The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-21
THE FLEEIING SHOIy.
Some of It's Facts and FRncics. Written for tho JOURNAL AND COURIER

spIne ot htS FhCNs FNhCbcEs
 Written for tho JOURNAL AND CoURlER.l
 SHALL IT pE THE WATER LILLY?
 Our national ilowern Will it ever be decided upon,
 The subject has been much discussed and the claims of many candidates for this honor have repeatedly been urged by their enthusiastic supporters. After all accepted floral emblems of other nations have been cXcluded-unlike their superfuous population-aspira were found in all ranks of vegetable life, from decorative but soil-impover- ishing weeds up to the useful and prac- tical Indian corn. In fact q whole book, and very bright and wise little volume it is, too, has been published to advance the cause of the "bounteous, golden corn."
 The subject seems to have met wItn little attention of late, mightier mat ters having absorbed the thought of the NCt tIC ltSu Oy ho means been abandoned. A National Floral Emblem society was founded in Chicago last year, and ill many states there are state associations, so both gen. eral and local forces are quietly being brought to bear upon it. It is evident that tho flower or plant should be indi- genous to our soil, general in growth, symbolic of our nations condition, spirit and genius, useful, abundant and beautiful. It is doubtful if any flower appropriately typifes our coun- try; we should choose an entire plant, stalk, leaf, blossom and fruit to symbol ize "the union of many in one.''
 One of the later candidates for the exalted position of national heraldic emblem is the water lily, just now in the fitness of it's beauty. A very in- genious, well-sustained argument Is ad- vanced in support of it's claims by Mrs. Eveleen Mason, the well-known writer, who wisely says that i've must face the conditions natural to the constitution of our government, and search for a flower that shall so excellently symbol ize the boise, peace and purity, the beauty of freedom, as, in future, to steady our spirits against any con- ditions opposed to those of idealized liberty, so that the sight of the flower will keep us from turning back in thought, act, or life, from the highest conceptions of our national destiny.n
 Asking then, "Can any flower help us out of the tumultuous condition which overwhelIn us to-day? Can q flower hid in cleansing the so-oalled mud of political life'' Shc goes on to say: Mud, as it lies at the bottom of Q river or stream, is but the nooretion or deposit of past forms of life. Now we of the new age know that all life is good and only good, continually, and that the accretions called river mud, like the social and partisan acoretions called political mud, arc both ill their first analysis, forms of lifo, good after their kind.
 Mrs. Mason then gives various facts concerning the lilly flower which crystal wave in perfect purity when it floats in perfect freedom" She speaks of its perennial root stock; the orb-like leaves, the flower of delicate texture yet robust vitality, forming nearly a hemisphere when expanded, and the fact that there are red and blue water lilies, while the most common of all are pure white which is the union of all the seven colors of the rainbow of hope.
 There are twenty-five varieties of wa ter lilies, many of which are found in this country. The central states have a variety with large and white flowers, apple-scented, and bearing numerous self-detaching tubers, while Florida lilies are of the rich golden yellow. They seem to be spread all over the land and so fulfil the condition of general growth which is essential to national emblem.
 There is much to be said in favor of this flower both in the line of poetic and mystical meaning, of historic sugges- tion. or practical import It's whitness comments 1t to the Christian Temper ance union. and Woman Suffragists can, if they ilke aver that its yellow filaments, which, dilating from the in- ner to the outer series, pass insensibly into petals, are of their chosen color, and symbolize. by the peculiarity men, toned, the growth, diffusion. and i'm portance of their opinions.
 As for the patriot he may say with Mrs. Mason: Tt is the flower emblemat- ic of the oncoming conditions of that America which Is set to gather up safe ly all that might have been in the past of decaying and decayed nations! Ma tions the accretion of whose wisdom ways and hidden knowledge are the mud wherein our American lily grows, the good mud of present American politics."
 It is relief to know that there is some one who thinks the mud of American politics. is good. mud. We have thought of 1t as slimy and foul. rolled with "accretions" which are ,in- welcome and unwholesome, and the stir ring up thereof were melodorous; and detestabfe to us. But, If 1t Is not such, if 1t is good after It's Kind. and from 1t