The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 35

He waited for results. They came. But they were not those for which he had striven. After four months of his campaign, he learned from the inside of the importing-houses which dealt in the largest stocks of aigrettes in the United States that the demand for the feather had more than quadrupled! Bok was dumbfounded! He made inquiries in certain channels from which he knew he could secure the most reliable information, and after all the importers had been interviewed, the conviction was unescapable that just in proportion as Bok had dwelt upon the desirability of the aigrette as the hallmark of wealth and fashion, upon its expense, and the fact that women regarded it as the last word in feminine adornment, he had by so much made these facts familiar to thousands of women who had never before known of them, and had created the desire to own one of the precious feathers.

Bok could not and would not accept these conclusions. It seemed to him incredible that women would go so far as this in the question of personal adornment. He caused the increased sales to be traced from wholesaler to retailer, and from retailer to customer, and was amazed at the character and standing of the latter. He had a number of those buyers who lived in adjacent cities, privately approached and interviewed, and ascertained that, save in two instances, they were all his readers, had seen the gruesome pictures he had presented, and then had deliberately purchased the coveted aigrette.

Personally again he sought the most intelligent of his woman-friends, talked with scores of others, and found himself facing the same trait in feminine nature which he had encountered in his advocacy of American fashions. But this time it seemed to Bok that the facts he had presented went so much deeper.

"It will be hard for you to believe," said one of his most trusted woman-friends. "I grant your arguments: there is no gainsaying them. But you are fighting the same thing again that you do not understand: the feminine nature that craves outer adornment will secure it at any cost, even at the cost of suffering."

"Yes," argued Bok. "But if there is one thing above everything else that we believe a woman feels and understands, it is the mother-instinct. Do you mean to tell me that it means nothing to her that these birds are killed in their period of motherhood, and that a whole nest of starving baby-birds is the price of every aigrette?"

"I won't say that this does not weigh with a woman. It does, naturally.

But when it comes to her possession of an ornament of beauty, as beautiful as the aigrette, it weighs with her, but it doesn't tip the scale against her possession of it. I am sorry to have to say this to you, but it is a fact. A woman will regret that the mother-bird must be tortured and her babies starve, but she will have the aigrette. She simply trains herself to forget the origin.

"Take my own case. You will doubtless be shocked when I tell you that I was perfectly aware of the conditions under which the aigrette is obtained before you began your exposure of the method. But did it prevent my purchase of one? Not at all. Why? Because I am a woman: I realize that no head ornament will set off my hair so well as an aigrette. Say I am cruel if you like. I wish the heron-mother didn't have to be killed or the babies starve, but, Mr. Bok, I must have my beautiful aigrette!"

Bok was frankly astounded: he had certainly probed deep this time into the feminine nature. With every desire and instinct to disbelieve the facts, the deeper his inquiries went, the stronger the evidence rolled up: there was no gainsaying it; no sense in a further disbelief of it.

But Bok was determined that this time he would not fail. His sense of justice and protection to the mother-bird and her young was now fully aroused. He resolved that he would, by compulsion, bring about what he had failed to do by persuasion. He would make it impossible for women to be untrue to their most sacred instinct. He sought legal talent, had a bill drawn up making it a misdemeanor to import, sell, purchase, or wear an aigrette. Armed with this measure, and the photographs and articles which he had published, he sought and obtained the interest and promise of support of the most influential legislators in several States. He felt a sense of pride in his own s.e.x that he had no trouble in winning the immediate interest of every legislator with whom he talked.

Where he had failed with women, he was succeeding with men! The outrageous butchery of the birds and the circ.u.mstances under which they were tortured appealed with direct force to the sporting instinct in every man, and aroused him. Bok explained to each that he need expect no support for such a measure from women save from the members of the Audubon Societies, and a few humanitarian women and bird-lovers. Women, as a whole, he argued from his experiences, while they would not go so far as openly to oppose such a measure, for fear of public comment, would do nothing to further its pa.s.sage, for in their hearts they preferred failure to success for the legislation. They had frankly told him so: he was not speaking from theory.

In one State after another Bok got into touch with legislators. He counselled, in each case, a quiet pa.s.sage for the measure instead of one that would draw public attention to it.

Meanwhile, a strong initiative had come from the Audubon Societies throughout the country, and from the National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies, at New York. This latter society also caused to be introduced bills of its own to the same and in various legislatures, and here Bok had a valuable ally. It was a curious fact that the Audubon officials encountered their strongest resistance in Bok's own State: Pennsylvania.

But Bok's personal acquaintance with legislators in his Keystone State helped here materially.

The demand for the aigrette constantly increased and rose to hitherto unknown figures. In one State where Bok's measure was pending before the legislature, he heard of the coming of an unusually large shipment of aigrettes to meet this increased demand. He wired the legislator in charge of the measure apprising him of this fact, of what he intended to do, and urging speed in securing the pa.s.sage of the bill. Then he caused the shipment to be seized at the dock on the ground of illegal importation.

The importing firm at once secured an injunction restraining the seizure. Bok replied by serving a writ setting the injunction aside. The lawyers of the importers got busy, of course, but meanwhile the legislator had taken advantage of a special evening session, had the bill pa.s.sed, and induced the governor to sign it, the act taking effect at once.

This was exactly what Bok had been playing for. The aigrettes were now useless; they could not be reshipped to another State, they could not be offered for sale. The suit was dropped, and Bok had the satisfaction of seeing the entire shipment, valued at $160,000, destroyed. He had not saved the lives of the mother-birds, but, at least, he had prevented hundreds of American women from wearing the hallmark of torture.

State after State now pa.s.sed an aigrette-prohibition law until fourteen of the princ.i.p.al States, including practically all the large cities, fell into line.

Later, the National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies had introduced into the United States Congress and pa.s.sed a bill prohibiting the importation of bird-feathers into the country, thus bringing a Federal law into existence.

Bok had won his fight, it is true, but he derived little satisfaction from the character of his victory. His ideal of womanhood had received a severe jolt. Women had revealed their worst side to him, and he did not like the picture. He had appealed to what he had been led to believe was the most sacred instinct in a woman's nature. He received no response.

Moreover, he saw the deeper love for personal vanity and finery absolutely dominate the mother-instinct. He was conscious that something had toppled off its pedestal which could never be replaced.

He was aware that his mother's words, when he accepted his editorial position, were coming terribly true: "I am sorry you are going to take this position. It will cost you the high ideal you have always held of your mother's s.e.x. But a nature, as is the feminine nature, wholly swayed inwardly by emotion, and outwardly influenced by an insatiate love for personal adornment, will never stand the a.n.a.lysis you will give it."

He realized that he was paying a high price for his success. Such experiences as these--and, unfortunately, they were only two of several--were doubtless in his mind when, upon his retirement, the newspapers clamored for his opinions of women. "No, thank you," he said to one and all, "not a word."

He did not give his reasons.

He never will.

x.x.x. Cleaning Up the Patent-Medicine and Other Evils

In 1892 The Ladies' Home Journal announced that it would thereafter accept no advertis.e.m.e.nts of patent medicines for its pages. It was a pioneer stroke. During the following two years, seven other newspapers and periodicals followed suit. The American people were slaves to self-medication, and the patent-medicine makers had it all their own way. There was little or no legal regulation as to the ingredients in their nostrums; the mails were wide open to their circulars, and the pages of even the most reputable periodicals welcomed their advertis.e.m.e.nts. The patent-medicine business in the United States ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The business is still large; then it was enormous.

Into this army of deceit and spurious medicines, The Ladies' Home Journal fired the first gun. Neither the public nor the patent-medicine people paid much attention to the first attacks. But as they grew, and the evidence multiplied, the public began to comment and the nostrum makers began to get uneasy.

The magazine attacked the evil from every angle. It aroused the public by showing the actual contents of some of their pet medicines, or the absolute worthlessness of them. The Editor got the Women's Christian Temperance Union into action against the periodicals for publishing advertis.e.m.e.nts of medicines containing as high as forty per cent alcohol. He showed that the most confidential letters written by women with private ailments were opened by young clerks of both s.e.xes, laughed at and gossiped over, and that afterward their names and addresses, which they had been told were held in the strictest confidence, were sold to other lines of business for five cents each. He held the religious press up to the scorn of church members for accepting advertis.e.m.e.nts which the publishers knew and which he proved to be not only fraudulent, but actually harmful. He called the United States Post Office authorities to account for accepting and distributing obscene circular matter.

He cut an advertis.e.m.e.nt out of a newspaper which ended with the statement:

"Mrs. Pinkham, in her laboratory at Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts, is able to do more for the ailing women of America than the family physician. Any woman, therefore, is responsible for her own suffering who will not take the trouble to write to Mrs. Pinkham for advice."

Next to this advertis.e.m.e.nt representing Mrs. Lydia Pinkham as "in her laboratory," Bok simply placed the photograph of Mrs. Pinkham's tombstone in Pine Grove Cemetery, at Lynn, showing that Mrs. Pinkham had pa.s.sed away twenty-two years before!

It was one of the most effective pieces of copy that the magazine used in the campaign. It told its story with absolute simplicity, but with deadly force.

The proprietors of "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup" had strenuously denied the presence of morphine in their preparation. Bok simply bought a bottle of the syrup in London, where, under the English Pharmacy Act, the authorities compelled the proprietors of the syrup to affix the following declaration on each bottle: "This preparation, containing, among other valuable ingredients, a small amount of morphine is, in accordance with the Pharmacy Act, hereby labelled 'Poison!'" The magazine published a photograph of the label, and it told its own convincing story. It is only fair to say that the makers of this remedy now publish their formula.

Bok now slipped a cog in his machinery. He published a list of twenty-seven medicines, by name, and told what they contained. One preparation, he said, contained alcohol, opium, and digitalis. He believed he had been extremely careful in this list. He had consulted the highest medical authorities, physicians, and chemists. But in the instance of the one preparation referred to above he was wrong.

The a.n.a.lysis had been furnished by the secretary of the State Board of Health of Ma.s.sachusetts; a recognized expert, who had taken it from the a.n.a.lysis of a famous German chemist. It was in nearly every standard medical authority, and was accepted by the best medical authorities. Bok accepted these authorities as final. Nevertheless, the a.n.a.lysis and the experts were wrong. A suit for two hundred thousand dollars was brought by the patent-medicine company against The Curtis Publishing Company, and, of course, it was decided in favor of the former. But so strong a public sentiment had been created against the whole business of patent medicines by this time that the jury gave a verdict of only sixteen thousand dollars, with costs, against the magazine.

Undaunted, Bok kept on. He now engaged Mark Sullivan, then a young lawyer in downtown New York, induced him to give up his practice, and bring his legal mind to bear upon the problem. It was the beginning of Sullivan's subsequent journalistic career, and he justified Bok's confidence in him. He exposed the testimonials to patent medicines from senators and congressmen then so widely published, showed how they were obtained by a journalist in Washington who made a business of it. He charged seventy-five dollars for a senator's testimonial, forty dollars for that of a congressman, and accepted no contract for less than five thousand dollars.

Sullivan next exposed the disgraceful violation of the confidence of women by these nostrum vendors in selling their most confidential letters to any one who would buy them. Sullivan himself bought thousands of these letters and names, and then wrote about them in the magazine.

One prominent firm indignantly denied the charge, a.s.serting that whatever others might have done, their names were always held sacred. In answer to this declaration Sullivan published an advertis.e.m.e.nt of this righteous concern offering fifty thousand of their names for sale.

Bok had now kept up the fight for over two years, and the results were apparent on every hand. Reputable newspapers and magazines were closing their pages to the advertis.e.m.e.nts of patent medicines; legislation was appearing in several States; the public had been awakened to the fraud practised upon it, and a Federal Pure Food and Drug Act was beginning to be talked about.

Single-handed, The Ladies' Home Journal kept up the fight until Mark Sullivan produced an unusually strong article, but too legalistic for the magazine. He called the attention of Norman Hapgood, then editor of Collier's Weekly, to it, who accepted it at once, and, with Bok's permission, engaged Sullivan, who later succeeded Hapgood as editor of Collier's. Robert J. Collier now brought Samuel Hopkins Adams to Bok's attention and asked the latter if he should object if Collier's Weekly joined him in his fight. The Philadelphia editor naturally welcomed the help of the weekly, and Adams began his wonderfully effective campaign.

The weekly and the monthly now pounded away together; other periodicals and newspapers, seeing success ahead, and desiring to be part of it and share the glory, came into the conflict, and it was not long before so strong a public sentiment had been created as to bring about the pa.s.sage of the United States Food and Drug Act, and the patent-medicine business of the United States had received a blow from which it has never recovered. To-day the pages of every newspaper and periodical of recognized standing are closed to the advertis.e.m.e.nts of patent medicines; the Drug Act regulates the ingredients, and post office officials scan the literature sent through the United States mails.

There are distinct indications that the time has come once more to scan the patent-medicine horizon carefully, but the conditions existing in 1920 are radically different from those prevailing in 1904.

One day when Bok was at luncheon with Doctor Lyman Abbott, the latter expressed the wish that Bok would take up the subject of venereal disease as he had the patent-medicine question.

"Not our question," answered Bok.

"It is most decidedly your question," was the reply.

Bok cherished the highest regard for Doctor Abbott's opinion and judgment, and this positive declaration amazed him.

"Read up on the subject," counselled Doctor Abbott, "and you will find that the evil has its direct roots in the home with the parents. You will agree with me before you go very far that it is your question."

Bok began to read on the unsavory subject. It was exceedingly unpleasant reading, but for two years Bok persisted, only to find that Doctor Abbott was right. The root of the evil lay in the reticence of parents with children as to the mystery of life; boys and girls were going out into the world blind-folded as to any knowledge of their physical selves; "the bloom must not be rubbed off the peach," was the belief of thousands of parents, and the results were appalling. Bok pursued his investigations from books direct into the "Homes of Refuge," "Doors of Hope," and similar inst.i.tutions, and unearthed a condition, the direct results of the false modesty of parents, that was almost unbelievable.

Bok had now all his facts, but realized that for his magazine, of all magazines, to take up this subject would be like a bolt from the blue in tens of thousands of homes. But this very fact, the unquestioned position of the magazine, the remarkable respect which its readers had for it, and the confidence with which parents placed the periodical on their home tables--all this was, after all, Bok thought, the more reason why he should take up the matter and thresh it out. He consulted with friends, who advised against it; his editors were all opposed to the introduction of the unsavory subject into the magazine.