Urgent Necessity

The dean of Mississippi editors, silvery-haired, gentle Joseph Dale, 70, fortnight ago wrote an unusual appeal to his subscribers.

Joe Dale's father settled in Monticello, Miss, before the Civil War, edited a newspaper, taught Joe how to set type. At 17 Joe started the Lawrence County Press. That was in 1888, when few of Lawrence County's present citizens had been born. Sometimes the crops were good, and Joe Dale prospered. Sometimes they were not so good, and Editor Dale did not press his hungry subscribers. He had been in business seven years when his plant burned. Joe started over. Then he got married, raised three sons (one is a country editor in northern Mississippi), three daughters. They struck out for themselves, did well enough.

When Joe learned last month that he would have to have another operation on his prostate gland, he found over $1,000 in unpaid subscriptions on his books, no money in the bank.

So last fortnight he wrote on his editorial page: "We are making a special appeal to our subscribers ... on account of an unusual emergency. Within the past few weeks, the editor of this paper has found it necessary to consult eminent physicians ... on account of great physical suffering which has sapped our strength. . . .

"The decision of the specialists in New Orleans, under whom we underwent a major operation six years ago for the same trouble we are now afflicted with, was that another major operation was absolutely necessary. . . . Naturally, an operation of this nature . . . will require several hundred dollars, which we do not happen to have at this time, and the primary purpose of this article is to impress upon our loyal subscribers the urgent necessity of sending in something on their subscriptions. . . ."

Last week another Mississippi editor, hot-tempered Major Fred Sullens of the Jackson Daily News, who last spring got into a fist fight with Mississippi's Governor in a Jackson hotel (TIME, May 13), wrote: "Genial, kindly, softspoken, lovable Joe Dale! If the community he so long and ably served . . . does not come to his rescue in this grave crisis of his life, then its people are utterly devoid of any sense of human gratitude. And if they don't do it, Joe, here's telling you the brethren of the Mississippi press will certainly do so, even if there are no men of worldly wealth among them."

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