The Petal paper. [volume], March 27, 1958, Image 1

About The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
Dept. Archives &. History
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East Side
-By P. D.
(The following was received from a student at Mill*
saps College, Jackson, Miss. I can only wonder if he's
still a student there. Anyway, I pass along his letter and
"Feature" so that parents can see what their children are
up to nowadays.)
Mr. P. D. East, Editor
The Petal Paper
Petal, Mississippi
Dear Sir:
I am sure that you are well acquainted with the re
cent controversy involving Millsaps College.
As you know we are guilty of advocating freedom of
speech.
As an avowed segregationist myself, I apologize for
this action.
We are sorry that we are curious about the outside
world.
In order to acquaint you with the way we are taught
here at Millsaps, I am enclosing a brief synopsis of life
at this college.
I do this in order to stir our crusading public to a
fever pitch in their effort to help us do the right thing.
This is a true, unbiased segment of the life and cur
riculum at my college.
Please help me and other poor souls which occupy a
common seagoing vessel.
Yours truly,
William T. Jeanes
Life At Miilsaps
by William T. Jeanes
This is a completely honest report on what happens
to the poor, helpless student at Miilsaps College. Due to
the inadequacy of space, paper, and intelligence, this re
port contains only a schedule of a typical day in the life
of Ira Indoctrinated, typical student.
When Ira arises from his cot in the barracks for his
meager breakfast, he crawls from between one black
sheet and one white one. This is a new method of sub
concious indoctrination. After donning his sport coat,
(Suits have been outlawed due to their habit of being
only one color.) Ira grabs his copy of Marx’s Manifesto,
his book on Freudian psycology, a black cloak, and other
revolutionary paraphenalia, and hustles off for a day of
iconoclastic activity.
7:30—Breakfast - All students will use cream in their
coffee.
r
8:00—Southern History - A quality point course
which shows the evolution of the ignorant
southerner to a still more ignorant southerner.
9:00—Sociology 186 - The study of propaganda - its
history, use, and application to the college
• student.
10:00—History of Russia - This course teaches Ira and
his classmates the futility of existence under
the capitalistic system of government. -
11;00—Philosophy 223 - The study of Marx viewed
(Continued On Page 3)
Letters
St. Paul 5, Minnesota
Dear P. D.:
With reference to the person
who wrote to you about your
editorial on your religion: (And
by the way, I’m not entering in
to a contest to save your “soul”.)
Throughout his lengthy letter,
he made an apparently logical
| and recondite plea for Christian
ity, and at one point in his let
j ter resorted to the old patroniza
j tion of informing you that you
really are a Christian and just
don’t know it.
Well, I think that he really
isn’t a Christian, and just doesn’t
know it. He speaks approvingly
of discarding the dogma of the
church, and other things that are
offensive in the current day
i church. But these things he
! acknowledges, and says one can
throw out, are real and are, in
1 fact, what make Christianity
what it is today. To say that two
thousand years ago Christ did
not mean for this to happen has
no bearing. The fact is that the
! Christian church has changed so
drastically in this time that if
one tries to take anything from
the church, he no longer is a
part of the church. He is not
even a Christian if he tries to
live by Christ’s original doctrine,
1 because that does not not exsit,
or have prime importance, in the
modern Christian church.
It is like the primitive that the
missionary goes to “save”. He
already has a very elaborate re
ligion, perfectly adequate to his
needs, but there are certain
things in Christianity that he will
accept. But it is almost always
altered to fit into his previous
scheme of thought. Sometimes he
will only take Christ and make
a new god out of him, or he will
adopt some of the pageantry of
this new religion. In other words,
he takes what suits him, and
j what he has then is not Christ
| ianity, and he most certainly is
1 not a convert, but he has an en
| tirely new religion made up of
two old ones.
Your correspondent is in good
company, because this is the line
of reasoning that Albert Sch
weitzer takes. Schweitzer’s re
ligion really is his philosophy of
“rverance for life ’ and a strict
emphasis on the ethics of living.
He has blasted just about every
orthodox belief about Christ; has
even admitted in his Psychiatric
Jesus that he undoubtedly had
hallucinations; that he was mis
guided, due to the eschatological
beliefs of his time, into thinking
he was the Messiah; declares
that Christ only evolves his idea
of dying for men’s sins after his
prophecies of the impending
Kingdom of God are shattered
when his disciples come back
from the “heathen” lands with
out having been persecuted in
his name, and worse yet, find
him still there. But despite this,
Schweitzer, quite rightly I think,
is awed before the beauty of the
philosophy of love that Christ
preached.
But Schweitzer, great as he is,
falls into that too prevalent of
j man’s failings: that is, the belief
| that goodness cannot be directly
. sought from the individual, but
must be gained by going through
some second or indirect process,
(Continued on Page 2)
Some Trip! —
Ike On Safari
Following days of preparation,
during which the principals were
weather-bound to a bridge table,
the Eisenhower - Humphrey full
scale quail-hunting safari across
the vast wire-grass veldt of host
Humphrey’s estate got under way
the other morning at 10:12
o’clock as shivering reporters
asked questions and news cam
eramen cranked away to record
the event for posterity.
Hunter Eisenhower, looking a
little pale after being kept off
the golf courses and hunting
grounds for several days by the
unusually frigid weather, told re
porters “By golly, I think it’s
something when you have to
make this a news event to write
about.”
The day bei'di*e the far-rapging
safari got under way, the Presi
dent and his host went out on a
sort of trial expedition and bag
ged three quail each, at a proba
ble final cost to the taxpayers of
more than $1,000 per quail.
For the big safari, the numer
ous hunting wagons, vans, bug
gies and surries drew up in front
of a “green-painted tenant house
a couple of miles” from the Hum
phrey mansion. The President’s
vehicle — a green surry with
wicker seats but no fringe on„the
top — was drawn by two white
mules.
The surrey was followed by a
dog-wagon with rubber tires.
Mr. Eisenhower, carrying a
shotgun, arrived at the starting
point in an automobile with his
favorite dogs — George and Art.
Followed by the former Treasury
Secretary, the chief executive
climbed into the surrey ... and
away they went, along with three
Negro attendants — bush beaters
and gunbearers —: on horseback.
Others in the safari were the us
ual coterie of secret service men
and President’s physician, Dr.
Howard M. Snyder. The physi
cian also rode a horse. Two me -
ical bags, (did one of them have
a bottle of the traditional “snake
bite” remedy among its con
tents?) two carbines and a short
wave radio were carried in the
chief executive’s vehicle.
At the end of the day the hunt
ing party returned, tired and
somewhat saddle-sore. If was not
learned how many of “our little
feathered friends” fell as the
shotgun blasts reverberated a
cross the flat sawgrass terrain,
but Mr. Eisenhower expressed
satisfaction with the manner in
which his two dogs hunted.
The day following the hunt,
the President prepared to return
to Washington aboard his “per
sonal plane” the Columbine. He
did not go direct to the Capital
City, however, but made a detour
to Phoenix, Arizona, where he
left Mrs. Eisenhower, her sister,
Mrs. Gordon Moore and Mrs.
Ellis Slater of New York, a fri
end of the First Lady.
The detour was only 3,400
miles out of the way, and a char
tered commercial comparable to
the Columbine would have cost
a mere $12,000.
Press Secretary James C. Hag
gerty was in high dudgeon be
cause Laurence Burd, a Chicago
Tribune reporter, questioned the
propriety of the detour.
Haggerty said Mr. Eisenhower
had been invited to make a visit
to Main Chance Ranch, owned
by Elizabeth Arden, and operated
as a beauty resort by the cos
metic maker. Main Chance has
been described as a “professional
beauty spot which charges its
guests $400 weekly.” Haggerty
said Mrs. Eisenhower would not
be a paying guest, the purpose
of the trip (at axpayers’ expense)
was not “beauty” but “rest and
sunshine.” The First Lady’s hos
tess, however, was not on hand
at Main Chance to extend a wel
come. Mrs. Arden was in Florida
... “for I’est and sunshine.” She
said she had “no plans to go to
Phoenix to be with Mrs. Eisen
hower.”
On the 3,400-mile detour, the
President's plane winged over
many areas where cold weather,
droughts and mounting unem
ployment have made thousands
of citizens far more in need of
food, clothing and shelter than
they are of either “beauty” or
“rest and sunshine.”
CHAS. R. HOUSTON
Stone Mountain, Ga.
Were At It Again —
Messing With Nature
The momentum of man’s pro
gresss has come to be an awe
some thing, some times with
man making an illogical fool of
himself. No sooner has his in
genuity whipped up something
epochal like the missile than he
puts himself to task of making
an antimissile to eliminate the
missile he made in the first place.
In his efforts at self-govern
ment we see him setting up laws,
then straining to find loopholes
in then, so as to escape their
effect. He grubs for money to
enhance his well-being, but is
never satisfied until he has more
than he can use, then lives in
fear of losing that excess.
But it is when he starts mess
ing around with nature that man
pulls such boners that even he
begins to worry about ultimate
results. Only recently has he dis
covered he can’t destroy forests,
overwork lands, transplant flora
and fauna carelessly, without
suffering unnatural consequen
ces.
Somebody tried to beautify
the Congo with water hyacinths,
and now it is clogged with them.
Birds imported from Europe to
Amei'ica likewise thrived and
became a nuisance — even while
the passenger pigeon and the
whooping crane were being wip
ed out. Now man can wipe out
man.
Here in our mountains, the
coyote has to go because he
preys on domestic livestock. But
the coyote also preys on mice, so
it follows that the fewer the coy
otes, the more mice and other
rodents, and something must re
place the coyote, otherwise we
will get a pest even more trou
blesome.
Now on the brink of space ex
ploration, man is also on the
verge of learning to control his
weather and the climate of the
(Continued on page 3)