Part 19

"Your father has just written me, and I want him to bring you on and shake hands with me as soon as you are well enough to travel. Then I am going to give you, myself, a copy of the book containing my hunting trips since I have been President; unless you will wait until the new edition, which contains two more chapters, is out. If so, I will send it to you, as this new edition probably won't be ready when you come on here.

"Give my warm regards to your father and mother.

"Sincerely yours,

"Theodore Roosevelt."

Here was joy serene! But the boy's heart had acted queerly for a few days, and so the father wrote, thanked the President, and said that as soon as the heart moderated a bit the letter would be given the boy. It was a rare bit of consideration that now followed. No sooner had the father's letter reached the White House than an answer came back by first post--this time with a special-delivery stamp on it. It was Theodore Roosevelt, the father, who wrote this time; his mind and time filled with affairs of state, and yet full of tender thoughtfulness for a little boy:

"Dear Mr. Bok:--

"I have your letter of the 16th instant. I hope the little fellow will soon be all right. Instead of giving him my letter, give him a message from me based on the letter, if that will be better for him. Tell Mrs. Bok how deeply Mrs. Roosevelt and I sympathize with her. We know just how she feels.

"Sincerely yours,

"Theodore Roosevelt."

"That's pretty fine consideration," said the father. He got the letter during a business conference and he read it aloud to the group of business men. Some there were in that group who keenly differed with the President on national issues, but they were all fathers, and two of the sturdiest turned and walked to the window as they said: "Yes, that is fine!"

Then came the boy's pleasure when he was handed the letter; the next few days were spent inditing an answer to "my friend, the President." At last the momentous epistle seemed satisfactory, and off to the busy presidential desk went the boyish note, full of thanks and assurances that he would come just as soon as he could, and that Mr. Roosevelt must not get impatient!

The "soon as he could" time, however, did not come as quickly as all had hoped!--a little heart pumped for days full of oxygen and accelerated by hypodermic injections is slow to mend. But the President's framed letter, hanging on the spot on the wall first seen in the morning, was a daily consolation.

Then, in March, although four months after the promise--and it would not have been strange, in his busy life, for the President to have forgotten or at least overlooked it--on the very day that the book was published came a special "large-paper" copy of The Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, and on the fly-leaf there greeted the boy, in the President's own hand:

"To Master Curtis Bok,

"With the best wishes of his friend,

"Theodore Roosevelt.

"March 11, 1908."

The boy's cup was now full, and so said his letter to the President. And the President wrote back to the father: "I am really immensely amused and interested, and shall be mighty glad to see the little fellow."

In the spring, on a beautiful May day, came the great moment. The mother had to go along, the boy insisted, to see the great event, and so the trio found themselves shaking the hand of the President's secretary at the White House.

"Oh, the President is looking for you, all right," he said to the boy, and then the next moment the three were in a large room. Mr. Roosevelt, with beaming face, was already striding across the room, and with a "Well, well, and so this is my friend Curtis!" the two stood looking into each other's faces, each fairly wreathed in smiles, and each industriously shaking the hand of the other.

"Yes, Mr. President, I'm mighty glad to see you!" said the boy.

"I am glad to see you, Curtis," returned Mr. Roosevelt.

Then there came a white rose from the presidential desk for the mother, but after that father and mother might as well have faded away. Nobody existed save the President and the boy. The anteroom was full; in the Cabinet-room a delegation waited to be addressed. But affairs of state were at a complete standstill as, with boyish zeal, the President became oblivious to all but the boy before him.

"Now, Curtis, I've got some pictures here of bears that a friend of mine has just shot. Look at that whopper, fifteen hundred pounds--that's as much as a horse weighs, you know. Now, my friend shot him"--and it was a toss-up who was the more keenly interested, the real boy or the man-boy, as picture after picture came out and bear adventure crowded upon the heels of bear adventure.

"Gee, he's a corker, all right!" came from the boy at one point, and then, from the President: "That's right, he is a corker. Now you see his head here"--and then both were off again.

The private secretary came in at this point and whispered in the President's ear.

"I know, I know. I'll see him later. Say that I am very busy now." And the face beamed with smiles.

"Now, Mr. President--" began the father.

"No, sir; no, sir; not at all. Affairs can wait. This is a long-standing engagement between Curtis and me, and that must come first. Isn't that so, Curtis?"

Of course the boy agreed.

Suddenly the boy looked around the room and said:

"Where's your gun, Mr. President? Got it here?"

"No," laughingly came from the President, "but I'll tell you"--and then the two heads were together again.

A moment for breath-taking came, and the boy said:

"Aren't you ever afraid of being shot?"

"You mean while I am hunting?"

"Oh, no. I mean as President."

"No," replied the smiling President. "I'll tell you, Curtis; I'm too busy to think about that. I have too many things to do to bother about anything of that sort. When I was in battle I was always too anxious to get to the front to think about the shots. And here--well, here I'm too busy too. Never think about it. But I'll tell you, Curtis, there are some men down there," pointing out of the window in the direction of the capitol, "called the Congress, and if they would only give me the four battleships I want, I'd be perfectly willing to have any one take a crack at me." Then, for the first time recognizing the existence of the parents, the President said: "And I don't know but if they did pick me off I'd be pretty well ahead of the game."

Just in that moment only did the boy-knowing President get a single inch above the boy-interest. It was astonishing to see the natural accuracy with which the man gauged the boy-level.

"Now, how would you like to see a bear, Curtis?" came next. "I know where there's a beauty, twelve hundred pounds."

"Must be some bear!" interjected the boy.

"That's what it is," put in the President. "Regular cinnamon-brown type"--and then off went the talk to the big bear at the Washington "Zoo" where the President was to send the boy.

Then, after a little: "Now, Curtis, see those men over there in that room. They've travelled from all parts of the country to come here at my invitation, and I've got to make a little speech to them, and I'll do that while you go off to see the bear."

And then the hand came forth to say good-by. The boy put his in it, each looked into the other's face, and on neither was there a place big enough to put a ten-cent piece that was not wreathed in smiles. "He certainly is all right," said the boy to the father, looking wistfully after the President.

Almost to the other room had the President gone when he, too, instinctively looked back to find the boy following him with his eyes. He stopped, wheeled around, and then the two instinctively sought each other again. The President came back, the boy went forward. This time each held out both hands, and as each looked once more into the other's eyes a world of complete understanding was in both faces, and every looker-on smiled with them.

"Good-by, Curtis," came at last from the President.

"Good-by, Mr. President," came from the boy.

Then, with another pump-handly shake and with a "Gee, but he's great, all right!" the boy went out to see the cinnamon-bear at the "Zoo," and to live it all over in the days to come.

Two boy-hearts had met, although one of them belonged to the President of the United States.

XXVI. The Literary Back-Stairs

His complete absorption in the magazine work now compelled Bok to close his newspaper syndicate in New York and end the writing of his weekly newspaper literary letter. He decided, however, to transfer to the pages of his magazine his idea of making the American public more conversant with books and authors. Accordingly, he engaged Robert Bridges (the present editor of Scribner's Magazine) to write a series of conversational book-talks under his nom de plume of "Droch." Later, this was supplemented by the engagement of Hamilton W. Mabie, who for years reviewed the newest books.

In almost every issue of the magazine there appeared also an article addressed to the literary novice. Bok was eager, of course, to attract the new authors to the magazine; but, particularly, he had in mind the correction of the popular notion, then so prevalent (less so to-day, fortunately, but still existent), that only the manuscripts of famous authors were given favorable reading in editorial offices; that in these offices there really existed a clique, and that unless the writer knew the literary back-stairs he had a slim chance to enter and be heard.

In the minds of these misinformed writers, these back-stairs are gained by "knowing the editor" or through "having some influence with him." These writers have conclusively settled two points in their own minds: first, that an editor is antagonistic to the struggling writer; and, second, that a manuscript sent in the ordinary manner to an editor never reaches him. Hence, some "influence" is necessary, and they set about to secure it.

Now, the truth is, of course, that there are no "literary back-stairs" to the editorial office of the modern magazine. There cannot be. The making of a modern magazine is a business proposition; the editor is there to make it pay. He can do this only if he is of service to his readers, and that depends on his ability to obtain a class of material essentially the best of its kind and varied in its character.

The "best," while it means good writing, means also that it shall say something. The most desired writer in the magazine office is the man who has something to say, and knows how to say it. Variety requires that there shall be many of these writers, and it is the editor's business to ferret them out. It stands to reason, therefore, that there can be no such thing as a "clique"; limitation by the editor of his list of authors would mean being limited to the style of the few and the thoughts of a handful. And with a public that easily tires even of the best where it continually comes from one source, such an editorial policy would be suicidal.

Hence, if the editor is more keenly alert for one thing than for another, it is for the new writer. The frequency of the new note in his magazine is his salvation; for just in proportion as he can introduce that new note is his success with his readers. A successful magazine is exactly like a successful store: it must keep its wares constantly fresh and varied to attract the eye and hold the patronage of its customers.

With an editor ever alive to the new message, the new note, the fresh way of saying a thing, the new angle on a current subject, whether in article or story--since fiction is really to-day only a reflection of modern thought--the foolish notion that an editor must be approached through "influence," by a letter of introduction from some friend or other author, falls of itself. There is no more powerful lever to open the modern magazine door than a postage-stamp on an envelope containing a manuscript that says something. No influence is needed to bring that manuscript to the editor's desk or to his attention. That he will receive it the sender need not for a moment doubt; his mail is too closely scanned for that very envelope.

The most successful authors have "broken into" the magazines very often without even a letter accompanying their first manuscript. The name and address in the right-hand corner of the first page; some "return" stamps in the left corner, and all that the editor requires is there. The author need tell nothing about the manuscript; if what the editor wants is in it he will find it. An editor can stand a tremendous amount of letting alone. If young authors could be made to realize how simple is the process of "breaking into" the modern magazine, which apparently gives them such needless heartburn, they would save themselves infinite pains, time, and worry.

Despite all the rubbish written to the contrary, manuscripts sent to the magazines of to-day are, in every case, read, and frequently more carefully read than the author imagines. Editors know that, from the standpoint of good business alone, it is unwise to return a manuscript unread. Literary talent has been found in many instances where it was least expected.

This does not mean that every manuscript received by a magazine is read from first page to last. There is no reason why it should be, any more than that all of a bad egg should be eaten to prove that it is bad. The title alone sometimes decides the fate of a manuscript. If the subject discussed is entirely foreign to the aims of the magazine, it is simply a case of misapplication on the author's part; and it would be a waste of time for the editor to read something which he knows from its subject he cannot use.

This, of course, applies more to articles than to other forms of literary work, although unsuitability in a poem is naturally as quickly detected. Stories, no matter how unpromising they may appear at the beginning, are generally read through, since gold in a piece of fiction has often been found almost at the close. This careful attention to manuscripts in editorial offices is fixed by rules, and an author's indorsement or a friend's judgment never affects the custom.

At no time does the fallacy hold in a magazine office that "a big name counts for everything and an unknown name for nothing." There can be no denial of the fact that where a name of repute is attached to a meritorious story or article the combination is ideal. But as between an indifferent story and a well-known name and a good story with an unknown name the editor may be depended upon to accept the latter. Editors are very careful nowadays to avoid the public impatience that invariably follows upon publishing material simply on account of the name attached to it. Nothing so quickly injures the reputation of a magazine in the estimation of its readers. If a person, taking up a magazine, reads a story attracted by a famous name, and the story disappoints, the editor has a doubly disappointed reader on his hands: a reader whose high expectations from the name have not been realized and who is disappointed with the story.

It is a well-known fact among successful magazine editors that their most striking successes have been made by material to which unknown names were attached, where the material was fresh, the approach new, the note different. That is what builds up a magazine; the reader learns to have confidence in what he finds in the periodical, whether it bears a famous name or not.

Nor must the young author believe that the best work in modern magazine literature "is dashed off at white heat." What is dashed off reads dashed off, and one does not come across it in the well-edited magazine, because it is never accepted. Good writing is laborious writing, the result of revision upon revision. The work of masters such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling represents never less than eight or ten revisions, and often a far greater number. It was Stevenson who once said to Edward Bok, after a laborious correction of certain proofs: "My boy, I could be a healthy man, I think, if I did something else than writing. But to write, as I try to write, takes every ounce of my vitality." Just as the best "impromptu" speeches are those most carefully prepared, so do the simplest articles and stories represent the hardest kind of work; the simpler the method seems and the easier the article reads, the harder, it is safe to say, was the work put into it.

But the author must also know when to let his material alone. In his excessive regard for style even so great a master as Robert Louis Stevenson robbed his work of much of the spontaneity and natural charm found, for example, in his Vailima Letters. The main thing is for a writer to say what he has to say in the best way, natural to himself, in which he can say it, and then let it alone--always remembering that, provided he has made himself clear, the message itself is of greater import than the manner in which it is said. Up to a certain point only is a piece of literary work an artistic endeavor. A readable, lucid style is far preferable to what is called a "literary style"--a foolish phrase, since it often means nothing except a complicated method of expression which confuses rather than clarifies thought. What the public wants in its literature is human nature, and that human nature simply and forcibly expressed. This is fundamental, and this is why true literature has no fashion and knows no change, despite the cries of the modern weaklings who affect weird forms. The clarity of Shakespeare is the clarity of to-day and will be that of to-morrow.

XXVII. Women's Clubs and Woman Suffrage

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.