The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 38

The editorial Edward Bok enjoyed this hugely; the real Edward Bok did not. The one was bottled up in the other. It was a case of absolute self-effacement. The man behind the editor knew that if he followed his own personal tastes and expressed them in his magazine, a limited audience would be his instead of the enormous clientele that he was now reaching. It was the man behind the editor who had sought expression in the idea of Country Life, the magazine which his company sold to Doubleday, Page & Company, and which he would personally have enjoyed editing.

It was in 1913 that the real Edward Bok, bottled up for twenty-five years, again came to the surface. The majority stockholders of The Century Magazine wanted to dispose of their interest in the periodical.

Overtures were made to The Curtis Publis.h.i.+ng Company, but its hands were full, and the matter was presented for Bok's personal consideration. The idea interested him, as he saw in The Century a chance for his self-expression. He entered into negotiations, looked carefully into the property itself and over the field which such a magazine might fill, decided to buy it, and install an active editor while he, as a close adviser, served as the propelling power.

Bok figured out that there was room for one of the trio of what was, and still is, called the standard-sized magazines, namely Scribner's, Harper's, and The Century. He believed, as he does to-day, that any one of these magazines could be so edited as to preserve all its traditions and yet be so ingrafted with the new progressive, modern spirit as to dominate the field and const.i.tute itself the leader in that particular group. He believed that there was a field which would produce a circulation in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million copies a month for one of those magazines, so that it would be considered not, as now, one of three, but the one.

What Bok saw in the possibilities of the standard ill.u.s.trated magazine has been excellently carried out by Mr. Ellery Sedgwick in The Atlantic Monthly; every tradition has been respected, and yet the new progressive note introduced has given it a position and a circulation never before attained by a non-ill.u.s.trated magazine of the highest cla.s.s.

As Bok studied the field, his confidence in the proposition, as he saw it, grew. For his own amus.e.m.e.nt, he made up some six issues of The Century as he visualized it, and saw that the articles he had included were all obtainable. He selected a business manager and publisher who would relieve him of the manufacturing problems; but before the contract was actually closed Bok, naturally, wanted to consult Mr. Curtis, who was just returning from abroad, as to this proposed sharing of his editor.

For one man to edit two magazines inevitably meant a distribution of effort, and this Mr. Curtis counselled against. He did not believe that any man could successfully serve two masters; it would also mean a division of public a.s.sociation; it might result in Bok's physical undoing, as already he was overworked. Mr. Curtis's arguments, of course, prevailed; the negotiations were immediately called off, and for the second time--for some wise reason, undoubtedly--the real Edward Bok was subdued. He went back into the bottle!

A cardinal point in Edward Bok's code of editing was not to commit his magazine to unwritten material, or to accept and print articles or stories simply because they were the work of well-known persons. And as his acquaintance with authors multiplied, he found that the greater the man the more willing he was that his work should stand or fall on its merit, and that the editor should retain his prerogative of declination--if he deemed it wise to exercise it.

Rudyard Kipling was, and is, a notable example of this broad and just policy. His work is never imposed upon an editor; it is invariably submitted, in its completed form, for acceptance or declination. "Wait until it's done," said Kipling once to Bok as he outlined a story to him which the editor liked, "and see whether you want it. You can't tell until then." (What a difference from the type of author who insists that an editor must take his or her story before a line is written!)

"I told Watt to send you," he writes to Bok, "the first four of my child stories (you see I hadn't forgotten my promise), and they may serve to amuse you for a while personally, even if you don't use them for publication. Frankly, I don't myself see how they can be used for the L.

H. J.; but they're part of a scheme of mine for trying to give children not a notion of history, but a notion of the time sense which is at the bottom of all knowledge of history; and history, rightly understood, means the love of one's fellow-men and the land one lives in."

James Whitcomb Riley was another who believed that an editor should have the privilege of saying "No" if he so elected. When Riley was writing a series of poems for Bok, the latter, not liking a poem which the Hoosier poet sent him, returned it to him. He wondered how Riley would receive a declination--naturally a rare experience. But his immediate answer settled the question:

"Thanks equally for your treatment of both poems, [he wrote], the one accepted and the other returned. Maintain your own opinions and respect, and my vigorous esteem for you shall remain 'deep-rooted in the fruitful soil.' No occasion for apology whatever. In my opinion, you are wrong; in your opinion, you are right; therefore, you are right,--at least righter than wronger. It is seldom that I drop other work for logic, but when I do, as my grandfather was wont to st.u.r.dily remark, 'it is to some purpose, I can promise you.'

"Am goin' to try mighty hard to send you the dialect work you've so long wanted; in few weeks at furthest. 'Patience and shuffle the cards.'

"I am really, just now, stark and bare of one common-sense idea. In the writing line, I was never so involved before and see no end to the ink-(an humorous voluntary provocative, I trust of much merriment)-creasing pressure of it all.

"Even the hope of waking to find myself famous is denied me, since I haven't time in which to fall asleep. Therefore, very drowsily and yawningly indeed, I am your

"James Whitcomb Riley."

Neither did the President of the United States consider himself above a possible declination of his material if it seemed advisable to the editor. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson wrote to Bok:

"Sometime ago you kindly intimated to me that you would like to publish an article from me. At first, it seemed impossible for me to undertake anything of the kind, but I have found a little interval in which I have written something on Mexico which I hope you will think worthy of publication. If not, will you return it to me?"

The President, too, acted as an intermediary in turning authors in Bok's direction, when the way opened. In a letter written not on the official White House letterhead, but on his personal "up-stairs" stationery, as it is called, he asks:

"Will you do me the favor of reading the enclosed to see if it is worthy of your acceptance for the Journal, or whether you think it indicates that the writer, with a few directions and suggestions, might be useful to you?

"It was written by --. She is a woman of great refinement, of a very unusually broad social experience, and of many exceptional gifts, who thoroughly knows what she is writing about, whether she has yet discovered the best way to set it forth or not. She is one of the most gifted and resourceful hostesses I have known, but has now fallen upon hard times.

"Among other things that she really knows, she really does thoroughly know old furniture and all kinds of china worth knowing.

"Pardon me if I have been guilty of an indiscretion in sending this direct to you. I am throwing myself upon your indulgence in my desire to help a splendid woman.

"She has a great collection of recipes which housekeepers would like to have. Does a serial cook-book sound like nonsense?"

A further point in his editing which Bok always kept in view was his rule that the editor must always be given the privilege of revising or editing a ma.n.u.script. Bok's invariable rule was, of course, to submit his editing for approval, but here again the bigger the personality back of the material, the more willing the author was to have his ma.n.u.script "blue pencilled," if he were convinced that the deletions or condensations improved or at least did not detract from his arguments.

It was the small author who ever resented the touch of the editorial pencil upon his precious effusions.

As a matter of fact there are few authors who cannot be edited with advantage, and it would be infinitely better for our reading if this truth was applied to some of the literature of to-day.

Bok had once under his hand a story by Mark Twain, which he believed contained pa.s.sages that should be deleted. They represented a goodly portion of the ma.n.u.script. They were, however, taken out, and the result submitted to the humorist. The answer was curious. Twain evidently saw that Bok was right, for he wrote: "Of course, I want every single line and word of it left out," and then added: "Do me the favor to call the next time you are again in Hartford. I want to say things which--well, I want to argue with you." Bok never knew what those "things" were, for at the next meeting they were not referred to.

It is, perhaps, a curious coincidence that all the Presidents of the United States whose work Bok had occasion to publish were uniformly liberal with regard to having their material edited.

Colonel Roosevelt was always ready to concede improvement: "Fine," he wrote; "the changes are much for the better. I never object to my work being improved, where it needs it, so long as the sense is not altered."

William Howard Taft wrote, after being subjected to editorial revision: "You have done very well by my article. You have made it much more readable by your rearrangement."

Mr. Cleveland was very likely to let his interest in a subject run counter to the s.p.a.ce exigencies of journalism; and Bok, in one instance, had to reduce one of his articles considerably. He explained the reason and enclosed the revision.

"I am entirely willing to have the article cut down as you suggest,"

wrote the former President. "I find sufficient reason for this in the fact that the matter you suggest for elimination has been largely exploited lately. And in looking the matter over carefully, I am inclined to think that the article expurgated as you suggest will gain in unity and directness. At first, I feared it would appear a little 'bobbed' off, but you are a much better judge of that than I. ... I leave it altogether to you."

It was always interesting to Bok, as a study of mental processes, to note how differently he and some author with whom he would talk it over would see the method of treating some theme. He was discussing the growing unrest among American women with Rudyard Kipling at the latter's English home; and expressed the desire that the novelist should treat the subject and its causes.

They talked until the early hours, when it was agreed that each should write out a plan, suggest the best treatment, and come together the next morning. When they did so, Kipling had mapped out the scenario of a novel; Bok had sketched out the headings of a series of a.n.a.lytical articles. Neither one could see the other's viewpoint, Kipling contending for the greater power of fiction and Bok strongly arguing for the value of the direct essay. In this instance, the point was never settled, for the work failed to materialize in any form!

If the readers of The Ladies' Home Journal were quick to support its editor when he presented an idea that appealed to them, they were equally quick to tell him when he gave them something of which they did not approve. An ill.u.s.tration of this occurred during the dance-craze that preceded the Great War. In 1914, America was dance-mad, and the character of the dances rapidly grew more and more offensive. Bok's readers, by the hundreds, urged him to come out against the tendency.

The editor looked around and found that the country's terpsich.o.r.ean idols were Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle; he decided that, with their cooperation, he might, by thus going to the fountainhead, effect an improvement through the introduction, by the Castles, of better and more decorous new dances. Bok could see no reason why the people should not dance, if they wanted to, so long as they kept within the bounds of decency.

He found the Castles willing and eager to co-operate, not only because of the publicity it would mean for them, but because they were themselves not in favor of the new mode. They had little sympathy for the elimination of the graceful dance by the introduction of what they called the "shuffle" or the "bunny-hug," "turkey-trot," and other ungraceful and unworthy dances. It was decided that the Castles should, through Bok's magazine and their own public exhibitions, revive the gavotte, the polka, and finally the waltz. They would evolve these into new forms and Bok would present them pictorially. A series of three double-page presentations was decided upon, allowing for large photographs so that the steps could be easily seen and learned from the printed page.

The magazine containing the first "lesson" was no sooner published than protests began to come in by the hundreds. Bok had not stated his object, and the public misconstrued his effort and purpose into an acknowledgment that he had fallen a victim to the prevailing craze. He explained in letters, but to no purpose. Try as he might, Bok could not rid the pages of the savor of the cabaret. He published the three dances as agreed, but he realized he had made a mistake, and was as much disgusted as were his readers. Nor did he, in the slightest degree, improve the dance situation. The public refused to try the new Castle dances, and kept on turkey-trotting and bunny-hugging.

The Ladies' Home Journal followed the Castle lessons with a series of the most beautiful dances of Madam Pavlowa, the Russian dancer, hoping to remove the unfavorable impression of the former series. But it was only partially successful. Bok had made a mistake in recognizing the craze at all; he should have ignored it, as he had so often in the past ignored other temporary, superficial hysterics of the public. The Journal readers knew the magazine had made a mistake and frankly said so.

Which shows that, even after having been for over twenty-five years in the editorial chair, Edward Bok was by no means infallible in his judgment of what the public wanted or would accept.

No man is, for that matter.

x.x.xIV. A War Magazine and War Activities

When, early in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward Bok set himself to formulate a policy for The Ladies' Home Journal. He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position. The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks previous to that. He could not, therefore, get much closer than ten weeks to the date when his readers received the magazine. And he knew that events, in war time, had a way of moving rapidly.

Late in January he went to Was.h.i.+ngton, consulted those authorities who could indicate possibilities to him better than any one else, and found, as he had suspected, that the entry of the United States into the war was a practical certainty; it was only a question of time.

Bok went South for a month's holiday to get ready for the fray, and in the saddle and on the golf links he formulated a policy. The newspapers and weeklies would send innumerable correspondents to the front, and obviously, with the necessity for going to press so far in advance, The Journal could not compete with them. They would depict every activity in the field. There was but one logical thing for him to do: ignore the "front" entirely, refuse all the offers of correspondents, men and women, who wanted to go with the armies for his magazine, and cover fully and practically the results of the war as they would affect the women left behind. He went carefully over the ground to see what these would be, along what particular lines women's activities would be most likely to go, and then went home and back to Was.h.i.+ngton.

It was now March. He conferred with the President, had his fears confirmed, and offered all the resources of his magazine to the government. His diagnosis of the situation was verified in every detail by the authorities whom he consulted. The Ladies' Home Journal could best serve by keeping up the morale at home and by helping to meet the problems that would confront the women; as the President said: "Give help in the second line of defense."

A year before, Bok had opened a separate editorial office in Was.h.i.+ngton and had secured Dudley Harmon, the Was.h.i.+ngton correspondent for The New York Sun, as his editor-in-charge. The purpose was to bring the women of the country into a clearer understanding of their government and a closer relation with it. This work had been so successful as to necessitate a force of four offices and twenty stenographers. Bok now placed this Was.h.i.+ngton office on a war-basis, bringing it into close relation with every department of the government that would be connected with the war activities. By this means, he had an editor and an organized force on the spot, devoting full time to the preparation of war material, with Mr. Harmon in daily conference with the department chiefs to secure the newest developments.