Word: fiefs
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...Manuel"-as everyone in town deferentially called him-owned the only bank in all Zapata County (pop. 4,400). He had also served eleven terms as county commissioner, piloted his younger brother Santos to the county judgeship, and for years ran Zapata's politics as a family fief. But last week Don Manuel's bank was closed down for lack of funds-and the whole county was flat broke...
...children and seems affably adjusted to failure. He clerks in a grocery store that he once owned for a Sicilian-born boss named Marullo. However, Ethan is haunted by totems of past status. The sleepy Long Island port of New Baytown in which he lives was once virtually the fief of his whaling-captain forebears. He carries one such captain's narwhal stick and lives in his great-grandfather's white shiplap house with its widow's walk. It hurts Ethan when his son pipes up: "I'm going to buy you an automobile...
...Dominican armed forces, a position he used to make himself President in 1930. "God & Trujillo." No absolute ruler-not even France's Sun King-was more foppishly vain. Applying his own version of droit du seigneur, Trujillo took three wives, countless mistresses. Scattered about his peanut-sized fief were twelve palaces and ranches at which a full staff of servants faithfully prepared every meal every day just in case the master dropped in. At each mansion, Trujillo kept a full wardrobe of uniforms complete with white-plumed fore-and-aft hats...
Since 1896, when a German immigrant's son named Adolph S. Ochs took control of the anemic New York Times, the paper has grown into a sturdy publication-and a tightly held family fief. Lacking a son, Publisher Ochs chose his next most eligible successor, lived long enough to see his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, take over. Under Sulzberger, the Times grew richer and stronger than ever. This week, as he approached his 70th birthday, Times Publisher Sulzberger decided that the time had come to place the family paper in more youthful hands. The Times...
...milk or teaching high school algebra. But last week it seemed that matters had gotten out of hand. Spyros Skouras, the sovereign lord of 20th Century-Fox, had summoned Writer-Producer-Director Leslie Stevens to a staff lunch. Stevens, whose Daystar Corp. forms a powerful fealty under the Skouras fief, sent a proxy, and Skouras, growing wroth at the breach of fealty, canceled Fox's contract with Daystar. Said Stevens, jousting back with a $5,877,500 damage suit: "The noon meeting of March 22 may well turn out to be the most expensive lunch in Hollywood history...