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Speaker 1: Also media what my voice is not all the way

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Speaker 1: back yet, but we're recording a podcast Miami.

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Speaker 2: Hi Wow, Sophie, Wow wow Wow. I am the one

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Speaker 2: who's supposed.

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Speaker 3: To start Get that.

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Speaker 2: It's very fun.

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Speaker 3: I had a great time working legit.

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Speaker 2: Joy The greatest and sometimes the only joy in my

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Speaker 2: week is thinking how I'm going to open the show.

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Speaker 2: Like this week, I'm reading a bunch of court case

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Speaker 2: files for an international uh pedophile, uh cult leader, and

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Speaker 2: I'm just thinking of all the ways I'm going to

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Speaker 2: open the podcast that's going to make you livid, get

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Speaker 2: us canceled, lose everyone their jobs.

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Speaker 3: A likely thing for you to be doing.

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Speaker 2: You know that, Garson. I've tested many intros out on you.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and.

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Speaker 1: You can send me the reimbursement for that therapy later, Gear.

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Speaker 3: But you know that's tax deductible. Oh good, good business expense,

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Speaker 3: personal my personal work. Yes.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, So Garrison, we're here today to continue hearing the

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Speaker 2: tale of you know, your adopted home state's favorite son.

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Speaker 2: I think it's it's fair to say he.

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Speaker 3: Tried to be certainly. Yes, Governor of Georgia, Eugene Talmadge,

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Speaker 3: who just ascended to the governorship and almost immediately started

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Speaker 3: a military coup of local government, just like almost almost

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Speaker 3: as soon as he got into office. So that that

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Speaker 3: is where we are continuing now. Yeah, here here he goes.

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Speaker 3: So after he started placing military guard around the capitol,

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Speaker 3: he got military guards to follow around himself as well

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Speaker 3: as a few of his like closest allies, and they

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Speaker 3: just they just went everywhere with him. And Jane really

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Speaker 3: liked this. He liked the feeling of it. It made

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Speaker 3: him feel like important.

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Speaker 2: This is one of my called shots is that if

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Speaker 2: Trump gets back in a whole bunch of guys are

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Speaker 2: going to start getting secret Service and maybe at some

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Speaker 2: point military escorts. Like you can tell what a a like.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of how he started the process of bribing

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Speaker 2: RFK Junior, right, It's something he wasn't really able to

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Speaker 2: do in the first term, but it's you just see

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Speaker 2: this hunger, like every rich man wants to be followed

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Speaker 2: around by a bunch of men in suits with ear pieces.

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Speaker 2: It's yeah, I think that's coming.

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Speaker 3: He was having fun with his little military cosplay, and

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Speaker 3: the highway board chairman that just had his department taken

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Speaker 3: over made fun of Jean's antics by saying in response,

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Speaker 3: he would deploy a boy Scout troop to guard the

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Speaker 3: Highway Department. But Jane was not joking around. On June nineteenth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen thirty three, he declared a state of martial law

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Speaker 3: at the Capitol and seized complete personal control over the

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Speaker 3: Highway Department and its money. He claimed that board members

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Speaker 3: had abandoned their office and we're aiding in a bedding

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Speaker 3: in practices to incite insurrection. So you just did an

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Speaker 3: actual like like a legal coup.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: He fired all the board members and appointed a man

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Speaker 3: named Judd P. Wilhoyt, which is another great Southern name,

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Speaker 3: just great stuff.

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Speaker 2: And you know you like you don't even have to

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Speaker 2: tell me he's corrupt when he's a jud like I

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Speaker 2: can put two and two together in a judge together.

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Speaker 3: Jud Judd was put as supreme command over the Highway Department.

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Speaker 2: Again, we're talking to double jud right gear like we're

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Speaker 2: talking single d D. Yeah, I mean this was this

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Speaker 2: was like they hadn't developed the technology for a double

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Speaker 2: deep Judd yet.

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Speaker 3: But Jed invented this position as a supreme command over

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Speaker 3: the Highway Department. And that is that's.

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Speaker 2: Judd's guys, are the same.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the old board a chair promised to set up

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Speaker 3: his own offices. Clay, he was still the rightful head

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Speaker 3: of the department.

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Speaker 2: We have like an anti pope for the highway department.

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Speaker 3: This also becomes a recurring trend in Talmadge politics. Whenever

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Speaker 3: he takes over a piece of local government, the previous

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Speaker 3: leader is like, no, I'm still obviously the rightful, the

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Speaker 3: rightful guy. Ah.

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Speaker 2: This is something we miss in politics today.

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Speaker 3: So all this happened on the same day. Later that

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Speaker 3: same afternoon, the Deputy Sheriff, Sidney Wooton served Gene a

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Speaker 3: court order preventing the state treasurer from allowing highway money

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Speaker 3: to be used for other purposes, because Gene was really

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Speaker 3: after the money. And I'm going to quote now from

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Speaker 3: Jeene's biographer, William Anderson in his book The Wild Man

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Speaker 3: from Sugar Creek. Quote. Jeane became furious with the deputy.

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Speaker 3: He ordered the adjunct General Lindley Camp to arrest the

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Speaker 3: deputy on the spot, and he told Camp to place

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Speaker 3: a military guard around the persons and offices of himself,

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Speaker 3: the Treasurer, and the comptroller. The guards were to follow

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Speaker 3: the men even to their barbers Camp was later ordered

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Speaker 3: to physically remove the old board chair and his engineers

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Speaker 3: from their offices, which they did, and which prompted the

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Speaker 3: defeated board chair to call Talmadge a tyrant and a

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Speaker 3: man with a quote unquote deranged mind. Behind The following day,

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Speaker 3: he filed an injunction against Gene in federal court in

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Speaker 3: defiance of a recent court order. The governor issued a

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Speaker 3: warrant to the state treasurer for one million and three

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Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars to run the highway Department, saying he

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Speaker 3: felt the matter was none of the court's business and

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Speaker 3: that they should quote not to interfere with the issue unquote. Okay,

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Speaker 3: So it's a it's a pretty it's it's a pretty

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Speaker 3: intense little legal coup. He's trying to he's trying to

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Speaker 3: do here.

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Speaker 2: It is interesting, how Yeah, you were right. This really

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Speaker 2: is like the same playbook that uh like he or

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Speaker 2: at least he built the basis of the playbook. Like

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Speaker 2: it's only just evolved from here, but it's all the

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Speaker 2: same basic tactics.

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Speaker 3: No, it really is. And like Huey Long eventually kind

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Speaker 3: of called Gene kind of like a more like inefficient version,

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Speaker 3: and it's it's of it's not that he was a

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Speaker 3: more inefficient version of Huey Long, it's that he was

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Speaker 3: kind of just more ragtag, Like he didn't have the

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Speaker 3: same like long term planning as Long. Both both were

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Speaker 3: kind of dictator in their own way, but Gene just

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Speaker 3: kind of followed his whims versus like Long had like

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Speaker 3: a vested interest in like slowly gaining legitimate power.

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Speaker 2: Long was a planner, and Long he didn't fuck around.

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Speaker 2: Would be how I would describe the way.

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Speaker 3: Gene fox around all the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Huey Long didn't fuck around, yeah, at

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Speaker 2: least now until he was well established.

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Speaker 3: The federal government got scared of what was going on

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Speaker 3: and declared that they would be withholding ten million dollars

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Speaker 3: in road funds until the situation was resolved. During a

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Speaker 3: luncheon a few days later, two Shriff's deputies busted in

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Speaker 3: and served Gene a twenty five thousand dollar lawsuit from

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Speaker 3: Sheriff Wooton for damages from his arrest earlier that month.

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Speaker 3: Jene freaked out, tore up the papers and ordered the

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Speaker 3: adjunct General to kick out the deputies, and he was

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Speaker 3: so enraged that he then gave a very damaging speech

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Speaker 3: lashing out against popular government work programs. Hours later, a

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Speaker 3: judge ordered Gene to appear in federal court over the

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Speaker 3: martial law who of the Highway Board, and at a

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Speaker 3: hearing on June thirtieth, the board's lawyer called Gene an

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Speaker 3: outlaw and compared him to a South American dictator. This

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Speaker 3: is this is in nineteen thirty three.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean they had a lot. They actually did

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Speaker 2: have a lot of dictator because in the in the

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Speaker 2: like the era immediately post like liberation from Spain, That's

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Speaker 2: kind of what the first thing that happened was a

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Speaker 2: little patchwork of different dictators.

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Speaker 3: Well yeah, and this is just like just prior to

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Speaker 3: like the European dictator emerging. Yeah, you know, he's like

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Speaker 3: like Mussolini and Hitler like on the rise.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well this is what year is this?

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Speaker 3: This is nineteen thirty three, So yeah.

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Speaker 2: Mussolini's been in power for a little over a decade

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Speaker 2: and Hitler's just about just about taking power.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like World War two is going to be ramping

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Speaker 3: up soon, You're not, We're not there yet. Now, little

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Speaker 3: did the Highway Department know all of these legal battles

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Speaker 3: against Gena were actually completely pointless because there was a

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Speaker 3: new bill reorganizing the Highway Department that said the state

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Speaker 3: attorney General has the sole right to represent the Highway

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Speaker 3: Board in court. So on July first, the age he

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Speaker 3: announced that he was now the lawyer for the Highway

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Speaker 3: Department and dismissed the case. Previously he was he was

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Speaker 3: a lawyer for the defense, and then he said that

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Speaker 3: he's now also the lawyer for the plaintiff and close

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Speaker 3: the entire case out. And somehow this worked. I really,

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Speaker 3: I really don't know how legally that should play out.

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Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on the law, but what knowledge

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Speaker 2: I do have, I don't think it's supposed to work.

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Speaker 3: That you're not supposed to be the lawyer for both sides.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so.

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Speaker 2: That's generally not supposed Yeah, yeah, but fascinating play though.

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Speaker 2: You got to give him, You got to give credit

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Speaker 2: for Kutzpah.

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Speaker 3: Gene had a lot of guys who would just look

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Speaker 3: into like very like minute details of state law, and

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Speaker 3: he would he would like weaponize that. He had a

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Speaker 3: lot of a lot of his like workers would just

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Speaker 3: be tasked with like looking into old state laws and

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Speaker 3: also and also new laws just to see how much

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Speaker 3: he could like flex power. And this is kind of

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Speaker 3: an example of that. A few weeks later, Gene also

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Speaker 3: came out on top of the utility hearings and subsequently

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Speaker 3: fired all of the public service commissioners. Jane was able

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Speaker 3: to capitalize on a weakened legislature and insufficient safeguards to

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Speaker 3: seize near total power over the state departments and local government.

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Speaker 3: After his victory, Jane appointed friends and family to the

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Speaker 3: department boards and called for the release of the ten

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Speaker 3: million dollars in frozen federal funds. The federal government told

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Speaker 3: Gene that he must ensure the money only gets spent

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Speaker 3: on road construction, and that his militia must cease their

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Speaker 3: operation of the capital in order for the money to

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Speaker 3: be sent. And thus the military style occupation of Georgia

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Speaker 3: lasted from June nineteenth to July twenty ninth. And that's

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Speaker 3: Jane's first real dictator moment. Is like just immediately putting

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Speaker 3: the state capital under a military occupation. That gives you

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Speaker 3: a sense of kind of how he goes about political problems.

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Speaker 2: How far away can we be from the next time

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Speaker 2: someone does that.

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Speaker 3: Months. Yeah, Like Jean loved the military aesthetic for his.

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Speaker 2: Kentucky meat the horrible uniforms they wore back then, the

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Speaker 2: Terrible hats Man. It just just looked.

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Speaker 3: Great for his Kentucky Derby trip, which he did annually,

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Speaker 3: but this one in nineteen thirty four, Jean got all

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Speaker 3: of his friends and family custom military dress uniforms to wear.

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Speaker 2: See that, that's ten pot dictator shit.

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Speaker 3: Right, you're just actually caused plague as like a military leader.

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Speaker 3: You're the governor of Georgia. What are you doing?

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Speaker 2: And the governor militant? Yes. Yes.

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Speaker 3: After all the partying at the Kentucky Derby, Jane wanted

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Speaker 3: to return to Atlanta by overnight train so he could

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Speaker 3: sleep on the way. So Jean and his friend John Whitley,

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Speaker 3: and the New Highway Board chairman left early to catch

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Speaker 3: the train, though upon boarding, they discovered the dining card

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Speaker 3: already closed for the night, so Jean told Whitley to

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Speaker 3: quote get off and go find some coffee and sandwiches.

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Speaker 3: We'll hold the train unquote. Now, Whitley took a porter

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Speaker 3: to help ensure the train wouldn't leave without him. The

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Speaker 3: diner at the train station was out of cups, so

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Speaker 3: Whitley bought the whole coffee urn and forced the porter

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Speaker 3: to carry it back to the train, but they were

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Speaker 3: too late. The train left without both of them. Whitley,

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Speaker 3: with the Sandwiches coffee urn and the porter in tow,

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Speaker 3: hailed a taxi caap and ordered the driver to follow

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Speaker 3: the train to its next stop. I'll quote now from

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Speaker 3: William Anderson quote. On the train, Jeane was giving the

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Speaker 3: conductor hell for leaving his friends, and the conductor was

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Speaker 3: trying to run the tal which party off the train

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Speaker 3: because Whitley had their tickets. The taxi creening through one

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Speaker 3: small Tennessee town, was sirens to halt by the sheriff.

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Speaker 3: Peering into the cab, the sheriff saw a man in

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Speaker 3: military dress, a black porter holding a coffee urn, and

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Speaker 3: a terrified driver. The sheriff figured it was John Dillinger

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Speaker 3: in disguise with his gag.

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Speaker 2: I do love the idea that John Dillinger walks around

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Speaker 2: with his coffee guy while he's like on their run

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Speaker 2: from the law.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. A long and loud argument finally can the sheriff

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Speaker 3: of their identity, and he waved them onto into the night.

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Speaker 3: The next morning, a very dusty Kentucky taxi was seen

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Speaker 3: pulling up to the Georgia capital. A man in rumpled

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Speaker 3: military dress waved goodbye to his driver and the porter,

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Speaker 3: who still had his arm around the coffee urn.

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Speaker 2: That Dallager in a military uniform. I mean there's a lot.

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Speaker 3: He's in disguise. He's in disguise.

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Speaker 2: No, it'll catch that.

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Speaker 3: From that day on, Whitley was known as Taxi John,

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Speaker 3: and another improbable story had been added to the burgeoning

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Speaker 3: Talmadge folklore. Unquote m Taxi John. To kind of fill

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Speaker 3: in that Talmadge folklore. I have a few kind of

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Speaker 3: small anecdotes to give a better sense of Gene as

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Speaker 3: both a person and as a politician. Jean was driving

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Speaker 3: around town to his friend Henry Sperlin, and they came

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Speaker 3: up on a patrolman checking for licenses. Sperlin recalled that

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Speaker 3: Gene quote, leaned out of the window and cussed the

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Speaker 3: man out for doing it. Soon after that, he spoke

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Speaker 3: before the highway patrol and told them their job was

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Speaker 3: not to be stopping the poor people in Georgia, but

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Speaker 3: to help them out. Unquote, this is like Jeane's more

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Speaker 3: like libertarany Like yeah, side. Jane was just very anti

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Speaker 3: license in general. He would get mad at fishwartans for

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Speaker 3: finding people who were fishing without a license.

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Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with that, So.

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Speaker 3: Like this is like Jean's politics are kind of interesting

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Speaker 3: because yeah, he's an authoritarian dictator but almost like a libertarian.

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Speaker 3: Nothing went wrong with that.

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Speaker 2: He went, the state should the state should only fund

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Speaker 2: his military bodyguard, but it certainly should not be checking

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Speaker 2: whether or not people can drive.

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Speaker 3: That was that was basically his politics.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the states get it.

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Speaker 3: The state shouldn't be like helping anyone out either. There,

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Speaker 3: Like they shouldn't be like paying, like paying for you

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Speaker 3: to like farm better. They should just like pay for

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Speaker 3: me to have fun and kind of stay out of

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Speaker 3: everyone else's business. Whenever Gene would get into bad moods,

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Speaker 3: he get what he would get one of his boys

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Speaker 3: basically out of pocket private assistance to drive his Buick

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Speaker 3: down in the open roads south of Atlanta, with Jeane

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Speaker 3: sitting real low in the back seat, hiding under his

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Speaker 3: wide brim hat. One of his drivers recalled quote, I

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Speaker 3: remember driving Gene when he was in one of them moods,

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Speaker 3: and the only words he would ever say were go faster,

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Speaker 3: go faster, and I'd say, goddamn it, Jeene, it won't

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Speaker 3: go any faster. And then he'd say, are you going

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Speaker 3: ninety because he knew it would go ninety, And I'd

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Speaker 3: say it's on ninety, and that he'd sink back into

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Speaker 3: his spell unquote.

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Speaker 2: He just wanted to know the car was going as

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Speaker 2: fast as it could go.

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Speaker 3: It's as fast as it could just blazing through those

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Speaker 3: Georgia roads. There was like an aura of informality in

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Speaker 3: his office, at least compared to other governors. He had

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00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:45,080
Speaker 3: no regularly scheduled meetings with advisors, and he had a

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Speaker 3: very free form approach to office management. Farmers would flock

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Speaker 3: to his office in droves just just to speak with

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Speaker 3: the governor, as Gene told him to during speeches, and

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Speaker 3: he received a staggering amount of mail from his supporters.

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Speaker 3: Whenever Jean saw a farmer outside of he'd welcome them

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Speaker 3: in cutting past whoever had reserved an appointment. There was

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Speaker 3: just generally a lot of people in and out of

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Speaker 3: his office, but Jean would refuse to take most advice

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Speaker 3: unless it was presented as already in line with his

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Speaker 3: ultra conservative philosophy. Once he made a decision he would

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Speaker 3: not change his mind. Speaking to a friend and political mentor,

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Speaker 3: Lamar Murdeau, he said, quote, you would never make a

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Speaker 3: governor because you admit you were wrong too much. I'll

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Speaker 3: never admit I'm wrong even if I am, and I'll

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Speaker 3: never apologize. If I made a mistake, I'll ignore it

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Speaker 3: and in time it'll work itself out. Unquote.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is the essence of how Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump got where he is. Like that, that is how

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Speaker 2: you do it, Okay, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Similar. Speaking of mister Trump, a friend of Jean said

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Speaker 3: that Gene, you usually had about four girlfriends going at

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Speaker 3: the same time.

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Speaker 2: Well, a man like that who could stay away.

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Speaker 3: He was described as like having a real magnetism around women.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. They also read a military bodyguard, so you know,

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Speaker 2: might have been a couple of things going on there.

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Speaker 3: That is true. A friend recalled, quote, I remember one

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Speaker 3: day he was going out to visit one and was

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Speaker 3: worried he might be seen. He asked me to get

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Speaker 3: him a wig and a mustache, which I did, and

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Speaker 3: he wore that into the night. Unquote. He's just wearing

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Speaker 3: those little like glasses and fake mustaches as a disguise,

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Speaker 3: hoping that no one will recognize the governor. Gene would

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Speaker 3: also just bolster rumors of his own infidelity. His biographer

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Speaker 3: Anderson remarked, quote, he was reported to have jumped in

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Speaker 3: and out of every bedroom in Atlanta. To Gene, it

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Speaker 3: was almost part of his radically masculine appeal. Unquote Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 3: radically masculine appeal.

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Speaker 2: Look, if there's if there's one thing the lady's like Garrison,

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Speaker 2: it's a man who's followed around by a bunch of

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Speaker 2: armed men they don't know at all times.

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Speaker 3: That's always that always puts me at ease.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, m yes, that's why everyone loves the airport.

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Speaker 3: Gina apparently became a better husband and family man as

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Speaker 3: he aged his wife wouldn't be hard.

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Speaker 2: That's a low bar given the start of this story.

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00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 3: His wife absolutely knew about all the cheating, and she

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00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:23,439
Speaker 3: eventually did become like a trusted political advisor to Jeane.

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Speaker 2: Okay, she was one of those deals where she's really

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Speaker 2: in it more for the things besides companionship.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like tied together for life. They like got

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00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,800
Speaker 3: along very well. Even though you know, Jeane's always out

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Speaker 3: doing whatever he's doing okay now. Gene was also raising

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Speaker 3: up his favorite son, Herman, to continue the Talmadge career

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Speaker 3: in politics. Herman's wife, Betty, recounted her experiences of the

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Speaker 3: Talmadge household. Quote, Gene and Mitt were not so demonstrative

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Speaker 3: with their affections. I remember taking our first child to

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Speaker 3: see Jane at the mansion. He would hold it, but

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Speaker 3: he seemed uncomfortable when I said he could the baby

350
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Speaker 3: if he wanted. Unquote, just this very southern frail man

351
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Speaker 3: just uncomfortable holding a baby.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 3: And though Gene was not really a hardcore Christian himself,

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Speaker 3: he would use religion to appeal to his rule constituency.

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Speaker 3: Gene heavily familiarized himself with the Bible, and his memoration

356
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Speaker 3: of scripture impressed Southern preachers. Most Sundays he could be

357
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Speaker 3: found in a different country church serving as guest preacher.

358
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Speaker 3: His knowledge of the Bible was very encyclopedic, but very performative.

359
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Speaker 3: He told a friend, quote, I wish I was religious,

360
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Speaker 3: but I just ain't. And I do believe that like

361
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,159
Speaker 3: he just he just didn't click with religion, but he

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Speaker 3: knew it was valuable politically.

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Speaker 2: There's a there's a great believe It's from the movie,

364
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:49,440
Speaker 2: the old, very old movie Spartacus. There's a great line

365
00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:53,239
Speaker 2: that's attributed to Pompey when he's like tutoring Caesar, and

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00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:56,040
Speaker 2: Caesar's like, you don't believe in the gods, and He's like, well, publicly,

367
00:18:56,119 --> 00:18:58,919
Speaker 2: I do. Privately, No, no, of course not. Yeah, like

368
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Speaker 2: it's silly. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Jean paid careful attention to talk and sound like farmers

370
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:06,160
Speaker 3: when he was in rural areas. He would basically code

371
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:10,080
Speaker 3: switch when talking to like businesses, bankers, and politicians in Atlanta,

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00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 3: speaking with the most correct grammar and pronunciation. I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: quote Anderson here to Gene. It was all theater, he

374
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:20,280
Speaker 3: felt those who criticized him for playing the role of

375
00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:23,880
Speaker 3: the redneck in order to beguile the country people misunderstood

376
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,520
Speaker 3: his politics and his constituency. They wanted a show and

377
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,200
Speaker 3: a wound up Gene Talmadge was the best show in town.

378
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,359
Speaker 3: Through his entertainment, he gained their loyalty and trust, for

379
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,719
Speaker 3: the essence of his performance was their honesty. And I

380
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:42,840
Speaker 3: really liked that line that Jean's like political performance worked

381
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 3: by weaponizing his audience's honesty. Like that was that's what

382
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:50,680
Speaker 3: sold it. And I find that to be a really,

383
00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:54,360
Speaker 3: a really a poignant remark in terms of how how

384
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,960
Speaker 3: politicians will like definitely like court certain people and talk

385
00:19:58,080 --> 00:19:59,560
Speaker 3: like them, sound like them, and try and try to

386
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 3: try to appeal to them as a form of entertainment.

387
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:09,480
Speaker 3: There's one one last anecdote from Anderson here quote. Probably

388
00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:13,199
Speaker 3: no incident better characterized to Talmage the politician in nineteen

389
00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:16,120
Speaker 3: thirty three than when the state Health Board asked him

390
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:19,240
Speaker 3: for support in getting X ray clinics built in rural areas.

391
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:21,960
Speaker 3: They were desperately needed, and gen knew it, but after

392
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Speaker 3: much discussion he said, in his characteristic way of refusing someone, Nope,

393
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna do it. The doctors were incredulous that

394
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Speaker 3: he would deny his supporters this aid and asked didn't

395
00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:35,040
Speaker 3: he think they needed it. He startled them by saying, yep,

396
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:37,520
Speaker 3: but I don't believe an X ray would show germs

397
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 3: won't show nothing but air. The doctors left his office

398
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:43,280
Speaker 3: swearing that he was the dumbest educated man they'd ever met.

399
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:47,440
Speaker 3: When they had gone, he turned to a friend and said, succinctly,

400
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 3: country folk don't believe in germs. If I sent those

401
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,240
Speaker 3: machines down there, they wouldn't go near them, and they'd

402
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,640
Speaker 3: swear I was wasting their money unquote.

403
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 2: I hate that. He's probably right.

404
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:03,399
Speaker 3: What a fascinating little performance of acting like like acting

405
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:05,879
Speaker 3: to these doctors like you're just like some like dumb

406
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,680
Speaker 3: hick and then actually like really understanding your core constituency.

407
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:13,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, if we send these down there, they'll a cues,

408
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:16,040
Speaker 2: they will do the thing because I know how like

409
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:18,840
Speaker 2: this is how I would manipulate them. If an opponent

410
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:21,520
Speaker 2: did this, right, like like someone who is against me

411
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 2: will complain about the fact that I'm wasting their money

412
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:27,080
Speaker 2: on this. Who ha, yeah, yeah, no.

413
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 3: I find I find it to be a really a

414
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 3: really good look at like how he politically thought and

415
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,920
Speaker 3: how he used political performance. And now apparently during summers

416
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 3: he got quite tanned from staying out in the sun

417
00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:41,560
Speaker 3: because he would be traveling all around Georgia countryside. One

418
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:43,760
Speaker 3: day in midsummer, while stopped at a remote South and

419
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 3: Georgia drug store for aesoda, Jane was thrown out because

420
00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:50,080
Speaker 3: the store owner thought he was black. And that's just

421
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 3: a perfect look at this era of Georgia racism. Wow,

422
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 3: throwing out the governor because he's just a little too

423
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 3: tan tear not recognized as the governor obviously. But that's

424
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 3: just a look at this at this area of Georgia.

425
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Speaker 3: So anyway, do you know what else, No, I'm not

426
00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 3: gonna do that. Do you know what else X rays

427
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 3: might be good for?

428
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,960
Speaker 2: Robert h No, I mean, I think that's just kind

429
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:25,440
Speaker 2: of a big city nonsense. Actually, you can't see anything

430
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 2: smaller than I'm say, a tick. I think that's the

431
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 2: smallest thing.

432
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Speaker 3: I think the extra can actually see through the big

433
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:40,600
Speaker 3: city bullshit and give you these insightful ads. All right,

434
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 3: we are back. Gene Talmage has turned fifty during his

435
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:47,160
Speaker 3: second year as governor. He kind of got into politics

436
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,919
Speaker 3: a little bit later. He tried when he was younger,

437
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:52,920
Speaker 3: kind of unsuccessfully, but by the time he's a governor

438
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:57,200
Speaker 3: for the second year, he's already fifty years old now.

439
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 3: He kept in the press cycle this reelection by continuing

440
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 3: to defy both state and federal courts as they were

441
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,680
Speaker 3: preventing him from lowering utility rates, saying, quote, I don't

442
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,119
Speaker 3: recognize the jurisdiction of any court to compel the governor

443
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,400
Speaker 3: to attend its court unquote and if courts ever tried

444
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 3: to hold him in contempt, he just wouldn't appear. He

445
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 3: just didn't need to. And people like liked this because

446
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 3: courts weren't super respected courts which you would like courts

447
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 3: are what you would use to like foreclothes on people's homes,

448
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 3: courts would like lock up poor people. Yeah, right, So,

449
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 3: like courts weren't popular among his main constituency even though

450
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:32,679
Speaker 3: they were like law and order types, and they were

451
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 3: definitely popular for like racist reasons.

452
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 2: Well it's the same, I mean, it's the same thing today, right,

453
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 2: Like you find a lot of people out in the

454
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 2: sticks who hate the like who hate the state troopers

455
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 2: and shit who pull them over when they're driving drunk,

456
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 2: even though there they might ostensibly be back the blue

457
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: types otherwise.

458
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 3: Absolutely so, the deviceive nature of conservative fandom politics were

459
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,719
Speaker 3: on display at genes chaotic opening speech for his nineteen

460
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 3: thirty four re election campaign in the cotton trading town

461
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 3: of Bainbridge, Georgia. A reporter for the Macon Telegraph overheard

462
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 3: a restaurant owner complain, quote, my god, what's the matter

463
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 3: with the people about this Talmadge fellow. When they talk

464
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 3: about Talmadge. They act like they want to fight about

465
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 3: it if anyone disagrees with them. I waited on them

466
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 3: and I kept my mouth shut unquote.

467
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 2: God. Yeah, this is like our prequel trilogy. Yeah, this

468
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: is the revenge of the Sith of American politics.

469
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 3: What's the deal with these Talmage people? What's up with them?

470
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 2: They're just They're just dumb and want to fight everybody

471
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 2: over this. This clear con man who's leading them.

472
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 3: So though he hated the new Deal in his opening speech,

473
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 3: Jean did publicly align himself with the popular Roosevelt, but

474
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 3: a few seems to notice or care about this ideological discrepancy. Instead,

475
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 3: people seemed to be much more engrossed by Jean's new

476
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 3: red suspenders that soon became an identifiable symbol associated with

477
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 3: Jane and his style of politics.

478
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 2: Of course, sure, it's always it's.

479
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 3: Well speaking at a men's club gene a frequency of suspenders,

480
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 3: wearer was gifted a new pair of bright red suspenders.

481
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 3: He began wearing them all around, especially at political events,

482
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 3: as a symbol of the working man. His opposition made

483
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 3: fun of him for this, but that only strengthened the

484
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 3: power of the red suspenders as a political symbol aligned

485
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 3: with Gene.

486
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 2: Of course, yes, it's the same thing.

487
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 3: We're doing the same shit, The Macon Telegraph wrote in September.

488
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 3: The crowd, or many of them, had evidently been reading

489
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 3: the newspaper stories, for they cheered the red suspenders, and

490
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 3: the Atlantic Constitution reported Talmadge gave the crowd everything it

491
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 3: wanted and more too. Stripping off the coat, the governor

492
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 3: revealed a pair of red suspenders, which of course drew

493
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 3: a round of cheers. So there you go. It's it's

494
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 3: really the same, the same story times of flat Circle,

495
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Now, Gen's platform for his reelection

496
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 3: did not focus at all on the dire economic problems

497
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 3: facing Georgia's farmers and the poor working class. Right this

498
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 3: is like, this is the middle of the middle of

499
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,439
Speaker 3: the depression. And instead he only sought to increase his

500
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 3: own political power and influence by creating an office of

501
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 3: Lieutenant governor, increasing the governor's term to four years, and

502
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 3: paying off state debt without raising taxes. Anderson describes the

503
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 3: limited platform as quote, a refutation of the realities of

504
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 3: the day, a bold, egotistical statement to the Georgia people

505
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 3: that all they needed to solve their problems, was old

506
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 3: Gene unquote, And yeah, he is a very like symbolic figure,

507
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 3: like all you need is like this one guy. He

508
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,439
Speaker 3: he will do it. It does It doesn't matter what

509
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 3: he actually wants.

510
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 2: A loan can fix, yeah.

511
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 3: But he can do it. Things things, things feel like

512
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 3: they would be better under him, even though there's no

513
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 3: details for how now. Gene always wanted a special periodical

514
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 3: to communicate with his supporters and publicize his political views,

515
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 3: just like his idol, Tom Watson. He found a small,

516
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 3: failing southern newspaper started by a journalist named Frank Lawson

517
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 3: called The Statesman. It was supposed to be a reformist

518
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 3: publication for investigative journalism, and though it had some good reporting,

519
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 3: it never really got good circulation. So Gene offered Lawson

520
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 3: a thousand dollars loan in exchange for making him associate

521
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 3: editor and promised to boost his circulation, which Gene did not.

522
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 3: The paper was not doing very well under Gene's tutelage either,

523
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: and essentially just became the governor's personal blog with his

524
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,199
Speaker 3: baby massacred. Lawson sold Gene the paper for one thousand

525
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 3: dollars after they mailed out one hundred thousand subscription ads

526
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 3: and got back less than fifty responses. Ooh not good, No,

527
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 3: not good. No, I will say true Social is probably

528
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 3: doing slightly better than Gene's Statesman.

529
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: It's always the issue of like, if you're this guy

530
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 2: and you're courting that demographic, they're not big readers.

531
00:27:55,440 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 3: No, no, Now, Gene himself was apparently losing faith in

532
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 3: the project with laws in writing quote TALM, which then

533
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 3: began to discover he cannot duplicate Tom Watson's Jeffersonian for

534
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:12,439
Speaker 3: the simple reason Gene cannot write and cannot is in

535
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 3: all caps in Lawson's piece of writing here now. Gene

536
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 3: deployed a lot of pro Roosevelt talk during the campaign.

537
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 3: He was a very popular political figure, especially in the

538
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, but quietly Gene was bashing and picking fights

539
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 3: with the FDR administration. As soon as the first New

540
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 3: Deal programs got up and running, Jane started sending a

541
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 3: series of letters to the White House complaining about the

542
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 3: New Deal and attempting to advise a variety of agricultural

543
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 3: and economic topics. In one angry letter to Roosevelt complaining

544
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 3: about work relief programs, Gene wrote, I wouldn't plow nobody's

545
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 3: mule for fifty cents a day when I could get

546
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 3: one dollar and thirty cents for pretending to work on

547
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 3: a ditch. And the White House responded by saying, I

548
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,479
Speaker 3: take it you approve of paying farm labor forty to

549
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 3: fifty cents a day. Somehow I cannot get it into

550
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 3: my head that wages on such a scale make possible

551
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 3: a reasonable American standard of living.

552
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: Unquote, was nice to have an administration that talked about

553
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 2: shit like that.

554
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 3: Huh yeah, never again, never, never again.

555
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 2: Now.

556
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 3: Despite all this, Gene swept his re election, winning all

557
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 3: but three of Georgia's one hundred and fifty nine counties

558
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:31,719
Speaker 3: and got one hundred and seventy eight thousand votes compared

559
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 3: to his opponents eighty seven thousand. He did phenomenally earlers.

560
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: So few people that well, there are a lot less

561
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 2: people able to vote too.

562
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 3: Yes, this was a white's only primary. Yes, Anderson writes,

563
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 3: quote Talmadge had wrecked the power structure of the state

564
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 3: and its old voting lines through the immense force of

565
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 3: his personality. Political scientist Vokey observed what happened in Georgia

566
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty four as a normal Southern reaction to

567
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 3: a strong leader like Talmadge. He wrote, factional division of

568
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 3: the electorate around a powerful personality is characteristic of Southern politics.

569
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 3: By polarizing the electorate, Gene stabilized it, creating a fairly

570
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 3: consistent bi factionalism quote. So basically what happened, because Georgia

571
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 3: was a one party state, there did form a bifactionalism

572
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 3: just either for or against talmuch. She became such a

573
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: divisive figure.

574
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 2: And again it's not a thing we've seen since.

575
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 3: In this instance, he was able to pull out just

576
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 3: a phenomenal victory because he because he essentially won the

577
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 3: electoral college, even though there was a lot of people

578
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 3: voting against him. Eugene Talmadge almost became a political party

579
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 3: of his own. By nineteen thirty four, Gene's small tax,

580
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 3: limited government version of the Southern Democratic Party became more

581
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 3: and more distinct from the reformist increasingly liberal party of FDR,

582
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 3: which resulted in an identity crisis of the Democratic Party

583
00:30:55,600 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 3: in the state of Georgia. Now Shortly after Jene's reelection

584
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,479
Speaker 3: in September of nineteen thirty four, strikes broke out at

585
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 3: textile mills throughout Georgia and the rest of the South.

586
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 3: Partially emboldened by FDR, the unions had been trying to

587
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 3: organize the mills all summer. Jane previously campaigned on being

588
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 3: a friend of labor, especially in the nineteen twenties. He

589
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 3: even very publicly promised last August to quote, never use

590
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 3: the troops to break up a strike unquote. But the

591
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 3: new deal and the works progressed administration pay rates had

592
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 3: soured Gene on unions. As strikes and pickets continued throughout September,

593
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 3: textile barons who were Talmadge campaign contributors were calling up

594
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 3: Gene asking him to deploy the National Guard to quill

595
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 3: the strikes, strikes that had already gotten violent with the

596
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 3: owners and the CoP's own attempts to break up the strike.

597
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 3: A police officer in Augusta shot someone to death while

598
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 3: stuck in a trample, and in Tryon, a sheriff and

599
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 3: a non union man were killed in a large brawl

600
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 3: to quote the book Labor in the South by f

601
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 3: Ray Marshall, who extensively documented this period of union activity. Quote.

602
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 3: It turned out that one employer had hired Pearl Bergoff,

603
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 3: a notorious strike breaker who came with two hundred hired

604
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 3: gunmen from New York to help break the strike. But

605
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 3: Jean had them deported unquote, So g did not want

606
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 3: these out of town strike breakers to be running around

607
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 3: Georgia with their New York guns. No, But as requested,

608
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 3: Gene did deploy the National Guard to bring peace and

609
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 3: order to the chaos. Anderson writes what happened next quote,

610
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 3: four thousand militiamen were called out. In September, thousands of

611
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 3: Georgians were arrested, so many that grass fields were strung

612
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 3: up with barbed wire to hold the people. When photos

613
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 3: hit the pages of the nation's press showing hapless Georgians

614
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 3: being coraled like cattle, the cry went out that Talmage

615
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 3: had created concentration camps. He was stamped to anti labor,

616
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 3: and he lost Labour's vote forever with his broken promise.

617
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,719
Speaker 2: The turmoilmen did one concentration camp and you lose their

618
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 2: vote forever.

619
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 3: That you lose the union vote.

620
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 2: Culture is really it goes back a lot further than

621
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 2: i'd guess, Scarrison, that's just.

622
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 3: Nineteen thirty four. The Wolks have taken over the turmoil

623
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 3: ended when the militiaman brutally beat a worker to death

624
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 3: in front of his family. By late fall of thirty four,

625
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 3: he had personally broken the back of the unions in Georgia.

626
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 3: This was one of the first things I heard about

627
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 3: Talmadge when I came to Georgia and started and started

628
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: talking about, like the history of politics. Here was Jane's

629
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 3: concentration camp and his like his and his deployment of

630
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 3: four thousand National guardsmen to just totally totally brutally crush

631
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 3: these textile strikes back in the thirties.

632
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: So I mean, yeah, that's not something I'd known about.

633
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 2: That's fucking nuts.

634
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 3: By the end of nineteen thirty four, Jean's intense dislike

635
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 3: of the New Deal had shifted towards a dislike of

636
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 3: FDR like on a more personal level. Come December, the

637
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 3: public was to vote on the New Deal's Cotton Control Act,

638
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,280
Speaker 3: and Gene launched a speaking to her to strongly advocate

639
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 3: against it. It was voted for six to one. People

640
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 3: didn't really listen to Gene, even though they still liked

641
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 3: to hear him talk, because the Cotton Control Act actually

642
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 3: did help farmers, and Gene was not really offering to

643
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 3: help much farmers.

644
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 2: Well, no, I mean you just kind of try to

645
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 2: talk like them, but you don't actually want to do

646
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: anything that will help them, because that's going to hurt

647
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 2: the actual like people funding you.

648
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Gene made many quotes basically saying that he did,

649
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 3: like expressly believe that. There's a number of reasons Gene

650
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 3: broke with FDR his deep seated fear of liberalism and

651
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 3: the phaintom of socialism, which he saw as an almost

652
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 3: spiritually infecting virus that destroys economies and individualism if contracted

653
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 3: and allowed to spread. Now, also, as governor, talmuch didn't

654
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 3: really like the idea of giving up state power to

655
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 3: the federal government. That was also like a really big

656
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 3: motivation is that if the Feds are in more control stuff,

657
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,720
Speaker 3: his personal power as governor would be diminished. In nineteen

658
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 3: thirty four, farmers in Georgia were casting votes for both

659
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,839
Speaker 3: the ultra conservative Talmage and the liberal progressive New Deal.

660
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 3: Gene could rave against the dangers of the welfare state

661
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 3: destroying individualism and not lose too many votes because, as

662
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 3: Anderson argues, people were voting for him to feel better

663
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 3: mentally while still enjoying the new federal New Deal benefits. Quote,

664
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 3: the farmer voted for Talmage because of his personality, and

665
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 3: he voted for the New Deal not because he was

666
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 3: a budding socialist, but because he was desperate and it

667
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: seemed the only viable escape from hard times.

668
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 2: Gen went, policies will actually help me. But I am

669
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 2: just kind of pissed at everything, and this guy seems

670
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 2: like he's pissed in the same way exactly.

671
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 3: Quote, Jean lifted his spirits and the New Deal filled

672
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 3: his stomach. The farmer could enjoy a clean conscious. Sorry,

673
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 3: the farmer could enjoy a clean conscience while satisfying his

674
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 3: bodily needs. And yeah, this is something that we've had.

675
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 3: I think even like a loss of like people even

676
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 3: now will consistently just vote against their own interests, and like,

677
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 3: personality has just so completely won out that they will

678
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 3: consistently vote against their own interests. Like it's hard to

679
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 3: imagine people in the South like voting for a New

680
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 3: Deal style program in today's age.

681
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: It's like part of it is because it's been a

682
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: long time since it's been there's been any kind of

683
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 2: reliable benefit for voting for one party, for another for

684
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 2: a lot of Americans, not that nobody sees a difference,

685
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 2: but an awful lot of people are kind of fucked

686
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 2: no matter who's running things, And so yeah, all there

687
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 2: is is kind of the politics of like petulance.

688
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 3: Jean's closest friend during this period was John Whitley, the

689
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 3: road construction guy that Gen met, you know, a long

690
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 3: time ago when he was living in McRae. Now, both

691
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 3: had nearly identical political beliefs and aspirations. By the time

692
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 3: Jane became governor, John was the most successful road contractor

693
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 3: in the state. In this era, roads and state politics

694
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 3: were becoming increasingly intertwined.

695
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: Now.

696
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 3: Whitley also happened to be an old friend of FDR

697
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 3: and maintained that friendship during Jean's beef with the president.

698
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,240
Speaker 3: Jean and FDR would frequently come stay at Jean's vacation

699
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 3: estate and hunting preserve warm springs, just at different times

700
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 3: of the year. For both men. It was a getaway

701
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 3: from politics. Now, John and FDR kind of rarely talked

702
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 3: politics anymore, but during Jean's little spat around nineteen thirty four,

703
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 3: FDR was at Whitley's getaway camp and Whitley joked, you

704
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 3: can't spend the country out of debt. Mister President Roosevelt

705
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 3: laughed and replied, John, you and Jean have ruined this country.

706
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 3: Now I've got to do something about it. I'm count

707
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 3: As governor, Jane was in charge of roads and Whitley

708
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 3: had become the largest road contractor in the state, and

709
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 3: their close relationship spawned accusations of corruption, bribes, and kickbacks,

710
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 3: and there doesn't appear to be evidence of any kind

711
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 3: of formal criminal exchange of money for favors. But Jean

712
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 3: talked with his friend about the state's road plans, and

713
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 3: Whitley would give Gene campaign contributions and pay for all

714
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 3: of his vacations, so they had a mutually beneficial relationship

715
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 3: that was kind of on the edge of corruption. Now

716
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 3: as Jane's re election platform didn't really contain much. For

717
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 3: his inaugural speech the new General Assembly, he mostly sought

718
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,759
Speaker 3: to enact all of the failed policy proposals from his

719
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 3: first term. Jeane defended his authoritarian behavior, saying his actions

720
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 3: were voted on by the people when they elected Gene.

721
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 3: He asked the new legislature to formally approve his three dollars.

722
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 3: Car tag endorse his coup of the Highway Board and

723
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 3: Public Service Commission to cap property tax, and had the

724
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 3: state take control of the university system, which we'll be

725
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 3: talking more about that later. He explained that his biggest

726
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 3: goal was now to resist federal government overreach, and that

727
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 3: everything to alleviate the Great Depression had already been done.

728
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 3: This speech finally made a Talmadge's firm opposition to the

729
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 3: New Deal programs clear to the legislators. Gene's wide popularity

730
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirty four election basically ensured legislative support

731
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 3: for his platform among the new lawmakers. The new Assembly

732
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 3: approved nearly all of his requests. More progressive legislators waited

733
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 3: until Jane's programs had all passed to try to push

734
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 3: forward some of the benefits of New Deal legislation. Pro

735
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 3: FDR Democrats in Georgia were linking up to oppose Gene.

736
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 3: Among such legislators was the newly elected House Speaker Ed

737
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 3: Rivers and his friend Roy Harris, who were working together

738
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 3: on a batch of progressive legislation to help Rivers run

739
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 3: for governor. A small committee of these progressive legislators went

740
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 3: to the Governor's mansion to present a plan to participate

741
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 3: in federal work relief programs and ensure that federal jobs

742
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 3: in Georgia were staffed by people from the state. I'm

743
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 3: going to quote here from Willie Anderson. Quote. Rivers recounted

744
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 3: what happened. He said their recitation of the millions available

745
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 3: was met with a stony silence from Jane. After they finished,

746
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 3: the governor said there wasn't going to be any new

747
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 3: deal legislation passed. He said it would destroy the country

748
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 3: with its giveaway programs. Furthermore, in the election year of

749
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:23,399
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six, there wasn't going to be any more

750
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 3: talk of Roosevelt and Talmdg. It was only going to

751
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 3: be Roosevelt or Talmadge. He told the startle group that

752
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 3: they may as well make up their minds right there

753
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 3: in the room which side of the line they were

754
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 3: going to be on. The men didn't fully comprehend all

755
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 3: that had been said in those few minutes, and their

756
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 3: silence go toed gene into saying he wanted them to

757
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 3: be in his office early the next morning to sign

758
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 3: a report that would tell Washington not to send any

759
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 3: more federal aid to Georgia. The battle lines were drawn

760
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 3: very quickly but firmly that night, and Jane's influence with

761
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 3: certain legislative leaders started a precarious decline. Unquote, do you

762
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 3: know what, thankfully will never enter a precarious decline?

763
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 2: Robert, are you talking about advertising, no, Garrison advertising stable?

764
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 2: The sun in our solar system.

765
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 3: The most stable form.

766
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:16,240
Speaker 2: Yeahs, and like every planet you know in the solar

767
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 2: system will always be able to support life.

768
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's how the

769
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 3: sun works.

770
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:24,280
Speaker 2: Ye.

771
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 3: Okay, we are back. FDR and Gene are getting into fisticuffs.

772
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 3: Which would which would Gene Gene? I don't know. Gene

773
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 3: was very frail. I don't know who would actually win

774
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 3: because Fdr I feel like big guy.

775
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 2: He's a he was a big guy, and I feel

776
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 2: like he had obviously he wasn't physically in great fighting shape,

777
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 2: but I feel like he did have like a kind

778
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 2: of doggedness to him. But he probably just would have

779
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 2: like if he could get his hands around Gene. I

780
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 2: think it might to the fight. I would give it

781
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 2: to Fdran.

782
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 3: Ground.

783
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,399
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep distance and just kick at him

784
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 2: a lot, you know.

785
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 3: I think if if they both like are like just

786
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 3: like wrestling flat flat on the ground. I think FDR

787
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 3: could just destroy gen. Gene was very scary. You know.

788
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 2: I used to do this kind of thing with my friends.

789
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 2: We would we would do like underwear wrestling right where

790
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 2: you you both have to like wrestle and get you know,

791
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 2: there's a paradise wrestling in the summer. Yeah yeah, right,

792
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 2: whoever can get the underwear on wins. Uh And in

793
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 2: that case, I don't know, it's any man's game. It's

794
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: any man's game.

795
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 3: I did like it was like a fifteen minute sock

796
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 3: wrestling match. We went crazy. There was there was there was,

797
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 3: there was a decent audience. I got the first sock

798
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 3: off immediately. I was going out hard. I was I

799
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 3: was dominating those first ten minutes, and then I started

800
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 3: to wear out bad.

801
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 2: It's a lot of the time.

802
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 3: This other twin pulled off my first sock. I was like,

803
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 3: it's okay, I still have the other sock. And we

804
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 3: went on for like five more minutes and I ripped.

805
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,880
Speaker 3: I ripped the other person's suck. I grab it and

806
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 3: I tore it, but enough of the toe stayed on

807
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 3: that it didn't count. During during those moments my other

808
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 3: sock was taken off, and I was just devastated because

809
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 3: I really, I really went for it.

810
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I'm not sure if you were the talmage

811
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 2: of the FDR in that situation.

812
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 3: We would at this for like so long. I always

813
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 3: I almost had to throw up afterwards. I was so exhausted.

814
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 2: I had a I had an underwear wrestling match with

815
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who's a very good grappler, and

816
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 2: there was a certain point in the fight where they

817
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 2: had gotten the underwear around their leg, like one leg,

818
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, I have fought this person

819
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 2: often enough that I know I am not getting it

820
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 2: off at this point. Like they They're just like there's

821
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 2: no way I'm going to actually like force it off

822
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 2: of them, But there's a way to make this a draw.

823
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 2: So I just slid in with them and pulled them

824
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 2: up and tie. Yeah, there you go. Sometimes sometimes you gotta.

825
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, think outside the briefs. I think is to say

826
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 3: it's so progressive while still racist. Senators Rivers and Harris

827
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 3: still pushed forward some progressive legislation, just knowing that Gene

828
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 3: would likely vedo it. These included bills for an old

829
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 3: age pension, free textbooks, a seven months school year, and

830
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 3: a child a labor amendment. Gene was not pro any

831
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 3: of that. No, it was reported in The Times Journal

832
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 3: that Jane told a staff member he threw every piece

833
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 3: of a New Deal bill into the trash can without

834
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: ever reading it. No New Deal related legislation passed during

835
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 3: the nineteen thirty five legislature. Jane said, quote, I'm opposed

836
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 3: to all kinds of pensions except a soldier's pension. I

837
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 3: do not want to see the incentive of the American

838
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 3: people to work and lay up something for their old

839
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,240
Speaker 3: age destroyed. If the US were allowed to support people's parents,

840
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 3: it will take something out of their souls.

841
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: Unquote. I love that. I love that argument.

842
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 3: Parents.

843
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you know that your dad's not going to

844
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 2: starve to death on the street, you're going to lose

845
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 2: something important to the human experience.

846
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 3: No, it's interesting, He's like Social Security was this start

847
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 3: of like stealing the American soul.

848
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 2: Uh huh.

849
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 3: It's something that conservatives cannot really say now. No, but

850
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 3: there there was still a fight for back then. Now.

851
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 3: Senator Ed Rivers wanted to get elected governor in thirty six,

852
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 3: and part of his plan was to court the education

853
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 3: crowd by appropriating extra funds towards schools. Now, Jean knew

854
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 3: what Rivers was up to and wouldn't officially approve funds

855
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 3: to be paid in full. So both men, wanting credit

856
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 3: for education funding, stalled an appropriations bill to finance the state.

857
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 3: If an appropriations bill failed to pass, on one hand,

858
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 3: it could be politically destructive and embarrassing for Jean, but

859
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 3: on the other it would allow him to exert personal

860
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 3: control over all of George's finances and operations. According to

861
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 3: an old law a lawyer friend of his onc Now,

862
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 3: this is what I was talking about, how like Gene

863
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 3: had guys constantly like looking through old like old laws

864
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 3: from like the early eighteen hundreds, just to see what

865
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 3: kind of terms and conditions for executive power existed. The

866
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 3: final day of the nineteen thirty five legislative session was

867
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 3: a chaotic mess of last minute meetings trying to approve

868
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 3: an appropriations bill and one fistfight. The Senate was met

869
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 3: at Gene for all of his vetos and didn't want

870
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:26,720
Speaker 3: to push forward to any of his proposals. The session

871
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 3: ended with Gene comically videoing a bill to name a

872
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 3: highway in his honor, which the senators found funny. Gene

873
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 3: did over one hundred and sixty vetos during this legislative session.

874
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 3: Gene called this a history making session and one of

875
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 3: the greatest legislatures since the Civil War. In the end,

876
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 3: no appropriations bill was passed, and Gene declined to call

877
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 3: additional special sessions because he was once again scared of

878
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 3: being impeached.

879
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: Incredible.

880
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 3: Anderson writes that this was the most divided that lawmakers

881
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 3: and the electorate had been since the decade before the

882
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 3: Civil War, and Jane was a symbol of quote total

883
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 3: resistance to the new way unquote. Now. Gene also vetoed

884
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 3: a bill allowing for the sterilization of people deemed criminally insane,

885
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 3: but he joked with his adjunct to General Lindley Camp,

886
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 3: quote they made no provisions in here to exempt with

887
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,839
Speaker 3: the governor and his adjunct of General Lindley, you and

888
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 3: I might go crazy one day, and we don't want

889
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:28,240
Speaker 3: them working on us.

890
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 2: I love how he worked backwards selfishly into the heroic

891
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 2: stance against Jens.

892
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 3: I know he like he somehow somehow walked his way

893
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 3: backwards in just into ing you are.

894
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 2: You putting on the board for talmage there.

895
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 3: What if what if they call me crazy? Would it's wild?

896
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 3: Oh my god. So after this, like just after this

897
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 3: just disastrous a session, he had a brief excursion out

898
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,359
Speaker 3: to his farm and Sugar Creek. But then Gene gave

899
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 3: an interview to the New York to the New York Times,

900
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 3: bashing FDR as an extreme radical and attacked him for

901
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:15,280
Speaker 3: his disability, saying, quote, the greatest calamity to this country

902
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 3: is that President Roosevelt can't walk around and hunt up

903
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 3: people to talk to. The only voices to reach his

904
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 3: wheelchair were the cries of the gimme crowd unquote. These

905
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 3: comments did not play well, even even like back then.

906
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,399
Speaker 3: On May seventh, time Much traveled to Washington to give

907
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 3: a lengthy speech broadcast on CBS attacking the new deal

908
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 3: in FDR, calling the National Recovery Act quote a mixture

909
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 3: of communism, frenzied financing, and wet nursing unquote. I don't

910
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 3: quite know what wet nursing means. I think that that

911
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 3: might just be an old timey thing that we just

912
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 3: have like zero context for.

913
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: Because it's the literal thing. I don't I don't I don't.

914
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, possibly possibly. I couldn't. I couldn't find much

915
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 3: on it, but it was it was an odd enough

916
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 3: quote that I wanted to include it. Yeah yeah. Now,

917
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 3: admidst to Talmadge's continuing attacks and FDR, including another remark

918
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 3: that the president was unable to walk around and talk

919
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,239
Speaker 3: to people since he couldn't even walk on a two

920
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 3: by four. Uh. A Roosevelt supporter from Georgia mailed an

921
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 3: alleged campaign platform to the White House titled Proposed Presidential

922
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 3: Platform for Honorable Eugene Talmach, Governor of Georgia. Now, the

923
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 3: policies on this alleged platform included two cent postage, a

924
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 3: return to the gold standard. We we love that, love

925
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 3: love love that. That was that that was already a

926
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 3: thing he was he was it on Uh you form

927
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 3: utility and rail rates, and ending all government regulation of

928
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 3: businesses and farm products, amending banking laws, and finally abolishing

929
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 3: the salaries for the president and all governors and judges.

930
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 3: What a fascinating collection of campaign platform policies.

931
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 2: That does seem like a great way to make judges

932
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 2: much more vulnerable to bribery.

933
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 3: Yeah right, It's like it's just like ensuring corruption.

934
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 2: It's also it's also ensuring only the rich can afford

935
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: to do the job honestly, Like yeah, it's like a

936
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 2: leaders to like you if like you're poor, you just

937
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,839
Speaker 2: can't do the job, or you starve, right, or you

938
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 2: take bribes, whereas if you're rich, Like, I don't know,

939
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 2: it's it's that. I mean, it's the same kind of

940
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 2: logic that Trump pushed off and he's like, I'm not

941
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 2: going to take a salary for you know, my time

942
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 2: as president.

943
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 3: Like no, you're right, you're right.

944
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:39,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

945
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 3: Now, the legitimacy of this document is still unknown. It

946
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 3: was sent to the White House by by FDR supporter

947
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,840
Speaker 3: who was in Georgia, but this was certainly something that

948
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 3: Gene was considering. Later that fall, he went on a

949
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 3: nationwide speaking tour against socialism while secretly workshopping a platform

950
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 3: to run for either US Senate or possibly the presidency.

951
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 3: In an interesting display of differing party ideology, the Northern

952
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 3: Republicans really wanted Gene to run for president as an

953
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 3: anti FDR candidate, and offered to finance his tour. He

954
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 3: was intrigued by this prospect, but as a born and

955
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 3: raised so Southern Democrat, Jean had a little interest in

956
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 3: the Republican Party. A presidential run would require more financing

957
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 3: than Jane had typically received. Georgia's big business sector and

958
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 3: upper middle class began to rally behind Gene as more

959
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:34,279
Speaker 3: of the new Deal arrived in Georgia, Anderson writes, quote ironically,

960
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 3: the rich moved to Gene as the poor left quote

961
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 3: now to better position himself for a presidential run. Back

962
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 3: in October of thirty four, Jane replaced the pro Roosevelt

963
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 3: State Democratic Chairman, Major John Cohen, who was also the

964
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 3: editor of The Atlantic Journal, and he was replaced with

965
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 3: a Talmadge ally named Hugh Howell. FDR tried to prevent

966
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,959
Speaker 3: the swap, but ultimately failed to prevent Jane's power graph.

967
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 3: The handling of George's federal road money became the next

968
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 3: Talmadge Versus Roosevelt spectacle. The federal government wanted the Highway

969
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 3: Department to be reorganized in a more orderly fashion before

970
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 3: it sent over federal road funds, as well as construction

971
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:17,959
Speaker 3: of a bridge over the Oakney River, which the state

972
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 3: just did not want to build. Jane engineered another stalemate

973
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 3: situation with the federal road funds by preventing the construction

974
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 3: of this bridge. Jane could then blame the federal government

975
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 3: for withholding rightful money and turn this into a state's

976
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 3: rights issue, one that he hopes to campaign on nationally

977
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 3: in the future. Mutual friends of FDR and Gen set

978
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:41,720
Speaker 3: up a secret meeting between the President and the governor

979
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 3: for July seventeenth, where Roosevelt reaffirmed that the bridge would

980
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:48,839
Speaker 3: be built. Jane was able to weaponize this meeting by

981
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,240
Speaker 3: talking to reporters as he left the White House, calling

982
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:57,360
Speaker 3: FDR a damned communist. Georgia's to US senators were beginning

983
00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 3: to feel the pressure and asked FDR to change the

984
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 3: government's position on the bridge and just push forward the

985
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 3: money pro Roosevelt figures in Georgia were worried that the

986
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 3: road funds debacle was going to help Talmadge in an

987
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 3: all but inevitable presidential run. A month later, Roosevelt backed

988
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 3: off and said that the bridge plans could be put

989
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 3: on hold as long as the Highway Department was reorganized sufficiently.

990
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 3: The federal money could be released now. Gene took this

991
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 3: as a personal victory and assigned that he alone could

992
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 3: take on the New Deal. In December, Gene traveled to

993
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 3: New York to do a radio speech attacking Roosevelt. Gene

994
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 3: wanted this broadcast to kickstart a national movement to defeat FDR. Meanwhile,

995
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 3: back home, it sparked a local movement to defeat Talmadge.

996
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 3: Gene wanted his anti FDR movement to materialize in a

997
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 3: Southern convention called the Grassroots Convention. I'm going to quote

998
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 3: here from William Anderson. The purpose of the convention would

999
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 3: be to create a groundswell of support against the nineteen

1000
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 3: thirty six reelection of Roosevelt. The result would be to

1001
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 3: split the solid South away from the National Democratic Party.

1002
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 3: Gene Talmage would be the wedge. Its sponsor would be

1003
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:09,320
Speaker 3: the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution. The whole affair

1004
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 3: read like a study in political frustration. The movers behind

1005
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,760
Speaker 3: it were seventy five year old John Henry Kirby, Texas

1006
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:20,560
Speaker 3: oil man and old Huey Longbacker and the Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith,

1007
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:23,720
Speaker 3: termed by The New York Times as a semi fascist nut,

1008
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:29,760
Speaker 3: and Thomas L. Dixon, author of the Klansman. Unquote, Uh, Robert,

1009
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 3: are you familiar with the Klansmen.

1010
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 2: Yes, that is the book that got made into uh

1011
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 2: what was it, the Birth of the Nation? Yeah, Birth

1012
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:40,800
Speaker 2: of the Nation one of the first like really epic

1013
00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 2: like blockbuster films.

1014
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is well, this guy was responsible for the

1015
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:49,359
Speaker 3: rebirth of the KKK like like like both both this

1016
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:51,600
Speaker 3: book he had, he had like he had like a

1017
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:53,880
Speaker 3: magazine I think that was under the same name, and

1018
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 3: eventually this was made into into the movie. Now all

1019
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 3: of these factors we were like working right now to

1020
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:04,239
Speaker 3: kind of give the KKK it's like second life. So

1021
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 3: basically chewe long was out of the picture by now,

1022
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:10,960
Speaker 3: but a whole bunch of his more fascist cronies as

1023
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:16,240
Speaker 3: well as just like old like old racists. We're working

1024
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 3: with Gene for this Southern convention to oust FDR. Now,

1025
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 3: money was coming from owners and businessmen at General Motors,

1026
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 3: Coca Cola, the West Point Manufacturing Company, and other large

1027
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 3: Georgia corporations.

1028
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 2: Oh weird.

1029
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 3: As the prospect of a presidential bid increased, more Georgians

1030
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 3: were concerned with the state's finances going into nineteen thirty six,

1031
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 3: as there was no appropriations bill for the upcoming year,

1032
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 3: and Gene was very tight lipped on the issue. In

1033
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 3: late December, he met with banks who told him that

1034
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 3: they would not be lending him money unless it was

1035
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:52,200
Speaker 3: allocated by the legislature, which Gene took as a personal betrayal,

1036
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 3: as the local banks were usually on his side. As

1037
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 3: Georgia entered nineteen thirty six, Talmadge was now solely in

1038
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 3: control of the state's finance. Georgia Senator Frank Dennis said

1039
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 3: in a statement, quote the old year carried out in

1040
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,759
Speaker 3: the state of Georgia and ushered in the state of

1041
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 3: Talmadge unquote. On January fourth, Gene was lucky to find

1042
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 3: two point five million dollars in surplus funds from the

1043
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:20,440
Speaker 3: previous year between pay for which would which would pay

1044
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 3: for state operations for the next month.

1045
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 2: I would like to find two and a half million

1046
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 2: dollars from the previous year. That would be nice, right,

1047
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:27,840
Speaker 2: that would be nice.

1048
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 3: The very next day, the Supreme Court ruled that the

1049
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 3: New Deal farm program was unconstitutional, which Gene took as

1050
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 3: a personal endorsement and helped his plans for the upcoming

1051
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 3: grassroots Convention that Gene. Gene cast a loan vote against

1052
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:47,319
Speaker 3: FDR's nomination at the annual Democrat Jackson day dinner with

1053
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 3: Time magazine, writing, quote, by the coldness of his eye

1054
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,279
Speaker 3: and the hostile tilt of his cigar, the National Committee man,

1055
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 3: Eugene Talmadge stood out like a skeleton at a feast unquote.

1056
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 3: We used to have real writers in this country, We

1057
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 3: used to have real journalists, and we used.

1058
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 2: To have skeletons at a feast. It was a real

1059
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:11,160
Speaker 2: problem back then.

1060
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 3: It really did kind of look skeletal at like in

1061
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 3: this period of his life.

1062
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a lot more bones back then.

1063
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 3: Initially, Roosevelt's FCC was hesitant to approve the broadcast of

1064
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 3: Gene's convention because like they knew what was going to happen,

1065
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 3: and networks also refused to broadcast it. But after the

1066
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 3: big corporate sponsors filed lawsuits, CBS relented. Now to kind

1067
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 3: of get a sense of where this is going, the

1068
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:45,120
Speaker 3: convention invitations were Confederate flag themed. Now, Jean claimed the

1069
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 3: convention's goal was to quote save the nation and the

1070
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,960
Speaker 3: Democratic Party by blocking mister Roosevelt's renomination unquote, And he

1071
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 3: added that they weren't they weren't seeking a third party,

1072
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 3: and just despite support from conservative Northern Republicans quote, we

1073
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 3: will nominate a Democrat. This exclusively a Southern fight within

1074
00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 3: the party. Unquote. They expected ten thousand people to attend

1075
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 3: the convention in Macon, but only three thousand and five

1076
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 3: hundred guests arrived, most being Georgia farmers. A massive Confederate

1077
00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 3: flag hung behind the stage and on every seat. There

1078
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 3: was an issue of the magazine A Woman's World, with

1079
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 3: a cover featuring Eleanori Roosevelt talking with a black man.

1080
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 3: Articles included topics such as how FDR was bad for

1081
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 3: appointing black people to office. Now, Gene gave kind of

1082
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:34,760
Speaker 3: a typical kind of like more boring Talmadge speech, just

1083
00:58:34,840 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 3: calling for tax cuts, local self government and paying off

1084
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 3: national debt, tariffs, and an end to bureaucracy. I'm going

1085
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 3: to quote now from Anderson. Quote. The Platform Committee, consisting

1086
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 3: of delegates from seventeen states, agreed that FDR was not

1087
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 3: a Democrat, that a return to district constitutional construction should

1088
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 3: be made, and that Eugene Talmut should be nominated for

1089
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 3: president on the constitutional Jeffersonian Democratic ticket. Jean had not

1090
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:07,840
Speaker 3: said whether or not he would run, and incredibly, the

1091
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 3: convention adjourned shortly thereafter with a very weak platform, no

1092
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 3: candidate and no final vote on a party, no plans

1093
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 3: for the future, and a lot of confusion about what

1094
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 3: this had been all about. There had been no organization,

1095
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 3: no credentials committee, no one exactly knew who was a delegate.

1096
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 3: The result of it all was that three thousand, five

1097
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 3: hundred delegates who had come quote united to oppose the Negroes,

1098
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 3: the New Deal, and Karl Marx unquote dispersed, never to

1099
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:39,120
Speaker 3: be heard of again. The whole thing had been an

1100
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:42,920
Speaker 3: enormous embarrassment. Meeting with Advisor Hugh Howell during the convention,

1101
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:46,560
Speaker 3: Jane had agreed that the convention had failed before the

1102
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 3: first speech began unquote, So yeah, their whole racist convention

1103
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:58,080
Speaker 3: sucked ass. Now publicly, Gene called the convention platform the

1104
00:59:58,120 --> 01:00:00,680
Speaker 3: greatest ever written in history. Mmmm.

1105
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 2: Of course again it's the set it is. It is

1106
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:07,240
Speaker 2: remarkable how similar the playbooks are. Right, like that was

1107
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 2: I just had my very best debate of all time,

1108
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 2: yeakets Yeah.

1109
01:00:11,120 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 3: And even like privately admitting that this was a complete failure,

1110
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 3: but publicly this is this is the best ever in history.

1111
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 2: It's this understanding that like you still have to create

1112
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 2: a tunnel for your followers to bury into. Even if

1113
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 2: you like you have, you keep enough of a lease

1114
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 2: on reality to know that you're full of it.

1115
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,640
Speaker 3: He he pretty much always knew what was up. He

1116
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 3: just was very selective in letting his supporters know what

1117
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 3: was up. The racial extremism on display at the convention

1118
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:42,240
Speaker 3: gave the Talmadge critics plenty of ammunition. The Nation reported

1119
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 3: Gene quote rose to power entirely on the groundswell of

1120
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 3: bigotry and ignorance unquote, with his friends and advisors being

1121
01:00:50,080 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 3: described as quote a collection of a dozen dreary heels, shabby,

1122
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 3: enupt corrupt, and ku klux minded unquote.

1123
01:00:59,120 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 2: Uh.

1124
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:02,840
Speaker 3: The outlet describes Talmadge as quote the most brazen and

1125
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 3: cheapest of these post war demagogues, and hence the most transparent.

1126
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 3: Chalmadge is no Hitler, but he is a symptom, which

1127
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 3: should be disturbing unquote.

1128
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 2: Also, it's never a good sign when you're saying, well,

1129
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 2: he's not Hitler, but.

1130
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:24,200
Speaker 3: But so yeah, this is this is this is Gene.

1131
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 3: In early nineteen thirty six, he kind of failed to

1132
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 3: oust FDR. He's racist even for back then, which is

1133
01:01:32,240 --> 01:01:34,840
Speaker 3: again always impressive when you can be like seen as

1134
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 3: like horribly racist in the mid nineteen thirties.

1135
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like I was going to make

1136
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:45,600
Speaker 2: a Dragon Ball Z reference, but Goku doesn't deserve that anyway.

1137
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 2: There is this figure.

1138
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 3: One final anecdote before I close this Okay, there's one

1139
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:53,640
Speaker 3: final anecdote before I close this episode. I'm going to

1140
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 3: read here from Anderson. Quote. Late in nineteen thirty four,

1141
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 3: Gene had called his treasurer George Hamilton into his office

1142
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 3: and asked if Hamilton knew the story of Julius Caesar.

1143
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:12,800
Speaker 3: Oh God, Jesus, go yeah, that's right, Buckalo. Hamilton answered yes,

1144
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 3: and Jean said, George, I believe that a Caesar is

1145
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 3: born in every century. Now, Hamilton caught the drift of

1146
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 3: what the governor was saying and said, Geed, surely you

1147
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 3: don't think you're the Caesar of this century. Yes, I

1148
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:40,200
Speaker 3: do think so. Hamilton left in disbelief. Unquote great, great, Wow,

1149
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:43,440
Speaker 3: these guys they're all the same.

1150
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 2: In what way are you the Caesar? What have you conquered? Gene?

1151
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 2: It's not that Sherman did it, you know, Like it's

1152
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:54,960
Speaker 2: not that hard.

1153
01:02:56,600 --> 01:03:01,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's just a great right, look into the

1154
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:04,000
Speaker 3: mind of a man and the mind of almost every

1155
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 3: aspiring dictator who secretly all thinks that they're the reincarnation

1156
01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 3: of Julius Caesar.

1157
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:12,919
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading an article about like like folks

1158
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:15,560
Speaker 2: who work as wealth planners for like the billionaire class,

1159
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:17,920
Speaker 2: and one of the guys quotes was like a startling

1160
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 2: number of them think they are literally descended from the Pharaohs. Yeah,

1161
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:23,320
Speaker 2: I can see that. I can see that.

1162
01:03:25,720 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that that is where we're gonna leave at

1163
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:31,200
Speaker 3: the story of Eugene Talmage today and we will be

1164
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 3: back next week to continue his exciting journey to death.

1165
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:39,760
Speaker 2: All right, well, folks, until next time, get your friends together,

1166
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 2: get some old time and military uniforms, and follow each

1167
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 2: other around on dates heavily armed. You know, people like it.

1168
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:48,120
Speaker 2: Everyone loves it.

1169
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 3: Every military dress.

1170
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 2: Strangers like their dates.

1171
01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 3: The wrestling contest is to remove the most about a

1172
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:56,560
Speaker 3: military dress from the opponent as you can.

1173
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 2: The new big things. That's not a bad IDEA garrison

1174
01:03:59,480 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 2: a new big thing.

1175
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 3: I know people are into like the spaghetti wrestling, the

1176
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 3: baked bean wrestling, no military dress wrestling.

1177
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:06,000
Speaker 2: Wow.

1178
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 1: Yeah yehisodes episode is over. Behind the Bastards is a

1179
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:18,040
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media,

1180
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:22,000
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1181
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1182
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube,

1183
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: new episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel

1184
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards