Alabama: Two-Yacht Governors

Seated last week beneath the huge chandelier in his paneled office, Alabama's Governor George C. Wallace gulped Coke and denounced the lavish spending of his predecessor, John Patterson. Growled Wallace: "It's criminal, it's a shame, it's a sin."

Perhaps so. But wasting public money is something of a tradition with Alabama governors. During his first term in 1947-51, James E. ("Kissin' Jim") Folsom paid $140,000 in state funds for a seagoing 95-ft. yacht, which he named Jamelle after his wife. Folsom's successor Gordon Persons apparently felt that his wife Alice was entitled to have a yacht named...

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