It could carry
on the magazine without his guidance.
Moreover, Bok wished to say good-bye to his public before it decided,
for some reason or other, to say good-bye to him. He had no desire to
outstay his welcome. That public had been wonderfully indulgent toward
his shortcomings, lenient with his errors, and tremendously inspiring to
his best endeavor. He would not ask too much of it. Thirty years was a
long tenure of office, one of the longest, in point of consecutively
active editorship, in the history of American magazines.
He had helped to create and to put into the life of the American home a
magazine of peculiar distinction. From its beginning it had been unlike
any other periodical; it had always retained its individuality as a
magazine apart from the others. It had sought to be something more than
a mere assemblage of stories and articles. It had consistently stood for
ideals; and, save in one or two instances, it had carried through what
it undertook to achieve. It had a record of worthy accomplishment; a
more fruitful record than many imagined. It had become a national
institution such as no other magazine had ever been. It was indisputably
accepted by the public and by business interests alike as the recognized
avenue of approach to the intelligent homes of America.
Edward Bok was content to leave it at this point.
He explained all this in December, 1918, to the Board of Directors, and
asked that his resignation be considered.
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