A WAR MAGAZINE AND WAR ACTIVITIES
The success of _The Ladies' Home Journal_ went steadily forward. The
circulation had passed the previously unheard-of figure for a monthly
magazine of a million and a half copies per month; it had now touched a
million and three-quarters.
And not only was the figure so high, but the circulation itself was
absolutely free from "water." The public could not obtain the magazine
through what are known as clubbing-rates, since no subscriber was
permitted to include any other magazine with it; years ago it had
abandoned the practice of offering premiums or consideration of any
kind to induce subscriptions; and the newsdealers were not allowed to
return unsold copies of the periodical. Hence every copy was either
purchased by the public at the full price at a news stand, or
subscribed for at its stated subscription price. It was, in short, an
authoritative circulation. And on every hand the question was being
asked: "How is it done? How is such a high circulation obtained?"
Bok's invariable answer was that he gave his readers the very best of
the class of reading that he believed would interest them, and that he
spared neither effort nor expense to obtain it for them. When Mr.
Howells once asked him how he classified his audience, Bok replied: "We
appeal to the intelligent American woman rather than to the
intellectual type." And he gave her the best he could obtain. As he
knew her to be fond of the personal type of literature, he gave her in
succession Jane Addams's story of "My Fifteen Years at Hull House," and
the remarkable narration of Helen Keller's "Story of My Life"; he
invited Henry Van Dyke, who had never been in the Holy Land, to go
there, camp out in a tent, and then write a series of sketches, "Out of
Doors in the Holy Land"; he induced Lyman Abbott to tell the story of
"My Fifty Years as a Minister." He asked Gene Stratton Porter to tell
of her bird-experiences in the series: "What I Have Done with Birds";
he persuaded Dean Hodges to turn from his work of training young
clergymen at the Episcopal Seminary, at Cambridge, and write one of the
most successful series of Bible stories for children ever printed; and
then he supplemented this feature for children by publishing Rudyard
Kipling's "Just So" stories and his "Puck of Pook's Hill." He induced
F. Hopkinson Smith to tell the best stories he had ever heard in his
wide travels in "The Man in the Arm Chair"; he got Kate Douglas Wiggin
to tell a country church experience of hers in "The Old Peabody Pew";
and Jean Webster her knowledge of almshouse life in "Daddy Long Legs."
The readers of _The Ladies' Home Journal_ realized that it searched the
whole field of endeavor in literature and art to secure what would
interest them, and they responded with their support.
Another of Bok's methods in editing was to do the common thing in an
uncommon way. He had the faculty of putting old wine in new bottles
and the public liked it. His ideas were not new; he knew there were no
new ideas, but he presented his ideas in such a way that they seemed
new. It is a significant fact, too, that a large public will respond
more quickly to an idea than it will to a name.
When, early in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to
point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward
Bok set himself to formulate a policy for _The Ladies' Home Journal_.
He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position.
The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance
of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks
previous to that. He could not, therefore, get much closer than ten
weeks to the date when his readers received the magazine. And he knew
that events, in war time, had a way of moving rapidly.
Late in January he went to Washington, consulted those authorities who
could indicate possibilities to him better than any one else, and
found, as he had suspected, that the entry of the United States into
the war was a practical certainty; it was only a question of time.
Bok went South for a month's holiday to get ready for the fray, and in
the saddle and on the golf links he formulated a policy. The
newspapers and weeklies would send innumerable correspondents to the
front, and obviously, with the necessity for going to press so far in
advance, _The Journal_ could not compete with them. They would depict
every activity in the field. There was but one logical thing for him
to do: ignore the "front" entirely, refuse all the offers of
correspondents, men and women, who wanted to go with the armies for his
magazine, and cover fully and practically the results of the war as
they would affect the women left behind. He went carefully over the
ground to see what these would be, along what particular lines women's
activities would be most likely to go, and then went back to Washington.
It was now March. He conferred with the President, had his fears
confirmed, and offered all the resources of his magazine to the
government. His diagnosis of the situation was verified in every
detail by the authorities whom he consulted. _The Ladies' Home
Journal_ could best serve by keeping up the morale at home and by
helping to meet the problems that would confront the women; as the
President said: "Give help in the second line of defense."
A year before, Bok had opened a separate editorial office in Washington
and had secured Dudley Hannon, the Washington correspondent for the
_New York Sun_, as his editor-in-charge. The purpose was to bring the
women of the country into a clearer understanding of their government
and a closer relation with it. This work had been so successful as to
necessitate a force of four offices and twenty stenographers. Bok now
placed this Washington office on a war-basis, bringing it into close
relation with every department of the government that would be
connected with the war activities. By this means, he had an editor and
an organized force on the spot, devoting full time to the preparation
of war material, with Mr. Hannon in daily conference with the
department chiefs to secure the newest developments.
Bok learned that the country's first act would be to recruit for the
navy, so as to get this branch of the service into a state of
preparedness. He therefore secured Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant
secretary of the navy, to write an article explaining to mothers why
they should let their boys volunteer for the Navy and what it would
mean to them.
He made arrangements at the American Red Cross Headquarters for an
official department to begin at once in the magazine, telling women the
first steps that would be taken by the Red Cross and how they could
help. He secured former President William Howard Taft, as chairman of
the Central Committee of the Red Cross, for the editor of this
department.
He cabled to Viscount Northcliffe and Ian Hay for articles showing what
the English women had done at the outbreak of the war, the mistakes
they had made, what errors the American women should avoid, the right
lines along which English women had worked and how their American
sisters could adapt these methods to trans-atlantic conditions.
And so it happened that when the first war issue of _The Journal_
appeared on April 20th, only three weeks after the President's
declaration, it was the only monthly that recognized the existence of
war, and its pages had already begun to indicate practical lines along
which women could help.
The editor had been told that the question of food would come to be of
paramount importance; he knew that Herbert Hoover had been asked to
return to America as soon as he could close his work abroad, and he
cabled over to his English representative to arrange that the proposed
Food Administrator should know, at first hand, of the magazine and its
possibilities for the furtherance of the proposed Food Administration
work.
The Food Administration was no sooner organized than Bok made
arrangements for an authoritative department to be conducted in his
magazine, reflecting the plans and desires of the Food Administration,
and Herbert Hoover's first public declaration to the women of America
as food administrator was published in _The Ladies' Home Journal_. Bok
now placed all the resources of his four-color press-work at Mr.
Hoover's disposal; and the Food Administration's domestic experts, in
conjunction with the full culinary staff of the magazine, prepared the
new war dishes and presented them appetizingly in full colors under the
personal endorsement of Mr. Hoover and the Food Administration. From
six to sixteen articles per month were now coming from Mr. Hoover's
department alone.
Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo interpreted the first Liberty Loan
"drive" to the women; the President of the United States, in a special
message to women, wrote in behalf of the subsequent Loan; Bernard
Baruch, as chairman of the War Industries Board, made clear the need
for war-time thrift; the recalled ambassador to Germany, James W.
Gerard, told of the ingenious plans resorted to by German women which
American women could profitably copy; and Elizabeth, Queen of the
Belgians, explained the plight of the babies and children of Belgium,
and made a plea to the women of the magazine to help. So straight to
the point did the Queen write, and so well did she present her case
that within six months there had been sent to her, through _The Ladies'
Home Journal_, two hundred and forty-eight thousand cans of condensed
milk, seventy-two thousand cans of pork and beans, five thousand cans
of infants' prepared food, eighty thousand cans of beef soup, and
nearly four thousand bushels of wheat, purchased with the money donated
by the magazine readers.
Considering the difficulties to be surmounted, due to the advance
preparation of material, and considering that, at the best, most of its
advance information, even by the highest authorities, could only be in
the nature of surmise, the comprehensive manner in which _The Ladies'
Home Journal_ covered every activity of women during the Great War,
will always remain one of the magazine's most note-worthy achievements.
This can be said without reserve here, since the credit is due to no
single person; it was the combined, careful work of its entire staff,
weighing every step before it was taken, looking as clearly into the
future as circumstances made possible, and always seeking the most
authoritative sources of information.
It was in the summer of 1918 that Edward Bok received from the British
Government, through its department of public information, of which Lord
Beaverbrook was the minister, an invitation to join a party of thirteen
American editors to visit Great Britain and France. The British
Government, not versed in publicity methods, was anxious that selected
parties of American publicists should see, personally, what Great
Britain had done, and was doing in the war; and it had decided to ask a
few individuals to pay personal visits to its munition factories, its
great aerodromes, its Great Fleet, which then lay in the Firth of
Forth, and to the battle-fields. It was understood that no specific
obligation rested upon any member of the party to write of what he saw:
he was asked simply to observe and then, with discretion, use his
observations for his own guidance and information in future writing.
In fact, each member was explicitly told that much of what he would see
could not be revealed either personally or in print.
The party embarked in August amid all the attendant secrecy of war
conditions. The steamer was known only by a number, although later it
turned out to be the White Star liner, _Adriatic_. Preceded by a
powerful United States cruiser, flanked by destroyers, guided overhead
by observation balloons, the _Adriatic_ was found to be the first ship
in a convoy of sixteen other ships with thirty thousand United States
troops on board.
It was a veritable Armada that steamed out of lower New York harbor on
that early August morning, headed straight into the rising sun. But it
was a voyage of unpleasant war reminders, with life-savers carried
every moment of the day, with every light out at night, with every
window and door as if hermetically sealed so that the stuffy cabins
deprived of sleep those accustomed to fresh air, with over sixty army
men and civilians on watch at night, with life-drills each day, with
lessons as to behavior in life-boats; and with a fleet of eighteen
British destroyers meeting the convoy upon its approach to the Irish
Coast after a thirteen days' voyage of constant anxiety. No one could
say he travelled across the Atlantic Ocean in war days for pleasure,
and no one did.
Once ashore, the party began a series of inspections of munition
plants, ship-yards, aeroplane factories and of meetings with the
different members of the English War Cabinet. Luncheons and dinners
were the order of each day until broken by a journey to Edinburgh to
see the amazing Great Fleet, with the addition of six of the foremost
fighting machines of the United States Navy, all straining like dogs at
leash, awaiting an expected dash from the bottled-up German fleet. It
was a formidable sight, perhaps never equalled: those lines of huge,
menacing, and yet protecting fighting machines stretching down the
river for miles, all conveying the single thought of the power and
extent of the British Navy and its formidable character as a fighting
unit.
[Illustration: Where Edward Bok is happiest: in his garden.]
It was upon his return to London that Bok learned, through the
confidence of a member of the British "inner circle," the amazing news
that the war was practically over: that Bulgaria had capitulated and
was suing for peace; that two of the Central Power provinces had
indicated their strong desire that the war should end; and that the
first peace intimations had gone to the President of the United States.
All diplomatic eyes were turned toward Washington. Yet not a hint of
the impending events had reached the public. The Germans were being
beaten back, that was known; it was evident that the morale of the
German army was broken; that Foch had turned the tide toward victory;
but even the best-informed military authorities outside of the inner
diplomatic circles, predicted that the war would last until the spring
of 1919, when a final "drive" would end it. Yet, at that very moment,
the end of the war was in sight!
Next Bok went to France to visit the battle-fields. It was arranged
that the party should first, under guidance of British officers, visit
back of the British lines; and then, successively, be turned over to
the American and French Governments, and visit the operations back of
their armies.
It is an amusing fact that although each detail of officers delegated
to escort the party "to the front" received the most explicit
instructions from their superior officers to take the party only to the
quiet sectors where there was no fighting going on, each detail from
the three governments successively brought the party directly under
shell-fire, and each on the first day of the "inspection." It was
unconsciously done: the officers were as much amazed to find themselves
under fire as were the members of the party, except that the latter did
not feel the responsibility to an equal degree. The officers, in each
case, were plainly worried: the editors were intensely interested.
They were depressing trips through miles and miles of devastated
villages and small cities. From two to three days each were spent in
front-line posts on the Amiens-Bethune, Albert-Peronne,
Bapaume-Soissons, St. Mihiel, and back of the Argonne sectors. Often,
the party was the first civilian group to enter a town evacuated only a
week before, and all the horrible evidence of bloody warfare was fresh
and plain. Bodies of German soldiers lay in the trenches where they
had fallen; wired bombs were on every hand, so that no object could be
touched that lay on the battle-fields; the streets of some of the towns
were still mined, so that no automobiles could enter; the towns were
deserted, the streets desolate. It was an appalling panorama of the
most frightful results of war.
The picturesqueness and romance of the war of picture books were
missing. To stand beside an English battery of thirty guns laying a
barrage as they fired their shells to a point ten miles distant, made
one feel as if one were an actual part of real warfare, and yet far
removed from it, until the battery was located from the enemy's
"sausage observation"; then the shells from the enemy fired a return
salvo, and the better part of valor was discretion a few miles farther
back.
Bok was standing talking to the commandant of one of the great French
army supply depots one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in
the regular French army. An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair
and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his
sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered a message, and then asked:
"Are there any more orders, sir?"
"No," was the reply.
He brought his heels together with a click, saluted again, and went
away.
The commandant turned to Bok with a peculiar smile on his face and
asked:
"Do you know who that man is?"
"No," was the reply.
"That is my father," was the answer.
The father was then exactly seventy-two years old. He was a retired
business man when the war broke out. After two years of the heroic
struggle he decided that he couldn't keep out of it. He was too old to
fight, but after long insistence he secured a commission. By one of
the many curious coincidences of the war he was assigned to serve under
his own son.
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 hell," 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."
The amazing part of the "show," however, was the American doughboy.
Never was there a more cheerful, laughing, good-natured set of boys in
the world; never a more homesick, lonely, and complaining set. But
good nature predominated, and the smile was always upper-most, even
when the moment looked the blackest, the privations were worst, and the
longing for home the deepest.
Bok had been talking to a boy who lived near his own home, who was on
his way to the front and "over the top" in the Argonne mess. Three
days afterward, at a hospital base where a hospital train was just
discharging its load of wounded, Bok walked among the boys as they lay
on their stretchers on the railroad platform waiting for bearers to
carry them into the huts. As he approached one stretcher, a cheery
voice called, "Hello, Mr. Bok. Here I am again."
It was the boy he had left just seventy-two hours before hearty and
well.
"Well, my boy, you weren't in it long, were you?"
"No, sir," answered the boy; "Fritzie sure got me first thing. Hadn't
gone a hundred yards over the top. Got a cigarette?" (the invariable
question).
Bok handed a cigarette to the boy, who then said: "Mind sticking it in
my mouth?" Bok did so and then offered him a light; the boy continued,
all with his wonderful smile: "If you don't mind, would you just light
it? You see, Fritzie kept both of my hooks as souvenirs."
With both arms amputated, the boy could still jest and smile!
It was the same boy who on his hospital cot the next day said: "Don't
you think you could do something for the chap next to me, there on my
left? He's really suffering: cried like hell all last night. It would
be a God-send if you could get Doc to do something."
A promise was given that the surgeon should be seen at once, but the
boy was asked: "How about you?"
"Oh," came the cheerful answer, "I'm all right. I haven't anything to
hurt. My wounded members are gone--just plain gone. But that chap has
got something--he got the real thing!"
What was the real thing according to such a boy's idea?
Bok had had enough of war in all its aspects; 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!