suddenly felt his foot rest on what seemed to
be a soft object. Taking his "ever-ready" flash from his pocket, he shot
a ray at his feet, only to realize that his foot was resting on the face
of a dead German!

Bok had had enough for one evening! In fact, he had had enough of war in
all its aspects; and he felt a sigh of relief when, a few days
thereafter, he boarded The Empress of Asia for home, after a ten-weeks
absence.

He hoped never again to see, at first hand, what war meant!

XXXVI. The End of Thirty Years' Editorship

On the voyage home, Edward Bok decided that, now the war was over, he
would ask his company to release him from the editorship of The Ladies'
Home Journal. His original plan had been to retire at the end of a
quarter of a century of editorship, when in his fiftieth year. He was,
therefore, six years behind his schedule. In October, 1919, he would
reach his thirtieth anniversary as editor, and he fixed upon this as an
appropriate time for the relinquishment of his duties.

He felt he had carried out the conditions under which the editorship of
the magazine had been transferred to him by Mrs. Curtis, that he had
brought them to fruition, and that any further carrying on of the
periodical by him would be of a supplementary character. He had, too,
realized his hope of helping to create a national institution of service
to the American woman, and he felt that his part in the work was done.

He considered carefully where he would leave an institution which the
public had so thoroughly associated with his personality, and he felt
that at no point in its history could he so safely transfer it to other
hands. The position of the magazine in the public estimation was
unquestioned; it had never been so strong. Its circulation not only had
outstripped that of any other monthly periodical, but it was still
growing so rapidly that it was only a question of a few months when it
would reach the almost incredible mark of two million copies per month.
With its advertising patronage exceeding that of any other monthly, the
periodical had become, probably, the most valuable and profitable piece
of magazine property in the world.

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