ould 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.

Bok learned that the country's first act would be to recruit for the
navy, so as to get this branch of the service into a state of
preparedness. He therefore secured Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant
secretary of the navy, to write an article explaining to mothers why
they should let their boys volunteer for the Navy and what it would
mean to them.

He made arrangements at the American Red Cross Headquarters for an
official department to begin at once in the magazine, telling women the
first steps that would be taken by the Red Cross and how they could
help. He secured former President William Howard Taft, as chairman of
the Central Committee of the Red Cross, for the editor of this
department.

He cabled to Viscount Northcliffe and Ian Hay for articles showing what
the English women had done at the outbreak of the war, the mistakes
they had made, what errors the American women should avoid, the right
lines along which English women had worked and how their American
sisters could adapt these methods to trans-atlantic conditions.

And so it happened that when the first war issue of _The Journal_
appeared on Apr