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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"

From one of the letters dropped a certified check for
five figures for a contract equal to five pages in the magazine. It
was a welcome sight, for it meant an easy meeting of the pay-roll for
that week and two succeeding weeks. But the check was from a
manufacturing patent-medicine company. Without a moment's hesitation,
Mr. Curtis slipped it back into the envelope, saying: "Of course,
_that_ we can't take." He returned the check, never gave the matter a
second thought, and went out and borrowed more money to meet his
pay-roll.
With all respect to American publishers, there are very few who could
have done this--or indeed, would do it today, under similar
conditions--particularly in that day when it was the custom for all
magazines to accept patent-medicine advertising; _The Ladies' Home
Journal_ was practically the only publication of standing in the United
States refusing that class of business!
Bok now saw advertising done on a large scale by a man who believed in
plenty of white space surrounding the announcement in the
advertisement.


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