Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-26
THE GOVERNMENT FLOWER SHOW
Criticism Of the Limit Placed on the
Admissions.

To the Editor of The Evening STAR
| l would like to know why Japanese flow
ers are specialized for show by our nation?
Why also do we initiate Japanese methods
of culture for the chrysanthemum? Nature
| has indicated that flower to grow in alter
| nate branching stems of eff1orescence
! meaning perfume and beauty. Why clip
and prune away so many branching bios
SONS for the sake of one terminal, scent
| less monster, according to the heather? l
see no more beauty in a big chrysanthe-
mum than in pumpkin give me the nat
ural flowers, with their delicate, unattain-
able aroma.
Why, still further, are the servants of
this nation, sent here by the people and
paid to serve the whole people, permitted
to issue cards of invitation to exhibitions
of any department, supported by the
money of the taxpayers? An individual has
the right, of course, to invite whom he
pleases to his home to his individual
enterprises, and a private entertainment
has no business in any public report. 1t is
the height of vulgarity to advertise who
were the dinner guests at a private home
table, and 1t fills up valuable space with
senseless lists of names, meaning vanity
and snobbery; but 1 understand that no
official of these United States has any
rightful authority to give a card reception
to the patent office or to patent chrysan-
themums This is making the servant
more than the master, and a card more
than man. In fact, republican princi-
pies do not mean aristocracy of officials;
II they did, we are no better than mon
archy. 1 don't consider any official OF this
government entitled to be a snob, or that
he or she has any right to be a fool of
temporary position which they are paid for.
1t has often occurred to me, even under
the shadow of horror of the architecture
of the agricultural building here in Wash
ington, that a wider range of ornamental
ton of those grounds would be well. For
instance, big bed of cotton plants march
ing up from grace to glory of snowy down,
would really interest delight and instruct
thousands of people who never saw the
cotton plant. Its bloom is far more beauti-
full than big chrysanthemum; fairy bell
ringing food and clothing for man and
beast. Nothing that 1 know combines
utility and beauty so much as the cotton
plant. Fashionable Gamma don't begin.
Then bed of indigo plant, carefully cul-
uvated in those grounds. Many folks do
not know what indigo is made from. Why
not give up the plant in the Botanical
tiresome cactus? Tell us, too, in labels,
how that plant knows enough to gather
the blue from earth and sky. l want to
know. Would rather know that than gun
powder. Then, too, tobacco; many people
never saw tobacco plant. / have heard
of girl in the south, sixteen years old,
brought to town to school, who had never
seen a white girl woman, save her
bacco smoke, because she had seen men.
Tobacco as now used is perverted; it Is q
powerful vegetable fertilizer, and grows
where soils are poor and need it; but it
was never designed to stupefy man, for he
doesn't need it.
Then tiny grain farms-blowing feathery
oats; heavy headed wheat, dropping with
nourishment, unfermented and without
formaldehyde l am a farmer and OBJ
ject to drugging wheat for smut No dis
eased grain, drugged, will raise healthy
wheat.
Potato blossoms are as pretty as chrys-
anthemums. and as only a few years ago
they were deadly nightshade, We see there
what useful culture can do. Give us a
canebrake on the mall and hide the bald
peak of the monument. In fact I wish to
protest against fashion in plants and snobs
in politics Give us good manners which
are the rarest thing in the world and
Chesterfield is a better guide than the blue
book.
My husband was the wisest man 1 ever
knew, when at home 1 always asked
him, minister's wife should do. He
said: Europe has gone to the show case"
Are we going to initiate her? If so, let us
charge an admission fee to our national
exhibitions and so help pay the expenses
Anybody here. with clean feet, is admis-
sable to any function of the government
and it's highest employees
MARION v. c. DUDLEY.