Selected Quotes

On being Typical: "I attend prayer meetings regularly. I send my children to college; I pay my debts, having embarrassingly good credit with the wholesalers, the banks and the local grocery stores - and still have the paper I started working on back in schoolboy days. Nothing typical in such a record - I calls it onusual."

On how he got into the newspaper business: "I didn't know it was loaded. It's a dog's life, but I have a depraved taste for it."

On liars: "The biggest liars in the country live on the Greenbrier river. The farther up the river you get, the bigger the liars...And I live at the head of the stream!"

On his education: "I graduated from high school when I was 16 and wanted to go on to college. My father said I was too young and I could go when I was older. D'you know I'm still waiting!"

On naming the State bird: "The only West Virginia characteristic of this titmouse bird is that he never backs down. He walks up a tree face-first and comes down face-first. They classify him as a songbird, not because he sings but because he has vocal chords. It's like that Supreme Court decision making any stream navigable if if could at all be developed and maybe the titmouse's throat can be made navigable to song, but he doesn't sing now. I am inclined to favor that blood and thunder, that fire and tow, that rascal and fuss-box, that general all around son-of-a-gun, the bluejay. Maybe such responsibility will improve his morals."

On freedom of the press: "Freedom of the press means unpaid subscriptions."

"We all don't know enough to be anything by cheerful."

On soil conservation: "City slickers have got to wake up if our land is to be saved for for future generations. Our land can be saved only through co-operation of city slickers and country folks in the present conservation program. When the conservation program was launched I thought it was bad that the government was trying to tell me how to till my land, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it was right. Many large cities have died because of lack of soil conservation. Our land is gradually wasting away and it's time to stop it. In 20 years we'll be thinking about the the wise people are thinking about today and in 30 years we will be putting them into practice. If the city slickers wake up, the future generations will have a land of plenty."

On conservation of fish: "If 14,000,000 of us send work to Washington that we stand united in a demand for more recognition from the bureau of fisheries, you may rest assured that we'll get action."

"There are 14,000 persons in the United States who annually get hunting and fishing licenses, yet they have no national organization to speak for them. The numerous state and county sportsmen's organizations cannot properly deal with the situation because game and fish do not recognize state lines or even international boundaries. Congress has furnished to the bureau of fisheries sufficient funds for protection of commercial fish, but the poor sportsman, even though there are 14,000,000 of him, cannot get anything done for the trout."

Price-isms: "One shining hope in the world today, is that God has given the Anglo-Saxon race control of the Atomic bomb."

"We all give to the church those coins that we give to a waitress of a Pullman porter who dusts our coats that don't need dusting."

"If Napoleon had another cannon at the right time we would all be speaking French."

"Some people's conception of a woman is that she is one better than a dog, but not quite as good as a horse."

"Those same people believe that a woman will deserve a small place in heaven if she has served well her father, husband or son."

Number One Rule: "My Number One ruled is against writing anything that will hurt somebody needlessly, unless there is a principle involved. When I feel a good 'mad' coming on, I write a bear story."

On writing: "Sometimes I write an editorial, sometimes I don't, but I try to keep the hunting and fishing news up to date."

On subscribers: "We have about 4,000 subscribers and the law of diminishing returns sets in at about the 2,000 point. We're faced with just too many people to send the paper to."

On tourism: "Now as for the tourist trade which three thousand odd counties are in a scramble for, my Pocahontas sentiments are best expressed in the words of the sign of the good old time merchant, 'Go no further to get cheated.' We welcome the world, but they come at their own risk and expense; we guaranteed no panther steaks on toast; and if they want creamed rattlesnake fillet each man must catch his own snakes."

On costs: "We country editors needs must be a cheerful idiot to whom tomorrow is merely another day with the odds favoring a better one. With me, number one concern has been in recent months to corner enough newsprint, even at black market prices, to keep going, even on a hand-to-mouth, week-to- week minimum basis. My telegraph tolls seeking newsprint in a recent month amounted to $94... "I am now all for the impossible law to break up the black-paper market - a thieving connivance between manufacturer and broker to skin the poor printer. Another concern is the more I do, the more I lose. As for my subscription list, the line of diminishing returns now begins so far back on my present so fast growing list I have not had the courage to check up on the exact subscriber to see where actual loss does begin."

"People, like water, can rise no higher than their sources."

Often used this quote: "He who takes no thought from whence had came gives but little thought as to whither he is going."

On speechmaking: "My main weakness is that I'd rather make a poor speech than listen to a good one."

On making money: "The modern temptation is to put literature, writing and expression of ideas secondary to rounding up dollars. The catch is that the dodging of creditors is no more conducive to higher thinking than chasing money."

On the blue jay: "Here is the literal truth of the say that 'fine feather do not make fine' birds.' The jay is a persistent nest robber and he steals for the love of stealing. He is just another crow all dressed up. The jay is the mail carrier or the town crier of the woods. Let a deer hunter pick up a game trail and the pesky jays will follow him from daylight to dark, in relays, advertising his progress all along the line, by their fussing and their cussing. Thief is the best thing they call him."

On the conservation movement: "I welcome women into the conservation movement. We are now finally going to get some place as a result. We have got to give and take to put over the conservation movement. Pocahontas has got to give and Harrison county take and Harrison county has to give and Pocahontas take."

On the titmouse: "A few years there was a legislative flurry to make the tufted titmouse our official West Virginia State bird, after referendum by the school children. The legislature balked, as such a modest, trusting, useful, wistful little bird is hardly symbolic of the forthright nature of us mountaineers."

On the linotype: "You know, someday I think I'll buy one of those machines for my paper."

On naming the forest: "I'm sinfully proud of it all. It's not often a man gets his tombstone before he dies."

On getting the Dr. of Law degree: "A school teacher came to me once and asked me how thick I was with the WVU board of governors. I told him we were thick as thieves so he suggested that I talk to them about getting him an honorary degree since it would mean an extra $37.50 a month. I talked to some board members about it - and then early in the Spring I got a postcard from the board asking me to come up to graduation. Doggone if the hadn't voted me a degree. And that school teacher still thinks I double-crossed him, I bet."

On West Virginia: "We people of West Virginia certainly do have a heritage, we are asking nothing from the rest of the nation or the world, we are sufficient unto ourselves."

On presidential election: "I shall nail the name of John W. Davis to the top of my masthead, there to remain until he becomes President." to which the chairman of the DNC replied: "If I had had Cal Price down here in Washington preparing publicity for our candidate, I am certain we could have elected him."

On snowstorms: "The city is no place during a snowstorm for a man from the country. I was put to bed by the light of a tallow dip, and none of the local citizens seemed to have any concern or responsibility in swamping out their roads and trails."

Cal wrote his own biography for West Virginia conservation magazine in Sept. 1941: Dear John: I was 60 years old last November 22 (five o'clock in the morning; six pounds, eight ounces; clear but frosty) so they caught me up and carried me down to the settlement and took my picture. Being as you asked for it, herewith I enclose it. You will admit it is remarkable what a true artist can make out of poor material.   Some months back I was designated by the president of the National Editorial Association as the typical country editor to do a stunt at radio broadcasting. I take exception to the word "typical". I have the paper I started working on back in schoolboy days; I attend prayer meetings regularly; I sent my children to college; I pay my debts, and have embarrassing good credit with the wholesalers, the banks and the local grocery stores. Nothing typical in such a record - I calls it onusual.   I am a hunter and a fisher who kills less game and catches fewer and smaller fish and talks and writes more about it than any other person in the known world. As for deer hunting, for all I care about the killing of another deer, I would just a lief shoot a sheep or a goat, and it tied up. However, I work religiously each day of the open season a-hunting of the deer. I hold it is still a good man who can track down his venison and drag it in at the close of day. As for the deer season, I hold for hunting deer when they are fit to eat. The biological sharps are beginning to realize the West Virginia season of the first three days in December defeats our own ends. It is after the buck deer gits all rancid up for the party and week before the mating time. I hold there are still panthers in these endless mountains and that bear do kill sheep. The current report of the state of Maine showing public payment for over a thousand head of live stock killed by bears the past year is strong confirmation of my contentions. I have lain with my feet to a campfire for so many times I cannot sleep at nights with my feet under the covers. This little weakness has been the cause of strained domestic relations in an otherwise happy, blissful household. Speaking about my feet I have walked the woods so much that I lift them high and set them down light even on Main street, habitually keyed up to outjump a striking snake at any time. As for fish, I maintain a given body of water will support a given number of pounds of fish. Farmers know about stunting livestock by overstocking grass and the horticulturist things off his fruit. The technicians are beginning to show sign of intelligent awakening in this matter, and in time may be expected to further cut the minimum length for the Black Bass down to eight inches. Then there will be some big ones again. As for the woods, I have seen the tall uncut of the Greenbrier Valley; I have seen it hogged off like sin; I am seeing it come back with the National Forest occupying more that 60 per cent of my own Pocahontas county. I am all cheered up for the best is yet to come in this vast domain of free hunting and fishing. I doubt if I ever have a mission in life, but if I ever attain to such a degree of excellence my message will be to give good American names to our plants and animals, birds and fishes, bugs bats and creeping things. What a field of interest that would open up to the average run of bright boys and girls! I have precedent, for you must remember how our glorious religion spread when the church began to preach in the language of the common people; how the legal and healing professions dropped the mummery of a dead language some generations since. As for advancement in human affairs and scientific endeavor, I hold the age of progress really began with the use of tobacco. As for snakes, I have not caught nor killed a six-foot rattler since good Dr. Ditmars said we could not grow a rattler longer than 30 inches in these parts. Five feet, two inches is the best so far. I am out to show the world, too a three-foot Blue Racer with a white ring around his neck. My life as a hunter and fisher, trader and trapper has been and still is singularly satisfactory to me personally, but hard as the dickens on Miss Mabel, the poor dear, and the children. Regards, Calvin P. S. Mother says send the picture back, please.

On preserving the land: "America must protect these vital resources if it is to continue to flourish as a nation. The Sahara Desert once was a fertile country but when its forests were destroyed its civilization perished. The Chinese took 5,000 years to destroy their forest, but Americans have all but ruined their within only 300 years. Depletion of forests results in floods and decreased water supply, conditions which now can be seen in the United States."

On traveling: "I come down to the settlement to see how the other half lives."

On bears/sheep: "Sheep-raising was the principal industry in Pocahontas County, but was endangered when the bear was put on the songbird list!"