Edward W. Bok

Despite all the rubbish written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more…

This, of course, applies more to articles than to other forms of literary work, although unsuitability in a poem is naturally as quickly detected.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Apparently the average club thought nothing of disposing of the works of the Victorian poets in one afternoon; the Italian Renaissance was "fully…

Bok gathered a mass of this material, and then paid his respects to it in the magazine. He recited his evidence and then expressed his opinion of it.…

The displeasure was not slow in making itself manifest. It came to maturity overnight, as it were, and expressed itself in no uncertain terms.…

He soon found that he had stirred up quite as active a hornet's nest as he had anticipated. Letters by the hundred poured in attacking and reviling…

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…

Meanwhile Bok had been watching the petitions for his removal which kept coming in. He was looking for an opening, and soon found it. One of the most…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

The breach had been healed; two powerful forces were working together, as they should, for the mutual good of the American woman. No relations…

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…

Bok then instituted a systematic investigation of conditions in those states where women had voted for years; but he could not see, from a thoughtful…

The editor now carefully looked into the speeches of the suffragists, examined the platform of the National body in favor of woman suffrage, and…

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…

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…

Forthwith he said so in his magazine. And the storm broke. The denunciations brought down upon him by his attitude toward woman's clubs was as…

Unfortunately, the suffragists did not know, when they advanced this argument, that it would be overthrown by the endorsement of Bok's point of…

The article by former President Cleveland particularly stirred the ire of the attacking suffragists, and Miss Anthony hurled a broadside at the…

These arguments happily prevailed. In reality, Mr. Cleveland was not keen to attack Miss Anthony or any other woman; such a thought was foreign to…

As events turned out, it was indeed fortunate that the matter had been so decided; for the article would have appeared in the number of Bok's…

More often than not the editor hears "stories" that, if printed, would be a "scoop" which would cause his publication to be talked about from one end…

At this juncture, Rudyard Kipling unconsciously came into the very centre of the suffragists' maelstrom of attack when he sent Bok his famous poem: "…

It was a merry time; and the longer it continued the more heated were the attacks. The suffragists now had a number of targets, and they took each in…

At last Bok reached the stage where he had exhausted all the arguments worth printing, on both sides of the question, and soon the storm calmed down.

It was always a matter of gratification to him that the woman who had most bitterly assailed him during the suffrage controversy, Anna Howard Shaw,…

"Such help," she wrote at the close, "as you and your associates have extended me and my co-workers; such unstinted co-operation and such practical…

So the contending forces in a bitter word-war came together and worked together, and a mutual regard sprang up between the woman and the man who…

It was in June, 1899, when Rudyard Kipling, after the loss of his daughter and his own almost fatal illness from pneumonia in America, sailed for his…

Kipling, just released from his long confinement, like a boy out of school, was the life of the party--and when, one day, he found a woman aboard…

One day it was decided by the party that Bok should be taught the game of poker, and Kipling at once offered to be the instructor! He wrote out a…

A baby had been born that evening in the steerage, and it was decided to inaugurate a small "jack-pot" for the benefit of the mother. All went well…

Father Kipling was, in every sense, a choice spirit: gentle, kindly, and of a most remarkably even temperament. His knowledge of art, his wide…

One day Kipling and Bok were engaged in a discussion of the Boer problem, which was then pressing. Father Kipling sat by listening, but made no…

"No," and for the first time the pipe was removed for a moment. "A critic is one who only exists as such in his own imagination."

During the years which intervened until his passing away, Bok sought to keep in touch with Father Kipling, and received the most wonderful letters…

"I am sending with this for your acceptance," wrote Kipling to Bok, "as some little memory of my father to whom you were so kind, the original of one…

To those who knew Lockwood Kipling, it is easier to understand the genius and the kindliness of the son. For the sake of the public's knowledge, it…

If you can talk to crowds and keep your virtue, And walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If…

It was on Bok's fiftieth birthday that Kipling sent him a copy of "If." Bok had greatly admired this poem, but knowing Kipling's distaste for writing…

The lecture bureaus now desired that Edward Bok should go on the platform. Bok had never appeared in the role of a lecturer, but he reasoned that…

Large audiences greeted him wherever he went, but he had not gone far on his tour when he realized that he was not getting what he thought he would.…

The idea from this talk that impressed Bok, however, with particular force, was that the people who crowded his houses came to see him and not to…

The Saint Joseph engagement could not be cancelled. The house had been oversold; it was for the benefit of a local charity which besought Bok by wire…

Then, to his consternation, it suddenly dawned upon him that his tired mind had played a serious trick on him. He did not remember a line of his…

When he reached home, he was convinced that he had had enough of lecturing! He had to make a second short tour, however, for which he had…

"Usually," said Bok, "men, for some reason or other, hold aloof from me on these lecture tours. They stand at a distance and eye me, and I see wonder…

"I'll tell you," said Riley. "Five or six of the men you met to-night were loath to come. When I pinned them down to their reason, it was I thought:…

"Fact," said Riley, "and you can't wonder at it nor blame them. You have been most industriously paragraphed, in countless jests, about your penchant…

But the public conception of himself, especially that of men, awakened his interest and amusement. Some of his friends on the press were still busy…

One day Bok got a distinctly amusing line on himself from a chance stranger. He was riding from Washington to Philadelphia in the smoking compartment…

"Oh, well," answered Bok, with a slight start at the matter-of-fact announcement, "that is serious; quite serious. If you will explain your complaint…

The moment the woman came in, she began a perfect torrent of abuse. Bok could not piece out, try as he might, what it was all about. But he did…