The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 41

When under the most trying conditions, the Americans never lost their sense of fun. On the staff of a prison hospital in Germany, where a number of captured American soldiers were being treated, a German sergeant became quite friendly with the prisoners under his care. One day he told them that he had been ordered to active service on the front. He felt convinced that he would be captured by the English, and asked the Americans if they would not give him some sort of testimonial which he could show if he were taken prisoner, so that he would not be ill-treated.

The Americans were much amused at this idea, and concocted a note of introduction, written in English. The German sergeant knew no English and could not understand his testimonial, but he tucked it in his pocket, well satisfied.

In due time, he was sent to the front and was captured by "the ladies from h.e.l.l," as the Germans called the Scotch kilties. He at once presented his introduction, and his captors laughed heartily when they read:

"This is L--. He is not a bad sort of chap. Don't shoot him; torture him slowly to death."

One evening as Bok was strolling out after dinner a Red Cross nurse came to him, explained that she had two severely wounded boys in what remained of an old hut: that they were both from Pennsylvania, and had expressed a great desire to see him as a resident of their State.

"Neither can possibly survive the night," said the nurse.

"They know that?" asked Bok.

"Oh, yes, but like all our boys they are lying there joking with each other."

Bok was taken into what remained of a room in a badly sh.e.l.led farmhouse, and there, on two roughly constructed cots, lay the two boys. Their faces had been bandaged so that nothing was visible except the eyes of each boy. A candle in a bottle standing on a box gave out the only light. But the eyes of the boys were smiling as Bok came in and sat down on the box on which the nurse had been sitting. He talked with the boys, got as much of their stories from them as he could, and told them such home news as he thought might interest them.

After half an hour he arose to leave, when the nurse said: "There is no one here, Mr. Bok, to say the last words to these boys. Will you do it?"

Bok stood transfixed. In sending men over in the service of the Y. M. C.

A. he had several times told them to be ready for any act that they might be asked to render, even the most sacred one. And here he stood himself before that duty. He felt as if he stood stripped before his Maker. Through the gla.s.sless window the sky lit up constantly with the flashes of the guns, and then followed the booming of a sh.e.l.l as it landed.

"Yes, won't you, sir?" asked the boy on the right cot as he held out his hand. Bok took it, and then the hand of the other boy reached out.

What to say, he did not know. Then, to his surprise, he heard himself repeating extract after extract from a book by Lyman Abbott called The Other Room, a message to the bereaved declaring the non-existence of death, but that we merely move from this earth to another: from one room to another, as it were. Bok had not read the book for years, but here was the subconscious self supplying the material for him in his moment of greatest need. Then he remembered that just before leaving home he had heard sung at matins, after the prayer for the President, a beautiful song called "Pa.s.sing Souls." He had asked the rector for a copy of it; and, wondering why, he had put it in his wallet that he carried with him. He took it out now and holding the hand of the boy at his right, he read to them:

For the pa.s.sing souls we pray, Saviour, meet them on their way; Let their trust lay hold on Thee Ere they touch eternity.

Holy counsels long forgot Breathe again 'mid sh.e.l.l and shot; Through the mist of life's last pain None shall look to Thee in vain.

To the hearts that know Thee, Lord, Thou wilt speak through flood or sword; Just beyond the cannon's roar, Thou art on the farther sh.o.r.e.

For the pa.s.sing souls we pray, Saviour, meet them on the way; Thou wilt hear our yearning call, Who hast loved and died for all.

Absolute stillness reigned in the room save for the half-suppressed sob from the nurse and the distant booming of the cannon. As Bok finished, he heard the boy at his right say slowly: "Saviour-meet-me-on-my-way": with a little emphasis on the word "my." The hand in his relaxed slowly, and then fell on the cot; and he saw that the soul of another brave American boy had "gone West."

Bok glanced at the other boy, reached for his hand, shook it, and looking deep into his eyes, he left the little hut.

He little knew where and how he was to look into those eyes again!

Feeling the need of air in order to get hold of himself after one of the most solemn moments of his visit to the front, Bok strolled out, and soon found himself on what only a few days before had been a field of carnage where the American boys had driven back the Germans. Walking in the trenches and looking out, in the clear moonlight, over the field of desolation and ruin, and thinking of the inferno that had been enacted there only so recently, he suddenly felt his foot rest on what seemed to be a soft object. Taking his "ever-ready" flash from his pocket, he shot a ray at his feet, only to realize that his foot was resting on the face of a dead German!

Bok had had enough for one evening! In fact, he had had enough of war in all its aspects; and he felt a sigh of relief when, a few days thereafter, he boarded The Empress of Asia for home, after a ten-weeks absence.

He hoped never again to see, at first hand, what war meant!

x.x.xVI. The End of Thirty Years' Editorship

On the voyage home, Edward Bok decided that, now the war was over, he would ask his company to release him from the editorship of The Ladies'

Home Journal. His original plan had been to retire at the end of a quarter of a century of editorship, when in his fiftieth year. He was, therefore, six years behind his schedule. In October, 1919, he would reach his thirtieth anniversary as editor, and he fixed upon this as an appropriate time for the relinquishment of his duties.

He felt he had carried out the conditions under which the editorship of the magazine had been transferred to him by Mrs. Curtis, that he had brought them to fruition, and that any further carrying on of the periodical by him would be of a supplementary character. He had, too, realized his hope of helping to create a national inst.i.tution of service to the American woman, and he felt that his part in the work was done.

He considered carefully where he would leave an inst.i.tution which the public had so thoroughly a.s.sociated with his personality, and he felt that at no point in its history could he so safely transfer it to other hands. The position of the magazine in the public estimation was unquestioned; it had never been so strong. Its circulation not only had outstripped that of any other monthly periodical, but it was still growing so rapidly that it was only a question of a few months when it would reach the almost incredible mark of two million copies per month.

With its advertising patronage exceeding that of any other monthly, the periodical had become, probably, the most valuable and profitable piece of magazine property in the world.

The time might never come again when all conditions would be equally favorable to a change of editorship. The position of the magazine was so thoroughly a.s.sured that its progress could hardly be affected by the retirement of one editor, and the accession of another. There was a competent editorial staff, the members of which had been with the periodical from ten to thirty years each. This staff had been a very large factor in the success of the magazine. While Bok had furnished the initiative and supplied the directing power, a large part of the editorial success of the magazine was due to the staff. It could carry on the magazine without his guidance.

Moreover, Bok wished to say good-bye to his public before it decided, for some reason or other, to say good-bye to him. He had no desire to outstay his welcome. That public had been wonderfully indulgent toward his shortcomings, lenient with his errors, and tremendously inspiring to his best endeavor. He would not ask too much of it. Thirty years was a long tenure of office, one of the longest, in point of consecutively active editorship, in the history of American magazines.

He had helped to create and to put into the life of the American home a magazine of peculiar distinction. From its beginning it had been unlike any other periodical; it had always retained its individuality as a magazine apart from the others. It had sought to be something more than a mere a.s.semblage of stories and articles. It had consistently stood for ideals; and, save in one or two instances, it had carried through what it undertook to achieve. It had a record of worthy accomplishment; a more fruitful record than many imagined. It had become a national inst.i.tution such as no other magazine had ever been. It was indisputably accepted by the public and by business interests alike as the recognized avenue of approach to the intelligent homes of America.

Edward Bok was content to leave it at this point.

He explained all this in December, 1918, to the Board of Directors, and asked that his resignation be considered. It was understood that he was to serve out his thirty years, thus remaining with the magazine for the best part of another year.

In the material which The Journal now included in its contents, it began to point the way to the problems which would face women during the reconstruction period. Bok scanned the rather crowded field of thought very carefully, and selected for discussion in the magazine such questions as seemed to him most important for the public to understand in order to face and solve its impending problems. The outstanding question he saw which would immediately face men and women of the country was the problem of Americanization. The war and its after-effects had clearly demonstrated this to be the most vital need in the life of the nation, not only for the foreign-born but for the American as well.

The more one studied the problem the clearer it became that the vast majority of American-born needed a refreshing, and, in many cases, a new conception of American ideals as much as did the foreign-born, and that the latter could never be taught what America and its inst.i.tutions stood for until they were more clearly defined in the mind of the men and women of American birth.

Bok went to Washington, consulted with Franklin K. Lane, secretary of the interior, of whose department the Government Bureau of Americanization was a part. A comprehensive series of articles was outlined; the most expert writer, Esther Everett Lape, who had several years of actual experience in Americanization work, was selected; Secretary Lane agreed personally to read and pa.s.s upon the material, and to a.s.sume the responsibility for its publication.

With the full and direct co-operation of the Federal Bureau of Americanization, the material was a.s.sembled and worked up with the result that, in the opinion of the director of the Federal Bureau, the series proved to be the most comprehensive exposition of practical Americanization adapted to city, town, and village, thus far published.

The work on this series was one of the last acts of Edward Bok's editorship; and it was peculiarly gratifying to him that his editorial work should end with the exposition of that Americanization of which he himself was a product. It seemed a fitting close to the career of a foreign-born Americanized editor.

The scope of the reconstruction articles now published, and the clarity of vision shown in the selection of the subjects, gave a fresh impetus to the circulation of the magazine; and now that the government's embargo on the use of paper had been removed, the full editions of the periodical could again be printed. The public responded instantly.

The result reached phenomenal figures. The last number under Bok's full editorial control was the issue of October, 1919. This number was oversold with a printed edition of two million copies--a record never before achieved by any magazine. This same issue presented another record unattained in any single number of any periodical in the world.

It carried between its covers the amazing total of over one million dollars in advertis.e.m.e.nts.

This was the psychological point at which to stop. And Edward Bok did.

Although his official relation as editor did not terminate until January, 1920, when the number which contained his valedictory editorial was issued, his actual editorship ceased on September 22, 1919. On that day he handed over the reins to his successor.

As Bok was, on that day, about to leave his desk for the last time, it was announced that a young soldier whom he "had met and befriended in France" was waiting to see him. When the soldier walked into the office he was to Bok only one of the many whom he had met on the other side.

But as the boy shook hands with him and said: "I guess you do not remember me, Mr. Bok," there was something in the eyes into which he looked that startled him. And then, in a flash, the circ.u.mstances under which he had last seen those eyes came to him.

"Good heavens, my boy, you are not one of those two boys in the little hut that I--"

"To whom you read the poem 'Pa.s.sing Souls,' that evening. Yes, sir, I'm the boy who had hold of your left hand. My bunkie, Ben, went West that same evening, you remember."

"Yes," replied the editor, "I remember; I remember only too well," and again Bok felt the hand in his relax, drop from his own, and heard the words: "Saviour-meet-me-on-my way."

The boy's voice brought Bok back to the moment.