remendous breadth of interests, Roosevelt, Bok found, had followed him
quite closely in his work, and was familiar with "its high points," as
he called them. "We must work for the same ends," said the Colonel,
"you in your way, I in mine. But our lines are bound to cross. You
and I can each become good Americans by giving our best to make America
better. With the Dutch stock there is in both of us, there's no limit
to what we can do. Let's go to it." Naturally that talk left the two
firm friends.

Bok felt somehow that he had been given a new draft of Americanism; the
word took on a new meaning for him; it stood for something different,
something deeper and finer than before. And every subsequent talk with
Roosevelt deepened the feeling and stirred Bok's deepest ambitions.
"Go to it, you Dutchman," Roosevelt would say, and Bok would go to it.
A talk with Roosevelt always left him feeling as if mountains were the
easiest things in the world to move.

One of Theodore Roosevelt's arguments which made a deep impression upon
Bok was that no man had a right to devote his entire life to the making
of money. "You are in a peculiar position," said the man of Oyster Bay
one day to Bok; "you are in that happy position where you can make
money and do good at the same time. A man wields a tremendous power
for good or for evil who is welcomed into a million homes and read with
confidence. That's fine, and is all right so far as it goes, and in
your case it goes very far. Still, there remains more for you to do.
The public has built up for you a personality: now give that
personality to whatever interests you in contact with your immediate
fellow-men: something in your neighborhood, your city, or your State.
With one hand work and write to your national audience: let no fads
sway you. Hew close to the line. But, with the other hand, swing into
the life immediately around you. Think it over."

Bok did think it over. He was now realizing the dream of his life for
which he had worked: his means were sufficient to give his mother every
comfort; to install her in the most comfortable surroundings wherever
she chose to live; to make it possible for her to spend the winters in
the United States and the summers in the Netherlands, and thus to keep
in touch with her family and friends in both countries. He had for
years toiled unceasingly to reach this point: he felt he had now
achieved at least one goal.

He had now turned