Word: maddoxisms
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...large roadside billboards just inside the county lines north and south of town guard the approach to Ludowici. Placed there by Governor Lester Maddox two weeks ago, they warn approaching motorists of "speed traps" and "clip joints" in large black letters on a white background. State Trooper Thomas Randall sits in his blue Chevrolet guarding the southernmost sign against Ludowici's irate citizens. Occasionally Randall puts aside his Playboy and climbs out to chat with a tourist, such as H.E. Phillips from Beaufort, S.C. "I've heard about this place in the state of Washington," says Phillips, snapping...
...treacherous stop light that trapped motorists by changing from green to red without warning, after which the travelers were ticketed by a waiting policeman. Since 1960 when the light was replaced, Ludowici's speed traps have bilked motorists of a rumored $100,000 annually. Says Governor Maddox: "The place is lousy, rotten, corrupt, nasty and no good...
...quite as bad as all that, but Ludowici has nevertheless defied the efforts of three Governors, including Maddox, to shut down the speed traps. For years some of the local gas stations also conducted a profitable con game. When an unsuspecting motorist stopped to have his oil checked, the attendant would disable the car by tinkering with the generator or pouring water in the crankcase oil, then suggest that the customer move his crippled vehicle to a nearby garage for repair. Fittingly enough, the repair shop was called "Billy Swindel...
...boss, Ralph Dawson, 68, a back-country lawyer who has been running Long County since 1932. Always in a brown felt hat and soiled black suit, Dawson heads a political machine that has never lost an election at the county or city level, and he has not taken lightly Maddox's efforts to shut off his speed-trap revenue. Last year Dawson was tossed out of the Governor's office and called a rascal. To which Dawson replied, "You don't own this office. You are a political accident." Laughs Dawson: "It made Maddox madder than...
...strengthened the Governor's resolve to put up the warning billboards. Keeping them there will be another matter, troopers or no. Two weeks ago, buckshot was fired into the kitchen of the Rev. Raymond Cook, a leader of the city's small antispeed-trap, anti-Dawson clique. Maddox hinted that he would declare martial law, but backed off when he learned from state investigators that there was at least a possibility that the crusading Cook may have fired the shots himself to bring the law down on Dawson...