The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 31

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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 ma.n.u.script 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 cla.s.s 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 ma.n.u.script that says something. No influence is needed to bring that ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 ma.n.u.script; 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, ma.n.u.scripts 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 ma.n.u.script unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it was least expected.

This does not mean that every ma.n.u.script 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 t.i.tle alone sometimes decides the fate of a ma.n.u.script. 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 ma.n.u.scripts in editorial offices is fixed by rules, and an author's indors.e.m.e.nt 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 fas.h.i.+on 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."

Bok gathered a ma.s.s of this material, and then paid his respects to it in the magazine. He recited his evidence and then expressed his opinion of it. He realized that his arraignment of the clubs would cost the magazine hundreds of friends; but, convinced of the great power of the woman's club with its activities rightly directed, he concluded that he could afford to risk incurring displeasure if he might point the way to more effective work. The one was worth the other.

The displeasure was not slow in making itself manifest. It came to maturity overnight, as it were, and expressed itself in no uncertain terms. Every club flew to arms, and Bok was intensely interested to note that the clubs whose work he had taken as "horrible examples," although he had not mentioned their names, were the most strenuous in their denials of the methods outlined in the magazine, and that the members of those clubs were particularly heated in their attacks upon him.

He soon found that he had stirred up quite as active a hornet's nest as he had antic.i.p.ated. Letters by the hundred poured in attacking and reviling him. In nearly every case the writers fell back upon personal abuse, ignoring his arguments altogether. He became the subject of heated debates at club meetings, at conventions, in the public press; and soon long pet.i.tions demanding his removal as editor began to come to Mr. Curtis. These pet.i.tions were signed by hundreds of names. Bok read them with absorbed interest, and bided his time for action. Meanwhile he continued his articles of criticism in the magazine, and these, of course, added fuel to the conflagration.

Former President Cleveland now came to Bok's side, and in an article in the magazine went even further than Bok had ever thought of going in his criticism of women's clubs. This article deflected the criticism from Bok momentarily, and Mr. Cleveland received a grilling to which his experiences in the White House were "as child's play," as he expressed it. The two men, the editor and the former President, were now bracketed as copartners in crime in the eyes of the club-women, and nothing too harsh could be found to say or write of either.

Meanwhile Bok had been watching the pet.i.tions for his removal which kept coming in. He was looking for an opening, and soon found it. One of the most prominent women's clubs sent a protest condemning his att.i.tude and advising him by resolutions, which were enclosed, that unless he ceased his attacks, the members of the -- Woman's Club had resolved "to unitedly and unanimously boycott The Ladies' Home Journal and had already put the plan into effect with the current issue."

Bok immediately engaged counsel in the city where the club was situated, and instructed his lawyer to begin proceedings, for violation of the Sherman Act, against the president and the secretary of the club, and three other members; counsel to take particular pains to choose, if possible, the wives of three lawyers.

Within forty-eight hours Bok heard from the husbands of the five wives, who pointed out to him that the women had acted in entire ignorance of the law, and suggested a reconsideration of his action. Bok replied by quoting from the pet.i.tion which set forth that it was signed "by the most intelligent women of -- who were thoroughly versed in civic and national affairs"; and if this were true, Bok argued, it naturally followed that they must have been cognizant of a legislative measure so well known and so widely discussed as the Sherman Act. He was basing his action, he said, merely on their declaration.

Bok could easily picture to himself the chagrin and wrath of the women, with the husbands laughing up their sleeves at the turn of affairs. "My wife never could see the humor in the situation," said one of these husbands to Bok, when he met him years later. Bok capitulated, and then apparently with great reluctance, only when the club sent him an official withdrawal of the protest and an apology for "its ill-considered action." It was years after that one of the members of the club, upon meeting Bok, said to him: "Your action did not increase the club's love for you, but you taught it a much-needed lesson which it never forgot."

Up to this time, Bok had purposely been destructive in his criticism.

Now, he pointed out a constructive plan whereby the woman's club could make itself a power in every community. He advocated less of the cultural and more of the civic interest, and urged that the clubs study the numerous questions dealing with the life of their communities. This seems strange, in view of the enormous amount of civic work done by women's clubs to-day. But at that time, when the woman's club movement was unformed, these civic matters found but a small part in the majority of programmes; in a number of cases none at all.

Of course, the clubs refused to accept or even to consider his suggestions; they were quite competent to decide for themselves the particular subjects for their meetings, they argued; they did not care to be tutored or guided, particularly by Bok. They were much too angry with him even to admit that his suggestions were practical and in order.

But he knew, of course, that they would adopt them of their own volition--under cover, perhaps, but that made no difference, so long as the end was accomplished. One club after another, during the following years, changed its programme, and soon the supposed cultural interest had yielded first place to the needful civic questions.

For years, however, the club-women of America did not forgive Bok. They refused to buy or countenance his magazine, and periodically they attacked it or made light of it. But he knew he had made his point, and was content to leave it to time to heal the wounds. This came years afterward, when Mrs. Pennypacker became president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and Mrs. Rudolph Blankenburg, vice-president.

Those two far-seeing women and Bok arranged that an official department of the Federation should find a place in The Ladies' Home Journal, with Mrs. Pennypacker as editor and Mrs. Blankenburg, who lived in Philadelphia, as the resident consulting editor. The idea was arranged agreeably to all three; the Federation officially endorsed its president's suggestion, and for several years the department was one of the most successful in the magazine.

The breach had been healed; two powerful forces were working together, as they should, for the mutual good of the American woman. No relations could have been pleasanter than those between the editor-in-chief of the magazine and the two departmental editors. The report was purposely set afloat that Bok had withdrawn from his position of antagonism (?) toward women's clubs, and this gave great satisfaction to thousands of women club-members and made everybody happy!

At this time the question of suffrage for women was fast becoming a prominent issue, and naturally Bok was asked to take a stand on the question in his magazine. No man sat at a larger gateway to learn the sentiments of numbers of women on any subject. He read his vast correspondence carefully. He consulted women of every grade of intelligence and in every station in life. Then he caused a straw-vote to be taken among a selected list of thousands of his subscribers in large cities and in small towns. The result of all these inquiries was most emphatic and clear: by far the overwhelming majority of the women approached either were opposed to the ballot or were indifferent to it.

Those who desired to try the experiment were negligible in number. So far as the sentiment of any wide public can be secured on any given topic, this seemed to be the dominant opinion.

Bok then inst.i.tuted a systematic investigation of conditions in those states where women had voted for years; but he could not see, from a thoughtful study of his investigations, that much had been accomplished.

The results certainly did not measure up to the prophecies constantly advanced by the advocates of a nation-wide equal suffrage.

The editor now carefully looked into the speeches of the suffragists, examined the platform of the National body in favor of woman suffrage, and talked at length with such leaders in the movement as Susan B.

Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Howard Shaw, and Jane Addams.

All this time Bok had kept his own mind open. He was ready to have the magazine, for whose editorial policy he was responsible, advocate that side of the issue which seemed for the best interests of the American woman.

The arguments that a woman should not have a vote because she was a woman; that it would interfere with her work in the home; that it would make her more masculine; that it would take her out of her own home; that it was a blow at domesticity and an actual menace to the home life of America--these did not weight with him. There was only one question for him to settle: Was the ballot something which, in its demonstrated value or in its potentiality, would serve the best interests of American womanhood?

After all his investigations of both sides of the question, Bok decided upon a negative answer. He felt that American women were not ready to exercise the privilege intelligently and that their mental att.i.tude was against it.

Forthwith he said so in his magazine. And the storm broke. The denunciations brought down upon him by his att.i.tude toward woman's clubs was as nothing compared to what was now let loose. The attacks were bitter. His arguments were ignored; and the suffragists evidently decided to concentrate their criticisms upon the youthful years of the editor. They regarded this as a most vulnerable point of attack, and reams of paper were used to prove that the opinion of a man so young in years and so necessarily unformed in his judgment was of no value.

Unfortunately, the suffragists did not know, when they advanced this argument, that it would be overthrown by the endors.e.m.e.nt of Bok's point of view by such men and women of years and ripe judgment as Doctor Eliot, then president of Harvard University, former President Cleveland, Lyman Abbott, Margaret Deland, and others. When articles by these opponents to suffrage appeared, the argument of youth hardly held good; and the attacks of the suffragists were quickly s.h.i.+fted to the ground of "narrow-mindedness and old-fas.h.i.+oned fogyism."

The article by former President Cleveland particularly stirred the ire of the attacking suffragists, and Miss Anthony hurled a broadside at the former President in a newspaper interview. Unfortunately for her best judgment, and the strength of her argument, the attack became intensely personal; and of course, nullified its force. But it irritated Mr.

Cleveland, who called Bok to his Princeton home and read him a draft of a proposed answer for publication in Bok's magazine.