Word: ralph
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...irrational," Michael E. McLaughlin, chairman of the Middlesex County commission, says, characterizing one of his fellow commissioners, S. Lester Ralph. "He wants to be the total dominating force. He reminds me of Adolf Hitler...If you're in his way, I truly believe Lester Ralph would push you right out a window...
John L. Danehy, who rounds out the three member board, calls Ralph the "type of man who talks out of both sides of his mouth." "He lies so often he doesn't know when he's telling the truth," Danehy adds...
...Ralph, a commissioner for four years and mayor of Somerville since 1969, says his colleagues think "the county exists for their own political advantage--the well-being of the county is absolutely irrelevant to them...
McLaughlin maintains that before 1975 "Ralph would just sit in his office and hire people. That was it. He was everything, judge and jury." Ralph derived his strength, McLaughlin insists, from the acquiescence of Paul Tsongas, a former commissioner and aspiring politican whose "interest wasn't in Middlesex County." When Tsongas left the county for Congress in 1975, the two remaining commissioners, Ralph and Danehy, were left to find someone for the vacancy, with the Middlesex clerk of courts acting as tie-breaker. McLaughlin says Ralph hoped to perpetuate his power by appointing a political ally who had contributed...
...contest for the Spiro Agnew Memorial Ethnic Slur Award, which last year went to Earl Butz, is already under way. A strong early bid has been made by Federal Trade Commissioner Paul Rand Dixon, who called Consumer Watchdog Ralph Nader a "son of a bitch" and a "dirty Arab" in a Jan. 17 speech before the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Nader's offense was charging that the commission coddled industry at the expense of the public. Dixon's semiapologetic remarks to a reporter did not help matters much. Conceding that his slur on Nader, who is of Lebanese...