CHAPTER VIII
STARTING A NEWSPAPER SYNDICATE
Edward felt that his daytime hours, spent in a publishing atmosphere as stenographer with Henry Holt and Company, were more in line with his editorial duties during the evenings. The Brooklyn Magazine was soon earning a comfortable income for its two young proprietors, and their backers were entirely satisfied with the way it was being conducted. In fact, one of these backers, Mr. Rufus T. Bush, associated with the Standard Oil Company, who became especially interested, thought he saw in the success of the magazine a possible opening for one of his sons, who was shortly to be graduated from college. He talked to the publisher and editor about the idea, but the boys showed by their books that while there was a reasonable income for them, not wholly dependent on the magazine, there was no room for a third.
Mr. Bush now suggested that he buy the magazine for his son, alter its name, enlarge its scope, and make of it a national periodical. Arrangements were concluded, those who had financially backed the venture were fully paid, and the two boys received a satisfactory amount for their work in building up the magazine. Mr. Bush asked Edward to suggest a name for the new periodical, and in the following month of May, 1887, The Brooklyn Magazine became The American Magazine, with its publication office in New York. But, though a great deal of money was spent on the new magazine, it did not succeed. Mr. Bush sold his interest in the periodical, which, once more changing its name, became The Cosmopolitan Magazine. Since then it has passed through the hands of several owners, but the name has remained the same. Before Mr. Bush sold The American Magazine he had urged Edward to come back to it as its editor, with promise of financial support; but the young man felt instinctively that his return would not be wise. The magazine had been The Cosmopolitan only a short time when the new owners, Mr. Paul J. Slicht and Mr. E. D. Walker, also solicited the previous editor to accept reappointment. But Edward, feeling that his baby had been rechristened too often for him to father it again, declined the proposition. He had not heard the last of it, however, for, by a curious coincidence, its subsequent owner, entirely ignorant of Edward's previous association with the magazine, invited him to connect himself with it. Thus three times could Edward Bok have returned to the magazine for whose creation he was responsible.
Edward was now without editorial cares; but he had already, even before disposing of the magazine, embarked on another line of endeavor. In sending to a number of newspapers the advance sheets of a particularly striking "feature" in one of his numbers of The Brooklyn Magazine, it occurred to him that he was furnishing a good deal of valuable material to these papers without cost. It is true his magazine was receiving the advertising value of editorial comment; but he wondered whether the newspapers would not be willing to pay for the privilege of simultaneous publication. An inquiry or two proved that they would. Thus Edward stumbled upon the "syndicate" plan of furnishing the same article to a group of newspapers, one in each city, for simultaneous publication. He looked over the ground, and found that while his idea was not a new one, since two "syndicate" agencies already existed, the field was by no means fully covered, and that the success of a third agency would depend entirely upon its ability to furnish the newspapers with material equally good or better than they received from the others. After following the material furnished by these agencies for two or three weeks, Edward decided that there was plenty of room for his new ideas.
He discussed the matter with his former magazine partner, Colver, and suggested that if they could induce Mr. Beecher to write a weekly comment on current events for the newspapers it would make an auspicious beginning. They decided to talk it over with the famous preacher. For to be a "Plymouth boy"--that is, to go to the Plymouth Church Sunday-school and to attend church there--was to know personally and become devoted to Henry Ward Beecher. And the two were synonymous. There was no distance between Mr. Beecher and his "Plymouth boys." Each understood the other. The tie was that of absolute comradeship.
"I don't believe in it, boys," said Mr. Beecher when Edward and his friend broached the syndicate letter to him. "No one yet ever made a cent out of my supposed literary work."
All the more reason, was the argument, why some one should.
Mr. Beecher smiled! How well he knew the youthful enthusiasm that rushes in, etc.
"Well, all right! I like your pluck," he finally said. "I'll help you if I can."
The young editors agreed to pay Mr. Beecher a weekly sum of two hundred and fifty dollars--which he knew was considerable for them.
When the first article had been written they took him their first check. He looked at it quizzically, and then at the boys. Then he said simply: "Thank you." He took a pin and pinned the check to his desk. There it remained, much to their curiosity.
The following week he had written the second article and the boys gave him another check. He pinned that up over the other. "I like to look at them," was his only explanation, as he saw Edward's inquiring glance one morning.
The third check was treated the same way. When they handed him the fourth, one morning, as he was pinning it up over the others, he asked: "When do you get your money from the newspapers?"
He was told that the bills were going out that morning for the four letters constituting a month's service.
"I see," he remarked.
A fortnight passed, then one day Mr. Beecher asked: "Well, how are the checks coming in?"
"Very well," he was assured.
"Suppose you let me see how much you've got in," he suggested, and the boys brought the accounts to him.
After looking at them he said: "That's very interesting. How much have you in the bank?"
He was told the balance, less the checks given to him. "But I haven't turned them in yet," he explained. "Anyhow, you have enough in bank to meet the checks you have given me, and a profit besides, haven't you?"
He was assured they had.
Then, taking his bank-book from a drawer; he unpinned the six checks on his desk, indorsed each, wrote a deposit slip, and, handing the book to Edward, said:
"Just hand that in at the bank as you go by, will you?"
Edward was very young then, and Mr. Beecher's methods of financiering seemed to him quite in line with current notions of the Plymouth pastor's lack of business knowledge. But as the years rolled on the incident appeared in a new light--a striking example of the great preacher's wonderful considerateness.
Edward had offered to help Mr. Beecher with his correspondence; at the close of one afternoon, while he was with the Plymouth pastor at work, an organ-grinder and a little girl came under the study window. A cold, driving rain was pelting down. In a moment Mr. Beecher noticed the girl's bare toes sticking out of her worn shoes.
He got up, went into the hall, and called for one of his granddaughters.
"Got any good, strong rain boots?" he asked when she appeared.
"Why, yes, grandfather. Why?" was the answer.
"More than one pair?" Mr. Beecher asked.
"Yes, two or three, I think."
"Bring me your strongest pair, will you, dear?" he asked. And as the girl looked at him with surprise he said: "Just one of my notions."
"Now, just bring that child into the house and put them on her feet for me, will you?" he said when the shoes came. "I'll be able to work so much better."
One rainy day, as Edward was coming up from Fulton Ferry with Mr. Beecher, they met an old woman soaked with the rain. "Here, you take this, my good woman," said the clergyman, putting his umbrella over her head and thrusting the handle into the astonished woman's hand. "Let's get into this," he said to Edward simply, as he hailed a passing car.
"There is a good deal of fraud about beggars," he remarked as he waved a sot away from him one day; "but that doesn't apply to women and children," he added; and he never passed such mendicants without stopping. All the stories about their being tools in the hands of accomplices failed to convince him. "They're women and children," he would say, and that settled it for him.
"What's the matter, son? Stuck?" he said once to a newsboy who was crying with a heavy bundle of papers under his arm.
"Come along with me, then," said Mr. Beecher, taking the boy's hand and leading him into the newspaper office a few doors up the street.
"This boy is stuck," he simply said to the man behind the counter. "Guess The Eagle can stand it better than this boy; don't you think so?"
To the grown man Mr. Beecher rarely gave charity.
He believed in a return for his alms.
"Why don't you go to work?" he asked of a man who approached him one day in the street.
"Can't find any," said the man.
"Looked hard for it?" was the next question.
"I have," and the man looked Mr. Beecher in the eye.
"Want some?" asked Mr. Beecher.
"I do," said the man.
"Come with me," said the preacher. And then to Edward, as they walked along with the man following behind, he added: "That man is honest."
"Let this man sweep out the church," he said to the sexton when they had reached Plymouth Church.
"But, Mr. Beecher," replied the sexton with wounded pride, "it doesn't need it."
"Don't tell him so, though," said Mr. Beecher with a merry twinkle of the eye; and the sexton understood.
Mr. Beecher was constantly thoughtful of a struggling young man's welfare, even at the expense of his own material comfort. Anxious to save him from the labor of writing out the newspaper articles, Edward, himself employed during the daylight hours which Mr. Beecher preferred for his original work, suggested a stenographer. The idea appealed to Mr. Beecher, for he was very busy just then. He hesitated, but as Edward persisted, he said: "All right; let him come to-morrow."
The next day he said: "I asked that stenographer friend of yours not to come again. No use of my trying to dictate. I am too old to learn new tricks. Much easier for me to write myself."
Shortly after that, however, Mr. Beecher dictated to Edward some material for a book he was writing. Edward naturally wondered at this, and asked the stenographer what had happened.
"Nothing," he said. "Only Mr. Beecher asked me how much it would cost you to have me come to him each week. I told him, and then he sent me away."
That was Henry Ward Beecher!
Edward Bok was in the formative period between boyhood and young manhood when impressions meant lessons, and associations meant ideals. Mr. Beecher never disappointed. The closer one got to him, the greater he became--in striking contrast to most public men, as Edward had already learned.
Then, his interests and sympathies were enormously wide. He took in so much! One day Edward was walking past Fulton Market, in New York City, with Mr. Beecher.
"Never skirt a market," the latter said; "always go through it. It's the next best thing, in the winter, to going South."
Of course all the marketmen knew him, and they knew, too, his love for green things.
"What do you think of these apples, Mr. Beecher?" one marketman would stop to ask.
Mr. Beecher would answer heartily: "Fine! Don't see how you grow them. All that my trees bear is a crop of scale. Still, the blossoms are beautiful in the spring, and I like an apple-leaf. Ever examine one?" The marketman never had. "Well, now, do, the next time you come across an apple-tree in the spring."
And thus he would spread abroad an interest in the beauties of nature which were commonly passed over.
"Wonderful man, Beecher is," said a market dealer in green goods once. "I had handled thousands of bunches of celery in my life and never noticed how beautiful its top leaves were until he picked up a bunch once and told me all about it. Now I haven't the heart to cut the leaves off when a customer asks me."
His idea of his own vegetable-gardening at Boscobel, his Peekskill home, was very amusing. One day Edward was having a hurried dinner, preparatory to catching the New York train. Mr. Beecher sat beside the boy, telling him of some things he wished done in Brooklyn.
"No, I thank you," said Edward, as the maid offered him some potatoes.
"Look here, young man," said Mr. Beecher, "don't pass those potatoes so lightly. They're of my own raising--and I reckon they cost me about a dollar a piece," he added with a twinkle in his eye.
He was an education in so many ways! One instance taught Edward the great danger of passionate speech that might unconsciously wound; and the manliness of instant recognition of the error. Swayed by an occasion, or by the responsiveness of an audience, Mr. Beecher would sometimes say something which was not meant as it sounded. One evening, at a great political meeting at Cooper Union, Mr. Beecher was at his brightest and wittiest. In the course of his remarks he had occasion to refer to ex-President Hayes; some one in the audience called out: "He was a softy!"
"No," was Mr. Beecher's quick response. "The country needed a poultice at that time, and got it."
"He's dead now, anyhow," responded the voice.
"Not dead, my friend; he only sleepeth."
It convulsed the audience, of course, and the reporters took it down in their books.
After the meeting Edward drove home with Mr. Beecher.
After a while he asked: "Well, how do you think it went?"
Edward replied he thought it went very well, except that he did not like the reference to ex-President Hayes.
"What reference? What did I say?"
Edward repeated it.
"Did I say that?" he asked. Edward looked at him. Mr. Beecher's face was tense. After a few moments he said: "That's generally the way with extemporaneous remarks: they are always dangerous. The best impromptu speeches and remarks are the carefully prepared kind," he added.
Edward told him he regretted the reference because he knew that General Hayes would read it in the New York papers, and he would be nonplussed to understand it, considering the cordial relations which existed between the two men. Mr. Beecher knew of Edward's relations with the ex-President, and they had often talked of him together.
Nothing more was said of the incident. When the Beecher home was reached Mr. Beecher said: "Just come in a minute." He went straight to his desk, and wrote and wrote. It seemed as if he would never stop. At last he handed Edward an eight-page letter, closely written, addressed to General Hayes.
"Read that, and mail it, please, on your way home. Then it'll get there just as quickly as the New York papers will."
It was a superbly fine letter,--one of those letters which only Henry Ward Beecher could write in his tenderest moods. And the reply which came from Fremont, Ohio, was no less fine!
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST "WOMAN'S PAGE," "LITERARY LEAVES," AND ENTERING SCRIBNER'S
Edward had been in the employ of Henry Holt and Company as clerk and stenographer for two years when Mr. Cary sent for him and told him that there was an opening in the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons, if he wanted to make a change. Edward saw at once the larger opportunities possible in a house of the importance of the Scribners, and he immediately placed himself in communication with Mr. Charles Scribner, with the result that in January, 1884, he entered the employ of these publishers as stenographer to the two members of the firm and to Mr. Edward L. Burlingame, literary adviser to the house. He was to receive a salary of eighteen dollars and thirty-three cents per week, which was then considered a fair wage for stenographic work. The typewriter had at that time not come into use, and all letters were written in long-hand. Once more his legible handwriting had secured for him a position.
Edward Bok was now twenty-one years of age. He had already done a prodigious amount of work for his years. He was always busy. Every spare moment of his evenings was devoted either to writing his literary letter, to the steady acquirement of autograph letters in which he still persisted, or to helping Mr. Beecher in his literary work. The Plymouth pastor was particularly pleased with Edward's successful exploitation of his pen work; and he afterward wrote: "Bok is the only man who ever seemed to make my literary work go and get money out of it."
Enterprise and energy the boy unquestionably possessed, but one need only think back even thus far in his life to see the continuous good fortune which had followed him in the friendships he had made, and in the men with whom his life, at its most formative period, had come into close contact. If we are inclined to credit young Bok with an ever-willingness to work and a certain quality of initiative, the influences which played upon him must also be taken into account.
Take, for example, the peculiarly fortuitous circumstances under which he entered the Scribner publishing house. As stenographer to the two members of the firm, Bok was immediately brought into touch with the leading authors of the day, their works as they were discussed in the correspondence dictated to him, and the authors' terms upon which books were published. In fact, he was given as close an insight as it was possible for a young man to get into the inner workings of one of the large publishing houses in the United States, with a list peculiarly noted for the distinction of its authors and the broad scope of its books.
The Scribners had the foremost theological list of all the publishing houses; its educational list was exceptionally strong; its musical list excelled; its fiction represented the leading writers of the day; its general list was particularly noteworthy; and its foreign department, importing the leading books brought out in Great Britain and Europe, was an outstanding feature of the business. The correspondence dictated to Bok covered, naturally, all these fields, and a more remarkable opportunity for self-education was never offered a stenographer.
Mr. Burlingame was known in the publishing world for his singularly keen literary appreciation, and was accepted as one of the best judges of good fiction. Bok entered the Scribner employ as Mr. Burlingame was selecting the best short stories published within a decade for a set of books to be called "Short Stories by American Authors." The correspondence for this series was dictated to Bok, and he decided to read after Mr. Burlingame and thus get an idea of the best fiction of the day. So whenever his chief wrote to an author asking for permission to include his story in the proposed series, Bok immediately hunted up the story and read it.
Later, when the house decided to start Scribner's Magazine, and Mr. Burlingame was selected to be its editor, all the preliminary correspondence was dictated to Bok through his employers, and he received a first-hand education in the setting up of the machinery necessary for the publication of a magazine. All this he eagerly absorbed.
He was again fortunate in that his desk was placed in the advertising department of the house; and here he found, as manager, an old-time Brooklyn boy friend with whom he had gone to school, Frank N. Doubleday, to-day the senior partner of Doubleday, Page and Company. Bok had been attracted to advertising through his theatre programme and Brooklyn Magazine experience, and here was presented a chance to learn the art at first hand and according to the best traditions. So, whenever his stenographic work permitted, he assisted Mr. Doubleday in preparing and placing the advertisements of the books of the house.
Mr. Doubleday was just reviving the publication of a house-organ called The Book Buyer, and, given a chance to help in this, Bok felt he was getting back into the periodical field, especially since, under Mr. Doubleday's guidance, the little monthly soon developed into a literary magazine of very respectable size and generally bookish contents.
The house also issued another periodical, The Presbyterian Review, a quarterly under the editorship of a board of professors connected with the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries. This ponderous-looking magazine was not composed of what one might, call "light reading," and as the price of a single copy was eighty cents, and the advertisements it could reasonably expect were necessarily limited in number, the periodical was rather difficult to move. Thus the whole situation at the Scribners' was adapted to give Edward an all-round training in the publishing business. It was an exceptional opportunity.
He worked early and late. An increase in his salary soon told him that he was satisfying his employers, and then, when the new Scribner's Magazine appeared, and a little later Mr. Doubleday was delegated to take charge of the business end of it, Bok himself was placed in charge of the advertising department, with the publishing details of the two periodicals on his hands.
He suddenly found himself directing a stenographer instead of being a stenographer himself. Evidently his apprentice days were over. He had, in addition, the charge of sending all the editorial copies of the new books to the press for review, and of keeping a record of those reviews. This naturally brought to his desk the authors of the house who wished to see how the press received their works.
The study of the writers who were interested in following the press notices of their books, and those who were indifferent to them became a fascinating game to young Bok. He soon discovered that the greater the author the less he seemed to care about his books once they a were published. Bok noticed this, particularly, in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose work had attracted him, but, although he used the most subtle means to inveigle the author into the office to read the press notices, he never succeeded. Stevenson never seemed to have the slightest interest in what the press said of his books.
One day Mr. Burlingame asked Bok to take some proofs to Stevenson at his home; thinking it might be a propitious moment to interest the author in the popular acclaim that followed the publication of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bok put a bunch of press notices in his pocket. He found the author in bed, smoking his inevitable cigarette.
As the proofs were to be brought back, Bok waited, and thus had an opportunity for nearly two hours to see the author at work. No man ever went over his proofs more carefully than did Stevenson; his corrections were numerous; and sometimes for ten minutes at a time he would sit smoking and thinking over a single sentence, which, when he had satisfactorily shaped it in his mind, he would recast on the proof.
Stevenson was not a prepossessing figure at these times. With his sallow skin and his black dishevelled hair, with finger-nails which had been allowed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco--in short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so Bok felt, was an author whom it was better to read than to see. And yet his kindliness and gentleness more than offset the unattractiveness of his physical appearance.
After one or two visits from Bok, having grown accustomed to him, Stevenson would discuss some sentence in an article, or read some amended paragraph out loud and ask whether Bok though it sounded better. To pass upon Stevenson as a stylist was, of course, hardly within Bok's mental reach, so he kept discreetly silent when Stevenson asked his opinion.
In fact, Bok reasoned it out that the novelist did not really expect an answer or an opinion, but was at such times thinking aloud. The mental process, however, was immensely interesting, particularly when Stevenson would ask Bok to hand him a book on words lying on an adjacent table. "So hard to find just the right word," Stevenson would say, and Bok got his first realization of the truth of the maxim: "Easy writing, hard reading; hard writing, easy reading."
On this particular occasion when Stevenson finished, Bok pulled out his clippings, told the author how his book was being received, and was selling, what the house was doing to advertise it, explained the forthcoming play by Richard Mansfield, and then offered the press notices.
Stevenson took the bundle and held it in his hand.
"That's very nice to tell me all you have," he said, "and I have been greatly interested. But you have really told me all about it, haven't you, so why should I read these notices? Hadn't I better get busy on another paper for Mr. Burlingame for the next magazine, else he'll be after me? You know how impatient these editors are." And he handed back the notices.
Bok saw it was of no use: Stevenson was interested in his work, but, beyond a certain point, not in the world's reception of it. Bok's estimate of the author rose immeasurably. His attitude was in such sharp contrast to that of others who came almost daily into the office to see what the papers said, often causing discomfiture to the young advertising director by insisting upon taking the notices with them. But Bok always countered this desire by reminding the author that, of course, in that case he could not quote from these desirable notices in his advertisements of the book. And, invariably, the notices were left behind!
It now fell to the lot of the young advertiser to arouse the interest of the public in what were to be some of the most widely read and best-known books of the day: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy; Andrew Carnegie's Triumphant Democracy; Frank R. Stockton's The Lady, or the Tiger? and his Rudder Grange, and a succession of other books.
The advertising of these books keenly sharpened the publicity sense of the developing advertising director. One book could best be advertised by the conventional means of the display advertisement; another, like Triumphant Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a story like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real dénouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream lady and a tiger to the author, and the whole company watched which he chose.
"And which did you choose?" asked the advertising director.
"Et tu, Brute?" Stockton smilingly replied. "Well, I'll tell you. I asked the butler to bring me another spoon, and then, with a spoon in each hand, I attacked both the lady and the tiger at the same time."
Once, when Stockton was going to Boston by the night boat, every room was taken. The ticket agent recognized the author, and promised to get him a desirable room if the author would tell which he had had in mind, the lady or the tiger.
"Produce the room," answered Stockton.
The man did. Stockton paid for it, and then said:
"To tell you the truth, my friend, I don't know."
And that was the truth, as Mr. Stockton confessed to his friends. The idea of the story had fascinated him; when he began it he purposed to give it a definite ending. But when he reached the end he didn't know himself which to produce out of the open door, the lady or the tiger, "and so," he used to explain, "I made up my mind to leave it hanging in the air."
When the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Little Lord Fauntleroy were made into plays, Bok was given an opportunity for an entirely different kind of publicity. Both plays were highly successful; they ran for weeks in succession, and each evening Bok had circulars of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield's method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the Stevenson play, and with anecdotes about the boy Tommy Russell in Mrs. Burnett's play. The sale of the books went merrily on, and kept pace with the success of the plays. And it all sharpened the initiative of the young advertiser and developed his sense for publicity.
One day while waiting in the anteroom of a publishing house to see a member of the firm, he picked up a book and began to read it. Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last admitted to the private office. When his business was finished, Bok asked the publisher why this book was not selling.
"I don't know," replied the publisher. "We had great hopes for it, but somehow or other the public has not responded to it."
"Are you sure you are telling the public about it in the right way?" ventured Bok.
The Scribner advertising had by this time attracted the attention of the publishing world, and this publisher was entirely ready to listen to a suggestion from his youthful caller.
"I wish we published it," said Bok. "I think I could make it a go. It's all in the book."
"How would you advertise it?" asked the publisher.
Bok promised the publisher he would let him know. He carried with him a copy of the book, wrote some advertisements for it, prepared an attractive "broadside" of extracts, to which the book easily lent itself, wrote some literary notes about it, and sent the whole collection to the publisher. Every particle of "copy" which Bok had prepared was used, the book began to sell, and within three months it was the most discussed book of the day.
The book was Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward.
Meanwhile, Mr. Beecher's weekly newspaper "syndicate" letter was not only successful in itself, it made liberal money for the writer and for its two young publishers, but it served to introduce Edward Bok's proposed agency to the newspapers under the most favorable conditions. With one stroke, the attention of newspaper editors had been attracted, and Edward concluded to take quick advantage of it. He organized the Bok Syndicate Press, with offices in New York, and his brother, William J. Bok, as partner and active manager.
Edward's attention was now turned, for the first time, to women and their reading habits. He became interested in the fact that the American woman was not a newspaper reader. He tried to find out the psychology of this, and finally reached the conclusion, on looking over the newspapers, that the absence of any distinctive material for women was a factor. He talked the matter over with several prominent New York editors, who frankly acknowledged that they would like nothing better than to interest women, and make them readers of their papers. But they were equally frank in confessing that they were ignorant both of what women wanted, and, even if they knew, of where such material was to be had. Edward at once saw that here was an open field. It was a productive field, since, as woman was the purchasing power, it would benefit the newspaper enormously in its advertising if it could offer a feminine clientele.
There was a bright letter of New York gossip published in the New York Star, called "Bab's Babble." Edward had read it, and saw the possibility of syndicating this item as a woman's letter from New York. He instinctively realized that women all over the country would read it. He sought out the author, made arrangements with her and with former Governor Dorscheimer, owner of the paper, and the letter was sent out to a group of papers. It was an instantaneous success, and a syndicate of ninety newspapers was quickly organized.
Edward followed this up by engaging Ella Wheeler Wilcox, then at the height of her career, to write a weekly letter on women's topics. This he syndicated in conjunction with the other letter, and the editors invariably grouped the two letters. This, in turn, naturally led to the idea of supplying an entire page of matter of interest to women. The plan was proposed to a number of editors, who at once saw the possibilities in it and promised support. The young syndicator now laid under contribution all the famous women writers of the day; he chose the best of the men writers to write on women's topics; and it was not long before the syndicate was supplying a page of women's material. The newspapers played up the innovation, and thus was introduced into the newspaper press of the United States the "Woman's Page."
The material supplied by the Bok Syndicate Press was of the best; the standard was kept high; the writers were selected from among the most popular authors of the day; and readability was the cardinal note. The women bought the newspapers containing the new page, the advertiser began to feel the presence of the new reader, and every newspaper that could not get the rights for the "Bok Page," as it came to be known, started a "Woman's Page" of its own. Naturally, the material so obtained was of an inferior character. No single newspaper could afford what the syndicate, with the expense divided among a hundred newspapers, could pay. Nor had the editors of these woman's pages either a standard or a policy. In desperation they engaged any person they could to "get a lot of woman's stuff." It was stuff, and of the trashiest kind. So that almost coincident with the birth of the idea began its abuse and disintegration; the result we see in the meaningless presentations which pass for "woman's pages" in the newspaper of to-day.
This is true even of the woman's material in the leading newspapers, and the reason is not difficult to find. The average editor has, as a rule, no time to study the changing conditions of women's interests; his time is and must be engrossed by the news and editorial pages. He usually delegates the Sunday "specials" to some editor who, again, has little time to study the everchanging women's problems, particularly in these days, and he relies upon unintelligent advice, or he places his "woman's page" in the hands of some woman with the comfortable assurance that, being a woman, she ought to know what interests her sex.
But having given the subject little thought, he attaches minor importance to the woman's "stuff," regarding it rather in the light of something that he "must carry to catch the women"; and forthwith he either forgets it or refuses to give the editor of his woman's page even a reasonable allowance to spend on her material. The result is, of course, inevitable: pages of worthless material. There is, in fact, no part of the Sunday newspaper of to-day upon which so much good and now expensive white paper is wasted as upon the pages marked for the home, for women, and for children.
Edward Bok now became convinced, from his book-publishing association, that if the American women were not reading the newspapers, the American public, as a whole, was not reading the number of books that it should, considering the intelligence and wealth of the people, and the cheap prices at which books were sold. He concluded to see whether he could not induce the newspapers to give larger and more prominent space to the news of the book world.
Owing to his constant contact with authors, he was in a peculiarly fortunate position to know their plans in advance of execution, and he was beginning to learn the ins and outs of the book-publishing world. He canvassed the newspapers subscribing to his syndicate features, but found a disinclination to give space to literary news. To the average editor, purely literary features held less of an appeal than did the features for women. Fewer persons were interested in books, they declared; besides, the publishing houses were not so liberal advertisers as the department stores. The whole question rested on a commercial basis.
Edward believed he could convince editors of the public interest in a newsy, readable New York literary letter, and he prevailed upon the editor of the New York Star to allow him to supplement the book reviews of George Parsons Lathrop in that paper by a column of literary chat called "Literary Leaves." For a number of weeks he continued to write this department, and confine it to the New York paper, feeling that he needed the experience for the acquirement of a readable style, and he wanted to be sure that he had opened a sufficient number of productive news channels to ensure a continuous flow of readable literary information.
Occasionally he sent to an editor here and there what he thought was a particularly newsy letter just "for his information, not for sale." The editor of the Philadelphia Times was the first to discover that his paper wanted the letter, and the Boston Journal followed suit. Then the editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star discovered the letter in the New York Star, and asked that it be supplied weekly with the letter. These newspapers renamed the letter "Bok's Literary Leaves," and the feature started on its successful career.
CHAPTER X
THE CHANCES FOR SUCCESS
Edward Bok does not now remember whether the mental picture had been given him, or whether he had conjured it up for himself; but he certainly was possessed of the idea, as are so many young men entering business, that the path which led to success was very difficult: that it was overfilled with a jostling, bustling, panting crowd, each eager to reach the goal; and all ready to dispute every step that a young man should take; and that favoritism only could bring one to the top.
After Bok had been in the world of affairs, he wondered where were these choked avenues, these struggling masses, these competitors for every inch of vantage. Then he gradually discovered that they did not exist.
In the first place, he found every avenue leading to success wide open and certainly not overpeopled. He was surprised how few there were who really stood in a young man's way. He found that favoritism was not the factor that he had been led to suppose. He realized it existed in a few isolated cases, but to these every one had pointed and about these every one had talked until, in the public mind, they had multiplied in number and assumed a proportion that the facts did not bear out.
Here and there a relative "played a favorite," but even with the push and influence behind him "the lucky one," as he was termed, did not seem to make progress, unless he had merit. It was not long before Bok discovered that the possession of sheer merit was the only real factor that actually counted in any of the places where he had been employed or in others which he had watched; that business was so constructed and conducted that nothing else, in the face of competition, could act as current coin. And the amazing part of it all to Bok was how little merit there was. Nothing astonished him more than the low average ability of those with whom he worked or came into contact.
He looked at the top, and instead of finding it over-crowded, he was surprised at the few who had reached there; the top fairly begged for more to climb its heights.
For every young man, earnest, eager to serve, willing to do more than he was paid for, he found ten trying to solve the problem of how little they could actually do for the pay received.
It interested Bok to listen to the talk of his fellow-workers during luncheon hours and at all other times outside of office hours. When the talk did turn on the business with which they were concerned, it consisted almost entirely of wages, and he soon found that, with scarcely an exception, every young man was terribly underpaid, and that his employer absolutely failed to appreciate his work. It was interesting, later, when Bok happened to get the angle of the employer, to discover that, invariably, these same lamenting young men were those who, from the employer's point of view, were either greatly overpaid or so entirely worthless as to be marked for early decapitation.
Bok felt that this constant thought of the wages earned or deserved was putting the cart before the horse; he had schooled himself into the belief that if he did his work well, and accomplished more than was expected of him, the question of wages would take care of itself. But, according to the talk on every side, it was he who had the cart before the horse. Bok had not only tried always to fill the particular job set for him, but had made it a rule at the same time to study the position just ahead, to see what it was like, what it demanded, and then, as the opportunity presented itself, do a part of that job in addition to his own. As a stenographer, he tried always to clear off the day's work before he closed his desk. This was not always possible, but he kept it before him as a rule to be followed rather than violated.
One morning Bok's employer happened to come to the office earlier than usual, to find the letters he had dictated late in the afternoon before lying on his desk ready to be signed.
"These are the letters I gave you late yesterday afternoon, are they not?" asked the employer.
"Yes, sir."
"Must have started early this morning, didn't you?^
"No, sir," answered Bok. "I wrote them out last evening before I left."
"Like to get your notes written out before they get stale?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good idea," said the employer.
"Yes, sir," answered Bok, "and I think it is even a better idea to get a day's work off before I take my apron off."
"Well said," answered the employer, and the following payday Bok found an increase in his weekly envelope.
It is only fair, however, to add here, parenthetically, that it is neither just nor considerate to a conscientious stenographer for an employer to delay his dictation until the end of the day's work, when, merely by judicious management of his affairs and time, he can give his dictation directly after opening his morning mail. There are two sides to every question; but sometimes the side of the stenographer is not kept in mind by the employer.
Bok found it a uniform rule among his fellow-workers to do exactly the opposite to his own idea; there was an astonishing unanimity in working by the clock; where the hour of closing was five o'clock the preparations began five minutes before, with the hat and overcoat over the back of the chair ready for the stroke of the hour. This concert of action was curiously universal, no "overtime" was ever to be thought of, and, as occasionally happened when the work did go over the hour, it was not, to use the mildest term, done with care, neatness, or accuracy; it was, to use a current phrase, "slammed off." Every moment beyond five o'clock in which the worker was asked to do anything was by just so much an imposition on the part of the employer, and so far as it could be safely shown, this impression was gotten over to him.
There was an entire unwillingness to let business interfere with any anticipated pleasure or personal engagement. The office was all right between nine and five; one had to be there to earn a living; but after five, it was not to be thought of for one moment. The elevators which ran on the stroke of five were never large enough to hold the throng which besieged them.
The talk during lunch hour rarely, if ever, turned toward business, except as said before, when it dealt with underpaid services. In the spring and summer it was invariably of baseball, and scores of young men knew the batting averages of the different players and the standing of the clubs with far greater accuracy than they knew the standing or the discounts of the customers of their employers. In the winter the talk was all of dancing, boxing, or plays.
It soon became evident to Bok why scarcely five out of every hundred of the young men whom he knew made any business progress. They were not interested; it was a case of a day's work and a day's pay; it was not a question of how much one could do but how little one could get away with. The thought of how well one might do a given thing never seemed to occur to the average mind.
"Oh, what do you care?" was the favorite expression. "The boss won't notice it if you break your back over his work; you won't get any more pay."
And there the subject was dismissed, and thoroughly dismissed, too.
Eventually, then, Bok learned that the path that led to success was wide open: the competition was negligible. There was no jostling. In fact, travel on it was just a trifle lonely. One's fellow-travellers were excellent company, but they were few! It was one of Edward Bok's greatest surprises, but it was also one of his greatest stimulants. To go where others could not go, or were loath to go, where at least they were not, had a tang that savored of the freshest kind of adventure. And the way was so simple, so much simpler, in fact, than its avoidance, which called for so much argument, explanation, and discussion. One had merely to do all that one could do, a little more than one was asked or expected to do, and immediately one's head rose above the crowd and one was in an employer's eye--where it is always so satisfying for an employee to be! And as so few heads lifted themselves above the many, there was never any danger that they would not be seen.
Of course, Edward Bok had to prove to himself that his conception of conditions was right. He felt instinctively that it was, however, and with this stimulus he bucked the line hard. When others played, he worked, fully convinced that his play-time would come later. Where others shirked, he assumed. Where others lagged, he accelerated his pace. Where others were indifferent to things around them, he observed and put away the results for possible use later. He did not make of himself a pack-horse; what he undertook he did from interest in it, and that made it a pleasure to him when to others it was a burden. He instinctively reasoned it out that an unpleasant task is never accomplished by stepping aside from it, but that, unerringly, it will return later to be met and done.
Obstacles, to Edward Bok, soon became merely difficulties to be overcome, and he trusted to his instinct to show him the best way to overcome them. He soon learned that the hardest kind of work was back of every success; that nothing in the world of business just happened, but that everything was brought about, and only in one way--by a willingness of spirit and a determination to carry through. He soon exploded for himself the misleading and comfortable theory of luck; the only lucky people, he found, were those who worked hard. To them, luck came in the shape of what they had earned. There were exceptions here and there, as there are to every rule; but the majority of these, he soon found, were more in the seeming than in the reality. Generally speaking--and of course to this rule there are likewise exceptions, or as the Frenchman said, "All generalizations are false, including this one"--a man got in this world about what he worked for.
And that became, for himself, the rule of Edward Bok's life.