. The Bibles cost him just eighty cents apiece. He went about the South and offered the Bibles to the astonished and open-mouthed negroes for eight dollars each, two dollars and a half down and the rest in monthly payments. His sales were enormous. Then he went his rounds all over again and offered to close out the remaining five dollars and a half due him by a final payment of two dollars and a half each. In nearly every case the bait was swallowed, and on each Bible he thus cleared four dollars and twenty cents net!

Running the elevator in the building where a prominent publishing firm had its office was a negro of more than ordinary intelligence. The firm had just published a subscription book on mechanical engineering, a chapter of which was devoted to the construction and operation of passenger elevators. One of the agents selling the book thought he might find a customer in Washington.

"Wash," said the book-agent, "you ought to buy a copy of this book, do you know it?"

"No, boss, don't want no books. Don't git no time fo' readin' books," drawled Wash. "It teks all mah time to run dis elevator."

"But this book will help you to run your elevator. See here: there's a whole chapter here on elevators," persisted the canvasser.

"Don't want no help to run dis elevator," said the darky. "Dis elevator runs all right now."

"But," said the canvasser, "this will help you to run it better. You will know twice as much when you get through."

"No, boss, no, dat's just it," returned Wash. "Don't want to learn nothing, boss," he said. "Why, boss, I know more now than I git paid for."

There was one New York newspaper that prided itself on its huge circulation, and its advertising canvassers were particularly insistent in securing the advertisements of publishers. Of course, the real purpose of the paper was to secure a certain standing for itself, which it lacked, rather than to be of any service to the publishers.

By dint of perseverance, its agents finally secured from one of the ten-cent magazines, then so numerous, a large advertisement of a special number, and in order to test the drawing power of the newspaper as a medium, there was inserted a line in large black type:

"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A NUMBER."

But the compositor felt that magazine literature should be even cheaper than it was, and to that thought in his mind his fingers responded, so that when the advertisement appeared, this particular bold-type line read:

"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A YEAR."

This wonderful offer appealed with singular force to the class of readers of this particular paper, and they decided to take advantage of it. The advertisement appeared on Sunday, and Monday's first mail brought the magazine over eight hundred letters with ten cents enclosed "for a year's subscription as per your advertisement in yesterday's —." The magazine management consulted its lawyer, who advised the publisher to make the newspaper pay the extra ninety cents on each subscription, and, although this demand was at first refused, the proprietors of the daily finally yielded. At the end of the first week eight thousand and fifty-five letters with ten cents enclosed had reached the magazine, and finally the total was a few over twelve thousand!



XIV. Last Years in New York

Edward Bok's lines were now to follow those of advertising for several years. He was responsible for securing the advertisements for The Book Buyer and The Presbyterian Review. While the former was, frankly, a house-organ, its editorial contents had so broadened as to make the periodical of general interest to book-lovers, and with the subscribers constituting the valuable list of Scribner book-buyers, other publishers were eager to fish in the Scribner pond.

With The Presbyterian Review, the condition was different. A magazine issued quarterly naturally lacks the continuity desired by the advertiser; the scope of the magazine was limited, and so was the circulation. It was a difficult magazine to "sell" to the advertiser, and Bok's salesmanship was taxed to the utmost. Although all that the publishers asked was that the expense of getting out the periodical be met, with its two hundred and odd pages even this was difficult. It was not an attractive proposition.

The most interesting feature of the magazine to Bok appeared to be the method of editing. It was ostensibly edited by a board, but, practically, by Professor Francis L. Patton, D.D., of Princeton Theological Seminary (afterward president of Princeton University), and Doctor Charles A. Briggs, of Union Theological Seminary. The views of these two theologians differed rather widely, and when, upon several occasions, they met in Bok's office, on bringing in their different articles to go into the magazine, lively discussions ensued. Bok did not often get the drift of these discussions, but he was intensely interested in listening to the diverse views of the two theologians.

One day the question of heresy came up between the two men, and during a pause in the discussion, Bok, looking for light, turned to Doctor Briggs and asked: "Doctor, what really is heresy?"

Doctor Briggs, taken off his guard for a moment, looked blankly at his young questioner, and repeated: "What is heresy?"

"Yes," repeated Bok, "just what is heresy, Doctor?"

"That's right," interjected Doctor Patton, with a twinkle in his eyes, "what is heresy, Briggs?"

"Would you be willing to write it down for me?" asked Bok, fearful that he should not remember Doctor Briggs's definition even if he were told.

And Doctor Briggs wrote:

"Heresy is anything in doctrine or practice that departs from the mind of the Church as officially defined.

Charles A. Briggs.

"Let me see," asked Doctor Patton, and when he read it, he muttered: "Humph, pretty broad, pretty broad."

"Well," answered the nettled Doctor Briggs, "perhaps you can give a less broad definition, Patton."

"No, no," answered the Princeton theologian, as the slightest wink came from the eye nearest Bok, "I wouldn't attempt it for a moment. Too much for me."

On another occasion, as the two were busy in their discussion of some article to be inserted in the magazine, Bok listening with all his might, Doctor Patton, suddenly turning to the young listener, asked, in the midst of the argument: "Whom are the Giants going to play this afternoon, Bok?"

Doctor Briggs's face was a study. For a moment the drift of the question was an enigma to him: then realizing that an important theological discussion had been interrupted by a trivial baseball question, he gathered up his papers and stamped violently out of the office. Doctor Patton made no comment, but, with a smile, he asked Bok: "Johnnie Ward going to play to-day, do you know? Thought I might ask Mr. Scribner if you could go up to the game this afternoon."

It is unnecessary to say to which of the two men Bok was the more attracted, and when it came, each quarter, to figuring how many articles could go into the Review without exceeding the cost limit fixed by the house, it was always a puzzle to Doctor Briggs why the majority of the articles left out were invariably those that he had brought in, while many of those which Doctor Patton handed in somehow found their place, upon the final assembling, among the contents.

"Your articles are so long," Bok would explain.

"Long?" Doctor Briggs would echo. "You don't measure theological discussions by the yardstick, young man."

"Perhaps not," the young assembler would maintain.

But we have to do some measuring here by the composition-stick, just the same."

And the Union Seminary theologian was never able successfully, to vault that hurdle!

From his boyhood days (up to the present writing) Bok was a pronounced baseball "fan," and so Doctor Patton appealed to a warm place in the young man's heart when he asked him the questions about the New York baseball team. There was, too, a baseball team among the Scribner young men of which Bok was a part. This team played, each Saturday afternoon, a team from another publishing house, and for two seasons it was unbeatable. Not only was this baseball aggregation close to the hearts of the Scribner employees, but, in an important game, the junior member of the firm played on it and the senior member was a spectator. Frank N. Doubleday played on first base; William D. Moffat, later of Moffat, Yard & Company, and now editor of The Mentor, was behind the bat; Bok pitched; Ernest Dressel North, the present authority on rare editions of books, was in the field, as were also Ray Safford, now a director in the Scribner corporation, and Owen W. Brewer, at present a prominent figure in Chicago's book world. It was a happy group, all closely banded together in their business interests and in their human relations as well.

With Scribner's Magazine now in the periodical field, Bok would be asked on his trips to the publishing houses to have an eye open for advertisements for that periodical as well. Hence his education in the solicitation of advertisements became general, and gave him a sympathetic understanding of the problems of the advertising solicitor which was to stand him in good stead when, in his later experience, he was called upon to view the business problems of a magazine from the editor's position. His knowledge of the manufacture of the two magazines in his charge was likewise educative, as was the fascinating study of typography which always had, and has to-day, a wonderful attraction for him.

It was, however, in connection with the advertising of the general books of the house, and in his relations with their authors, that Bok found his greatest interest. It was for him to find the best manner in which to introduce to the public the books issued by the house, and the general study of the psychology of publicity which this called for attracted Bok greatly.

Bok was now asked to advertise a novel published by the Scribners which, when it was issued, and for years afterward, was pointed to as a proof of the notion that a famous name was all that was necessary to ensure the acceptance of a manuscript by even a leading publishing house. The facts in the case were that this manuscript was handed in one morning by a friend of the house with the remark that he submitted it at the suggestion of the author, who did not desire that his identity should be known until after the manuscript had been read and passed upon by the house. It was explained that the writer was not a famous author; in fact, he had never written anything before; this was his first book of any sort; he merely wanted to "try his wings." The manuscript was read in due time by the Scribner readers, and the mutual friend was advised that the house would be glad to publish the novel, and was ready to execute and send a contract to the author if the firm knew in whose name the agreement should be made. Then came the first intimation of the identity of the author: the friend wrote that if the publishers would look in the right-hand corner of the first page of the manuscript they would find there the author's name. Search finally revealed an asterisk. The author of the novel (Valentino) was William Waldorf Astor.

Although the Scribners did not publish Mark Twain's books, the humorist was a frequent visitor to the retail store, and occasionally he would wander back to the publishing department located at the rear of the store, which was then at 743 Broadway.

Smoking was not permitted in the Scribner offices, and, of course, Mark Twain was always smoking. He generally smoked a granulated tobacco which he kept in a long check bag made of silk and rubber. When he sauntered to the back of the Scribner store, he would generally knock the residue from the bowl of the pipe, take out the stem, place it in his vest pocket, like a pencil, and drop the bowl into the bag containing the granulated tobacco. When he wanted to smoke again (which was usually five minutes later) he would fish out the bowl, now automatically filled with tobacco, insert the stem, and strike a light. One afternoon as he wandered into Bok's office, he was just putting his pipe away. The pipe, of the corncob variety, was very aged and black. Bok asked him whether it was the only pipe he had.

"Oh, no," Mark answered, "I have several. But they're all like this. I never smoke a new corncob pipe. A new pipe irritates the throat. No corncob pipe is fit for anything until it has been used at least a fortnight."

"How do you break in a pipe, then?" asked Bok.

"That's the trick," answered Mark Twain. "I get a cheap man—a man who doesn't amount to much, anyhow: who would be as well, or better, dead—and pay him a dollar to break in the pipe for me. I get him to smoke the pipe for a couple of weeks, then put in a new stem, and continue operations as long as the pipe holds together."

Bok's newspaper syndicate work had brought him into contact with Fanny Davenport, then at the zenith of her career as an actress. Miss Davenport, or Mrs. Melbourne McDowell as she was in private life, had never written for print; but Bok, seeing that she had something to say about her art and the ability to say it, induced her to write for the newspapers through his syndicate. The actress was overjoyed to have revealed to her a hitherto unsuspected gift; Bok published her articles successfully, and gave her a publicity that her press agent had never dreamed of. Miss Davenport became interested in the young publisher, and after watching the methods which he employed in successfully publishing her writings, decided to try to obtain his services as her assistant manager. She broached the subject, offered him a five years' contract for forty weeks' service, with a minimum of fifteen weeks each year to spend in or near New York, at a salary, for the first year, of three thousand dollars, increasing annually until the fifth year, when he was to receive sixty-four hundred dollars.

Bok was attracted to the work: he had never seen the United States, was anxious to do so, and looked upon the chance as a good opportunity. Miss Davenport had the contract made out, executed it, and then, in high glee, Bok took it home to show it to his mother. He had reckoned without question upon her approval, only to meet with an immediate and decided negative to the proposition as a whole, general and specific. She argued that the theatrical business was not for him; and she saw ahead and pointed out so strongly the mistake he was making that he sought Miss Davenport the next day and told her of his mother's stand. The actress suggested that she see the mother; she did, that day, and she came away from the interview a wiser if a sadder woman. Miss Davenport frankly told Bok that with such an instinctive objection as his mother seemed to have, he was right to follow her advice and the contract was not to be thought of.

It is difficult to say whether this was or was not for Bok the turning-point which comes in the life of every young man. Where the venture into theatrical life would have led him no one can, of course, say. One thing is certain: Bok's instinct and reason both failed him in this instance. He believes now that had his venture into the theatrical field been temporary or permanent, the experiment, either way, would have been disastrous.

Looking back and viewing the theatrical profession even as it was in that day (of a much higher order than now), he is convinced he would never have been happy in it. He might have found this out in a year or more, after the novelty of travelling had worn off, and asked release from his contract; in that case he would have broken his line of progress in the publishing business. From whatever viewpoint he has looked back upon this, which he now believes to have been the crisis in his life, he is convinced that his mother's instinct saved him from a grievous mistake.

The Scribner house, in its foreign-book department, had imported some copies of Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon, and a set had found its way to Bok's desk for advertising purposes. He took the books home to glance them over, found himself interested, and sat up half the night to read them. Then he took the set to the editor of the New York Star, and suggested that such a book warranted a special review, and offered to leave the work for the literary editor.

"You have read the books?" asked the editor.

"Every word," returned Bok.

"Then, why don't you write the review?" suggested the editor.

This was a new thought to Bok. "Never wrote a review," he said.

"Try it," answered the editor. "Write a column."

"A column wouldn't scratch the surface of this book," suggested the embryo reviewer.

"Well, give it what it is worth," returned the editor.

Bok did. He wrote a page of the paper.

"Too much, too much," said the editor. "Heavens, man, we've got to get some news into this paper."

"Very well," returned the reviewer. "Read it, and cut it where you like. That's the way I see the book."

And next Sunday the review appeared, word for word, as Bok had written it. His first review had successfully passed!

But Bok was really happiest in that part of his work which concerned itself with the writing of advertisements. The science of advertisement writing, which meant to him the capacity to say much in little space, appealed strongly. He found himself more honestly attracted to this than to the writing of his literary letter, his editorials, or his book reviewing, of which he was now doing a good deal. He determined to follow where his bent led; he studied the mechanics of unusual advertisements wherever he saw them; he eagerly sought a knowledge of typography and its best handling in an advertisement, and of the value and relation of illustrations to text. He perceived that his work along these lines seemed to give satisfaction to his employers, since they placed more of it in his hands to do; and he sought in every way to become proficient in the art.

To publishers whose advertisements he secured for the periodicals in his charge, he made suggestions for the improvement of their announcements, and found his suggestions accepted. He early saw the value of white space as one of the most effective factors in advertising; but this was a difficult argument, he soon found, to convey successfully to others. A white space in an advertisement was to the average publisher something to fill up; Bok saw in it something to cherish for its effectiveness. But he never got very far with his idea: he could not convince (perhaps because he failed to express his ideas convincingly) his advertisers of what he felt and believed so strongly.

An occasion came in which he was permitted to prove his contention. The Scribners had published Andrew Carnegie's volume, Triumphant Democracy, and the author desired that some special advertising should be done in addition to that allowed by the appropriation made by the house. To Bok's grateful ears came the injunction from the steel magnate: "Use plenty of white space." In conjunction with Mr. Doubleday, Bok prepared and issued this extra advertising, and for once, at least, the wisdom of using white space was demonstrated. But it was only a flash in the pan. Publishers were unwilling to pay for "unused space," as they termed it. Each book was a separate unit, others argued: it was not like advertising one article continuously in which money could be invested; and only a limited amount could be spent on a book which ran its course, even at its best, in a very short time.

And, rightly or wrongly, book advertising has continued much along the same lines until the present day. In fact, in no department of manufacturing or selling activity has there been so little progress during the past fifty years as in bringing books to the notice of the public. In all other lines, the producer has brought his wares to the public, making it easier and still easier for it to obtain his goods, while the public, if it wants a book, must still seek the book instead of being sought by it.

That there is a tremendous unsupplied book demand in this country there is no doubt: the wider distribution and easier access given to periodicals prove this point. Now and then there has been tried an unsupported or not well-thought-out plan for bringing books to a public not now reading them, but there seems little or no understanding of the fact that there lies an uncultivated field of tremendous promise to the publisher who will strike out on a new line and market his books, so that the public will not have to ferret out a book-store or wind through the maze of a department store. The American reading public is not the book-reading public that it should be or could be made to be; but the habit must be made easy for it to acquire. Books must be placed where the public can readily get at them. It will not, of its own volition, seek them. It did not do so with magazines; it will not do so with books.

In the meanwhile, Bok's literary letter had prospered until it was now published in some forty-five newspapers. One of these was the Philadelphia Times. In that paper, each week, the letter had been read by Mr. Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the owner and publisher of The Ladies' Home Journal. Mr. Curtis had decided that he needed an editor for his magazine, in order to relieve his wife, who was then editing it, and he fixed upon the writer of Literary Leaves as his man. He came to New York, consulted Will Carleton, the poet, and found that while the letter was signed by William J. Bok, it was actually written by his brother who was with the Scribners. So he sought Bok out there.

The publishing house had been advertising in the Philadelphia magazine, so that the visit of Mr. Curtis was not an occasion for surprise. Mr. Curtis told Bok he had read his literary letter in the Philadelphia Times, and suggested that perhaps he might write a similar department for The Ladies' Home Journal. Bok saw no reason why he should not, and told Mr. Curtis so, and promised to send over a trial installment. The Philadelphia publisher then deftly went on, explained editorial conditions in his magazine, and, recognizing the ethics of the occasion by not offering Bok another position while he was already occupying one, asked him if he knew the man for the place.

"Are you talking at me or through me?" asked Bok.

"Both," replied Mr. Curtis.

This was in April of 1889.

Bok promised Mr. Curtis he would look over the field, and meanwhile he sent over to Philadelphia the promised trial "literary gossip" installment. It pleased Mr. Curtis, who suggested a monthly department, to which Bok consented. He also turned over in his mind the wisdom of interrupting his line of progress with the Scribners, and in New York, and began to contemplate the possibilities in Philadelphia and the work there.

He gathered a collection of domestic magazines then published, and looked them over to see what was already in the field. Then he began to study himself, his capacity for the work, and the possibility of finding it congenial. He realized that it was absolutely foreign to his Scribner work: that it meant a radical departure. But his work with his newspaper syndicate naturally occurred to him, and he studied it with a view of its adaptation to the field of the Philadelphia magazine.

His next step was to take into his confidence two or three friends whose judgment he trusted and discuss the possible change. Without an exception, they advised against it. The periodical had no standing, they argued; Bok would be out of sympathy with its general atmosphere after his Scribner environment; he was now in the direct line of progress in New York publishing houses; and, to cap the climax, they each argued in turn, he would be buried in Philadelphia: New York was the centre, etc., etc.

More than any other single argument, this last point destroyed Bok's faith in the judgment of his friends. He had had experience enough to realize that a man could not be buried in any city, provided he had the ability to stand out from his fellow-men. He knew from his biographical reading that cream will rise to the surface anywhere, in Philadelphia as well as in New York: it all depended on whether the cream was there: it was up to the man. Had he within him that peculiar, subtle something that, for the want of a better phrase, we call the editorial instinct? That was all there was to it, and that decision had to be his and his alone!

A business trip for the Scribners now calling him West, Bok decided to stop at Philadelphia, have a talk with Mr. Curtis, and look over his business plant. He did this, and found Mr. Curtis even more desirous than before to have him consider the position. Bok's instinct was strongly in favor of an acceptance. A natural impulse moved him, without reasoning, to action. Reasoning led only to a cautious mental state, and caution is a strong factor in the Dutch character. The longer he pursued a conscious process of reasoning, the farther he got from the position. But the instinct remained strong.

On his way back from the West, he stopped in Philadelphia again to consult his friend, George W. Childs; and here he found the only person who was ready to encourage him to make the change.

Bok now laid the matter before his mother, in whose feminine instinct he had supreme confidence. With her, he met with instant discouragement. But in subsequent talks he found that her opposition was based not upon the possibilities inherent in the position, but on a mother's natural disinclination to be separated from one of her sons. In the case of Fanny Davenport's offer the mother's instinct was strong against the proposition itself. But in the present instance it was the mother's love that was speaking; not her instinct or judgment.

Bok now consulted his business associates, and, to a man, they discouraged the step, but almost invariably upon the argument that it was suicidal to leave New York. He had now a glimpse of the truth that there is no man so provincially narrow as the untravelled New Yorker who believes in his heart that the sun rises in the East River and sets in the North River.

He realized more keenly than ever before that the decision rested with him alone. On September 1, 1889, Bok wrote to Mr. Curtis, accepting the position in Philadelphia; and on October 13 following he left the Scribners, where he had been so fortunate and so happy, and, after a week's vacation, followed where his instinct so strongly led, but where his reason wavered.

On October 20, 1889, Edward Bok became the editor of The Ladies' Home Journal.



XV. Successful Editorship

There is a popular notion that the editor of a woman's magazine should be a woman. At first thought, perhaps, this sounds logical. But it is a curious fact that by far the larger number of periodicals for women, the world over, are edited by men; and where, as in some cases, a woman is the proclaimed editor, the direction of the editorial policy is generally in the hands of a man, or group of men, in the background. Why this is so has never been explained, any more than why the majority of women's dressmakers are men; why music, with its larger appeal to women, has been and is still being composed, largely, by men, and why its greatest instrumental performers are likewise men; and why the church, with its larger membership of women, still has, as it always has had, men for its greatest preachers.

In fact, we may well ponder whether the full editorial authority and direction of a modern magazine, either essentially feminine in its appeal or not, can safely be entrusted to a woman when one considers how largely executive is the nature of such a position, and how thoroughly sensitive the modern editor must be to the hundred and one practical business matters which to-day enter into and form so large a part of the editorial duties. We may question whether women have as yet had sufficient experience in the world of business to cope successfully with the material questions of a pivotal editorial position. Then, again, it is absolutely essential in the conduct of a magazine with a feminine or home appeal to have on the editorial staff women who are experts in their line; and the truth is that women will work infinitely better under the direction of a man than of a woman.

It would seem from the present outlook that, for some time, at least, the so-called woman's magazine of large purpose and wide vision is very likely to be edited by a man. It is a question, however, whether the day of the woman's magazine, as we have known it, is not passing. Already the day has gone for the woman's magazine built on the old lines which now seem so grotesque and feeble in the light of modern growth. The interests of women and of men are being brought closer with the years, and it will not be long before they will entirely merge. This means a constantly diminishing necessity for the distinctly feminine magazine.

Naturally, there will always be a field in the essentially feminine pursuits which have no place in the life of a man, but these are rapidly being cared for by books, gratuitously distributed, issued by the manufacturers of distinctly feminine and domestic wares; for such publications the best talent is being employed, and the results are placed within easy access of women, by means of newspaper advertisement, the store-counter, or the mails. These will sooner or later—and much sooner than later—supplant the practical portions of the woman's magazine, leaving only the general contents, which are equally interesting to men and to women. Hence the field for the magazine with the essentially feminine appeal is contracting rather than broadening, and it is likely to contract much more rapidly in the future.

The field was altogether different when Edward Bok entered it in 1889. It was not only wide open, but fairly crying out to be filled. The day of Godey's Lady's Book had passed; Peterson's Magazine was breathing its last; and the home or women's magazines that had attempted to take their place were sorry affairs. It was this consciousness of a void ready to be filled that made the Philadelphia experiment so attractive to the embryo editor. He looked over the field and reasoned that if such magazines as did exist could be fairly successful, if women were ready to buy such, how much greater response would there be to a magazine of higher standards, of larger initiative—a magazine that would be an authoritative clearing-house for all the problems confronting women in the home, that brought itself closely into contact with those problems and tried to solve them in an entertaining and efficient way; and yet a magazine of uplift and inspiration: a magazine, in other words, that would give light and leading in the woman's world.

The method of editorial expression in the magazines of 1889 was also distinctly vague and prohibitively impersonal. The public knew the name of scarcely a single editor of a magazine: there was no personality that stood out in the mind: the accepted editorial expression was the indefinite "we"; no one ventured to use the first person singular and talk intimately to the reader. Edward Bok's biographical reading had taught him that the American public loved a personality: that it was always ready to recognize and follow a leader, provided, of course, that the qualities of leadership were demonstrated. He felt the time had come—the reference here and elsewhere is always to the realm of popular magazine literature appealing to a very wide audience—for the editor of some magazine to project his personality through the printed page and to convince the public that he was not an oracle removed from the people, but a real human being who could talk and not merely write on paper.

He saw, too, that the average popular magazine of 1889 failed of large success because it wrote down to the public—a grievous mistake that so many editors have made and still make. No one wants to be told, either directly or indirectly, that he knows less than he does, or even that he knows as little as he does: every one is benefited by the opposite implication, and the public will always follow the leader who comprehends this bit of psychology. There is always a happy medium between shooting over the public's head and shooting too far under it. And it is because of the latter aim that we find the modern popular magazine the worthless thing that, in so many instances, it is to-day.

It is the rare editor who rightly gauges his public psychology. Perhaps that is why, in the enormous growth of the modern magazine, there have been produced so few successful editors. The average editor is obsessed with the idea of "giving the public what it wants," whereas, in fact, the public, while it knows what it wants when it sees it, cannot clearly express its wants, and never wants the thing that it does ask for, although it thinks it does at the time. But woe to the editor and his periodical if he heeds that siren voice!

The editor has, therefore, no means of finding it out aforehand by putting his ear to the ground. Only by the simplest rules of psychology can he edit rightly so that he may lead, and to the average editor of to-day, it is to be feared, psychology is a closed book. His mind is all too often focussed on the circulation and advertising, and all too little on the intangibles that will bring to his periodical the results essential in these respects.

The editor is the pivot of a magazine. On him everything turns. If his gauge of the public is correct, readers will come: they cannot help coming to the man who has something to say himself, or who presents writers who have. And if the reader comes, the advertiser must come. He must go where his largest market is: where the buyers are. The advertiser, instead of being the most difficult factor in a magazine proposition, as is so often mistakenly thought, is, in reality, the simplest. He has no choice but to advertise in the successful periodical. He must come along. The editor need never worry about him. If the advertiser shuns the periodical's pages, the fault is rarely that of the advertiser: the editor can generally look for the reason nearer home.

One of Edward Bok's first acts as editor was to offer a series of prizes for the best answers to three questions he put to his readers: what in the magazine did they like least and why; what did they like best and why; and what omitted feature or department would they like to see installed? Thousands of answers came, and these the editor personally read carefully and classified. Then he gave his readers' suggestions back to them in articles and departments, but never on the level suggested by them. He gave them the subjects they asked for, but invariably on a slightly higher plane; and each year he raised the standard a notch. He always kept "a huckleberry or two" ahead of his readers. His psychology was simple: come down to the level which the public sets and it will leave you at the moment you do it. It always expects of its leaders that they shall keep a notch above or a step ahead. The American public always wants something a little better than it asks for, and the successful man, in catering to it, is he who follows this golden rule.



XVI. First Years as a Woman's Editor

Edward Bok has often been referred to as the one "who made The Ladies' Home Journal out of nothing," who "built it from the ground up," or, in similar terms, implying that when he became its editor in 1889 the magazine was practically non-existent. This is far from the fact. The magazine was begun in 1883, and had been edited by Mrs. Cyrus H. K. Curtis, for six years, under her maiden name of Louisa Knapp, before Bok undertook its editorship. Mrs. Curtis had laid a solid foundation of principle and policy for the magazine: it had achieved a circulation of 440,000 copies a month when she transferred the editorship, and it had already acquired such a standing in the periodical world as to attract the advertisements of Charles Scribner's Sons, which Mr. Doubleday, and later Bok himself, gave to the Philadelphia magazine—advertising which was never given lightly, or without the most careful investigation of the worth of the circulation of a periodical.

What every magazine publisher knows as the most troublous years in the establishment of a periodical, the first half-dozen years of its existence, had already been weathered by the editor and publisher. The wife as editor and the husband as publisher had combined to lay a solid basis upon which Bok had only to build: his task was simply to rear a structure upon the foundation already laid. It is to the vision and to the genius of the first editor of The Ladies' Home Journal that the unprecedented success of the magazine is primarily due. It was the purpose and the policy of making a magazine of authoritative service for the womanhood of America, a service which would visualize for womanhood its highest domestic estate, that had won success for the periodical from its inception. It is difficult to believe, in the multiplicity of similar magazines to-day, that such a purpose was new; that The Ladies' Home Journal was a path-finder; but the convincing proof is found in the fact that all the later magazines of this class have followed in the wake of the periodical conceived by Mrs. Curtis, and have ever since been its imitators.

When Edward Bok succeeded Mrs. Curtis, he immediately encountered another popular misconception of a woman's magazine—the conviction that if a man is the editor of a periodical with a distinctly feminine appeal, he must, as the term goes, "understand women." If Bok had believed this to be true, he would never have assumed the position. How deeply rooted is this belief was brought home to him on every hand when his decision to accept the Philadelphia position was announced. His mother, knowing her son better than did any one else, looked at him with amazement. She could not believe that he was serious in his decision to cater to women's needs when he knew so little about them. His friends, too, were intensely amused, and took no pains to hide their amusement from him. They knew him to be the very opposite of "a lady's man," and when they were not convulsed with hilarity they were incredulous and marvelled.

No man, perhaps, could have been chosen for the position who had a less intimate knowledge of women. Bok had no sister, no women confidantes: he had lived with and for his mother. She was the only woman he really knew or who really knew him. His boyhood days had been too full of poverty and struggle to permit him to mingle with the opposite sex. And it is a curious fact that Edward Bok's instinctive attitude toward women was that of avoidance. He did not dislike women, but it could not be said that he liked them. They had never interested him. Of women, therefore, he knew little; of their needs less. Nor had he the slightest desire, even as an editor, to know them better, or to seek to understand them. Even at that age, he knew that, as a man, he could not, no matter what effort he might make, and he let it go at that.

What he saw in the position was not the need to know women; he could employ women for that purpose. He perceived clearly that the editor of a magazine was largely an executive: his was principally the work of direction; of studying currents and movements, watching their formation, their tendency, their efficacy if advocated or translated into actuality; and then selecting from the horizon those that were for the best interests of the home. For a home was something Edward Bok did understand. He had always lived in one; had struggled to keep it together, and he knew every inch of the hard road that makes for domestic permanence amid adverse financial conditions. And at the home he aimed rather than at the woman in it.

It was upon his instinct that he intended to rely rather than upon any knowledge of woman. His first act in the editorial chair of The Ladies' Home Journal showed him to be right in this diagnosis of himself, for the incident proved not only how correct was his instinct, but how woefully lacking he was in any knowledge of the feminine nature.

He had divined the fact that in thousands of cases the American mother was not the confidante of her daughter, and reasoned if an inviting human personality could be created on the printed page that would supply this lamentable lack of American family life, girls would flock to such a figure. But all depended on the confidence which the written word could inspire. He tried several writers, but in each case the particular touch that he sought for was lacking. It seemed so simple to him, and yet he could not translate it to others. Then, in desperation, he wrote an installment of such a department as he had in mind himself, intending to show it to a writer he had in view, thus giving her a visual demonstration. He took it to the office the next morning, intending to have it copied, but the manuscript accidentally attached itself to another intended for the composing-room, and it was not until the superintendent of the composing-room during the day said to him, "I didn't know Miss Ashmead wrote," that Bok knew where his manuscript had gone.

Miss Ashmead?" asked the puzzled editor.

Yes, Miss Ashmead in your department," was the answer.

The whereabouts of the manuscript was then disclosed, and the editor called for its return. He had called the department "Side Talks with Girls" by Ruth Ashmead.

"My girls all hope this is going into the magazine," said the superintendent when he returned the manuscript.

"Why?" asked the editor.

"Well, they say it's the best stuff for girls they have ever read. They'd love to know Miss Ashmead better."

Here was exactly what the editor wanted, but he was the author! He changed the name to Ruth Ashmore, and decided to let the manuscript go into the magazine. He reasoned that he would then have a month in which to see the writer he had in mind, and he would show her the proof. But a month filled itself with other duties, and before the editor was aware of it, the composition-room wanted "copy" for the second installment of "Side Talks with Girls." Once more the editor furnished the copy!

Within two weeks after the second article had been written, the magazine containing the first installment of the new department appeared, and the next day two hundred letters were received for "Ruth Ashmore," with the mail-clerk asking where they should be sent. "Leave them with me, please," replied the editor. On the following day the mail-clerk handed him five hundred more.

The editor now took two letters from the top and opened them. He never opened the third! That evening he took the bundle home, and told his mother of his predicament. She read the letters and looked at her son. "You have no right to read these," she said. The son readily agreed.

His instinct had correctly interpreted the need, but he never dreamed how far the feminine nature would reveal itself on paper.

The next morning the editor, with his letters, took the train for New York and sought his friend, Mrs. Isabel A. Mallon, the "Bab" of his popular syndicate letter.

"Have you read this department?" he asked, pointing to the page in the magazine.

"I have," answered Mrs. Mallon. "Very well done, too, it is. Who is 'Ruth Ashmore'?'

"You are," answered Edward Bok. And while it took considerable persuasion, from that time on Mrs. Mallon became Ruth Ashmore, the most ridiculed writer in the magazine world, and yet the most helpful editor that ever conducted a department in periodical literature. For sixteen years she conducted the department, until she passed away, her last act being to dictate a letter to a correspondent. In those sixteen years she had received one hundred and fifty-eight thousand letters: she kept three stenographers busy, and the number of girls who to-day bless the name of Ruth Ashmore is legion.

But the newspaper humorists who insisted that Ruth Ashmore was none other than Edward Bok never knew the partial truth of their joke!

The editor soon supplemented this department with one dealing with the spiritual needs of the mature woman. "The King's Daughters" was then an organization at the summit of its usefulness, with Margaret Bottome its president. Edward Bok had heard Mrs. Bottome speak, had met her personally, and decided that she was the editor for the department he had in mind.

"I want it written in an intimate way as if there were only two persons in the world, you and the person reading. I want heart to speak to heart. We will make that the title," said the editor, and unconsciously he thus created the title that has since become familiar wherever English is spoken: "Heart to Heart Talks." The title gave the department an instantaneous hearing; the material in it carried out its spirit, and soon Mrs. Bottome's department rivaled, in popularity, the page by Ruth Ashmore.

These two departments more than anything else, and the irresistible picture of a man editing a woman's magazine, brought forth an era of newspaper paragraphing and a flood of so-called "humorous" references to the magazine and editor. It became the vogue to poke fun at both. The humorous papers took it up, the cartoonists helped it along, and actors introduced the name of the magazine on the stage in plays and skits. Never did a periodical receive such an amount of gratuitous advertising. Much of the wit was absolutely without malice: some of it was written by Edward Bok's best friends, who volunteered to "let up" would he but raise a finger.

But he did not raise the finger. No one enjoyed the "paragraphs" more heartily when the wit was good, and in that case, if the writer was unknown to him, he sought him out and induced him to write for him. In this way, George Fitch was found on the Peoria, Illinois, Transcript and introduced to his larger public in the magazine and book world through The Ladies' Home Journal, whose editor he believed he had "most unmercifully roasted";—but he had done it so cleverly that the editor at once saw his possibilities.

When all his friends begged Bok to begin proceedings against the New York Evening Sun because of the libellous (?) articles written about him by "The Woman About Town," the editor admired the style rather than the contents, made her acquaintance, and secured her as a regular writer: she contributed to the magazine some of the best things published in its pages. But she did not abate her opinions of Bok and his magazine in her articles in the newspaper, and Bok did not ask it of her: he felt that she had a right to her opinions—those he was not buying; but he was eager to buy her direct style in treating subjects he knew no other woman could so effectively handle.