When, early in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward Bok set himself to formulate a policy for The Ladies’ Home Journal.  He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position.  The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks previous to that.  He could not, therefore, get much closer than ten weeks to the date when his readers received the magazine.  And he knew that events, in war time, had a way of moving rapidly.

Late in January he went to Washington, consulted those authorities who could indicate possibilities to him better than any one else, and found, as he had suspected, that the entry of the United States into the war was a practical certainty; it was only a question of time.

Bok went South for a month’s holiday to get ready for the fray, and in the saddle and on the golf links he formulated a policy.  The newspapers and weeklies would send innumerable correspondents to the front, and obviously, with the necessity for going to press so far in advance, The Journal could not compete with them.  They would depict every activity in the field.  There was but one logical thing for him to do:  ignore the “front” entirely, refuse all the offers of correspondents, men and women, who wanted to go with the armies for his magazine, and cover fully and practically the results of the war as they would affect the women left behind.  He went carefully over the ground to see what these would be, along what particular lines women’s activities would be most likely to go, and then went back to Washington.

It was now March.  He conferred with the President, had his fears confirmed, and offered all the resources of his magazine to the government.  His diagnosis of the situation was verified in every detail by the authorities whom he consulted. The Ladies’ Home Journal could best serve by keeping up the morale at home and by helping to meet the problems that would confront the women; as the President said:  “Give help in the second line of defense.”

A year before, Bok had opened a separate editorial office in Washington and had secured Dudley Hannon, the Washington correspondent for the New York Sun, as his editor-in-charge.  The purpose was to bring the women of the country into a clearer understanding of their government and a closer relation with it.  This work had been so successful as to necessitate a force of four offices and twenty stenographers.  Bok now placed this Washington office on a war-basis, bringing it into close relation with every department of the government that would be connected with the war activities.  By this means, he had an editor and an organized force on the spot, devoting full time to the preparation of war material, with Mr. Hannon in daily conference with the department chiefs to secure the newest developments.