.
Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, one of the most skilful
photographers in the country, and the president of The American Civic
Association. McFarland and Bok worked together; they took innumerable
photographs, and began to publish them, calling public attention to the
intrusion upon the public eye.

Page after page appeared in the magazine, and after a few months these
roused public discussion as to legal control of this class of
advertising. Bok meanwhile called the attention of women's clubs and
other civic organizations to the question, and urged that they clean
their towns of the obnoxious bill-boards. Legislative measures
regulating the size, character, and location of bill-boards were
introduced in various States, a tax on each bill-board was suggested in
other States, and the agitation began to bear fruit.

Bok now called upon his readers in general to help by offering a series
of prizes totalling several thousands of dollars for two photographs,
one showing a fence, barn, or outbuilding painted with an advertisement
or having a bill-board attached to it, or a field with a bill-board in
it, and a second photograph of the same spot showing the advertisement
removed, with an accompanying affidavit of the owner of the property,
legally attested, asserting that the advertisement had been permanently
removed. Hundreds of photographs poured in, scores of prizes were
awarded, the results were published, and requests came in for a second
series of prizes, which were duly awarded.

While Bok did not solve the problem of bill-board advertising, and while
in some parts of the country it is a more flagrant nuisance to-day than
ever before, he had started the first serious agitation against
bill-board advertising of bad design, detrimental, from its location, to
landscape beauty. He succeeded in getting rid of a huge bill-board which
had been placed at the most picturesque spot at Niagara Falls; and
hearing of "the largest advertisement sign in the world" to be placed on
the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, he notified the advertisers
that a photograph of the sign, if it was erected, would be immediately
published in the magazine and the attention of the women of America
called to the defacement of one of the most impressive and beautiful
scenes in the world. The article to be advertised was a household
commodity, purchased by women; and the owners realized that the proposed
advertisement would not