THE THIRD PERIOD
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 institution 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 institution which the
public had so thoroughly associated 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 assured 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-by to his public before it decided,
for some reason or other, to say good-by 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 assemblage 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 institution 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 institutions
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 pass upon the material,
and to assume the responsibility for its publication.
With the full and direct co-operation of the Federal Bureau of
Americanization, the material was assembled 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 advertisements.
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.
The announcement of Edward Bok's retirement came as a great surprise to
his friends. Save for one here and there, who had a clearer vision,
the feeling was general that he had made a mistake. He was fifty-six,
in the prime of life, never in better health, with "success lying
easily upon him"--said one; "at the very summit of his career," said
another--and all agreed it was "queer," "strange,"--unless, they
argued, he was really ill. Even the most acute students of human
affairs among his friends wondered. It seemed incomprehensible that
any man should want to give up before he was, for some reason,
compelled to do so. A man should go on until he "dropped in the
harness," they argued.
Bok agreed that any man had a perfect right to work until he _did_
"drop in the harness." But, he argued, if he conceded this right to
others, why should they not concede to him the privilege of dropping
with the blinders off?
"But," continued the argument, "a man degenerates when he retires from
active affairs." And then, instances were pointed out as notable
examples. "A year of retirement and he was through," was the picture
given of one retired man. "In two years, he was glad to come back,"
and so the examples ran on. "No big man ever retired from active
business and did great work afterwards," Bok was told.
"No?" he answered. "Not even Cyrus W. Field or Herbert Hoover?"
And all this time Edward Bok's failure to be entirely Americanized was
brought home to his consciousness. After fifty years, he was still not
an American! He had deliberately planned, and then had carried out his
plan, to retire while he still had the mental and physical capacity to
enjoy the fruits of his years of labor! For foreign to the American
way of thinking it certainly was: the protestations and arguments of
his friends proved that to him. After all, he was still Dutch; he had
held on to the lesson which his people had learned years ago; that the
people of other European countries had learned; that the English had
discovered: that the Great Adventure of Life was something more than
material work, and that the time to go is while the going is good!
For it cannot be denied that the pathetic picture we so often see is
found in American business life more frequently than in that of any
other land: men unable to let go--not only for their own good, but to
give the younger men behind them an opportunity. Not that a man should
stop work, for man was born to work, and in work he should find his
greatest refreshment. But so often it does not occur to the man in a
pivotal position to question the possibility that at sixty or seventy
he can keep steadily in touch with a generation whose ideas are
controlled by men twenty years younger. Unconsciously he hangs on
beyond his greatest usefulness and efficiency: he convinces himself
that he is indispensable to his business, while, in scores of cases,
the business would be distinctly benefited by his retirement and the
consequent coming to the front of the younger blood.
Such a man in a position of importance seems often not to see that he
has it within his power to advance the fortunes of younger men by
stepping out when he has served his time, while by refusing to let go
he often works dire injustice and even disaster to his younger
associates.
The sad fact is that in all too many instances the average American
business man is actually afraid to let go because he realizes that out
of business he should not know what to do. For years he has so
excluded all other interests that at fifty or sixty or seventy he finds
himself a slave to his business, with positively no inner resources.
Retirement from the one thing he does know would naturally leave such a
man useless to himself and his family, and his community: worse than
useless, as a matter of fact, for he would become a burden to himself,
a nuisance to his family, and, when he would begin to write "letters"
to the newspapers, a bore to the community.
It is significant that a European or English business man rarely
reaches middle age devoid of acquaintance with other matters; he always
lets the breezes from other worlds of thought blow through his ideas,
with the result that when he is ready to retire from business he has
other interests to fall back upon. Fortunately it is becoming less
uncommon for American men to retire from business and devote themselves
to other pursuits; and their number will undoubtedly increase as time
goes on, and we learn the lessons of life with a richer background.
But one cannot help feeling regretful that the custom is not growing
more rapidly.
A man must unquestionably prepare years ahead for his retirement, not
alone financially, but mentally as well. Bok noticed as a curious fact
that nearly every business man who told him he had made a mistake in
his retirement, and that the proper life for a man is to stick to the
game and see it through--"hold her nozzle agin the bank" as Jim Bludso
would say--was a man with no resources outside his business.
Naturally, a retirement is a mistake in the eyes of such a man; but oh,
the pathos of such a position: that in a world of so much interest, in
an age so fascinatingly full of things worth doing, a man should have
allowed himself to become a slave to his business, and should imagine
no other man happy without the same claims!
It is this lesson that the American business man has still to learn;
that no man can be wholly efficient in his life, that he is not living
a four-squared existence, if he concentrates every waking thought on
his material affairs. He has still to learn that man cannot live by
bread alone. The making of money, the accumulation of material power,
is not all there is to living. Life is something more than these, and
the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction
that can come into his life--service for others.
Some men argue that they can give this service and be in business, too.
But service with such men generally means drawing a check for some
worthy cause, and nothing more. Edward Bok never belittled the giving
of contributions--he solicited too much money himself for the causes in
which he was interested--but it is a poor nature that can satisfy
itself that it is serving humanity by merely signing checks. There is
no form of service more comfortable or so cheap. Real service,
however, demands that a man give himself with his check. And that the
average man cannot do if he remains in affairs.
Particularly true is this to-day, when every problem of business is so
engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare
man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of
others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so
exacting as are these. Besides, if his business has seemed important
enough to demand his entire attention, are not the great uplift
questions equally worth his exclusive thought? Are they easier of
solution than the material problems?
A man can live a life full-square only when he divides it into three
periods:
First: that of education, acquiring the fullest and best within his
reach and power;
Second: that of achievement: achieving for himself and his family, and
discharging the first duty of any man, that in case of his incapacity
those who are closest to him are provided for. But such provision does
not mean an accumulation that becomes to those he leaves behind him an
embarrassment rather than a protection. To prevent this, the next
period confronts him:
Third: Service for others. That is the acid test where many a man
falls short: to know when he has enough, and to be willing not only to
let well enough alone, but to give a helping hand to the other fellow;
to recognize, in a practical way, that we are our brother's keeper;
that a brotherhood of man does exist outside after-dinner speeches.
Too many men make the mistake, when they reach the point of enough, of
going on pursuing the same old game: accumulating more money, grasping
for more power until either a nervous breakdown overtakes them and a
sad incapacity results, or they drop "in the harness," which is, of
course; only calling an early grave by another name. They cannot seem
to get the truth into their heads that as they have been helped by
others so should they now help others: as their means have come from
the public, so now they owe something in turn to that public.
No man has a right to leave the world no better than he found it. He
must add something to it: either he must make its people better and
happier, or he must make the face of the world fairer to look at. And
the one really means the other.
"Idealism," immediately say some. Of course, it is. But what is the
matter with idealism? What really is idealism? Do one-tenth of those
who use the phrase so glibly know its true meaning, the part it has
played in the world? The worthy interpretation of an ideal is that it
embodies an idea--a conception of the imagination. All ideas are at
first ideals. They must be. The producer brings forth an idea, but
some dreamer has dreamed it before him either in whole or in part.
Where would the human race be were it not for the ideals of men? It is
idealists, in a large sense, that this old world needs to-day. Its
soil is sadly in need of new seed. Washington, in his day, was decried
as an idealist. So was Jefferson. It was commonly remarked of Lincoln
that he was a "rank idealist." Morse, Watt, Marconi, Edison--all were,
at first, adjudged idealists. We say of the League of Nations that it
is ideal, and we use the term in a derogatory sense. But that was
exactly what was said of the Constitution of the United States.
"Insanely ideal" was the term used of it.
The idealist, particularly to-day when there is so great need of him,
is not to be scoffed at. It is through him and only through him that
the world will see a new and clear vision of what is right. It is he
who has the power of going out of himself--that self in which too many
are nowadays so deeply imbedded; it is he who, in seeking the ideal,
will, through his own clearer perception or that of others, transform
the ideal into the real. "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
It was his remark that he retired because he wanted "to play" that
Edward Bok's friends most completely misunderstood. "Play" in their
minds meant tennis, golf, horseback, polo, travel, etc.--(curious that
scarcely one mentioned reading!). It so happens that no one enjoys
some of these play-forms more than Bok; but "God forbid," he said,
"that I should spend the rest of my days in a bunker or in the saddle.
In moderation," he added, "yes; most decidedly." But the phrase of
"play" meant more to him than all this. Play is diversion: exertion of
the mind as well as of the body. There is such a thing as mental play
as well as physical play. We ask of play that it shall rest, refresh,
exhilarate. Is there any form of mental activity that secures all
these ends so thoroughly and so directly as doing something that a man
really likes to do, doing it with all his heart, all the time conscious
that he is helping to make the world better for some one else?
A man's "play" can take many forms. If his life has been barren of
books or travel, let him read or see the world. But he reaches his
high estate by either of these roads only when he reads or travels to
enrich himself in order to give out what he gets to enrich the lives of
others. He owes it to himself to get his own refreshment, his own
pleasure, but he need not make that pure self-indulgence.
Other men, more active in body and mind, feel drawn to the modern arena
of the great questions that puzzle. It matters not in which direction
a man goes in these matters any more than the length of a step matters
so much as does the direction in which the step is taken. He should
seek those questions which engross his deepest interest, whether
literary, musical, artistic, civic, economic, or what not.
Our cities, towns, communities of all sizes and kinds, urban and rural,
cry out for men to solve their problems. There is room and to spare
for the man of any bent. The old Romans looked forward, on coming to
the age of retirement, which was definitely fixed by rule, to a rural
life, when they hied themselves to a little home in the country, had
open house for their friends, and "kept bees." While bee-keeping is
unquestionably interesting, there are today other and more vital
occupations awaiting the retired American.
The main thing is to secure that freedom of movement that lets a man go
where he will and do what he thinks he can do best, and prove to
himself and to others that the acquirement of the dollar is not all
there is to life. No man can realize, until on awakening some morning
he feels the exhilaration, the sense of freedom that comes from knowing
he can choose his own doings and control his own goings. Time is of
more value than money, and it is that which the man who retires feels
that he possesses. Hamilton Mabie once said, after his retirement from
an active editorial position: "I am so happy that the time has come
when I elect what I shall do," which is true; but then he added: "I
have rubbed out the word 'must' from my vocabulary," which was not
true. No man ever reaches that point. Duty of some sort confronts a
man in business or out of business, and duty spells "must." But there
is less "must" in the vocabulary of the retired man; and it is this
lessened quantity that gives the tang of joy to the new day.
It is a wonderful inner personal satisfaction to reach the point when a
man can say: "I have enough." His soul and character are refreshed by
it: he is made over by it. He begins a new life! he gets a sense of a
new joy; he feels, for the first time, what a priceless possession is
that thing that he never knew before, freedom. And if he seeks that
freedom at the right time, when he is at the summit of his years and
powers and at the most opportune moment in his affairs, he has that
supreme satisfaction denied to so many men, the opposite of which comes
home with such cruel force to them; that they have overstayed their
time: they have worn out their welcome.
There is no satisfaction that so thoroughly satisfies as that of going
while the going is good.
Still----
The friends of Edward Bok may be right when they said he made a mistake
in his retirement.
However----
As Mr. Dooley says: "It's a good thing, sometimes, to have people size
ye up wrong, Hinnessey: it's whin they've got ye'er measure ye're in
danger."
Edward Bok's friends have failed to get his measure,--yet!
They still have to learn what he has learned and is learning every day:
"the joy," as Charles Lamb so aptly put it upon his retirement, "of
walking about and around instead of to and fro."
* * * * *
The question now naturally arises, having read this record thus far: To
what extent, with his unusual opportunities of fifty years, has the
Americanization of Edward Bok gone? How far is he, to-day, an
American? These questions, so direct and personal in their nature, are
perhaps best answered in a way more direct and personal than the method
thus far adopted in this chronicle. We will, therefore, let Edward Bok
answer these questions for himself, in closing this record of his
Americanization.