Bottome's department rivaled, in popularity, the page by Ruth
Ashmore.
These two departments more than anything else, and the irresistible
picture of a man editing a woman's magazine, brought forth an era of
newspaper paragraphing and a flood of so-called "humorous" references to
the magazine and editor. It became the vogue to poke fun at both. The
humorous papers took it up, the cartoonists helped it along, and actors
introduced the name of the magazine on the stage in plays and skits.
Never did a periodical receive such an amount of gratuitous advertising.
Much of the wit was absolutely without malice: some of it was written by
Edward Bok's best friends, who volunteered to "let up" would he but
raise a finger.
But he did not raise the finger. No one enjoyed the "paragraphs" more
heartily when the wit was good, and in that case, if the writer was
unknown to him, he sought him out and induced him to write for him. In
this way, George Fitch was found on the Peoria, Illinois, Transcript and
introduced to his larger public in the magazine and book world through
The Ladies' Home Journal, whose editor he believed he had "most
unmercifully roasted";--but he had done it so cleverly that the editor
at once saw his possibilities.
When all his friends begged Bok to begin proceedings against the New
York Evening Sun because of the libellous (?) articles written about him
by "The Woman About Town," the editor admired the style rather than the
contents, made her acquaintance, and secured her as a regular writer:
she contributed to the magazine some of the best things published in its
pages.
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