

[Vol. i 

 10 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 



mately and within the rule of reason and the zone of safety 



the 



Less is expected of other 



would not so often find it so hard to get the truth when he 

 wants to print it. Take, for example, the tremendous and de- 

 plorable situation now presented in Europe. With all our 

 anxiety and all our facilities, we can not be certain how mucli 

 or how little of the wild and whirling daily reports from there 



news from hell, so to speak— is dependable. We have not 

 yet even found out definitely what it is all about, and why hun- 

 dreds of thousands of industrious and inoffensive citizens have 

 been taken from their homes and affairs, and sent forth with 

 all kinds of murderous weapons to slay one another as fast as 

 possible. The most that we can be sure of is that a war of 

 unparalleled dimensions and appalling severity is raging, and 

 that about the only really good thing in it is that white mes- 

 senger of pity an. I succor, the Red Cross nurse. And yet I 

 am assured by a leading St. Louisan just returned from the 

 seat of war that the reports in the St. Louis papers are more 

 rational, consistent and enlightening, after all, than those in 

 the papers of any of the cities on the other side of the Atlantic. 

 This man's word is good and his judgment accurate. You all 

 know him. I refer to the Hon. Charles Nagel. 



The lesson of Mr. Nagel's gratifying statement is a timely 

 and an important one. It goes to show that in a case of world- 

 wide interest and illimitable consequences, where the truth 

 veritably lies at the bottom of a well, the St. Louis press gets 

 nearer to it by care and candor, by unprejudiced analysis and 

 fair-minded discrimination, than the press of Europe. This 

 example is an extreme one, perhaps, but I feel safe in saying 

 that it is characteristic and relatively prevalent in all cases. 

 I am here, as you have been advised, to talk about 1h<> press, 

 or at least to use it as a text. You do not expect me, I am sure, 

 to stand here on this festive and botanical occasion and confess 

 the sins of my esteemed contemporaries, or to acknowledge 

 my own, for that matter. So, if you please, I am going to side- 

 step the sins, for the present, and declare from personal knowl- 

 edge and daily comparison that St. Louis has ample reason to 

 be proud of her newspapers. They are not perfect, to be sure 



