1915] 



ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION — BANQUET 17 



which is only saying that human life is not perfect, for they 

 are made out of life as life is lived in this goodly city and else- 

 where from day to day. They tell you the current history of 

 the community, of the country, of the universe, and they tell it 

 as correctly as the limitations of human nature permit. They 

 have defects of temperament, faults of accident and mis- 

 information, I frankly admit. If they had not these delin- 

 quencies, mingled with their excellences, as has the life out of 

 which they are made, they would soon become too good for 

 this world and their home would be in heaven, and you would 

 not have any use for them here on this rolling and imperfect 

 planet. They make mistakes, yes — just as you do, and all men 

 (and some women) do, just as the busy life out of which they 

 are made is in great measure a matter of mistakes, which con- 

 stitute what we call experience, and experience is only another 

 name for news. 



Bear with me, I beg you, if I seem to be too ardent in this 

 topic of the St. Louis press. But I am putting aside, for this 

 occasion, the proverbial modesty of my profession, with a view 

 to telling you the naked truth as if I were under oath. And let 

 me remind you, while I think of it, that the only monument in 

 the world to "The Naked Truth" stands only a short distance 

 from where we are assembled, and its purpose is to typify and 

 commemorate the lives and services of three great St. Louis 

 newspaper editors, Schurz, Preetorius and Daenzer. I am 

 talking to you of the successors of those men, whom I know like 

 a book — my neighbors, my friends, my fellow-workers — ,the 

 men who direct and adorn and give tone and influence to the St. 

 Louis press. I know them to be tireless in their pursuit of 

 facts, in their zeal for the public welfare, in their ambition to 

 promote the growth and progress of this admirable city. It is 

 sometimes said in criticism of them that they are governed 

 mainly by commercial considerations, and one of the pestif- 

 erous sort of professional reformers has lately sent forth a 

 book in which he goes so far as to charge that their policies are 

 absolutely dictated by their big advertisers. Well, if it wasn 't 

 for the big advertisers, you would hardly be able to get the 

 modern wonder and recognized necessity of a daily newspaper 



