Written prayer of D. F. Gibson:
These are my thoughts and prayer. I am now at the Cemetery with my three girls at Springhill Church, Daviston, Tallapoosa County, Alabama.
Oh Lord, have mercy upon me according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy forgiving spirit, forgive me of my trespasses. And oh Lord, I want to thank thee for Minnie. She was the bride of my youth. She was the mother of my first children. She was an inspiration to me in shaping my life to live these many years.
And dear Lord, I want to thank thee for Sarah. She was the bride of my middle life. She sacrificed her single life and came into my home and helped me to raise my children. Dear Lord, she stood by me in poverty and well as plenty.
Dear Lord, I want to ask thee to bless all of my children and grandchildren, and I want to ask thee especially to bless my three girls, Pearl, Leona and Sarah, as I feel more tender toward them because they are the image of the ones I think are now in Heaven, their mothers.
Dear Lord, help us all to do right even though we may not know what it is, but dear Lord, help us even more when we know perfectly well what is right and don't want to do it. We do know, dear Lord, that when we have light in our own clear breast, we may sit in the center of the night and enjoy bright day. We do know that when we hide a dark and foul thought, benighted we walk neath the noonday sun.
Now dear Lord, help us all to live so that when we come to cross the unknown shores, we will have no unpleasant recollection of the past. All of this I ask and pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Letter to Walter Winchell
Enterprise, Alabama
20 May 1942
Mr. Walter Winchell
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Winchell:
I have been listening to your broadcasts on Sunday nights for several years, and I think you have more "grit in your craw" than any other man in America!
There are a few things I want to say to you -- I was born right after the War Between the States in 1869 and I have been a farmer all of my life, however, I have been handicapped because of no education. I am no preacher nor am I the son of a preacher, but these things come to my mind.
The United States Government says the farmer must feed the world and the farmer is ready to do his part at all times; yet some things are hard to understand. The Government is tightening up on rubber, rationing sugar, putting priorities on farm implements, yet allows one to go ahead and make wheat, corn, and rye into whiskey to be sold to our soldiers in camps. I saw last week soldiers in a bus station at Columbus, Georgia, with beer and whiskey making kodak pictures of themselves. We can win no war drunk!
There is a proverb which says: "Better an army of asses led by a lion than an army of lions led by an ass, but better yet is an army of lions led by the lion of the tribe of Judah .." who drove the gamblers and racketeers out of the temple with a scourge.
So far as revenue on whiskey is concerned, there is none. I lived during the time whiskey was sold at every crossroad store. I knew a man that ran a government still and the U.S. gauger stayed at the still. The stiller would give him a quart of whiskey and a dollar and he would go to bed and the stiller would sell whiskey all night and never paid one-fourth of the revenue.
I had two boys in the first World War and it looks like I'll have four or five grandsons in this one. I'd much rather my grandsons died sober than drunk and I wish there was something I could do about it. I know there are others that feel the same way I do.
If you should find an opportunity to better this situation, I, with many others, will again remark, "There is a brave man."
Sincerely,
D. F. Gibson