The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1908-05-19


is now one Of the honored United
States senators from Mississippi, the
intellectual peer Of any member OF
that great body Another honored ex-
president of this body. lifelong
newspaper man, always faithful to it's
interests, and an ex-president of the
National Editorial Association. is now
an aspirant for the seat in congress Of
Mississippi's world-famed Democratic
minority leader, and if valiant John
Sharp Williams doesn't succeed in put
ting the paper trust out of business
before his term expires, will take Pc
culiar delight in clinching few nails
in its coffin. Another distinguished
member of this association laid down
the editorial pen to make Mississippi
one of the best-some say the best
Governors she ever had, and when his
term expired, promptly returned to his
first love, the tripod, and l am proud
to say is numbered with his editorial
brethren here today.
OF the twenty-five editors and pub.
fishers who met IN the senate cham
Der in Jackson, June and 6, 1866, and
organized the Mississippi Press Asso-
citation, l am reminded that only one
survives-our beloved friend and
brother, Capt. P. X. Mayors, of the
PascagoulaA Democrat-Star, who has
never missed a meeting and who has
served the association SO long and
faithfully as its treasurer and is with
us at this session. Like a giant oak
of the forest with roots deeply i'm
bedded in the earth and head towering
high above its fellows. his staiwart,
handsome form and splendid consti-
tuition have hitherto withstood all the
demands and vicissitudes of labori-
GUS and exacting profession, and but.
voice the sentiment of all when say
1t is sincerely hope that he may be
spared yet many years to favor this
association by his genial. cheerful pres
ence and helpful counsels.
And this reminds me that the death
Angel has been unusually busy in our
ranks since the last meeting of this
association, no less than seven of our
members having answered his sum-
mons during the past twelve months.
M. ]. Peters and G. Gutenberg, of the
Lexington Advertiser; ]. d. McKie, of
the Gulfport Review; H. T. Crosby,
of the Greenville Times: G. s. Coffin,
of the Quitman Quill; R. B. May, Of
the McComb City Enterprise, and
Brown, of Water Valley Progress.
Three of these, Brethren McKie,
Brown and May, were former presi-
dents of the association. In no conven-
ton year during the associations ex-
istence has the mortality been so
great, save one-in 1S7S-79-when the
association lost four members from
the awful yellow fever scourge of
1878 and three from other causes. AS
a mark of respect and to give opportu-
nifty for suitable expression of our
sense of loss and appreciation of our
deceased brethren, it has been deemed
proper to set special hour later DUR
ing the session for the committee on
neurology to.make its report.
For the first time in the history of
our association it meets in an interior
Southeast Mississippi town. Here, as
you see and heard from Mayor Donald
this morning in his cordial welcome
address to u.s. has grown up as If by
magic in what was twenty-five years
ago an almost unexplored wilderness
of pines, a magnificent young city of
$4,000 people, with waterworks and
electric lights, paved streets, stately
buildings, splendid churches and
schools, daily newspapers, strong
banks, fiourishing stores, innumerable
manufacturing industries and every
thing else needed to constitute a
modern, up-to-date city OF this size.
And we see here not only what has
been accomplished by the wide awake,
energetic, hustling people of Hatties.
burg, but we have here, as 1 believe,
only an illustration, a prophecy, OF
what this whole South Mississippi sec.
ton is to largely become thirty to
fifty years hence when it is peopled by
another generation of thrifty Missis-
sippians and immigration from siste,
states, still other railroads built to
bear its commerce and with two fine
deep water harbors established on its
coast.
AS l witness what have today and
| cOntpmn1ata tho marVa1o11e dava1on