The Americanization of Edward Bok | Page 4

in 1914, when I foresaw some
leisure to write it, for I then intended to retire from active editorship.
But the war came, an entirely new set of duties commanded, and the
project was laid aside.
Its title and the form, however, were then chosen. By the form I refer
particularly to the use of the third person. I had always felt the most
effective method of writing an autobiography, for the sake of a better
perspective, was mentally to separate the writer from his subject by this
device.
Moreover, this method came to me very naturally in dealing with the
Edward Bok, editor and publicist, whom I have tried to describe in this
book, because, in many respects, he has had and has been a personality
apart from my private self. I have again and again found myself
watching with intense amusement and interest the Edward Bok of this
book at work. I have, in turn, applauded him and criticised him, as I do
in this book. Not that I ever considered myself bigger or broader than
this Edward Bok: simply that he was different. His tastes, his outlook,
his manner of looking at things were totally at variance with my own.
In fact, my chief difficulty during Edward Bok's directorship of The
Ladies' Home Journal was to abstain from breaking through the editor
and revealing my real self. Several times I did so, and each time I saw
how different was the effect from that when the editorial Edward Bok
had been allowed sway. Little by little I learned to subordinate myself
and to let him have full rein.
But no relief of my life was so great to me personally as his decision to
retire from his editorship. My family and friends were surprised and
amused by my intense and obvious relief when he did so. Only to those
closest to me could I explain the reason for the sense of absolute
freedom and gratitude that I felt.
Since that time my feelings have been an interesting study to myself.
There are no longer two personalities. The Edward Bok of whom I have
written has passed out of my being as completely as if he had never

been there, save for the records and files on my library shelves. It is
easy, therefore, for me to write of him as a personality apart: in fact, I
could not depict him from any other point of view. To write of him in
the first person, as if he were myself, is impossible, for he is not.
The title suggests my principal reason for writing the book. Every life
has some interest and significance; mine, perhaps, a special one. Here
was a little Dutch boy unceremoniously set down in America unable to
make himself understood or even to know what persons were saying;
his education was extremely limited, practically negligible; and yet, by
some curious decree of fate, he was destined to write, for a period of
years, to the largest body of readers ever addressed by an American
editor--the circulation of the magazine he edited running into figures
previously unheard of in periodical literature. He made no pretense to
style or even to composition: his grammar was faulty, as it was natural
it should be, in a language not his own. His roots never went deep, for
the intellectual soil had not been favorable to their growth;--yet, it must
be confessed, he achieved.
But how all this came about, how such a boy, with every disadvantage
to overcome, was able, apparently, to "make good"--this possesses an
interest and for some, perhaps, a value which, after all, is the only
reason for any book.
EDWARD W. BOK MERION, PENNSYLVANIA, 1920

CONTENTS
An Explanation An Introduction of Two Persons I. The First Days in
America II. The First Job: Fifty Cents a Week III. The Hunger for
Self-Education IV. A Presidential Friend and a Boston Pilgrimage V.
Going to the Theatre with Longfellow VI. Phillips Brooks's Books and
Emerson's Mental Mist VII. A Plunge into Wall Street VIII. Starting a
Newspaper Syndicate IX. Association with Henry Ward Beecher X.
The First "Woman's Page," "Literary Leaves," and Entering Scribner's
XI. The Chances for Success XII. Baptism Under Fire XIII. Publishing
Incidents and Anecdotes XIV. Last Years in New York XV. Successful
Editorship XVI. First Years as a Woman's Editor XVII. Eugene Field's
Practical Jokes XVIII. Building Up a Magazine XIX. Personality
Letters XX. Meeting a Reverse or Two XXI. A Signal Piece of
Constructive Work XXII. An Adventure in Civic and Private Art XXIII.

Theodore Roosevelt's Influence XXIV. Theodore Roosevelt's
Anonymous Editorial Work XXV. The President and the Boy XXVI.
The Literary Back-Stairs XXVII. Women's Clubs and Woman Suffrage
XXVIII. Going Home with Kipling, and as a Lecturer XXIX. An
Excursion into