From the W.P.A. Research Project
Subject: Local Press and Other Publications
During the year of 1919, a person known to the readers of the Stone County Enterprise only as Bill Sawyer wrote some very interesting and entertaining letters to the paper. Mr. Sawyer ‘s true identity was never established except , perhaps by the editor of the paper.
Below is an excerpt of Bill Sawyer’s entertaining letters to the paper. Date: June 21, 1919
Bill wrote that a reader had asked him why he didn’t get into politics and he gave his reply. He said he had “throwed his hat in the ring “several years ago and made a race for a county office. At the beginning of the race, he decided to keep a close tab on everything he did and what it cost him. He wrote it all down in little black book. Here are some of the items he listed:
Lost 4 months, 23 days canvassing
Lost 1,1013 hours of sleep thinking about the election
Lost 23 acres of corn and my entire potato crop
Donated $11.00 to church and other charities
Gave away 2 pair of suspenders, 4 calico dresses, and 13 baby rattlers
Kissed 123 babies
Kindled 100 kitchen stoves
Cut eleven cords of wood,
Walked 920 miles
Shook hands 986 times
Told 10,101 lies and talked enough to make, in print, 1,000 volumes the size of a patent office report
Got baptised 4 different times by “emersion” and sprinkled twice
Gave $50.00 to foreign mission
Got dog bit 39 times
And then got defeated.
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