CRIME: The Odds Were Right

Even before Alabama became a state (1819), riffraff, bond jumpers, cardsharps and other fugitives from Georgia were crossing the muddy Chattahoochee River to find haven in wicked little Phenix City. As time passed, respectable families came to Phenix City, too, but gamblers, pimps and narcotics pushers still ran the town, and fattened on the trade of soldiers from Ft. Benning, just across the river near Columbus, Ga. This year Lawyer Albert L. Patterson ran for attorney general of Alabama on a pledge to shut down vice throughout the state, and especially in his home town of Phenix City (pop....

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