Thousands of subscriptions were stopped; advertisements gave notice that
they would cancel their accounts; the greatest pressure was placed upon
Mr. Curtis to order his editor to cease, and Bok had the grim experience
of seeing his magazine, hitherto proclaimed all over the land as a model
advocate of the virtues, refused admittance into thousands of homes, and
saw his own friends tear the offending pages out of the periodical
before it was allowed to find a place on their home-tables.
But The Journal kept steadily on. Number after number contained some
article on the subject, and finally such men and women as Jane Addams,
Cardinal Gibbons, Margaret Deland, Henry van Dyke, President Eliot, the
Bishop of London, braved the public storm, came to Bok's aid, and wrote
articles for his magazine heartily backing up his lonely fight.
The public, seeing this array of distinguished opinion expressing
itself, began to wonder "whether there might not be something in what
Bok was saying, after all." At the end of eighteen months, inquiries
began to take the place of protests; and Bok knew then that the fight
was won. He employed two experts, one man and one woman, to answer the
inquiries, and he had published a series of little books, each written
by a different author on a different aspect of the question.
This series was known as The Edward Bok Books. They sold for twenty-five
cents each, without profit to either editor or publisher.
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