The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 36

"But it isn't unsavory," argued Bok. "That is just it. We have made it so by making it mysterious, by surrounding it with silence, by making it a forbidden topic. It is the most beautiful story in life."

Mr. Curtis, alone, encouraged his editor. Was he sure he was right? If he was, why not go ahead? Bok called his attention to the fact that a heavy loss in circulation was a foregone conclusion; he could calculate upon one hundred thousand subscribers, at least, stopping the magazine.

"It is a question of right," answered the publisher, "not of circulation."

And so, in 1906, with the subject absolutely prohibited in every periodical and newspaper of standing, never discussed at a public gathering save at medical meetings, Bok published his first editorial.

The readers of his magazine fairly gasped; they were dumb with astonishment! The Ladies' Home Journal, of all magazines, to discuss such a subject! When they had recovered from their astonishment, the parents began to write letters, and one morning Bok was confronted with a large waste-basket full brought in by his two office boys.

"Protests," laconically explained one of his editors. "More than that, the majority threaten to stop their subscription unless you stop."

"All right, that proves I am right," answered Bok. "Write to each one and say that what I have written is nothing as compared in frankness to what is coming, and that we shall be glad to refund the unfulfilled part of their subscriptions."

Day after day, thousands of letters came in. The next issue contained another editorial, stronger than the first. Bok explained that he would not tell the actual story of the beginning of life in the magazine--that was the prerogative of the parents, and he had no notion of taking it away from either; but that he meant to insist upon putting their duty squarely up to them, that he realized it was a long fight, hence the articles to come would be many and continued; and that those of his readers who did not believe in his policy had better stop the magazine at once. But he reminded them that no solution of any question was ever reached by running away from it. This question had to be faced some time, and now was as good a time as any.

Thousands of subscriptions were stopped; advertis.e.m.e.nts gave notice that they would cancel their accounts; the greatest pressure was placed upon Mr. Curtis to order his editor to cease, and Bok had the grim experience of seeing his magazine, hitherto proclaimed all over the land as a model advocate of the virtues, refused admittance into thousands of homes, and saw his own friends tear the offending pages out of the periodical before it was allowed to find a place on their home-tables.

But The Journal kept steadily on. Number after number contained some article on the subject, and finally such men and women as Jane Addams, Cardinal Gibbons, Margaret Deland, Henry van d.y.k.e, President Eliot, the Bishop of London, braved the public storm, came to Bok's aid, and wrote articles for his magazine heartily backing up his lonely fight.

The public, seeing this array of distinguished opinion expressing itself, began to wonder "whether there might not be something in what Bok was saying, after all." At the end of eighteen months, inquiries began to take the place of protests; and Bok knew then that the fight was won. He employed two experts, one man and one woman, to answer the inquiries, and he had published a series of little books, each written by a different author on a different aspect of the question.

This series was known as The Edward Bok Books. They sold for twenty-five cents each, without profit to either editor or publisher. The series sold into the tens of thousands. Information was, therefore, to be had, in authoritative form, enabling every parent to tell the story to his or her child. Bok now insisted that every parent should do this, and announced that he intended to keep at the subject until the parents did.

He explained that the magazine had lost about seventy-five thousand subscribers, and that it might just as well lose some more; but that the insistence should go on.

Slowly but surely the subject became a debatable one. Where, when Bok began, the leading prophylactic society in New York could not secure five speaking dates for its single lecturer during a session, it was now put to it to find open dates for over ten speakers. Mothers' clubs, women's clubs, and organizations of all kinds clamored for authoritative talks; here and there a much-veiled article apologetically crept into print, and occasionally a progressive school board or educational inst.i.tution experimented with a talk or two.

The Ladies' Home Journal published a full-page editorial declaring that seventy of every one hundred special surgical operations on women were directly or indirectly the result of one cause; that sixty of every one hundred new-born blinded babies were blinded soon after birth from this same cause; and that every man knew what this cause was!

Letters from men now began to pour in by the hundreds. With an oath on nearly every line, they told him that their wives, daughters, sisters, or mothers had demanded to know this cause, and that they had to tell them. Bok answered these heated men and told them that was exactly why the Journal had published the editorial, and that in the next issue there would be another for those women who might have missed his first.

He insisted that the time had come when women should learn the truth, and that, so far as it lay in his power, he intended to see that they did know.

The tide of public opinion at last turned toward The Ladies' Home Journal and its campaign. Women began to realize that it had a case; that it was working for their best interests and for those of their children, and they decided that the question might as well be faced. Bok now felt that his part in the work was done. He had started something well on its way; the common sense of the public must do the rest. He had taken the question of natural life, and stripped it of its false mystery in the minds of hundreds of thousands of young people; had started their inquiring minds; had shown parents the way; had made a forbidden topic a debatable subject, discussed in open gatherings, by the press, an increasing number of books, and in schools and colleges. He dropped the subject, only to take up one that was more or less akin to it.

That was the public drinking-cup. Here was a distinct menace that actual examples and figures showed was spreading the most loathsome diseases among innocent children. In 1908, he opened up the subject by ruthlessly publishing photographs that were unpleasantly but tremendously convincing. He had now secured the confidence of his vast public, who listened attentively to him when he spoke on an unpleasant topic; and having learned from experience that he would simply keep on until he got results, his readers decided that this time they would act quickly. So quick a result was hardly ever achieved in any campaign. Within six months legislation all over the country was introduced or enacted prohibiting the common drinking-cup in any public gathering-place, park, store, or theatre, and subst.i.tuting the individual paper cup. Almost over night, the germ-laden common drinking-cup, which had so widely spread disease, disappeared; and in a number of States, the common towel, upon Bok's insistence, met the same fate. Within a year, one of the worst menaces to American life had been wiped out by public sentiment.

Bok was now done with health measures for a while, and determined to see what he could do with two or three civic questions that he felt needed attention.

x.x.xI. Adventures in Civics

The electric power companies at Niagara Falls were beginning to draw so much water from above the great Horseshoe Falls as to bring into speculation the question of how soon America's greatest scenic a.s.set would be a coal-pile with a thin trickle of water crawling down its vast cliffs. Already companies had been given legal permission to utilize one-quarter of the whole flow, and additional companies were asking for further grants. Permission for forty per cent of the whole volume of water had been granted. J. Horace McFarland, as President of the American Civic a.s.sociation, called Bok's attention to the matter, and urged him to agitate it through his magazine so that restrictive legislation might be secured.

Bok went to Washington, conferred with President Roosevelt, and found him cognizant of the matter in all its aspects.

"I can do nothing," said the President, "unless there is an awakened public sentiment that compels action. Give me that, and I'll either put the subject in my next message to Congress or send a special message.

I'm from Missouri on this point," continued the President. "Show me that the American people want their Falls preserved, and I'll do the rest.

But I've got to be shown." Bok a.s.sured the President he could demonstrate this to him.

The next number of his magazine presented a graphic picture of the Horseshoe Falls as they were and the same Falls as they would be if more water was allowed to be taken for power: a barren coal-pile with a tiny rivulet of water trickling down its sides. The editorial asked whether the American women were going to allow this? If not, each, if an American, should write to the President, and, if a Canadian, to Earl Grey, then Governor-General of Canada. Very soon after the magazine had reached its subscribers' hands, the letters began to reach the White House; not by dozens, as the President's secretary wrote to Bok, but by the hundreds and then by the thousands. "Is there any way to turn this spigot off?" telegraphed the President's secretary. "We are really being inundated."

Bok went to Washington and was shown the huge pile of letters.

"All right," said the President. "That's all I want. You've proved it to me that there is a public sentiment."

The clerks at Rideau Hall, at Ottawa, did not know what had happened one morning when the mail quadrupled in size and thousands of protests came to Earl Grey. He wired the President, the President exchanged views with the governor-general, and the great international campaign to save Niagara Falls had begun. The American Civic a.s.sociation and scores of other civic and patriotic bodies had joined in the clamor.

The attorney-general and the secretary of state were instructed by the President to look into the legal and diplomatic aspects of the question, and in his next message to Congress President Roosevelt uttered a clarion call to that body to restrict the power-grabbing companies.

The Ladies' Home Journal urged its readers to write to their congressmen and they did by the thousands. Every congressman and senator was overwhelmed. As one senator said: "I have never seen such an avalanche.

But thanks to The Ladies' Home Journal, I have received these hundreds of letters from my const.i.tuents; they have told me what they want done, and they are mostly from those of my people whose wishes I am bound to respect."

The power companies, of course, promptly sent their attorneys and lobbyists to Washington; but the public sentiment aroused was too strong to be disregarded, and on June 29, 1906, the President signed the Burton Bill restricting the use of the water of Niagara Falls.

The matter was then referred to the secretary of war, William Howard Taft, to grant the use of such volume of water as would preserve the beauty of the Falls. McFarland and Bok wanted to be sure that Secretary Taft felt the support of public opinion, for his policy was to be conservative, and tremendous pressure was being brought upon him from every side to permit a more liberal use of water. Bok turned to his readers and asked them to write to Secretary Taft and a.s.sure him of the support of the American women in his att.i.tude of conservatism.

The flood of letters that descended upon the secretary almost taxed even his genial nature; and when Mr. McFarland, as the editorial representative of The Ladies' Home Journal, arose to speak at the public hearing in Washington, the secretary said: "I can a.s.sure you that you don't have to say very much. Your case has already been pleaded for you by, I should say at the most conservative estimate, at least one hundred thousand women. Why, I have had letters from even my wife and my mother."

Secretary Taft adhered to his conservative policy, Sir Wilfred Laurier, premier of Canada, met the overtures of Secretary of State Root, a new international doc.u.ment was drawn up, and Niagara Falls had been saved to the American people.

In 1905 and in previous years the casualties resulting from fireworks on the Fourth of July averaged from five to six thousand each year. The humorous weekly Life and The Chicago Tribune had been for some time agitating a restricted use of fireworks on the national fete day, but nevertheless the list of casualties kept creeping to higher figures. Bok decided to help by arousing the parents of America, in whose hands, after all, lay the remedy. He began a series of articles in the magazine, showing what had happened over a period of years, the criminality of allowing so many young lives to be snuffed out, and suggested how parents could help by prohibiting the deadly firecrackers and cannon, and how organizations could a.s.sist by influencing the pa.s.sing of city ordinances. Each recurring January, The Journal returned to the subject, looking forward to the coming Fourth. It was a deep-rooted custom to eradicate, and powerful influences, in the form of thousands of small storekeepers, were at work upon local officials to pay no heed to the agitation. Gradually public opinion changed. The newspapers joined in the cry; women's organizations insisted upon action from local munic.i.p.al bodies.

Finally, the civic spirit in Cleveland, Ohio, forced the pa.s.sage of a city ordinance prohibiting the sale or use of fireworks on the Fourth.

The following year when Cleveland reported no casualties as compared to an ugly list for the previous. Fourth, a distinct impression was made upon other cities. Gradually, other munic.i.p.alities took action, and year by year the list of Fourth of July casualties grew perceptibly shorter.

New York City was now induced to join the list of prohibitive cities, by a personal appeal made to its mayor by Bok, and on the succeeding Fourth of July the city authorities, on behalf of the people of New York City, conferred a gold medal upon Edward Bok for his services in connection with the birth of the new Fourth in that city.

There still remains much to be done in cities as yet unawakened; but a comparison of the list of casualties of 1920 with that of 1905 proves the growth in enlightened public sentiment in fifteen years to have been steadily increasing. It is an instance not of Bok taking the initiative--that had already been taken--but of throwing the whole force of the magazine with those working in the field to help. It is the American woman who is primarily responsible for the safe and sane Fourth, so far as it already exists in this country to-day, and it is the American woman who can make it universal.

Mrs. Pennypacker, as president of The Federation of Women's Clubs, now brought to Bok's attention the conditions under which the average rural school-teacher lived; the suffering often entailed on her in having to walk miles to the schoolhouse in wintry weather; the discomfort she had to put up with in the farm-houses where she was compelled to live, with the natural result, under those conditions, that it was almost impossible to secure the services of capable teachers, or to have good teaching even where efficient teachers were obtained.

Mrs. Pennypacker suggested that Bok undertake the creation of a public sentiment for a residence for the teacher in connection with the schoolhouse. The parson was given a parsonage; why not the teacher a "teacherage"? The Journal co-operated with Mrs. Pennypacker and she began the agitation of the subject in the magazine. She also spoke on the subject wherever she went, and induced women's clubs all over the country to join the magazine in its advocacy of the "teacherage."

By personal effort, several "teacherages" were established in connection with new schoolhouses; photographs of these were published and sent personally to school-boards all over the country; the members of women's clubs saw to it that the articles were brought to the attention of members of their local school-boards; and the now-generally accepted idea that a "teacherage" must accompany a new schoolhouse was well on its way to national recognition.

It only remains now for communities to install a visiting nurse in each of these "teacherages" so that the teacher need not live in solitary isolation, and that the health of the children at school can be looked after at first hand. Then the nurse shall be at the call of every small American community--particularly to be available in cases of childbirth, since in these thinly settled districts it is too often impossible to obtain the services of a physician, with the result of a high percentage of fatalities to mothers that should not be tolerated by a wealthy and progressive people. No American mother, at childbirth, should be denied the a.s.sistance of professional skill, no matter how far she may live from a physician. And here is where a visiting nurse in every community can become an inst.i.tution of inestimable value.

Just about this time a group of Philadelphia physicians, headed by Doctor Samuel McClintock Hamill, which had formed itself into a hygienic committee for babies, waited upon Bok to ask him to join them in the creation of a permanent organization devoted to the welfare of babies and children. Bok found that he was dealing with a company of representative physicians, and helped to organize "The Child Federation," an organization "to do good on a business basis."

It was to go to the heart of the problem of the baby in the congested districts of Philadelphia, and do a piece of intensive work in the ward having the highest infant mortality, establishing the first health centre in the United States actively managed by competent physicians and nurses. This centre was to demonstrate to the city authorities that the fearful mortality among babies, particularly in summer, could be reduced.

Meanwhile, there was created a "Baby Saving Show," a set of graphic pictures conveying to the eye methods of sanitation and other too often disregarded essentials of the wise care and feeding of babies; and this travelled, like a theatrical attraction, to different parts of the city.

"Little Mothers' Leagues" were organized to teach the little girl of ten or twelve, so often left in charge of a family of children when the mother is at work during the day, and demonstrations were given in various parts of the city.

The Child Federation now undertook one activity after the other. Under its auspices, the first munic.i.p.al Christmas tree ever erected in Philadelphia was shown in the historic Independence Square, and with two bands of music giving concerts every day from Christmas to New Year's Day, attracted over two hundred thousand persons. A pavilion was erected in City Hall Square, the most central spot in the city, and the "Baby Saving Show" was permanently placed there and visited by over one hundred thousand visitors from every part of the country on their way to and from the Pennsylvania Station at Broad Street.

A searching investigation of the Day Nurseries of Philadelphia--probably one of the most admirable pieces of research work ever made in a city--changed the methods in vogue and became a standard guide for similar inst.i.tutions throughout the country. So successful were the Little Mothers' Leagues that they were introduced into the public schools of Philadelphia, and are to-day a regular part of the curriculum. The Health Centre, its success being proved, was taken over by the city Board of Health, and three others were established.