t in The
Ladies' Home Journal; this time to be written by himself under the
strictest possible anonymity, so closely adhered to that, until this
revelation, only five persons have known the authorship.

Feeling that it would be an interesting experiment to see how far
Theodore Roosevelt's ideas could stand unsupported by the authority of
his vibrant personality, Bok suggested the plan to the colonel. It was
just after he had returned from his South American trip. He was
immediately interested.

"But how can we keep the authorship really anonymous?" he asked.

"Easily enough," answered Bok, "if you're willing to do the work. Our
letters about it must be written in long hand addressed to each other's
homes; you must write your manuscript in your own hand; I will copy it
in mine, and it will go to the printer in that way. I will personally
send you the proofs; you mark your corrections in pencil, and I will
copy them in ink; the company will pay me for each article, and I will
send you my personal check each month. By this means, the identity of
the author will be concealed."

Colonel Roosevelt was never averse to hard work if it was necessary to
achieve a result that he felt was worth while.

"All right," wrote the colonel finally. "I'll try--with you!--the
experiment for a year: 12 articles... I don't know that I can give your
readers satisfaction, but I shall try my very best. I am very glad to be
associated with you, anyway. At first I doubted the wisdom of the plan,
merely because I doubted whether I could give you just that you wished.
I never know what an audience wants: I know what it ought to want: and
sometimes I can give it, or make it accept what I think it needs--and
sometimes I cannot. But the more I thought over your proposal, the more
I liked it... Whether the wine will be good enough to attract without
any bush I don't know; and besides, in such cases the fault is not in
the wine, but in the fact that the consumers decline to have their
attention attracted unless there is a bush!"

In the latter part of 1916 an anonymous department called "Men" was
begun in the magazine.

The physical work was great. The colonel punctiliously held to the
conditions, and wrote manuscript and letters with his own hand, and Bok
carried out his part of the agreement. Nor was this simple, for Colonel
Roosevelt's manuscript--particularly when, as in this case, it was
written on yellow paper with a soft pencil and generou