In his reading about the America of the past, Bok had been impressed by the unusual amount of interesting personal material that constituted what is termed unwritten history—original events of tremendous personal appeal in which great personalities figured but which had not sufficient historical importance to have been included in American history. Bok determined to please his older readers by harking back to the past and at the same time acquainting the younger generation with the picturesque events which had preceded their time.

He also believed that if he could "dress up" the past, he could arrest the attention of a generation which was too likely to boast of its interest only in the present and the future. He took a course of reading and consulted with Mr. Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, who had become interested in his work and had written him several voluntary letters of commendation. Mr. Dana gave material help in the selection of subjects and writers; and was intensely amused and interested by the manner in which his youthful confrere "dressed up" the titles of what might otherwise have looked like commonplace articles.

"I know," said Bok to the elder editor, "it smacks a little of the sensational, Mr. Dana, but the purpose I have in mind of showing the young people of to-day that some great things happened before they came on the stage seems to me to make it worth while."

Mr. Dana agreed with this view, supplemented every effort of the Philadelphia editor in several subsequent talks, and in 1897 The Ladies' Home Journal began one of the most popular series it ever published. It was called "Great Personal Events," and the picturesque titles explained them. He first pictured the enthusiastic evening "When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden," and, as Bok added to pique curiosity, "when people paid $20 to sit in rowboats to hear the Swedish nightingale."

This was followed by an account of the astonishing episode "When Henry Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit"; the picturesque journey "When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway"; the triumphant tour "When General Grant Went Round the World"; the forgotten story of "When an Actress Was the Lady of the White House"; the sensational striking of the gold vein in 1849, "When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza"; the hitherto little-known instance "When Louis Philippe Taught School in Philadelphia"; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in America, "When the King of Spain Lived on the Banks of the Schuylkill"; while the story of "When John Wesley Preached in Georgia" surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had known that the founder of their church had ever visited America. Each month picturesque event followed graphic happening, and never was unwritten history more readily read by the young, or the memories of the older folk more catered to than in this series which won new friends for the magazine on every hand.



XXI. A Signal Piece of Constructive Work

The influence of his grandfather and the injunction of his grandmother to her sons that each "should make the world a better or a more beautiful place to live in" now began to be manifest in the grandson. Edward Bok was unconscious that it was this influence. What directly led him to the signal piece of construction in which he engaged was the wretched architecture of small houses. As he travelled through the United States he was appalled by it. Where the houses were not positively ugly, they were, to him, repellently ornate. Money was wasted on useless turrets, filigree work, or machine-made ornamentation. Bok found out that these small householders never employed an architect, but that the houses were put up by builders from their own plans.

Bok felt a keen desire to take hold of the small American house and make it architecturally better. He foresaw, however, that the subject would finally include small gardening and interior decoration. He feared that the subject would become too large for the magazine, which was already feeling the pressure of the material which he was securing. He suggested, therefore, to Mr. Curtis that they purchase a little magazine published in Buffalo, N. Y., called Country Life, and develop it into a first-class periodical devoted to the general subject of a better American architecture, gardening, and interior decoration, with special application to the small house. The magazine was purchased, and while Bok was collecting his material for a number of issues ahead, he edited and issued, for copyright purposes, a four-page magazine.

An opportunity now came to Mr. Curtis to purchase The Saturday Evening Post, a Philadelphia weekly of honored prestige, founded by Benjamin Franklin. It was apparent at once that the company could not embark upon the development of two magazines at the same time, and as a larger field was seen for The Saturday Evening Post, it was decided to leave Country Life in abeyance for the present.

Mr. Frank Doubleday, having left the Scribners and started a publishing-house of his own, asked Bok to transfer to him the copyright and good will of Country Life—seeing that there was little chance for The Curtis Publishing Company to undertake its publication. Mr. Curtis was willing, but he knew that Bok had set his heart on the new magazine and left it for him to decide. The editor realized, as the Doubleday Company could take up the magazine at once, the unfairness of holding indefinitely the field against them by the publication of a mere copyright periodical. And so, with a feeling as if he were giving up his child to another father, Bok arranged that The Curtis Publishing Company should transfer to the Doubleday, Page Company all rights to the title and periodical of which the present beautiful publication Country Life is the outgrowth.

Bok now turned to The Ladies' Home Journal as his medium for making the small-house architecture of America better. He realized the limitation of space, but decided to do the best he could under the circumstances. He believed he might serve thousands of his readers if he could make it possible for them to secure, at moderate cost, plans for well-designed houses by the leading domestic architects in the country. He consulted a number of architects, only to find them unalterably opposed to the idea. They disliked the publicity of magazine presentation; prices differed too much in various parts of the country; and they did not care to risk the criticism of their contemporaries. It was "cheapening" their profession!

Bok saw that he should have to blaze the way and demonstrate the futility of these arguments. At last he persuaded one architect to co-operate with him, and in 1895 began the publication of a series of houses which could be built, approximately, for from one thousand five hundred dollars to five thousand dollars. The idea attracted attention at once, and the architect-author was swamped with letters and inquiries regarding his plans.

This proved Bok's instinct to be correct as to the public willingness to accept such designs; upon this proof he succeeded in winning over two additional architects to make plans. He offered his readers full building specifications and plans to scale of the houses with estimates from four builders in different parts of the United States for five dollars a set. The plans and specifications were so complete in every detail that any builder could build the house from them.

A storm of criticism now arose from architects and builders all over the country, the architects claiming that Bok was taking "the bread out of their mouths" by the sale of plans, and local builders vigorously questioned the accuracy of the estimates. But Bok knew he was right and persevered.

Slowly but surely he won the approval of the leading architects, who saw that he was appealing to a class of house-builders who could not afford to pay an architect's fee, and that, with his wide circulation, he might become an influence for better architecture through these small houses. The sets of plans and specifications sold by the thousands. It was not long before the magazine was able to present small-house plans by the foremost architects of the country, whose services the average householder could otherwise never have dreamed of securing.

Bok not only saw an opportunity to better the exterior of the small houses, but he determined that each plan published should provide for two essentials: every servant's room should have two windows to insure cross-ventilation, and contain twice the number of cubic feet usually given to such rooms; and in place of the American parlor, which he considered a useless room, should be substituted either a living-room or a library. He did not point to these improvements; every plan simply presented the larger servant's room and did not present a parlor. It is a singular fact that of the tens of thousands of plans sold, not a purchaser ever noticed the absence of a parlor except one woman in Brookline, Mass., who, in erecting a group of twenty-five "Journal houses," discovered after she had built ten that not one contained a parlor!

"Ladies' Home Journal houses" were now going up in communities all over the country, and Bok determined to prove that they could be erected for the prices given. Accordingly, he published a prize offer of generous amount for the best set of exterior and interior photographs of a house built after a Journal plan within the published price. Five other and smaller prizes were also offered. A legally attested builder's declaration was to accompany each set of photographs. The sets immediately began to come in, until over five thousand had been received. Bok selected the best of these, awarded the prizes, and began the presentation of the houses actually built after the published plans.

Of course this publication gave fresh impetus to the whole scheme; prospective house-builders pointed their builders to the proof given, and additional thousands of sets of plans were sold. The little houses became better and better in architecture as the series went on, and occasionally a plan for a house costing as high as ten thousand dollars was given.

For nearly twenty-five years Bok continued to publish pictures of houses and plans. Entire colonies of "Ladies' Home Journal houses" have sprung up, and building promoters have built complete suburban developments with them. How many of these homes have been erected it is, of course, impossible to say; the number certainly runs into the thousands.

It was one of the most constructive and far-reaching pieces of work that Bok did during his editorial career—a fact now recognized by all architects. Shortly before Stanford White passed away, he wrote: "I firmly believe that Edward Bok has more completely influenced American domestic architecture for the better than any man in this generation. When he began, I was short-sighted enough to discourage him, and refused to co-operate with him. If Bok came to me now, I would not only make plans for him, but I would waive any fee for them in retribution for my early mistake."

Bok then turned to the subject of the garden for the small house, and the development of the grounds around the homes which he had been instrumental in putting on the earth. He encountered no opposition here. The publication of small gardens for small houses finally ran into hundreds of pages, the magazine supplying planting plans and full directions as to when and how to plant-this time without cost.

Next the editor decided to see what he could do for the better and simpler furnishing of the small American home. Here was a field almost limitless in possible improvement, but he wanted to approach it in a new way. The best method baffled him until one day he met a woman friend who told him that she was on her way to a funeral at a friend's home.

"I didn't know you were so well acquainted with Mrs. S—," said Bok.

"I wasn't, as a matter of fact," replied the woman. "I'll be perfectly frank; I am going to the funeral just to see how Mrs. S—'s house is furnished. She was always thought to have great taste, you know, and, whether you know it or not, a woman is always keen to look into another woman's home."

Bok realized that he had found the method of presentation for his interior-furnishing plan if he could secure photographs of the most carefully furnished homes in America. He immediately employed the best available expert, and within six months there came to him an assorted collection of over a thousand photographs of well-furnished rooms. The best were selected, and a series of photographic pages called "Inside of 100 Homes" was begun. The editor's woman friend had correctly pointed the way to him, for this series won for his magazine the enviable distinction of being the first magazine of standing to reach the then marvellous record of a circulation of one million copies a month. The editions containing the series were sold out as fast as they could be printed.

The editor followed this up with another successful series, again pictorial. He realized that to explain good taste in furnishing by text was almost impossible. So he started a series of all-picture pages called "Good Taste and Bad Taste." He presented a chair that was bad in lines and either useless or uncomfortable to sit in, and explained where and why it was bad; and then put a good chair next to it, and explained where and why it was good.

The lesson to the eye was simply and directly effective; the pictures told their story as no printed word could have done, and furniture manufacturers and dealers all over the country, feeling the pressure from their customers, began to put on the market the tables, chairs, divans, bedsteads, and dressing-tables which the magazine was portraying as examples of good taste. It was amazing that, within five years, the physical appearance of domestic furniture in the stores completely changed.

The next undertaking was a systematic plan for improving the pictures on the walls of the American home. Bok was employing the best artists of the day: Edwin A. Abbey, Howard Pyle, Charles Dana Gibson, W. L. Taylor, Albert Lynch, Will H. Low, W. T. Smedley, Irving R. Wiles, and others. As his magazine was rolled to go through the mails, the pictures naturally suffered; Bok therefore decided to print a special edition of each important picture that he published, an edition on plate-paper, without text, and offered to his readers at ten cents a copy. Within a year he had sold nearly one hundred thousand copies, such pictures as W. L. Taylor's "The Hanging of the Crane" and "Home-Keeping Hearts" being particularly popular.

Pictures were difficult to advertise successfully; it was before the full-color press had become practicable for rapid magazine work; and even the large-page black-and-white reproductions which Bok could give in his magazine did not, of course, show the beauty of the original paintings, the majority of which were in full color. He accordingly made arrangements with art publishers to print his pictures in their original colors; then he determined to give the public an opportunity to see what the pictures themselves looked like.

He asked his art editor to select the two hundred and fifty best pictures and frame them. Then he engaged the art gallery of the Philadelphia Art Club, and advertised an exhibition of the original paintings. No admission was charged. The gallery was put into gala attire, and the pictures were well hung. The exhibition, which was continued for two weeks, was visited by over fifteen thousand persons.

His success here induced Bok to take the collection to New York. The galleries of the American Art Association were offered him, but he decided to rent the ballroom of the Hotel Waldorf. The hotel was then new; it was the talk not only of the town but of the country, while the ballroom had been pictured far and wide. It would have a publicity value. He could secure the room for only four days, but he determined to make the most of the short time. The exhibition was well advertised; a "private view" was given the evening before the opening day, and when, at nine o'clock the following morning, the doors of the exhibition were thrown open, over a thousand persons were waiting in line.

The hotel authorities had to resort to a special cordon of police to handle the crowds, and within four days over seventeen thousand persons had seen the pictures. On the last evening it was after midnight before the doors could be closed to the waiting-line. Boston was next visited, and there, at the Art Club Gallery, the previous successes were repeated. Within two weeks over twenty-eight thousand persons visited the exhibition.

Other cities now clamored for a sight of the pictures, and it was finally decided to end the exhibitions by a visit to Chicago. The success here exceeded that in any of the other cities. The banquet-hall of the Auditorium Hotel had been engaged; over two thousand persons were continually in a waiting-line outside, and within a week nearly thirty thousand persons pushed and jostled themselves into the gallery. Over eight thousand persons in all had viewed the pictures in the four cities.

The exhibition was immediately followed by the publication of a portfolio of the ten pictures that had proved the greatest favorites. These were printed on plate-paper and the portfolio was offered by Bok to his readers for one dollar. The first thousand sets were exhausted within a fortnight. A second thousand were printed, and these were quickly sold out.

Bok's next enterprise was to get his pictures into the homes of the country on a larger scale; he determined to work through the churches. He selected the fifty best pictures, made them into a set and offered first a hundred sets to selected schools, which were at once taken. Then he offered two hundred and fifty sets to churches to sell at their fairs. The managers were to promise to erect a Ladies' Home Journal booth (which Bok knew, of course, would be most effective advertising), and the pictures were to sell at twenty-five and fifty cents each, with some at a dollar each. The set was offered to the churches for five dollars: the actual cost of reproduction and expressage. On the day after the publication of the magazine containing the offer, enough telegraphic orders were received to absorb the entire edition. A second edition was immediately printed; and finally ten editions, four thousand sets in all, were absorbed before the demand was filled. By this method, two hundred thousand pictures had been introduced into American homes, and over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money had been raised by the churches as their portion.

But all this was simply to lead up to the realization of Bok's cherished dream: the reproduction, in enormous numbers, of the greatest pictures in the world in their original colors. The plan, however, was not for the moment feasible: the cost of the four-color process was at that time prohibitive, and Bok had to abandon it. But he never lost sight of it. He knew the hour would come when he could carry it out, and he bided his time.

It was not until years later that his opportunity came, when he immediately made up his mind to seize it. The magazine had installed a battery of four-color presses; the color-work in the periodical was attracting universal attention, and after all stages of experimentation had been passed, Bok decided to make his dream a reality. He sought the co-operation of the owners of the greatest private art galleries in the country: J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry C. Frick, Joseph E. Widener, George W. Elkins, John G. Johnson, Charles P. Taft, Mrs. John L. Gardner, Charles L. Freer, Mrs. Havemeyer, and the owners of the Benjamin Altman Collection, and sought permission to reproduce their greatest paintings.

Although each felt doubtful of the ability of any process adequately to reproduce their masterpieces, the owners heartily co-operated with Bok. But Bok's co-editors discouraged his plan, since it would involve endless labor, the exclusive services of a corps of photographers and engravers, and the employment of the most careful pressmen available in the United States. The editor realized that the obstacles were numerous and that the expense would be enormous; but he felt sure that the American public was ready for his idea. And early in 1912 he announced his series and began its publication.

The most wonderful Rembrandt, Velasquez, Turner, Hobbema, Van Dyck, Raphael, Frans Hals, Romney, Gainsborough, Whistler, Corot, Mauve, Vermeer, Fragonard, Botticelli, and Titian reproductions followed in such rapid succession as fairly to daze the magazine readers. Four pictures were given in each number, and the faithfulness of the reproductions astonished even their owners. The success of the series was beyond Bok's own best hopes. He was printing and selling one and three-quarter million copies of each issue of his magazine; and before he was through he had presented to American homes throughout the breadth of the country over seventy million reproductions of forty separate master-pieces of art.

The dream of years had come true.

Bok had begun with the exterior of the small American house and made an impression upon it; he had brought the love of flowers into the hearts of thousands of small householders who had never thought they could have an artistic garden within a small area; he had changed the lines of furniture, and he had put better art on the walls of these homes. He had conceived a full-rounded scheme, and he had carried it out.

It was a peculiar satisfaction to Bok that Theodore Roosevelt once summed up this piece of work in these words: "Bok is the only man I ever heard of who changed, for the better, the architecture of an entire nation, and he did it so quickly and yet so effectively that we didn't know it was begun before it was finished. That is a mighty big job for one man to have done."



XXII. An Adventure in Civic and Private Art

Edward Bok now turned his attention to those influences of a more public nature which he felt could contribute to elevate the standard of public taste.

He was surprised, on talking with furnishers of homes, to learn to what extent women whose husbands had recently acquired means would refer to certain styles of decoration and hangings which they had seen in the Pullman parlor-cars. He had never seriously regarded the influence of the furnishing of these cars upon the travelling public; now he realized that, in a decorative sense, they were a distinct factor and a very unfortunate one.

For in those days, twenty years ago, the decoration of the Pullman parlor-car was atrocious. Colors were in riotous discord; every foot of wood-panelling was carved and ornamented, nothing being left of the grain of even the most beautiful woods; gilt was recklessly laid on everywhere regardless of its fitness or relation. The hangings in the cars were not only in bad taste, but distinctly unsanitary; the heaviest velvets and showiest plushes were used; mirrors with bronzed and redplushed frames were the order of the day; cord portieres, lambrequins, and tasselled fringes were still in vogue in these cars. It was a veritable riot of the worst conceivable ideas; and it was this standard that these women of the new-money class were accepting and introducing into their homes!

Bok wrote an editorial calling attention to these facts. The Pullman Company paid no attention to it, but the railroad journals did. With one accord they seized the cudgel which Bok had raised, and a series of hammerings began. The Pullman conductors began to report to their division chiefs that the passengers were criticising the cars, and the company at last woke up. It issued a cynical rejoinder; whereupon Bok wrote another editorial, and the railroad journals once more joined in the chorus.

The president of a large Western railroad wrote to Bok that he agreed absolutely with his position, and asked whether he had any definite suggestions to offer for the improvement of some new cars which they were about to order. Bok engaged two of the best architects and decorators in the country, and submitted the results to the officials of the railroad company, who approved of them heartily. The Pullman Company did not take very kindly, however, to suggestions thus brought to them. But a current had been started; the attention of the travelling public had been drawn for the first time to the wretched decoration of the cars; and public sentiment was beginning to be vocal.

The first change came when a new dining-car on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad suddenly appeared. It was an artistically treated Flemish-oak-panelled car with longitudinal beams and cross-beams, giving the impression of a ceiling-beamed room. Between the "beams" was a quiet tone of deep yellow. The sides of the car were wainscoting of plain surface done in a Flemish stain rubbed down to a dull finish. The grain of the wood was allowed to serve as decoration; there was no carving. The whole tone of the car was that of the rich color of the sunflower. The effect upon the travelling public was instantaneous. Every passenger commented favorably on the car.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad now followed suit by introducing a new Pullman chair-car. The hideous and germ-laden plush or velvet curtains were gone, and leather hangings of a rich tone took their place. All the grill-work of a bygone age was missing; likewise the rope curtains. The woods were left to show the grain; no carving was visible anywhere. The car was a relief to the eye, beautiful and simple, and easy to keep clean. Again the public observed, and expressed its pleasure.

The Pullman people now saw the drift, and wisely reorganized their decorative department. Only those who remember the Pullman parlor-car of twenty years ago can realize how long a step it is from the atrociously decorated, unsanitary vehicle of that day to the simple car of to-day.

It was only a step from the Pullman car to the landscape outside, and Bok next decided to see what he could do toward eliminating the hideous bill-board advertisements which defaced the landscape along the lines of the principal roads. He found a willing ally in this idea in Mr. J. Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, one of the most skilful photographers in the country, and the president of The American Civic Association. McFarland and Bok worked together; they took innumerable photographs, and began to publish them, calling public attention to the intrusion upon the public eye.

Page after page appeared in the magazine, and after a few months these roused public discussion as to legal control of this class of advertising. Bok meanwhile called the attention of women's clubs and other civic organizations to the question, and urged that they clean their towns of the obnoxious bill-boards. Legislative measures regulating the size, character, and location of bill-boards were introduced in various States, a tax on each bill-board was suggested in other States, and the agitation began to bear fruit.

Bok now called upon his readers in general to help by offering a series of prizes totalling several thousands of dollars for two photographs, one showing a fence, barn, or outbuilding painted with an advertisement or having a bill-board attached to it, or a field with a bill-board in it, and a second photograph of the same spot showing the advertisement removed, with an accompanying affidavit of the owner of the property, legally attested, asserting that the advertisement had been permanently removed. Hundreds of photographs poured in, scores of prizes were awarded, the results were published, and requests came in for a second series of prizes, which were duly awarded.

While Bok did not solve the problem of bill-board advertising, and while in some parts of the country it is a more flagrant nuisance to-day than ever before, he had started the first serious agitation against bill-board advertising of bad design, detrimental, from its location, to landscape beauty. He succeeded in getting rid of a huge bill-board which had been placed at the most picturesque spot at Niagara Falls; and hearing of "the largest advertisement sign in the world" to be placed on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, he notified the advertisers that a photograph of the sign, if it was erected, would be immediately published in the magazine and the attention of the women of America called to the defacement of one of the most impressive and beautiful scenes in the world. The article to be advertised was a household commodity, purchased by women; and the owners realized that the proposed advertisement would not be to the benefit of their product. The sign was abandoned.

Of course the advertisers whose signs were shown in the magazine immediately threatened the withdrawal of their accounts from The Ladies' Home Journal, and the proposed advertiser at the Grand Canyon, whose business was conspicuous in each number of the magazine, became actively threatening. But Bok contended that the one proposition had absolutely no relation to the other, and that if concerns advertised in the magazine simply on the basis of his editorial policy toward bill-board advertising, it was, to say the least, not a sound basis for advertising. No advertising account was ever actually withdrawn.

In their travels about, Mr. McFarland and Bok began to note the disreputably untidy spots which various municipalities allowed in the closest proximity to the centre of their business life, in the most desirable residential sections, and often adjacent to the most important municipal buildings and parks. It was decided to select a dozen cities, pick out the most flagrant instances of spots which were not only an eyesore and a disgrace from a municipal standpoint, but a menace to health and meant a depreciation of real-estate value.

Lynn, Massachusetts, was the initial city chosen, a number of photographs were taken, and the first of a series of "Dirty Cities" was begun in the magazine. The effect was instantaneous. The people of Lynn rose in protest, and the municipal authorities threatened suit against the magazine; the local newspapers were virulent in their attacks. Without warning, they argued, Bok had held up their city to disgrace before the entire country; the attack was unwarranted; in bad taste; every citizen in Lynn should thereafter cease to buy the magazine, and so the criticisms ran. In answer Bok merely pointed to the photographs; to the fact that the camera could not lie, and that if he had misrepresented conditions he was ready to make amends.

Of course the facts could not be gainsaid; local pride was aroused, and as a result not only were the advertised "dirty spots" cleaned up, but the municipal authorities went out and hunted around for other spots in the city, not knowing what other photographs Bok might have had taken.

Trenton, New Jersey, was the next example, and the same storm of public resentment broke loose—with exactly the same beneficial results in the end to the city. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was the third one of America's "dirty cities." Here public anger rose particularly high, the magazine practically being barred from the news-stands. But again the result was to the lasting benefit of the community.

Memphis, Tennessee, came next, but here a different spirit was met. Although some resentment was expressed, the general feeling was that a service had been rendered the city, and that the only wise and practical solution was for the city to meet the situation. The result here was a group of municipal buildings costing millions of dollars, photographs of which The Ladies' Home Journal subsequently published with gratification to itself and to the people of Memphis.

Cities throughout the country now began to look around to see whether they had dirty spots within their limits, not knowing when the McFarland photographers might visit them. Bok received letters from various municipalities calling his attention to the fact that they were cognizant of spots in their cities and were cleaning up, and asking that, if he had photographs of these spots, they should not be published.

It happened that in two such instances Bok had already prepared sets of photographs for publication. These he sent to the mayors of the respective cities, stating that if they would return them with an additional set showing the spots cleaned up there would be no occasion for their publication. In both cases this was done. Atlanta, Georgia; New Haven, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and finally Bok's own city of Philadelphia were duly chronicled in the magazine; local storms broke and calmed down-with the spots in every instance improved.

It was an interesting experiment in photographic civics. The pity of it is that more has not been done along this and similar lines.

The time now came when Bok could demonstrate the willingness of his own publishing company to do what it could to elevate the public taste in art. With the increasing circulation of The Ladies' Home Journal and of The Saturday Evening Post the business of the company had grown to such dimensions that in 1908 plans for a new building were started. For purposes of air and light the vicinity of Independence Square was selected. Mr. Curtis purchased an entire city block facing the square, and the present huge but beautiful publication building was conceived.

Bok strongly believed that good art should find a place in public buildings where large numbers of persons might find easy access to it. The proximity of the proposed new structure to historic Independence Hall and the adjacent buildings would make it a focal point for visitors from all parts of the country and the world. The opportunity presented itself to put good art, within the comprehension of a large public, into the new building, and Bok asked permission of Mr. Curtis to introduce a strong note of mural decoration. The idea commended itself to Mr. Curtis as adding an attraction to the building and a contribution to public art.

The great public dining-room, seating over seven hundred persons, on the top floor of the building, affording unusual lighting facilities, was first selected; and Maxfield Parrish was engaged to paint a series of seventeen panels to fill the large spaces between the windows and an unusually large wall space at the end of the room. Parrish contracted to give up all other work and devote himself to the commission which attracted him greatly.

For over a year he made sketches, and finally the theme was decided upon: a bevy of youths and maidens in gala costume, on their way through gardens and along terraces to a great fete, with pierrots and dancers and musicians on the main wall space. It was to be a picture of happy youth and sunny gladness. Five years after the conception of the idea the final panel was finished and installed in the dining-room, where the series has since been admired by the thirty to fifty thousand visitors who come to the Curtis Building each year from foreign lands and from every State in America. No other scheme of mural decoration was ever planned on so large a scale for a commercial building, or so successfully carried out.

The great wall space of over one thousand square feet, unobstructed by a single column, in the main foyer of the building was decided upon as the place for the pivotal note to be struck by some mural artist. After looking carefully over the field, Bok finally decided upon Edwin A. Abbey. He took a steamer and visited Abbey in his English home. The artist was working on his canvases for the State capitol at Harrisburg, and it was agreed that the commission for the Curtis Building was to follow the completion of the State work.

"What subject have you in mind?" asked Abbey.

"None," replied Bok. "That is left entirely to you."

The artist and his wife looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Rather unusual," commented Abbey. "You have nothing in mind at all?"

"Nothing, except to get the best piece of work you have ever done," was the assurance.

Poor Abbey! His life had been made so tortuous by suggestions, ideas, yes, demands made upon him in the work of the Harrisburg panels upon which he was engaged, that a commission in which he was to have free scope, his brush full leeway, with no one making suggestions but himself and Mrs. Abbey, seemed like a dream. When he explained this, Bok assured him that was exactly what he was offering him: a piece of work, the subject to be his own selection, with the assurance of absolute liberty to carry out his own ideas. Never was an artist more elated.

"Then, I'll give you the best piece of work of my life," said Abbey.

"Perhaps there is some subject which you have long wished to paint rather than any other," asked Bok, "that might fit our purpose admirably?"

There was: a theme that he had started as a fresco for Mrs. Abbey's bedroom. But it would not answer this purpose at all, although he confessed he would rather paint it than any subject in the realm of all literature and art.

"And the subject?" asked Bok.

"The Grove of Academe," replied Abbey, and the eyes of the artist and his wife were riveted on the editor.

"With Plato and his disciples?" asked Bok.

"The same," said Abbey. "But you see it wouldn't fit."

"Wouldn't fit?" echoed Bok. "Why, it's the very thing."

Abbey and his wife were now like two happy children. Mrs. Abbey fetched the sketches which her husband had begun years ago, and when Bok saw them he was delighted. He realized at once that conditions and choice would conspire to produce Abbey's greatest piece of mural work.

The arrangements were quickly settled; the Curtis architect had accompanied Bok to explain the architectural possibilities to Abbey, and when the artist bade good-by to the two at the railroad station, his last words were:

"Bok, you are going to get the best Abbey in the world."

And Mrs. Abbey echoed the prophecy!

But Fate intervened. On the day after Abbey had stretched his great canvas in Sargent's studio in London, expecting to begin his work the following week, he suddenly passed away, and what would, in all likelihood, have been Edwin Abbey's mural masterpiece was lost to the world.

Assured of Mrs. Abbey's willingness to have another artist take the theme of the Grove of Academe and carry it out as a mural decoration, Bok turned to Howard Pyle. He knew Pyle had made a study of Plato, and believed that, with his knowledge and love of the work of the Athenian philosopher, a good decoration would result. Pyle was then in Italy; Bok telephoned the painter's home in Wilmington, Delaware, to get his address, only to be told that an hour earlier word had been received by the family that Pyle had been fatally stricken the day before.

Once more Bok went over the field of mural art and decided this time that he would go far afield, and present his idea to Boutet de Monvel, the French decorative artist. Bok had been much impressed with some decorative work by De Monvel which had just been exhibited in New York. By letter he laid the proposition in detail before the artist, asked for a subject, and stipulated that if the details could be arranged the artist should visit the building and see the place and surroundings for himself. After a lengthy correspondence, and sketches submitted and corrected, a plan for what promised to be a most unusual and artistically decorative panel was arrived at.

The date for M. de Monvel's visit to Philadelphia was fixed, a final letter from the artist reached Bok on a Monday morning, in which a few remaining details were satisfactorily cleared up, and a cable was sent assuring De Monvel of the entire satisfaction of the company with his final sketches and arrangements. The following morning Bok picked up his newspaper to read that Boutet de Monvel had suddenly passed away in Paris the previous evening!

Bok, thoroughly bewildered, began to feel as if some fatal star hung over his cherished decoration. Three times in succession he had met the same decree of fate.

He consulted six of the leading mural decorators in America, asking whether they would consent, not in competition, to submit each a finished full-color sketch of the subject which he believed fitted for the place in mind; they could take the Grove of Academe or not, as they chose; the subject was to be of their own selection. Each artist was to receive a generous fee for his sketch, whether accepted or rejected. In due time, the six sketches were received; impartial judges were selected, no names were attached to the sketches, several conferences were held, and all the sketches were rejected!

Bok was still exactly where he started, while the building was nearly complete, with no mural for the large place so insistently demanding it.

He now recalled a marvellous stage-curtain entirely of glass mosaic executed by Louis C. Tiffany, of New York, for the Municipal Theatre at Mexico City. The work had attracted universal attention at its exhibition, art critics and connoisseurs had praised it unstintingly, and Bok decided to experiment in that direction.

Just as the ancient Egyptians and Persians had used glazed brick and tile, set in cement, as their form of wall decoration, so Mr. Tiffany had used favrile glass, set in cement. The luminosity was marvellous; the effect of light upon the glass was unbelievably beautiful, and the colorings obtained were a joy to the senses.

Here was not only a new method in wall decoration, but one that was entirely practicable. Glass would not craze like tiles or mosaic; it would not crinkle as will canvas; it needed no varnish. It would retain its color, freshness, and beauty, and water would readily cleanse it from dust.

He sought Mr. Tiffany, who was enthusiastic over the idea of making an example of his mosaic glass of such dimensions which should remain in this country, and gladly offered to co-operate. But, try as he might, Bok could not secure an adequate sketch for Mr. Tiffany to carry out. Then he recalled that one day while at Maxfield Parrish's summer home in New Hampshire the artist had told him of a dream garden which he would like to construct, not on canvas but in reality. Bok suggested to Parrish that he come to New York. He asked him if he could put his dream garden on canvas. The artist thought he could; in fact, was greatly attracted to the idea; but he knew nothing of mosaic work, and was not particularly attracted by the idea of having his work rendered in that medium.

Bok took Parrish to Mr. Tiffany's studio; the two artists talked together, the glass-worker showed the canvas-painter his work, with the result that the two became enthusiastic to co-operate in trying the experiment. Parrish agreed to make a sketch for Mr. Tiffany's approval, and within six months, after a number of conferences and an equal number of sketches, they were ready to begin the work. Bok only hoped that this time both artists would outlive their commissions!

It was a huge picture to be done in glass mosaic. The space to be filled called for over a million pieces of glass, and for a year the services of thirty of the most skilled artisans would be required. The work had to be done from a series of bromide photographs enlarged to a size hitherto unattempted. But at last the decoration was completed; the finished art piece was placed on exhibition in New York and over seven thousand persons came to see it. The leading art critics pronounced the result to be the most amazing instance of the tone capacity of glass-work ever achieved. It was a veritable wonder-piece, far exceeding the utmost expression of paint and canvas.

For six months a group of skilled artisans worked to take the picture apart in New York, transport it and set it into its place in Philadelphia. But at last it was in place: the wonder-picture in glass of which painters have declared that "mere words are only aggravating in describing this amazing picture." Since that day over one hundred thousand visitors to the building have sat in admiration before it.

The Grove of Academe was to become a Dream Garden, but it was only after six years of incessant effort, with obstacles and interventions almost insurmountable, that the dream became true.



XXIII. Theodore Roosevelt's Influence

When the virile figure of Theodore Roosevelt swung down the national highway, Bok was one of thousands of young men who felt strongly the attraction of his personality. Colonel Roosevelt was only five years the senior of the editor; he spoke, therefore, as one of his own years. The energy with which he said and did things appealed to Bok. He made Americanism something more real, more stirring than Bok had ever felt it; he explained national questions in a way that caught Bok's fancy and came within his comprehension. Bok's lines had been cast with many of the great men of the day, but he felt that there was something distinctive about the personality of this man: his method of doing things and his way of saying things. Bok observed everything Colonel Roosevelt did and read everything he wrote.

The editor now sought an opportunity to know personally the man whom he admired. It came at a dinner at the University Club, and Colonel Roosevelt suggested that they meet there the following day for a "talk-fest." For three hours the two talked together. The fact that Colonel Roosevelt was of Dutch ancestry interested Bok; that Bok was actually of Dutch birth made a strong appeal to the colonel. With his tremendous breadth of interests, Roosevelt, Bok found, had followed him quite closely in his work, and was familiar with "its high points," as he called them. "We must work for the same ends," said the colonel, "you in your way, I in mine. But our lines are bound to cross. You and I can each become good Americans by giving our best to make America better. With the Dutch stock there is in both of us, there's no limit to what we can do. Let's go to it." Naturally that talk left the two firm friends.

Bok felt somehow that he had been given a new draft of Americanism: the word took on a new meaning for him; it stood for something different, something deeper and finer than before. And every subsequent talk with Roosevelt deepened the feeling and stirred Bok's deepest ambitions. "Go to it, you Dutchman," Roosevelt would say, and Bok would go to it. A talk with Roosevelt always left him feeling as if mountains were the easiest things in the world to move.

One of Theodore Roosevelt's arguments which made a deep impression upon Bok was that no man had a right to devote his entire life to the making of money. "You are in a peculiar position," said the man of Oyster Bay one day to Bok; "you are in that happy position where you can make money and do good at the same time. A man wields a tremendous power for good or for evil who is welcomed into a million homes and read with confidence. That's fine, and is all right so far as it goes, and in your case it goes very far. Still, there remains more for you to do. The public has built up for you a personality: now give that personality to whatever interests you in contact with your immediate fellow-men: something in your neighborhood, your city, or your State. With one hand work and write to your national audience: let no fads sway you. Hew close to the line. But, with the other hand, swing into the life immediately around you. Think it over."

Bok did think it over. He was now realizing the dream of his life for which he had worked: his means were sufficient to give his mother every comfort; to install her in the most comfortable surroundings wherever she chose to live; to make it possible for her to spend the winters in the United States and the summers in the Netherlands, and thus to keep in touch with her family and friends in both countries. He had for years toiled unceasingly to reach this point: he felt he had now achieved at least one goal.

He had now turned instinctively to the making of a home for himself. After an engagement of four years he had been married, on October 22, 1896, to Mary Louise Curtis, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus H. K. Curtis; two sons had been born to them; he had built and was occupying a house at Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb six miles from the Philadelphia City Hall. When she was in this country his mother lived with him, and also his brother, and, with a strong belief in life insurance, he had seen to it that his family was provided for in case of personal incapacity or of his demise. In other words, he felt that he had put his own house in order; he had carried out what he felt is every man's duty: to be, first of all, a careful and adequate provider for his family. He was now at the point where he could begin to work for another goal, the goal that he felt so few American men saw: the point in his life where he could retire from the call of duty and follow the call of inclination.

At the age of forty he tried to look ahead and plan out his life as far as he could. Barring unforeseen obstacles, he determined to retire from active business when he reached his fiftieth year, and give the remainder of his life over to those interests and influences which he assumed now as part of his life, and which, at fifty, should seem to him best worth while. He realized that in order to do this he must do two things: he must husband his financial resources and he must begin to accumulate a mental reserve.

The wide public acceptance of the periodical which he edited naturally brought a share of financial success to him. He had experienced poverty, and as he subsequently wrote, in an article called "Why I Believe in Poverty," he was deeply grateful for his experience. He had known what it was to be poor; he had seen others dear to him suffer for the bare necessities; there was, in fact, not a single step on that hard road that he had not travelled. He could, therefore, sympathize with the fullest understanding with those similarly situated, could help as one who knew from practice and not from theory. He realized what a marvellous blessing poverty can be; but as a condition to experience, to derive from it poignant lessons, and then to get out of; not as a condition to stay in.

Of course many said to Bok when he wrote the article in which he expressed these beliefs: "That's all very well; easy enough to say, but how can you get out of it?" Bok realized that he could not definitely show any one the way. No one had shown him. No two persons can find the same way out. Bok determined to lift himself out of poverty because his mother was not born in it, did not belong in it, and could not stand it. That gave him the first essential: a purpose. Then he backed up the purpose with effort and an ever-ready willingness to work, and to work at anything that came his way, no matter what it was, so long as it meant "the way out." He did not pick and choose; he took what came, and did it in the best way he knew how; and when he did not like what he was doing he still did it as well as he could while he was doing it, but always with an eye single to the purpose not to do it any longer than was strictly necessary. He used every rung in the ladder as a rung to the one above. He always gave more than his particular position or salary asked for. He never worked by the clock; always by the job; and saw that it was well done regardless of the time it took to do it. This meant effort, of course, untiring, ceaseless, unsparing; and it meant work, hard as nails.

He was particularly careful never to live up to his income; and as his income increased he increased not the percentage of expenditure but the percentage of saving. Thrift was, of course, inborn with him as a Dutchman, but the necessity for it as a prime factor in life was burned into him by his experience with poverty. But he interpreted thrift not as a trait of niggardliness, but as Theodore Roosevelt interpreted it: common sense applied to spending.

At forty, therefore, he felt he had learned the first essential to carrying out his idea of retirement at fifty.

The second essential—varied interests outside of his business upon which he could rely on relinquishing his duties—he had not cultivated. He had quite naturally, in line with his belief that concentration means success, immersed himself in his business to the exclusion of almost everything else. He felt that he could now spare a certain percentage of his time to follow Theodore Roosevelt's ideas and let the breezes of other worlds blow over him. In that way he could do as Roosevelt suggested and as Bok now firmly believed was right: he could develop himself along broader lines, albeit the lines of his daily work were broadening in and of themselves, and he could so develop a new set of inner resources upon which he could draw when the time came to relinquish his editorial position.

He saw, on every side, the pathetic figures of men who could not let go after their greatest usefulness was past; of other men who dropped before they realized their arrival at the end of the road; and, most pathetic of all, of men who having retired, but because of lack of inner resources did not know what to do with themselves, had become a trial to themselves, their families, and their communities.

Bok decided that, given health and mental freshness, he would say good-by to his public before his public might decide to say good-by to him. So, at forty, he candidly faced the facts of life and began to prepare himself for his retirement at fifty under circumstances that would be of his own making and not those of others.

And thereby Edward Bok proved that he was still, by instinct, a Dutchman, and had not in his thirty-four years of residence in the United States become so thoroughly Americanized as he believed.

However, it was an American, albeit of Dutch extraction, one whom he believed to be the greatest American in his own day, who had set him thinking and shown him the way.



XXIV. Theodore Roosevelt's Anonymous Editorial Work

While Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States, Bok was sitting one evening talking with him, when suddenly Mr. Roosevelt turned to him and said with his usual emphasis: "Bok, I envy you your power with your public."

The editor was frankly puzzled.

"That is a strange remark from the President of the United States," he replied.

"You may think so," was the rejoinder. "But listen. When do I get the ear of the public? In its busiest moments. My messages are printed in the newspapers and read hurriedly, mostly by men in trolleys or railroad-cars. Women hardly ever read them, I should judge. Now you are read in the evening by the fireside or under the lamp, when the day's work is over and the mind is at rest from other things and receptive to what you offer. Don't you see where you have it on me?"

This diagnosis was keenly interesting, and while the President talked during the balance of the evening, Bok was thinking. Finally, he said: "Mr. President, I should like to share my power with you."

"How?" asked Mr. Roosevelt.

"You recognize that women do not read your messages; and yet no President's messages ever discussed more ethical questions that women should know about and get straight in their minds. As it is, some of your ideas are not at all understood by them; your strenuous-life theory, for instance, your factory-law ideas, and particularly your race-suicide arguments. Men don't fully understand them, for that matter; women certainly do not."

"I am aware of all that," said the President. "What is your plan to remedy it?"

"Have a department in my magazine, and explain your ideas," suggested Bok.

"Haven't time for another thing. You know that," snapped back the President. "Wish I had."

"Not to write it, perhaps, yourself," returned Bok.

"But why couldn't you find time to do this: select the writer here in Washington in whose accuracy you have the most implicit faith; let him talk with you for one hour each month on one of those subjects; let him write out your views, and submit the manuscript to you; and we will have a department stating exactly how the material is obtained and how far it represents your own work. In that way, with only an hour's work each month, you can get your views, correctly stated, before this vast audience when it is not in trolleys or railroad-cars."

"But I haven't the hour," answered Roosevelt, impressed, however, as Bok saw. "I have only half an hour, when I am awake, when I am really idle, and that is when I am being shaved."

"Well," calmly suggested the editor, "why not two of those half-hours a month, or perhaps one?"

"What?" answered the President, sitting upright, his teeth flashing but his smile broadening. "You Dutchman, you'd make me work while I'm getting shaved, too?"

"Well," was the answer, "isn't the result worth the effort?"

"Bok, you are absolutely relentless," said the President. "But you're right. The result would be worth the effort. What writer have you in mind? You seem to have thought this thing through."

"How about O'Brien? You think well of him?"

(Robert L. O'Brien, now editor of the Boston Herald, was then Washington correspondent for the Boston Transcript and thoroughly in the President's confidence.)

"Fine," said the President. "I trust O'Brien implicitly. All right, if you can get O'Brien to add it on, I'll try it."

And so the "shaving interviews" were begun; and early in 1906 there appeared in The Ladies' Home Journal a department called "The President," with the subtitle: "A Department in which will be presented the attitude of the President on those national questions which affect the vital interests of the home, by a writer intimately acquainted and in close touch with him."

O'Brien talked with Mr. Roosevelt once a month, wrote out the results, the President went over the proofs carefully, and the department was conducted with great success for a year.

But Theodore Roosevelt was again to be the editor of a department in The Ladies' Home Journal; this time to be written by himself under the strictest possible anonymity, so closely adhered to that, until this revelation, only five persons have known the authorship.

Feeling that it would be an interesting experiment to see how far Theodore Roosevelt's ideas could stand unsupported by the authority of his vibrant personality, Bok suggested the plan to the colonel. It was just after he had returned from his South American trip. He was immediately interested.

"But how can we keep the authorship really anonymous?" he asked.

"Easily enough," answered Bok, "if you're willing to do the work. Our letters about it must be written in long hand addressed to each other's homes; you must write your manuscript in your own hand; I will copy it in mine, and it will go to the printer in that way. I will personally send you the proofs; you mark your corrections in pencil, and I will copy them in ink; the company will pay me for each article, and I will send you my personal check each month. By this means, the identity of the author will be concealed."

Colonel Roosevelt was never averse to hard work if it was necessary to achieve a result that he felt was worth while.

"All right," wrote the colonel finally. "I'll try—with you!—the experiment for a year: 12 articles... I don't know that I can give your readers satisfaction, but I shall try my very best. I am very glad to be associated with you, anyway. At first I doubted the wisdom of the plan, merely because I doubted whether I could give you just that you wished. I never know what an audience wants: I know what it ought to want: and sometimes I can give it, or make it accept what I think it needs—and sometimes I cannot. But the more I thought over your proposal, the more I liked it... Whether the wine will be good enough to attract without any bush I don't know; and besides, in such cases the fault is not in the wine, but in the fact that the consumers decline to have their attention attracted unless there is a bush!"

In the latter part of 1916 an anonymous department called "Men" was begun in the magazine.

The physical work was great. The colonel punctiliously held to the conditions, and wrote manuscript and letters with his own hand, and Bok carried out his part of the agreement. Nor was this simple, for Colonel Roosevelt's manuscript—particularly when, as in this case, it was written on yellow paper with a soft pencil and generously interlined—was anything but legible. Month after month the two men worked each at his own task. To throw the public off the scent, during the conduct of the department, an article or two by Colonel Roosevelt was published in another part of the magazine under his own name, and in the department itself the anonymous author would occasionally quote himself.

It was natural that the appearance of a department devoted to men in a woman's magazine should attract immediate attention. The department took up the various interests of a man's life, such as real efficiency; his duties as an employer and his usefulness to his employees; the employee's attitude toward his employer; the relations of men and women; a father's relations to his sons and daughters; a man's duty to his community; the public-school system; a man's relation to his church, and kindred topics.

The anonymity of the articles soon took on interest from the positiveness of the opinions discussed; but so thoroughly had Colonel Roosevelt covered his tracks that, although he wrote in his usual style, in not a single instance was his name connected with the department. Lyman Abbott was the favorite "guess" at first; then after various other public men had been suggested, the newspapers finally decided upon former President Eliot of Harvard University as the writer.

All this intensely interested and amused Colonel Roosevelt and he fairly itched with the desire to write a series of criticisms of his own articles to Doctor Eliot. Bok, however, persuaded the colonel not to spend more physical effort than he was already doing on the articles; for, in addition, he was notating answers on the numerous letters received, and those Bok answered "on behalf of the author."

For a year, the department continued. During all that time the secret of the authorship was known to only one man, besides the colonel and Bok, and their respective wives!

When the colonel sent his last article in the series to Bok, he wrote:

"Now that the work is over, I wish most cordially to thank you, my dear fellow, for your unvarying courtesy and kindness. I have not been satisfied with my work. This is the first time I ever tried to write precisely to order, and I am not one of those gifted men who can do so to advantage. Generally I find that the 3,000 words is not the right length and that I wish to use 2,000 or 4,000! And in consequence feel as if I had either padded or mutilated the article. And I am not always able to feel that every month I have something worth saying on a given subject.

"But I hope that you have not been too much disappointed."

Bok had not been, and neither had his public!

In the meanwhile, Bok had arranged with Colonel Roosevelt for his reading and advising upon manuscripts of special significance for the magazine. In this work, Colonel Roosevelt showed his customary promptness and thoroughness. A manuscript, no matter how long it might be, was in his hands scarcely forty-eight hours, more generally twenty-four, before it was read, a report thereon written, and the article on its way back. His reports were always comprehensive and invariably interesting. There was none of the cut-and-dried flavor of the opinion of the average "reader"; he always put himself into the report, and, of course, that meant a warm personal touch. If he could not encourage the publication of a manuscript, his reasons were always fully given, and invariably without personal bias.

On one occasion Bok sent him a manuscript which he was sure was, in its views, at variance with the colonel's beliefs. The colonel, he knew, felt strongly on the subject, and Bok wondered what would be his criticism. The report came back promptly. He reviewed the article carefully and ended: "Of course, this is all at variance with my own views. I believe thoroughly and completely that this writer is all wrong. And yet, from his side of the case, I am free to say that he makes out the best case I have read anywhere. I think a magazine should present both sides of all questions; and if you want to present this side, I should strongly recommend that you do so with this article."

Sagamore Hill. April 26th 1916

This is a really noteworthy story—a profoundly touching story—of the Americanizing of an immigrant girl, who between babyhood and young womanhood leaps over a space which in all outward and humanizing essentials is far more important than the distance painfully traversed by her forefathers during the preceding thousand years. When we tend to grow disheartened over some of the developments of our American civilization, it is well worth while seeing what this same civilization holds for starved and noble souls who have elsewhere been denied what here we hold to be, as a matter of course, rights free to all—altho we do not, as we should do, make these rights accessible to all who are willing with resolute earnestness to strive for them. I most cordially commend this story.

Theodore Roosevelt

One of Theodore Roosevelt's "Reports" as a reader of special manuscripts"

Not long after, Bok decided to induce Colonel Roosevelt to embark upon an entirely new activity, and negotiations were begun (alas, too late! for it was in the autumn of 1918), which, owing to their tentative character, were never made public. Bok told Colonel Roosevelt that he wanted to invest twenty-five thousand dollars a year in American boyhood—the boyhood that he felt twenty years hence would be the manhood of America, and that would actually solve the problems with which we were now grappling.

Although, all too apparently, he was not in his usual vigorous health, Colonel Roosevelt was alert in a moment.

"Fine!" he said, with his teeth gleaming. "Couldn't invest better anywhere. How are you going to do it?"

"By asking you to assume the active headship of the National Boy Scouts of America, and paying you that amount each year as a fixed salary."

The colonel looked steadily ahead for a moment, without a word, and then with the old Roosevelt smile wreathing his face and his teeth fairly gleaming, he turned to his "tempter," as he called him, and said:

"Do you know that was very well put? Yes, sir, very well put."

"Yes?" answered Bok. "Glad you think so. But how about your acceptance of the idea?"

"That's another matter; quite another matter. How about the organization itself? There are men in it that don't approve of me at all, you know," he said.

Bok explained that the organization knew nothing of his offer; that it was entirely unofficial. It was purely a personal thought. He believed the Boy Scouts of America needed a leader; that the colonel was the one man in the United States fitted by every natural quality to be that leader; that the Scouts would rally around him, and that, at his call, instead of four hundred thousand Scouts, as there were then, the organization would grow into a million and more. Bok further explained that he believed his connection with the national organization was sufficient, if Colonel Roosevelt would favorably consider such a leadership, to warrant him in presenting it to the national officers; and he was inclined to believe they would welcome the opportunity. He could not assure the colonel of this! He had no authority for saying they would; but was Colonel Roosevelt receptive to the idea?

At first, the colonel could not see it. But he went over the ground as thoroughly as a half-hour talk permitted; and finally the opportunity for doing a piece of constructive work that might prove second to none that he had ever done, made its appeal.

"You mean for me to be the active head?" asked the colonel.

"Could you be anything else, colonel?" answered Bok.

"Quite so," said the colonel. "That's about right. Do you know," he pondered, "I think Edie (Mrs. Roosevelt) might like me to do something like that. She would figure it would keep me out of mischief in 1920," and the colonel's smile spread over his face.

"Bok," he at last concluded, "do you know, after all, I think you've said something! Let's think it over. Let's see how I get along with this trouble of mine. I am not sure, you know, how far I can go in the future. Not at all sure, you know—not at all. That last trip of mine to South America was a bit too much. Shouldn't have done it, you know. I know it now. Well, as I say, let's both think it over and through; I will, gladly and most carefully. There's much in what you say; it's a great chance; I'd love doing it. By Jove! it would be wonderful to rally a million boys for real Americanism, as you say. It looms up as I think it over. Suppose we let it simmer for a month or two."

And so it was left—for "a month or two." It was to be forever—unfortunately. Edward Bok has always felt that the most worth-while idea that ever came to him had, for some reason he never could understand, come too late. He felt, as he will always feel, that the boys of America had lost a national leader that might have led them—where would have been the limit?



XXV. The President and the Boy

One of the incidents connected with Edward Bok that Theodore Roosevelt never forgot was when Bok's eldest boy chose the colonel as a Christmas present. And no incident better portrays the wonderful character of the colonel than did his remarkable response to the compliment.

A vicious attack of double pneumonia had left the heart of the boy very weak—and Christmas was close by! So the father said:

"It's a quiet Christmas for you this year, boy. Suppose you do this: think of the one thing in the world that you would rather have than anything else and I'll give you that, and that will have to be your Christmas."

"I know now," came the instant reply.

"But the world is a big place, and there are lots of things in it, you know."

"I know that," said the boy, "but this is something I have wanted for a long time, and would rather have than anything else in the world." And he looked as if he meant it.

"Well, out with it, then, if you're so sure."

And to the father's astonished ears came this request:

"Take me to Washington as soon as my heart is all right, introduce me to President Roosevelt, and let me shake hands with him."

"All right," said the father, after recovering from his surprise. "I'll see whether I can fix it." And that morning a letter went to the President saying that he had been chosen as a Christmas present. Naturally, any man would have felt pleased, no matter how high his station, and for Theodore Roosevelt, father of boys, the message had a special appeal.

The letter had no sooner reached Washington than back came an answer, addressed not to the father but to the boy! It read:

"The White House, Washington.

"November 13th, 1907.

"Dear Curtis:

"Your father has just written me, and I want him to bring you on and shake hands with me as soon as you are well enough to travel. Then I am going to give you, myself, a copy of the book containing my hunting trips since I have been President; unless you will wait until the new edition, which contains two more chapters, is out. If so, I will send it to you, as this new edition probably won't be ready when you come on here.

"Give my warm regards to your father and mother.

"Sincerely yours,

"Theodore Roosevelt."

Here was joy serene! But the boy's heart had acted queerly for a few days, and so the father wrote, thanked the President, and said that as soon as the heart moderated a bit the letter would be given the boy. It was a rare bit of consideration that now followed. No sooner had the father's letter reached the White House than an answer came back by first post—this time with a special-delivery stamp on it. It was Theodore Roosevelt, the father, who wrote this time; his mind and time filled with affairs of state, and yet full of tender thoughtfulness for a little boy:

"Dear Mr. Bok:—

"I have your letter of the 16th instant. I hope the little fellow will soon be all right. Instead of giving him my letter, give him a message from me based on the letter, if that will be better for him. Tell Mrs. Bok how deeply Mrs. Roosevelt and I sympathize with her. We know just how she feels.

"Sincerely yours,

"Theodore Roosevelt."

"That's pretty fine consideration," said the father. He got the letter during a business conference and he read it aloud to the group of business men. Some there were in that group who keenly differed with the President on national issues, but they were all fathers, and two of the sturdiest turned and walked to the window as they said: "Yes, that is fine!"

Then came the boy's pleasure when he was handed the letter; the next few days were spent inditing an answer to "my friend, the President." At last the momentous epistle seemed satisfactory, and off to the busy presidential desk went the boyish note, full of thanks and assurances that he would come just as soon as he could, and that Mr. Roosevelt must not get impatient!

The "soon as he could" time, however, did not come as quickly as all had hoped!—a little heart pumped for days full of oxygen and accelerated by hypodermic injections is slow to mend. But the President's framed letter, hanging on the spot on the wall first seen in the morning, was a daily consolation.

Then, in March, although four months after the promise—and it would not have been strange, in his busy life, for the President to have forgotten or at least overlooked it—on the very day that the book was published came a special "large-paper" copy of The Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, and on the fly-leaf there greeted the boy, in the President's own hand:

"To Master Curtis Bok,

"With the best wishes of his friend,

"Theodore Roosevelt.

"March 11, 1908."

The boy's cup was now full, and so said his letter to the President. And the President wrote back to the father: "I am really immensely amused and interested, and shall be mighty glad to see the little fellow."

In the spring, on a beautiful May day, came the great moment. The mother had to go along, the boy insisted, to see the great event, and so the trio found themselves shaking the hand of the President's secretary at the White House.

"Oh, the President is looking for you, all right," he said to the boy, and then the next moment the three were in a large room. Mr. Roosevelt, with beaming face, was already striding across the room, and with a "Well, well, and so this is my friend Curtis!" the two stood looking into each other's faces, each fairly wreathed in smiles, and each industriously shaking the hand of the other.

"Yes, Mr. President, I'm mighty glad to see you!" said the boy.

"I am glad to see you, Curtis," returned Mr. Roosevelt.

Then there came a white rose from the presidential desk for the mother, but after that father and mother might as well have faded away. Nobody existed save the President and the boy. The anteroom was full; in the Cabinet-room a delegation waited to be addressed. But affairs of state were at a complete standstill as, with boyish zeal, the President became oblivious to all but the boy before him.

"Now, Curtis, I've got some pictures here of bears that a friend of mine has just shot. Look at that whopper, fifteen hundred pounds—that's as much as a horse weighs, you know. Now, my friend shot him"—and it was a toss-up who was the more keenly interested, the real boy or the man-boy, as picture after picture came out and bear adventure crowded upon the heels of bear adventure.

"Gee, he's a corker, all right!" came from the boy at one point, and then, from the President: "That's right, he is a corker. Now you see his head here"—and then both were off again.

The private secretary came in at this point and whispered in the President's ear.

"I know, I know. I'll see him later. Say that I am very busy now." And the face beamed with smiles.

"Now, Mr. President—" began the father.

"No, sir; no, sir; not at all. Affairs can wait. This is a long-standing engagement between Curtis and me, and that must come first. Isn't that so, Curtis?"

Of course the boy agreed.

Suddenly the boy looked around the room and said:

"Where's your gun, Mr. President? Got it here?"

"No," laughingly came from the President, "but I'll tell you"—and then the two heads were together again.

A moment for breath-taking came, and the boy said:

"Aren't you ever afraid of being shot?"

"You mean while I am hunting?"

"Oh, no. I mean as President."

"No," replied the smiling President. "I'll tell you, Curtis; I'm too busy to think about that. I have too many things to do to bother about anything of that sort. When I was in battle I was always too anxious to get to the front to think about the shots. And here—well, here I'm too busy too. Never think about it. But I'll tell you, Curtis, there are some men down there," pointing out of the window in the direction of the capitol, "called the Congress, and if they would only give me the four battleships I want, I'd be perfectly willing to have any one take a crack at me." Then, for the first time recognizing the existence of the parents, the President said: "And I don't know but if they did pick me off I'd be pretty well ahead of the game."

Just in that moment only did the boy-knowing President get a single inch above the boy-interest. It was astonishing to see the natural accuracy with which the man gauged the boy-level.

"Now, how would you like to see a bear, Curtis?" came next. "I know where there's a beauty, twelve hundred pounds."

"Must be some bear!" interjected the boy.

"That's what it is," put in the President. "Regular cinnamon-brown type"—and then off went the talk to the big bear at the Washington "Zoo" where the President was to send the boy.

Then, after a little: "Now, Curtis, see those men over there in that room. They've travelled from all parts of the country to come here at my invitation, and I've got to make a little speech to them, and I'll do that while you go off to see the bear."

And then the hand came forth to say good-by. The boy put his in it, each looked into the other's face, and on neither was there a place big enough to put a ten-cent piece that was not wreathed in smiles. "He certainly is all right," said the boy to the father, looking wistfully after the President.

Almost to the other room had the President gone when he, too, instinctively looked back to find the boy following him with his eyes. He stopped, wheeled around, and then the two instinctively sought each other again. The President came back, the boy went forward. This time each held out both hands, and as each looked once more into the other's eyes a world of complete understanding was in both faces, and every looker-on smiled with them.

"Good-by, Curtis," came at last from the President.

"Good-by, Mr. President," came from the boy.

Then, with another pump-handly shake and with a "Gee, but he's great, all right!" the boy went out to see the cinnamon-bear at the "Zoo," and to live it all over in the days to come.

Two boy-hearts had met, although one of them belonged to the President of the United States.



XXVI. The Literary Back-Stairs

His complete absorption in the magazine work now compelled Bok to close his newspaper syndicate in New York and end the writing of his weekly newspaper literary letter. He decided, however, to transfer to the pages of his magazine his idea of making the American public more conversant with books and authors. Accordingly, he engaged Robert Bridges (the present editor of Scribner's Magazine) to write a series of conversational book-talks under his nom de plume of "Droch." Later, this was supplemented by the engagement of Hamilton W. Mabie, who for years reviewed the newest books.

In almost every issue of the magazine there appeared also an article addressed to the literary novice. Bok was eager, of course, to attract the new authors to the magazine; but, particularly, he had in mind the correction of the popular notion, then so prevalent (less so to-day, fortunately, but still existent), that only the manuscripts of famous authors were given favorable reading in editorial offices; that in these offices there really existed a clique, and that unless the writer knew the literary back-stairs he had a slim chance to enter and be heard.

In the minds of these misinformed writers, these back-stairs are gained by "knowing the editor" or through "having some influence with him." These writers have conclusively settled two points in their own minds: first, that an editor is antagonistic to the struggling writer; and, second, that a manuscript sent in the ordinary manner to an editor never reaches him. Hence, some "influence" is necessary, and they set about to secure it.

Now, the truth is, of course, that there are no "literary back-stairs" to the editorial office of the modern magazine. There cannot be. The making of a modern magazine is a business proposition; the editor is there to make it pay. He can do this only if he is of service to his readers, and that depends on his ability to obtain a class of material essentially the best of its kind and varied in its character.

The "best," while it means good writing, means also that it shall say something. The most desired writer in the magazine office is the man who has something to say, and knows how to say it. Variety requires that there shall be many of these writers, and it is the editor's business to ferret them out. It stands to reason, therefore, that there can be no such thing as a "clique"; limitation by the editor of his list of authors would mean being limited to the style of the few and the thoughts of a handful. And with a public that easily tires even of the best where it continually comes from one source, such an editorial policy would be suicidal.

Hence, if the editor is more keenly alert for one thing than for another, it is for the new writer. The frequency of the new note in his magazine is his salvation; for just in proportion as he can introduce that new note is his success with his readers. A successful magazine is exactly like a successful store: it must keep its wares constantly fresh and varied to attract the eye and hold the patronage of its customers.

With an editor ever alive to the new message, the new note, the fresh way of saying a thing, the new angle on a current subject, whether in article or story—since fiction is really to-day only a reflection of modern thought—the foolish notion that an editor must be approached through "influence," by a letter of introduction from some friend or other author, falls of itself. There is no more powerful lever to open the modern magazine door than a postage-stamp on an envelope containing a manuscript that says something. No influence is needed to bring that manuscript to the editor's desk or to his attention. That he will receive it the sender need not for a moment doubt; his mail is too closely scanned for that very envelope.

The most successful authors have "broken into" the magazines very often without even a letter accompanying their first manuscript. The name and address in the right-hand corner of the first page; some "return" stamps in the left corner, and all that the editor requires is there. The author need tell nothing about the manuscript; if what the editor wants is in it he will find it. An editor can stand a tremendous amount of letting alone. If young authors could be made to realize how simple is the process of "breaking into" the modern magazine, which apparently gives them such needless heartburn, they would save themselves infinite pains, time, and worry.

Despite all the rubbish written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it was least expected.

This does not mean that every manuscript received by a magazine is read from first page to last. There is no reason why it should be, any more than that all of a bad egg should be eaten to prove that it is bad. The title alone sometimes decides the fate of a manuscript. If the subject discussed is entirely foreign to the aims of the magazine, it is simply a case of misapplication on the author's part; and it would be a waste of time for the editor to read something which he knows from its subject he cannot use.

This, of course, applies more to articles than to other forms of literary work, although unsuitability in a poem is naturally as quickly detected. Stories, no matter how unpromising they may appear at the beginning, are generally read through, since gold in a piece of fiction has often been found almost at the close. This careful attention to manuscripts in editorial offices is fixed by rules, and an author's indorsement or a friend's judgment never affects the custom.

At no time does the fallacy hold in a magazine office that "a big name counts for everything and an unknown name for nothing." There can be no denial of the fact that where a name of repute is attached to a meritorious story or article the combination is ideal. But as between an indifferent story and a well-known name and a good story with an unknown name the editor may be depended upon to accept the latter. Editors are very careful nowadays to avoid the public impatience that invariably follows upon publishing material simply on account of the name attached to it. Nothing so quickly injures the reputation of a magazine in the estimation of its readers. If a person, taking up a magazine, reads a story attracted by a famous name, and the story disappoints, the editor has a doubly disappointed reader on his hands: a reader whose high expectations from the name have not been realized and who is disappointed with the story.

It is a well-known fact among successful magazine editors that their most striking successes have been made by material to which unknown names were attached, where the material was fresh, the approach new, the note different. That is what builds up a magazine; the reader learns to have confidence in what he finds in the periodical, whether it bears a famous name or not.

Nor must the young author believe that the best work in modern magazine literature "is dashed off at white heat." What is dashed off reads dashed off, and one does not come across it in the well-edited magazine, because it is never accepted. Good writing is laborious writing, the result of revision upon revision. The work of masters such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling represents never less than eight or ten revisions, and often a far greater number. It was Stevenson who once said to Edward Bok, after a laborious correction of certain proofs: "My boy, I could be a healthy man, I think, if I did something else than writing. But to write, as I try to write, takes every ounce of my vitality." Just as the best "impromptu" speeches are those most carefully prepared, so do the simplest articles and stories represent the hardest kind of work; the simpler the method seems and the easier the article reads, the harder, it is safe to say, was the work put into it.

But the author must also know when to let his material alone. In his excessive regard for style even so great a master as Robert Louis Stevenson robbed his work of much of the spontaneity and natural charm found, for example, in his Vailima Letters. The main thing is for a writer to say what he has to say in the best way, natural to himself, in which he can say it, and then let it alone—always remembering that, provided he has made himself clear, the message itself is of greater import than the manner in which it is said. Up to a certain point only is a piece of literary work an artistic endeavor. A readable, lucid style is far preferable to what is called a "literary style"—a foolish phrase, since it often means nothing except a complicated method of expression which confuses rather than clarifies thought. What the public wants in its literature is human nature, and that human nature simply and forcibly expressed. This is fundamental, and this is why true literature has no fashion and knows no change, despite the cries of the modern weaklings who affect weird forms. The clarity of Shakespeare is the clarity of to-day and will be that of to-morrow.



XXVII. Women's Clubs and Woman Suffrage

Edward Bok was now jumping from one sizzling frying-pan into another. He had become vitally interested in the growth of women's clubs as a power for good, and began to follow their work and study their methods. He attended meetings; he had his editors attend others and give him reports; he collected and read the year-books of scores of clubs, and he secured and read a number of the papers that had been presented by members at these meetings. He saw at once that what might prove a wonderful power in the civic life of the nation was being misdirected into gatherings of pseudo-culture, where papers ill-digested and mostly copied from books were read and superficially discussed.

Apparently the average club thought nothing of disposing of the works of the Victorian poets in one afternoon; the Italian Renaissance was "fully treated and most ably discussed," according to one programme, at a single meeting; Rembrandt and his school were likewise disposed of in one afternoon, and German literature was "adequately treated" at one session "in able papers."