The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??, 1959-02-19
THE PETAL PAPER


tlesburg, and a gentleman of the
old South walked from the curb
over to my car and said to me:
You no-good bastard, if you'll
get out of that car I'll mop up
the street with you" Being a
natural born coward, l told him,
We'll, now, wou'll have to offer
me more inducement than that"
While wondering what additional
inducement he might offer, +
drove away.
An acquaintance of mine once
had the good fortune to interview
one of the founders of the citi-
zens council, mr.. robert patter-
son of Greenwood, Mississippi.
Upon being asked about me, pat
terson replied: II don't know P.
D. East. I've never met him;
have no opinion. / only know
what I've read about him in the
Daily Worker" Frankly, l was
hurt by that sort of ingratitude,
especially since I subscribe only
to Harper's, Time and the Re-
porter. while I've never seen a
copy of the Daily Worker, I've
been told that it has quoted Jesus,
Lincoln, Jefferson and others.
However, if they were still in
business I might sue them for
having quoted me, if they really
did,
Still - and I confess to this
weakness - I'm hurt because
robert patterson has never seen
fit to write me a fan letter. After
all, there are those who do write
Just the other day I got a letter
which said: "I read your niger
loving paper. I'm glad to get it.
1t saves me $50 year on toilet
tissue" Another gentleman wrote
recently: ut is my honest opinion
that you're crazy as 900 hells."
With an inward feeling of
warmth and good fellowship and,
admittedly, seeking to sustain my
success and distinction, I decided
to enter a candidate in the race
for the U. S. Senate. My candi-
date was well-educated gentle
man from an old Southern fam
lily. His name was Cornpone Pu
Neanderthal, and I ran his an
| nouncement in my paper, natur-
ally. But what an easy matter it
is to be misunderstood! Some of
my fellow Mississippians actually
| thought was poking fun at our
beloved senior Senator, james oh
eastland, affectionately known
, and loved as "Our Gen. a real
jewel of man.
The most recent incident to
bring to mind my success as
publisher and. editor had to do
with a Congressional election in
the district where I live. T h e
Congressman wrote me letter,
enclosing his formal announce
ment, and in the letter he said
there would be advertising sent
to me later. After a week or two
I noticed that every single news
paper in the district had ads from
the Congressman-except mine.
| felt inclined to check around
and learned that "a Petal mer-
chant" had called the Congress
man on the telephone in Wash
ington and advised him not to
run his announcement in my pa
per. The Cogressman ran the an
nouncement anyway, but decided
not to run any advertising. Later,
about five or six days before the
election, / got word from his
headquarters that they had de-
cided to run one ad with me. l
explained that while | appreci-
ated it, l was not upset about
having been left out; that, after
all, | wasn't concerned with the
principle of the thing just
the money! But what bothered
me most of all was the fact that
"a Petal merchant" had spent
that money on a long-distance
telephone call; he could have run
large ad in my paper for what.