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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"


The time might never come again when all conditions would be equally
favorable to a change of editorship. The position of the magazine was
so thoroughly assured that its progress could hardly be affected by the
retirement of one editor, and the accession of another. There was a
competent editorial staff, the members of which had been with the
periodical from ten to thirty years each. This staff had been a very
large factor in the success of the magazine. While Bok had furnished
the initiative and supplied the directing power, a large part of the
editorial success of the magazine was due to the staff. It could carry
on the magazine without his guidance.
Moreover, Bok wished to say good-by to his public before it decided,
for some reason or other, to say good-by to him. He had no desire to
outstay his welcome. That public had been wonderfully indulgent toward
his shortcomings, lenient with his errors, and tremendously inspiring
to his best endeavor. He would not ask too much of it. Thirty years
was a long tenure of office, one of the longest, in point of
consecutively active editorship, in the history of American magazines.


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