Newport Middletown Portsmouth Ri Slicker

Every legend begins with a little lie, but it needs some truth if it's gonna' fly. The chase is on for the American Dream and everyone is looking for a big pay day. Billy and his sailboat race crew are chasing the breeze and a boat load of silver. Their M.F.O. is smuggling home the green grass of Jamaica, and the 'gas and go' Albanians are hoping to fill up on cash. Here comes the D.A., as always, chasing the chasers. What could go wrong? "Can't Sail In Jail!" is a fun romp of misadventures on wisps of wind and weed in a wacky world around Mystic, Connecticut with no room for innocence, where wrong decisions can help you grow up. If you want to. The cast of characters will charm you, offend you, make you laugh and make you cry. Each seeks the Dream, taking different paths to avoid the inevitable nightmare. Remember - It's okay to fail, just stay out of jail! All of Greg Gilmartin's novels are locally based from Coney Island to Block Island with forays to San Francisco and Colombia.

Spanning most of the years of the one-party South, the public career of Virginian Claude A. Swanson, congressman, governor, senator, and secretary of the navy, extended from the second administration of Grover Cleveland into that of Franklin Roosevelt. His record, writes Henry C. Ferrell, Jr., in this definitive biography, is that of "a skillful legislative diplomat and an exceedingly wise executive encompassed in the personality of a professional politician." As a congressman, Swanson abandoned Cleveland's laissez faire doctrines to become the leading Virginia spokesman for William Jennings Bryan and the Democratic platform of 1896. His achievements as a reform governor are equaled by few Virginia chief executives. In the Senate, Swanson worked to advance the programs of Woodrow Wilson. In the 1920s, he contributed to formulation of Democratic alternatives to Republican policies. In Roosevelt's New Deal cabinet, he helped the Navy obtain favorable treatment during a decade of isolation. The warp and woof of local politics are well explicated by Ferrell to furnish insight into personalities and events that first produced, then sustained, Swan-son's electoral success. He examines Virginia educational, moral, and social reforms; disfranchisement movements; racial and class politics; and the impact of the woman's vote. And he records the growth of the Hampton Roads military-industrial complex, which Swanson brought about. In Virginia, Swanson became a dominant political figure, and Ferrell's study challenges previous interpretations of Virginia politics between 1892 and 1932 that pictured a powerful, reactionary Democratic "Organization," directed by Thomas Staples Martin and his successor Harry Flood Byrd, Sr., defeating would-be progressive reformers. A forgotten Virginia emerges here, one that reveals the pervasive role of agrarians in shaping the Old Dominion's politics and priorities.