Public men know how
true is this statement; the public at large, however, has not the first
conception of it. If it had, it would have a much higher opinion of its
periodicals and newspapers.
At this juncture, Rudyard Kipling unconsciously came into the very
centre of the suffragists' maelstrom of attack when he sent Bok his
famous poem: "The Female of the Species." The suffragists at once took
the argument in the poem as personal to themselves, and now Kipling got
the full benefit of their vitriolic abuse. Bok sent a handful of these
criticisms to Kipling, who was very gleeful about them. "I owe you a
good laugh over the clippings," he wrote. "They were delightful. But
what a quantity of spare time some people in this world have to burn!"
It was a merry time; and the longer it continued the more heated were
the attacks. The suffragists now had a number of targets, and they took
each in turn and proceeded to riddle it. That Bok was publishing
articles explaining both sides of the question, presenting arguments by
the leading suffragists as well as known anti-suffragists, did not
matter in the least. These were either conveniently overlooked, or, when
referred to at all, were considered in the light of "sops" to the
offended women.
At last Bok reached the stage where he had exhausted all the arguments
worth printing, on both sides of the question, and soon the storm calmed
down.
It was always a matter of gratification to him that the woman who had
most bitterly assailed him during the suffrage controversy, Anna Howard
Shaw, became in later years one of his stanchest friends, and was an
editor on his pay-roll.
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