Edward Bok was now jumping from one sizzling frying-pan into another. He
had become vitally interested in the growth of women's clubs as a power
for good, and began to follow their work and study their methods. He
attended meetings; he had his editors attend others and give him
reports; he collected and read the year-books of scores of clubs, and he
secured and read a number of the papers that had been presented by
members at these meetings. He saw at once that what might prove a
wonderful power in the civic life of the nation was being misdirected
into gatherings of pseudo-culture, where papers ill-digested and mostly
copied from books were read and superficially discussed.
Apparently the average club thought nothing of disposing of the works of
the Victorian poets in one afternoon; the Italian Renaissance was "fully
treated and most ably discussed," according to one programme, at a
single meeting; Rembrandt and his school were likewise disposed of in
one afternoon, and German literature was "adequately treated" at one
session "in able papers."
Bok gathered a mass of this material, and then paid his respects to it
in the magazine. He recited his evidence and then expressed his opinion
of it. He realized that his arraignment of the clubs would cost the
magazine hundreds of friends; but, convinced of the great power of the
woman's club with its activities rightly directed, he concluded that he
could afford to risk incurring displeasure if he might point the way to
more effective work. The one was worth the other.
The displeasure was not slow in making itself manifest. It came to
maturity overnight, as it were, and expressed itself in no uncertain
terms. Every club flew to arms, and Bok was intensely interested to note
that the clubs whose work he had taken as "horrible examples," although
he had not mentioned their names, were the most strenuous in their
denials of the methods outlined in the magazine, and that the members of
those clubs were particularly heated in their attacks upon him.
He soon found that he had stirred up quite as active a hornet's nest as
he had anticipated. Letters by the hundred poured in attacking and
reviling him. In nearly every case the writers fell back upon personal
abuse, ignoring his arguments altogether. He became the subject of
heated debates at club meetings, at conventions, in the public press;
and soon long petitions demanding his removal as editor began to come to
Mr. Curtis. These petitions were signed by hundreds of names. Bok read
them with absorbed interest, and bided his time for action. Meanwhile he
continued his articles of criticism in the magazine, and these, of
course, added fuel to the conflagration.
Former President Cleveland now came to Bok's side, and in an article in
the magazine went even further than Bok had ever thought of going in his
criticism of women's clubs. This article deflected the criticism from
Bok momentarily, and Mr. Cleveland received a grilling to which his
experiences in the White House were "as child's play," as he expressed
it. The two men, the editor and the former President, were now bracketed
as copartners in crime in the eyes of the club-women, and nothing too
harsh could be found to say or write of either.
Meanwhile Bok had been watching the petitions for his removal which kept
coming in. He was looking for an opening, and soon found it. One of the
most prominent women's clubs sent a protest condemning his attitude and
advising him by resolutions, which were enclosed, that unless he ceased
his attacks, the members of the -- Woman's Club had resolved "to
unitedly and unanimously boycott The Ladies' Home Journal and had
already put the plan into effect with the current issue."
Bok immediately engaged counsel in the city where the club was situated,
and instructed his lawyer to begin proceedings, for violation of the
Sherman Act, against the president and the secretary of the club, and
three other members; counsel to take particular pains to choose, if
possible, the wives of three lawyers.
Within forty-eight hours Bok heard from the husbands of the five wives,
who pointed out to him that the women had acted in entire ignorance of
the law, and suggested a reconsideration of his action. Bok replied by
quoting from the petition which set forth that it was signed "by the
most intelligent women of -- who were thoroughly versed in civic and
national affairs"; and if this were true, Bok argued, it naturally
followed that they must have been cognizant of a legislative measure so
well known and so widely discussed as the Sherman Act. He was basing his
action, he said, merely on their declaration.
Bok could easily picture to himself the chagrin and wrath of the women,
with the husbands laughing up their sleeves at the turn of affairs. "My
wife never could see the humor in the situation," said one of these
husbands to Bok, when he met him years later. Bok capitulated, and then
apparently with great reluctance, only when the club sent him an
official withdrawal of the protest and an apology for "its
ill-considered action." It was years after that one of the members of
the club, upon meeting Bok, said to him: "Your action did not increase
the club's love for you, but you taught it a much-needed lesson which it
never forgot."
Up to this time, Bok had purposely been destructive in his criticism.
Now, he pointed out a constructive plan whereby the woman's club could
make itself a power in every community. He advocated less of the
cultural and more of the civic interest, and urged that the clubs study
the numerous questions dealing with the life of their communities. This
seems strange, in view of the enormous amount of civic work done by
women's clubs to-day. But at that time, when the woman's club movement
was unformed, these civic matters found but a small part in the majority
of programmes; in a number of cases none at all.
Of course, the clubs refused to accept or even to consider his
suggestions; they were quite competent to decide for themselves the
particular subjects for their meetings, they argued; they did not care
to be tutored or guided, particularly by Bok. They were much too angry
with him even to admit that his suggestions were practical and in order.
But he knew, of course, that they would adopt them of their own
volition--under cover, perhaps, but that made no difference, so long as
the end was accomplished. One club after another, during the following
years, changed its programme, and soon the supposed cultural interest
had yielded first place to the needful civic questions.
For years, however, the club-women of America did not forgive Bok. They
refused to buy or countenance his magazine, and periodically they
attacked it or made light of it. But he knew he had made his point, and
was content to leave it to time to heal the wounds. This came years
afterward, when Mrs. Pennypacker became president of the General
Federation of Women's Clubs and Mrs. Rudolph Blankenburg,
vice-president.
Those two far-seeing women and Bok arranged that an official department
of the Federation should find a place in The Ladies' Home Journal, with
Mrs. Pennypacker as editor and Mrs. Blankenburg, who lived in
Philadelphia, as the resident consulting editor. The idea was arranged
agreeably to all three; the Federation officially endorsed its
president's suggestion, and for several years the department was one of
the most successful in the magazine.
The breach had been healed; two powerful forces were working together,
as they should, for the mutual good of the American woman. No relations
could have been pleasanter than those between the editor-in-chief of the
magazine and the two departmental editors. The report was purposely set
afloat that Bok had withdrawn from his position of antagonism (?) toward
women's clubs, and this gave great satisfaction to thousands of women
club-members and made everybody happy!
At this time the question of suffrage for women was fast becoming a
prominent issue, and naturally Bok was asked to take a stand on the
question in his magazine. No man sat at a larger gateway to learn the
sentiments of numbers of women on any subject. He read his vast
correspondence carefully. He consulted women of every grade of
intelligence and in every station in life. Then he caused a straw-vote
to be taken among a selected list of thousands of his subscribers in
large cities and in small towns. The result of all these inquiries was
most emphatic and clear: by far the overwhelming majority of the women
approached either were opposed to the ballot or were indifferent to it.
Those who desired to try the experiment were negligible in number. So
far as the sentiment of any wide public can be secured on any given
topic, this seemed to be the dominant opinion.
Bok then instituted a systematic investigation of conditions in those
states where women had voted for years; but he could not see, from a
thoughtful study of his investigations, that much had been accomplished.
The results certainly did not measure up to the prophecies constantly
advanced by the advocates of a nation-wide equal suffrage.
The editor now carefully looked into the speeches of the suffragists,
examined the platform of the National body in favor of woman suffrage,
and talked at length with such leaders in the movement as Susan B.
Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Howard Shaw, and Jane Addams.
All this time Bok had kept his own mind open. He was ready to have the
magazine, for whose editorial policy he was responsible, advocate that
side of the issue which seemed for the best interests of the American
woman.
The arguments that a woman should not have a vote because she was a
woman; that it would interfere with her work in the home; that it would
make her more masculine; that it would take her out of her own home;
that it was a blow at domesticity and an actual menace to the home life
of America--these did not weight with him. There was only one question
for him to settle: Was the ballot something which, in its demonstrated
value or in its potentiality, would serve the best interests of American
womanhood?
After all his investigations of both sides of the question, Bok decided
upon a negative answer. He felt that American women were not ready to
exercise the privilege intelligently and that their mental attitude was
against it.
Forthwith he said so in his magazine. And the storm broke. The
denunciations brought down upon him by his attitude toward woman's clubs
was as nothing compared to what was now let loose. The attacks were
bitter. His arguments were ignored; and the suffragists evidently
decided to concentrate their criticisms upon the youthful years of the
editor. They regarded this as a most vulnerable point of attack, and
reams of paper were used to prove that the opinion of a man so young in
years and so necessarily unformed in his judgment was of no value.
Unfortunately, the suffragists did not know, when they advanced this
argument, that it would be overthrown by the endorsement of Bok's point
of view by such men and women of years and ripe judgment as Doctor
Eliot, then president of Harvard University, former President Cleveland,
Lyman Abbott, Margaret Deland, and others. When articles by these
opponents to suffrage appeared, the argument of youth hardly held good;
and the attacks of the suffragists were quickly shifted to the ground of
"narrow-mindedness and old-fashioned fogyism."
The article by former President Cleveland particularly stirred the ire
of the attacking suffragists, and Miss Anthony hurled a broadside at the
former President in a newspaper interview. Unfortunately for her best
judgment, and the strength of her argument, the attack became intensely
personal; and of course, nullified its force. But it irritated Mr.
Cleveland, who called Bok to his Princeton home and read him a draft of
a proposed answer for publication in Bok's magazine.
Those who knew Mr. Cleveland were well aware of the force that he could
put into his pen when he chose, and in this proposed article he
certainly chose! It would have made very unpleasant reading for Miss
Anthony in particular, as well as for her friends. Bok argued strongly
against the article. He reminded Mr. Cleveland that it would be
undignified to make such an answer; that it was always an unpopular
thing to attack a woman in public, especially a woman who was old and
ill; that she would again strive for the last word; that there would be
no point to the controversy and nothing gained by it. He pleaded with
Mr. Cleveland to meet Miss Anthony's attack by a dignified silence.
These arguments happily prevailed. In reality, Mr. Cleveland was not
keen to attack Miss Anthony or any other woman; such a thought was
foreign to his nature. He summed up his feeling to Bok when he tore up
the draft of his article and smilingly said: "Well, I've got if off my
chest, that is the main thing. I wanted to get it out of my system, and
talking it over has driven it out. It is better in the fire," and he
threw the torn paper into the open grate.
As events turned out, it was indeed fortunate that the matter had been
so decided; for the article would have appeared in the number of Bok's
magazine published on the day that Miss Anthony passed away. It would
have been a most unfortunate moment, to say the least, for the
appearance of an attack such as Mr. Cleveland had in mind.
This incident, like so many instances that might be adduced, points with
singular force to the value of that editorial discrimination which the
editor often makes between what is wise or unwise for him to publish.
Bok realized that had he encouraged Mr. Cleveland to publish the
article, he could have exhausted any edition he might have chosen to
print. Times without number, editors make such decisions directly
against what would be of temporary advantage to their publications. The
public never hears of these incidents.
More often than not the editor hears "stories" that, if printed, would
be a "scoop" which would cause his publication to be talked about from
one end of the country to the other. The public does not give credit to
the editor, particularly of the modern newspaper, for the high code of
honor which constantly actuates him in his work. The prevailing notion
is that an editor prints all that he knows, and much that he does not
know. Outside of those in the inner government circles, no group of men,
during the Great War, had more information of a confidential nature
constantly given or brought to them, and more zealously guarded it, than
the editors of the newspapers of America. Among no other set of
professional men is the code of honor so high; and woe betide the
journalist who, in the eyes of his fellow-workers, violates, even in the
slightest degree, that code of editorial ethics. Public men know how
true is this statement; the public at large, however, has not the first
conception of it. If it had, it would have a much higher opinion of its
periodicals and newspapers.
At this juncture, Rudyard Kipling unconsciously came into the very
centre of the suffragists' maelstrom of attack when he sent Bok his
famous poem: "The Female of the Species." The suffragists at once took
the argument in the poem as personal to themselves, and now Kipling got
the full benefit of their vitriolic abuse. Bok sent a handful of these
criticisms to Kipling, who was very gleeful about them. "I owe you a
good laugh over the clippings," he wrote. "They were delightful. But
what a quantity of spare time some people in this world have to burn!"
It was a merry time; and the longer it continued the more heated were
the attacks. The suffragists now had a number of targets, and they took
each in turn and proceeded to riddle it. That Bok was publishing
articles explaining both sides of the question, presenting arguments by
the leading suffragists as well as known anti-suffragists, did not
matter in the least. These were either conveniently overlooked, or, when
referred to at all, were considered in the light of "sops" to the
offended women.
At last Bok reached the stage where he had exhausted all the arguments
worth printing, on both sides of the question, and soon the storm calmed
down.
It was always a matter of gratification to him that the woman who had
most bitterly assailed him during the suffrage controversy, Anna Howard
Shaw, became in later years one of his stanchest friends, and was an
editor on his pay-roll. When the United States entered the Great War,
Bok saw that Doctor Shaw had undertaken a gigantic task in promising, as
chairman, to direct the activities of the National Council for Women. He
went to see her in Washington, and offered his help and that of the
magazine. Doctor Shaw, kindliest of women in her nature, at once
accepted the offer; Bok placed the entire resources of the magazine and
of its Washington editorial force at her disposal; and all through
America's participation in the war, she successfully conducted a monthly
department in The Ladies' Home Journal.
"Such help," she wrote at the close, "as you and your associates have
extended me and my co-workers; such unstinted co-operation and such
practical guidance I never should have dreamed possible. You made your
magazine a living force in our work; we do not see now how we would have
done without it. You came into our activities at the psychological
moment, when we most needed what you could give us, and none could have
given with more open hands and fuller hearts."
So the contending forces in a bitter word-war came together and worked
together, and a mutual regard sprang up between the woman and the man
who had once so radically differed.