"What is the matter with St. Louis?" I inquired of a wide-awake citizen I met.
"Oh, the Drew Question," he suggested with a smile.
"The Drew Question?" I repeated blankly.
"You don't know about that? Well, the question you asked was put to the city, some years ago, by Alderman Drew, so instead of asking it outright any more, we refer to it as 'the Drew Question,' Every one knows what it means."
The man who asks that question in St. Louis will receive a wide variety of answers.
One exceedingly well-informed gentleman told me that St. Louis had the "most aggressive minority" he had ever seen. "Start any movement here," he declared, "and, whatever it may be, you immediately encounter strong objection."
In other quarters I learned of something called "The Big Cinch"—an intangible, reactionary sort of dragon, said to be built of big business men. It is charged that this legendary monster has put the quietus upon various enterprises, including the construction of a new and first-class hotel—something which St. Louis needs. In still other quarters I was informed that the city's long-established wealth had placed it in somewhat the position of Detroit before the days of the automobile, and that much of the money and many of the big business enterprises were controlled by elderly men; in short, that what is needed is young blood, or, as one man put it, "a few important funerals."
"It is conservatism," explained another. "The trouble with St. Louis is that nobody here ever goes crazy." And said still another: "About one-third of the population of St. Louis is German. It is German lethargy that holds the city back."
Whatever truth may lurk in these several statements, I do not, personally, believe in the last one. If the Germans are sometimes stolid, they are upon the other hand honest, thoughtful, and steady. And when it comes to lethargy—well, Chicago, the most active great city in the country, has a large German population. And, for the matter of that, so has Berlin! Some of the best citizens St. Louis has are Germans, and one of her most public-spirited and nationally distinguished men was born in Prussia—Mr. Frederick W. Lehmann, former Solicitor General of the United States and ex-president of the American Bar Association. Mr. Lehmann (who served the country as a commissioner in the cause of peace with Mexico, at the Niagara Falls conference) drew up a city charter which was recommended by the Board of Freeholders of St. Louis in 1910. This charter was defeated. However, another charter, embodying many even more progressive elements than those contained in the charter proposed by Mr. Lehmann, has lately been accepted by the city, and there can be little doubt that the earlier proposals paved the way for this one. The new charter had not been passed at the time of my visit. The St. Louis newspapers which I have seen since are, however, most sanguine in their prophecies as to what will be accomplished under it. All seem to agree that its acceptance marks the awakening of the city.