When the virile figure of Theodore Roosevelt swung down the national highway, Bok was one of thousands of young men who felt strongly the attraction of his personality.Colonel Roosevelt was only five years the senior of the editor; he spoke, therefore, as one of his own years.The energy with which he said and did things appealed to Bok.He made Americanism something more real, more stirring than Bok had ever felt it; he explained national questions in a way that caught Bok's fancy and came within his comprehension.Bok's lines had been cast with many of the great men of the day, but he felt that there was something distinctive about the personality of this man: his method of doing things and his way of saying things.Bok observed everything Colonel Roosevelt did and read everything he wrote.
The editor now sought an opportunity to know personally the man whom he admired.It came at a dinner at the University Club, and Colonel Roosevelt suggested that they meet there the following day for a "talk-fest." For three hours the two talked together.The fact that Colonel Roosevelt was of Dutch ancestry interested Bok; that Bok was actually of Dutch birth made a strong appeal to the colonel.With his tremendous breadth of interests, Roosevelt, Bok found, had followed him quite closely in his work, and was familiar with "its high points," as he called them."We must work for the same ends," said the colonel, "you in your way, I in mine.But our lines are bound to cross.You and I can each become good Americans by giving our best to make America better.
With the Dutch stock there is in both of us, there's no limit to what we can do.Let's go to it." Naturally that talk left the two firm friends.
Bok felt somehow that he had been given a new draft of Americanism: the word took on a new meaning for him; it stood for something different, something deeper and finer than before.And every subsequent talk with Roosevelt deepened the feeling and stirred Bok's deepest ambitions."Go to it, you Dutchman," Roosevelt would say, and Bok would go to it.Atalk with Roosevelt always left him feeling as if mountains were the easiest things in the world to move.
One of Theodore Roosevelt's arguments which made a deep impression upon Bok was that no man had a right to devote his entire life to the making of money."You are in a peculiar position," said the man of Oyster Bay one day to Bok; "you are in that happy position where you can make money and do good at the same time.A man wields a tremendous power for good or for evil who is welcomed into a million homes and read with confidence.That's fine, and is all right so far as it goes, and in your case it goes very far.Still, there remains more for you to do.The public has built up for you a personality: now give that personality to whatever interests you in contact with your immediate fellowmen:
something in your neighborhood, your city, or your State.With one hand work and write to your national audience: let no fads sway you.Hew close to the line.But, with the other hand, swing into the life immediately around you.Think it over."Bok did think it over.He was now realizing the dream of his life for which he had worked: his means were sufficient to give his mother every comfort; to install her in the most comfortable surroundings wherever she chose to live; to make it possible for her to spend the winters in the United States and the summers in the Netherlands, and thus to keep in touch with her family and friends in both countries.He had for years toiled unceasingly to reach this point: he felt he had now achieved at least one goal.
He had now turned instinctively to the making of a home for himself.
After an engagement of four years he had been married, on October 22, 1896, to Mary Louise Curtis, the only child of Mr.and Mrs.Cyrus H.K.
Curtis; two sons had been born to them; he had built and was occupying a house at Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb six miles from the Philadelphia City Hall.When she was in this country his mother lived with him, and also his brother, and, with a strong belief in life insurance, he had seen to it that his family was provided for in case of personal incapacity or of his demise.In other words, he felt that he had put his own house in order; he had carried out what he felt is every man's duty:
to be, first of all, a careful and adequate provider for his family.He was now at the point where he could begin to work for another goal, the goal that he felt so few American men saw: the point in his life where he could retire from the call of duty and follow the call of inclination.
