"Thanks equally for your treatment of both poems, [he wrote], the one accepted and the other returned.
Maintain your own opinions and respect, and my vigorous esteem for you shall remain 'deep-rooted in the
fruitful soil.' No occasion for apology whatever. In my opinion, you are wrong; in your opinion, you are right;
therefore, you are right,--at least righter than wronger. It is seldom that I drop other work for logic, but when I
do, as my grandfather was wont to sturdily remark, 'it is to some purpose, I can promise you.'
"Am goin' to try mighty hard to send you the dialect work you've so long wanted; in few weeks at furthest.
'Patience and shuffle the cards.'
"I am really, just now, stark and bare of one commonsence idea. In the writing line, I was never so involved
before and see no end to the ink-(an humorous voluntary provocative, I trust of much merriment)-creasing
pressure of it all.
"Even the hope of waking to find myself famous is denied me, since I haven't time in which to fall asleep.
Therefore, very drowsily and yawningly indeed, I am your
"James Whitcomb Riley."
Neither did the President of the United States consider himself above a possible declination of his material if
it seemed advisable to the editor. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson wrote to Bok:
"Sometime ago you kindly intimated to me that you would like to publish an article from me. At first, it
seemed impossible for me to undertake anything of the kind, but I have found a little interval in which I have
written something on Mexico which I hope you will think worthy of publication. If not, will you return it to
me?"
The President, too, acted as an intermediary in turning authors in Bok's direction, when the way opened. In a
letter written not on the official White House letterhead, but on his personal "up-stairs" stationery, as it is
called, he asks:
"Will you do me the favor of reading the enclosed to see if it is worthy of your acceptance for the Journal, or
whether you think it indicates that the writer, with a few directions and suggestions, might be useful to you?
"It was written by --. She is a woman of great refinement, of a very unusually broad social experience, and of
many exceptional gifts, who thoroughly knows what she is writing about, whether she has yet discovered the
best way to set it forth or not. She is one of the most gifted and resourceful hostesses I have known, but has
now fallen upon hard times.
"Among other things that she really knows, she really does thoroughly know old furniture and all kinds of
china worth knowing.
"Pardon me if I have been guilty of an indiscretion in sending this direct to you. I am throwing myself upon

suggest will gain in unity and directness. At first, I feared it would appear a little 'bobbed' off, but you are a
much better judge of that than I. ... I leave it altogether to you."
It was always interesting to Bok, as a study of mental processes, to note how differently he and some author
with whom he would talk it over would see the method of treating some theme. He was discussing the
growing unrest among American women with Rudyard Kipling at the latter's English home; and expressed the
desire that the novelist should treat the subject and its causes.
They talked until the early hours, when it was agreed that each should write out a plan, suggest the best
treatment, and come together the next morning. When they did so, Kipling had mapped out the scenario of a
novel; Bok had sketched out the headings of a series of analytical articles. Neither one could see the other's
viewpoint, Kipling contending for the greater power of fiction and Bok strongly arguing for the value of the
direct essay. In this instance, the point was never settled, for the work failed to materialize in any form!
If the readers of The Ladies' Home Journal were quick to support its editor when he presented an idea that
appealed to them, they were equally quick to tell him when he gave them something of which they did not
approve. An illustration of this occurred during the dance-craze that preceded the Great War. In 1914,
America was dance-mad, and the character of the dances rapidly grew more and more offensive. Bok's
readers, by the hundreds, urged him to come out against the tendency.
The editor looked around and found that the country's terpsichorean idols were Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle;
he decided that, with their cooperation, he might, by thus going to the fountainhead, effect an improvement
through the introduction, by the Castles, of better and more decorous new dances. Bok could see no reason
why the people should not dance, if they wanted to, so long as they kept within the bounds of decency.
The Legal Small Print 157
He found the Castles willing and eager to cooperate, not only because of the publicity it would mean for them,
but because they were themselves not in favor of the new mode. They had little sympathy for the elimination
of the graceful dance by the introduction of what they called the "shuffle" or the "bunny-hug," "turkey-trot,"
and other ungraceful and unworthy dances. It was decided that the Castles should, through Bok's magazine
and their own public exhibitions, revive the gavotte, the polka, and finally the waltz. They would evolve these
into new forms and Bok would present them pictorially. A series of three double-page presentations was
decided upon, allowing for large photographs so that the steps could be easily seen and learned from the
printed page.
The magazine containing the first "lesson" was no sooner published than protests began to come in by the

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 home and 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
The Legal Small Print 158
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 Harmon, 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. Harmon 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
transatlantic 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

William C. Gorgas, surgeon-general of the United States, was the spokesman in the magazine for the health of
the boys.
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.
On the coming of the coal question, the magazine immediately reflected the findings and recommendations of
the Fuel Administration, and Doctor H. A. Garfield, as fuel administrator, placed the material of his Bureau at
the disposal of the magazine's Washington editor.
The Committee on Public Information now sought the magazine for the issuance of a series of official
announcements explanatory of matters to women.
When the "meatless" and the "wheatless" days were inaugurated, the women of America found that the
magazine had anticipated their coming; and the issue appearing on the first of these days, as publicly
announced by the Food Administration, presented pages of substitutes in full colors.
Of course, miscellaneous articles on the war there were, without number. Before the war was ended, the
magazine did send a representative to the front in Catherine Van Dyke, who did most effective work for the
magazine in articles of a general nature. The fullpage battle pictures, painted from data furnished by those
who took actual part, were universally commended and exhausted even the largest editions that could be
printed. A source of continual astonishment was the number of copies of the magazine found among the boys
in France; it became the third in the official War Department list of the most desired American periodicals,
evidently representing a tie between the boys and their home folks. But all these "war" features, while
appreciated and desirable, were, after all, but a side-issue to the more practical economic work of the
magazine. It was in this service that the magazine excelled, it was for this reason that the women at home so
eagerly bought it, and that it was impossible to supply each month the editions called for by the extraordinary