The Maddox Mind

When Lester Maddox became Governor of Georgia. Carl Sanders provided him with a speech writing team that produced a shockingly moderate inaugural address. Ever since, Lester has baffled politicians to the left and the right. What happened to the pistol-waving racist who in 1965 led whites with ax handles against Negroes who approached his Pickrick Restaurant? What prompted him to brag that his administration had increased welfare payment? Why did he appoint 15 Negroes to local draft boards? It was a disconcerting reversal.

At first, people figured that he simply had to get along with the state's more moderate economic leaders; or that he was shrewd enough to seek middle-class support, now that he had the bigots and common-folk behind him; or that he was just plain nuts. Another train of thought-one that has included most Negroes from the start and is now growing rapidly-concludes that Maddox has not changed one bit. This view is supported by his sharp turn to the right in recent weeks.

Two weeks ago he sent a telegram to the Lowndes Country school board congratulating it on re-segregating school faculties, this defiance of the courts may mean the loss of $342,000 in annual Federal school funds. Then last weekend Maddox scrapped the speech he prepared for the Christian Crusade at Tulsa and unleashed one that sounded like an old Pickrick advertisement: "One of the greatest tragedies of our times has been the effort to brand conservative thought and action as irresposibility and lunacy."

He then proceeded to attack the White House, the Supreme Court, others "in high places," and Communists: "Officials in Washington have been told of how the Communists train Americans to engage police officers so as to attack and burn in other areas." But an even more striking switch than this paranoid drivel was his about-face on welfare: "If we are to have real peace and progress and help those who really deserve help, then we must cut back on our socialistic welfare programs that are making bums out of many Americans who could otherwise be successful contributing members of our society." Most recently, Maddox has begun a puritanical purge by raiding Atlanta nightspots that sell drink's after midnight on Saturdays.

In response to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of his reactionary shift, Maddox insisted that he had never changed his views, and that he was still the same man with the same beliefs. Even during his most "moderate" period, he always maintained that he was the same person; but now people are believing it.

Maddox, who is neither a public servant, nor an executive, nor an administrator does not conform to ideological standards. His views have always related to himself, his family, and his restaurant rather than to government. He has never understood the legislative functions of the governor, much less performed them in any fashion, liberal or conservative. He is now what he was as a campaigner and as a restaurant owner: a little man who shakes hands with the small-time businessman and the white worker. He delivers a lot more of those flat and amateurish speeches then he did before becoming governor, but otherwise he is the same. He still spends one entire day a week seeing people who want to bring their garbage difficulties of personal problems to him. He gets immense satisfaction from playing Santa Claus for the people of Georgia.

As one astute Georgia politician put it, "As long as Lester can use his mind and his position to help folk with their minor individual concerns, then he is happy and everything will stay calm. But if ever he is forced to act as governor in a more complex situation which he cannot totally understand or control, then he may completely blow. If there were a riot in Atlanta, this could happen."

Maddox is totally oblivious to legislative matters, which are far too complex for his blood. In his Tulsa speech, he remarked, "Take the legislation if you choose, but as for me, and my family, give us God, liberty and America."

Maddox's current reactionary mood is probably the result of his responsibilities becoming to complicated. It is not a coincidence that his segregationist praise to Lowndes Country came one day after a meeting with members of a three-man team from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. When he is forced into this kind of administrative responsibility detracts from his fun-time with the people, then he is likely to express a few of his old-time slogans in frustration. It does not mean any policy changes, for Maddox does not execute any policies. The primary result is not what he does, but what his supporters do. It has always been true that the racists and extremists who support Maddox cause far more concern than he does.