The Americanization of Edward Bok / The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After

by Edward William Bok

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.