red, but because of lack of inner
resources did not know what to do with themselves, had become a trial to
themselves, their families, and their communities.

Bok decided that, given health and mental freshness, he would say
good-by to his public before his public might decide to say good-by to
him. So, at forty, he candidly faced the facts of life and began to
prepare himself for his retirement at fifty under circumstances that
would be of his own making and not those of others.

And thereby Edward Bok proved that he was still, by instinct, a
Dutchman, and had not in his thirty-four years of residence in the
United States become so thoroughly Americanized as he believed.

However, it was an American, albeit of Dutch extraction, one whom he
believed to be the greatest American in his own day, who had set him
thinking and shown him the way.

XXIV. Theodore Roosevelt's Anonymous Editorial Work

While Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States, Bok was
sitting one evening talking with him, when suddenly Mr. Roosevelt turned
to him and said with his usual emphasis: "Bok, I envy you your power
with your public."

The editor was frankly puzzled.

"That is a strange remark from the President of the United States," he
replied.

"You may think so," was the rejoinder. "But listen. When do I get the
ear of the public? In its busiest moments. My messages are printed in
the newspapers and read hurriedly, mostly by men in trolleys or
railroad-cars. Women hardly ever read them, I should judge. Now you are
read in the evening by the fireside or under the lamp, when the day's
work is over and the mind is at rest from other things and receptive to
what you offer. Don't you see where you have it on me?"

This diagnosis was keenly interesting, and while the President talked
during the balance of the evening, Bok was thinking. Finally, he said:
"Mr. President, I should like to share my power with you."

"How?" asked Mr. Roosevelt.

"You recognize that women do not read your messages; and yet no
President's messages ever discussed more ethical questions that women
should know about and get straight in their minds. As it is, some of
your ideas are not at all understood by them; your strenuous-life
theory, for instance, your factory-law ideas, and particularly your
race-suicide arguments. Men don't fully understand them, for that
matter; women certainly do not."

"I am aware of all that," said the President. "