figures for a contract equal to five pages in the magazine. It
was a welcome sight, for it meant an easy meeting of the pay-roll for
that week and two succeeding weeks. But the check was from a
manufacturing patent-medicine company. Without a moment's hesitation,
Mr. Curtis slipped it back into the envelope, saying: "Of course,
_that_ we can't take." He returned the check, never gave the matter a
second thought, and went out and borrowed more money to meet his
pay-roll.

With all respect to American publishers, there are very few who could
have done this--or indeed, would do it today, under similar
conditions--particularly in that day when it was the custom for all
magazines to accept patent-medicine advertising; _The Ladies' Home
Journal_ was practically the only publication of standing in the United
States refusing that class of business!

Bok now saw advertising done on a large scale by a man who believed in
plenty of white space surrounding the announcement in the
advertisement. He paid Mr. Howells $10,000 for his autobiography, and
Mr. Curtis spent $50,000 in advertising it. "It is not expense," he
would explain to Bok, "it is investment. We are investing in a
trademark. It will all come back in time." And when the first
$100,000 did not come back as Mr. Curtis figured, he would send another
$100,000 after it, and then both came back.

Bok's experience in advertisement writing was now to stand him in
excellent stead. He wrote all the advertisements, and from that day to
the day of his retirement, practically every advertisement of the
magazine was written by him.

Mr. Curtis believed that the editor should write the advertisements of
a magazine's articles. "You are the one who knows them, what is in
them and your purpose," he said to Bok, who keenly enjoyed this
advertisement writing. He put less and less in his advertisements.
Mr. Curtis made them larger and larger in the space which they occupied
in the media used. In this way _The Ladies' Home Journal_
advertisements became distinctive for their use of white space, and as
the advertising world began to say: "You can't miss them." Only one
feature was advertised at one time, but the "feature" was always
carefully selected for its wide popular appeal, and then Mr. Curtis
spared no expense to advertise it abundantly. As much as $400,000 was
spent in one year in advertising only a few features--a gigantic sum in
those days, approached by no othe