SECOND ANNUAL BANQUET. 51 
remain with me in spirit and influence as Jong as memory 
shall endure. Henry Shaw held a unique position among 
these. He was a lover of Nature; not a special devotee of 
Science. Yet he was so alive to the welfare of the plants 
in his garden and park that everything pertaining thereto 
interested him. And thus it came about that I was often 
consulted and spent many a pleasant and profitable hour 
with him who was by nature rather reserved. 
It were supererogation at this time to praise the sub- 
stantial work which he did for St. Louis, for the country 
—aye, for the world,—where others who knew him 
better have already so fittingly done so. But there were 
three characteristics of his life which shone forth from 
his other peculiarities, and which those who gather at these 
annual banquets should never tire of emphasizing. These 
were his sturdy sense of honor and strict business in- 
tegrity, his estimate of wealth as but a means to a noble 
end, and his strong love of Nature. 
No nation can achieve the highest endeavor and develop- 
ment that does not recognize its own weaknesses and endeavor 
to overcome them; and are we not in need, as a people, of 
enforcing on every possible occasion those principles which 
Shaw’s life exemplified? Had he not seen corruption in 
municipal, state and federal legislation too often fattening 
on loose public sentiment; dishonesty winked at as smart- 
ness, if only successful in its avaricious aim? Had he not 
seen how, too often, our most industrious and successful 
men had wrecked health and happiness in devotion to busi- 
ness which became a passion for mere lucre, until it shut 
from their lives all other avenues of enjoyment, stunted the 
intellectual and moral nature, and left to sons, in accumu- 
lated wealth, a heritage of questionable value? Had he not 
witnessed the rapid increase of money kings, the concen- 
trating of vast wealth in the hands of the few and the growth 
of trusts and monopolies at the expense of the toiling 
masses, until socialism in some of its more hideous forms 
began to lift its head in the land? Had he not, in short, 
