The Press: Missouri Funeral

"When I die I want you to place my body in the office of the Mercury. Start the press and keep it running. Show the mourners the new Linotype. And have a Negro chorus sing the Rock of Ages."

These were the instructions of Thomas Vaughn Bodine, 67, gun-toting editor of the Paris (Mo.) Mercury. Then he went to a hospital and died last week of intestinal disease. Two days later his body lay in state from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. alongside the desk where he had worked for half a century. Instructions were...

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