It was understood that he was
to serve out his thirty years, thus remaining with the magazine for the
best part of another year.
In the material which The Journal now included in its contents, it began
to point the way to the problems which would face women during the
reconstruction period. Bok scanned the rather crowded field of thought
very carefully, and selected for discussion in the magazine such
questions as seemed to him most important for the public to understand
in order to face and solve its impending problems. The outstanding
question he saw which would immediately face men and women of the
country was the problem of Americanization. The war and its
after-effects had clearly demonstrated this to be the most vital need in
the life of the nation, not only for the foreign-born but for the
American as well.
The more one studied the problem the clearer it became that the vast
majority of American-born needed a refreshing, and, in many cases, a new
conception of American ideals as much as did the foreign-born, and that
the latter could never be taught what America and its institutions stood
for until they were more clearly defined in the mind of the men and
women of American birth.
Bok went to Washington, consulted with Franklin K. Lane, secretary of
the interior, of whose department the Government Bureau of
Americanization was a part. A comprehensive series of articles was
outlined; the most expert writer, Esther Everett Lape, who had several
years of actual experience in Americanization work, was selected;
Secretary Lane agreed personally to read and pass upon the material, and
to assume the responsibility for its publication.
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