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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"

His ideas were not new; he knew there were no
new ideas, but he presented his ideas in such a way that they seemed
new. It is a significant fact, too, that a large public will respond
more quickly to an idea than it will to a name.

When, early in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to
point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward
Bok set himself to formulate a policy for _The Ladies' Home Journal_.
He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position.
The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance
of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks
previous to that. He could not, therefore, get much closer than ten
weeks to the date when his readers received the magazine. And he knew
that events, in war time, had a way of moving rapidly.
Late in January he went to Washington, consulted those authorities who
could indicate possibilities to him better than any one else, and
found, as he had suspected, that the entry of the United States into
the war was a practical certainty; it was only a question of time.


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