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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"


Mr. Curtis's single proprietorship of the magazine had been changed
into a corporation called The Curtis Publishing Company, with a capital
of five hundred thousand dollars, with Mr. Curtis as president, and Bok
as vice-president.
The magazine had by no means an easy road to travel financially. The
doubling of the subscription price to one dollar per year had
materially checked the income for the time being; the huge advertising
bills, sometimes exceeding three hundred thousand dollars a year, were
difficult to pay; large credit had to be obtained, and the banks were
carrying a considerable quantity of Mr. Curtis's notes. But Mr. Curtis
never wavered in his faith in his proposition and his editor. In the
first he invested all he had and could borrow, and to the latter he
gave his undivided support. The two men worked together rather as
father and son--as, curiously enough, they were to be later--than as
employer and employee. To Bok, the daily experience of seeing Mr.
Curtis finance his proposition in sums that made the publishing world
of that day gasp with sceptical astonishment was a wonderful
opportunity, of which the editor took full advantage so as to learn the
intricacies of a world which up to that time he had known only in a
limited way.


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