should not stop, in all respects, with December 31, 1925. While the political part of the present volume and the discussion of the more important public matters coincide with the Administration of President Harding and the early part of Coolidge's, the treatment of literary trends and of popular songs covers the whole of the Twenties.
There was, during the early years of this century, in St. Louis, an editor, William Marion Reedy, whose weekly Mirror followed the American scene - public affairs, books, and especially poetry with a spirit as broad and deep as the river by the side of which Reedy lived and worked. He was a kind of American Chesterton; indeed, he had in him much of Dr. Johnson; in person, as in range and richness of taste, including humor, Reedy was gargantuan, eupeptic. Among his intimates was a St. Louisan who resembled him in bulk, catholicity and flavor, a lawyer, Fred W. Lehmann (he was Solicitor-General in the Administration of President Taft). Once Reedy, meeting his crony on the street, approached him and began to finger his coat lapel with an appearance of embarrassment that was at once elephantine and shy. "Fred," Reedy said, “you know how my affairs have been going, and you won't be surprised to hear I've called a meeting of my creditors — it's to be in the City Hall on Monday night. And Fred"Reedy's downcast eyes, and the seriousness of expression that a fat man's features can achieve, conveyed the manner of one shy with apprehension -"Fred, I'm going to address the meeting myself; and I wondered, I just thought if it's too much to ask you don't hesitate to say so- but I thought I'd ask you to address the overflow meeting."
A meeting of those to whom the writer of this history is indebted, would, I think, fill all the City Halls of the