Speaker 1: Also media what my voice is not all the way
Speaker 1: back yet, but we're recording a podcast Miami.
Speaker 2: Hi Wow, Sophie, Wow wow Wow. I am the one
Speaker 2: who's supposed.
Speaker 3: To start Get that.
Speaker 2: It's very fun.
Speaker 3: I had a great time working legit.
Speaker 2: Joy The greatest and sometimes the only joy in my
Speaker 2: week is thinking how I'm going to open the show.
Speaker 2: Like this week, I'm reading a bunch of court case
Speaker 2: files for an international uh pedophile, uh cult leader, and
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking of all the ways I'm going to
Speaker 2: open the podcast that's going to make you livid, get
Speaker 2: us canceled, lose everyone their jobs.
Speaker 3: A likely thing for you to be doing.
Speaker 2: You know that, Garson. I've tested many intros out on you.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and.
Speaker 1: You can send me the reimbursement for that therapy later, Gear.
Speaker 3: But you know that's tax deductible. Oh good, good business expense,
Speaker 3: personal my personal work. Yes.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So Garrison, we're here today to continue hearing the
Speaker 2: tale of you know, your adopted home state's favorite son.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's fair to say he.
Speaker 3: Tried to be certainly. Yes, Governor of Georgia, Eugene Talmadge,
Speaker 3: who just ascended to the governorship and almost immediately started
Speaker 3: a military coup of local government, just like almost almost
Speaker 3: as soon as he got into office. So that that
Speaker 3: is where we are continuing now. Yeah, here here he goes.
Speaker 3: So after he started placing military guard around the capitol,
Speaker 3: he got military guards to follow around himself as well
Speaker 3: as a few of his like closest allies, and they
Speaker 3: just they just went everywhere with him. And Jane really
Speaker 3: liked this. He liked the feeling of it. It made
Speaker 3: him feel like important.
Speaker 2: This is one of my called shots is that if
Speaker 2: Trump gets back in a whole bunch of guys are
Speaker 2: going to start getting secret Service and maybe at some
Speaker 2: point military escorts. Like you can tell what a a like.
Speaker 2: It's kind of how he started the process of bribing
Speaker 2: RFK Junior, right, It's something he wasn't really able to
Speaker 2: do in the first term, but it's you just see
Speaker 2: this hunger, like every rich man wants to be followed
Speaker 2: around by a bunch of men in suits with ear pieces.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, I think that's coming.
Speaker 3: He was having fun with his little military cosplay, and
Speaker 3: the highway board chairman that just had his department taken
Speaker 3: over made fun of Jean's antics by saying in response,
Speaker 3: he would deploy a boy Scout troop to guard the
Speaker 3: Highway Department. But Jane was not joking around. On June nineteenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty three, he declared a state of martial law
Speaker 3: at the Capitol and seized complete personal control over the
Speaker 3: Highway Department and its money. He claimed that board members
Speaker 3: had abandoned their office and we're aiding in a bedding
Speaker 3: in practices to incite insurrection. So you just did an
Speaker 3: actual like like a legal coup.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He fired all the board members and appointed a man
Speaker 3: named Judd P. Wilhoyt, which is another great Southern name,
Speaker 3: just great stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know you like you don't even have to
Speaker 2: tell me he's corrupt when he's a jud like I
Speaker 2: can put two and two together in a judge together.
Speaker 3: Jud Judd was put as supreme command over the Highway Department.
Speaker 2: Again, we're talking to double jud right gear like we're
Speaker 2: talking single d D. Yeah, I mean this was this
Speaker 2: was like they hadn't developed the technology for a double
Speaker 2: deep Judd yet.
Speaker 3: But Jed invented this position as a supreme command over
Speaker 3: the Highway Department. And that is that's.
Speaker 2: Judd's guys, are the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the old board a chair promised to set up
Speaker 3: his own offices. Clay, he was still the rightful head
Speaker 3: of the department.
Speaker 2: We have like an anti pope for the highway department.
Speaker 3: This also becomes a recurring trend in Talmadge politics. Whenever
Speaker 3: he takes over a piece of local government, the previous
Speaker 3: leader is like, no, I'm still obviously the rightful, the
Speaker 3: rightful guy. Ah.
Speaker 2: This is something we miss in politics today.
Speaker 3: So all this happened on the same day. Later that
Speaker 3: same afternoon, the Deputy Sheriff, Sidney Wooton served Gene a
Speaker 3: court order preventing the state treasurer from allowing highway money
Speaker 3: to be used for other purposes, because Gene was really
Speaker 3: after the money. And I'm going to quote now from
Speaker 3: Jeene's biographer, William Anderson in his book The Wild Man
Speaker 3: from Sugar Creek. Quote. Jeane became furious with the deputy.
Speaker 3: He ordered the adjunct General Lindley Camp to arrest the
Speaker 3: deputy on the spot, and he told Camp to place
Speaker 3: a military guard around the persons and offices of himself,
Speaker 3: the Treasurer, and the comptroller. The guards were to follow
Speaker 3: the men even to their barbers Camp was later ordered
Speaker 3: to physically remove the old board chair and his engineers
Speaker 3: from their offices, which they did, and which prompted the
Speaker 3: defeated board chair to call Talmadge a tyrant and a
Speaker 3: man with a quote unquote deranged mind. Behind The following day,
Speaker 3: he filed an injunction against Gene in federal court in
Speaker 3: defiance of a recent court order. The governor issued a
Speaker 3: warrant to the state treasurer for one million and three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars to run the highway Department, saying he
Speaker 3: felt the matter was none of the court's business and
Speaker 3: that they should quote not to interfere with the issue unquote. Okay,
Speaker 3: So it's a it's a pretty it's it's a pretty
Speaker 3: intense little legal coup. He's trying to he's trying to
Speaker 3: do here.
Speaker 2: It is interesting, how Yeah, you were right. This really
Speaker 2: is like the same playbook that uh like he or
Speaker 2: at least he built the basis of the playbook. Like
Speaker 2: it's only just evolved from here, but it's all the
Speaker 2: same basic tactics.
Speaker 3: No, it really is. And like Huey Long eventually kind
Speaker 3: of called Gene kind of like a more like inefficient version,
Speaker 3: and it's it's of it's not that he was a
Speaker 3: more inefficient version of Huey Long, it's that he was
Speaker 3: kind of just more ragtag, Like he didn't have the
Speaker 3: same like long term planning as Long. Both both were
Speaker 3: kind of dictator in their own way, but Gene just
Speaker 3: kind of followed his whims versus like Long had like
Speaker 3: a vested interest in like slowly gaining legitimate power.
Speaker 2: Long was a planner, and Long he didn't fuck around.
Speaker 2: Would be how I would describe the way.
Speaker 3: Gene fox around all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Huey Long didn't fuck around, yeah, at
Speaker 2: least now until he was well established.
Speaker 3: The federal government got scared of what was going on
Speaker 3: and declared that they would be withholding ten million dollars
Speaker 3: in road funds until the situation was resolved. During a
Speaker 3: luncheon a few days later, two Shriff's deputies busted in
Speaker 3: and served Gene a twenty five thousand dollar lawsuit from
Speaker 3: Sheriff Wooton for damages from his arrest earlier that month.
Speaker 3: Jene freaked out, tore up the papers and ordered the
Speaker 3: adjunct General to kick out the deputies, and he was
Speaker 3: so enraged that he then gave a very damaging speech
Speaker 3: lashing out against popular government work programs. Hours later, a
Speaker 3: judge ordered Gene to appear in federal court over the
Speaker 3: martial law who of the Highway Board, and at a
Speaker 3: hearing on June thirtieth, the board's lawyer called Gene an
Speaker 3: outlaw and compared him to a South American dictator. This
Speaker 3: is this is in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they had a lot. They actually did
Speaker 2: have a lot of dictator because in the in the
Speaker 2: like the era immediately post like liberation from Spain, That's
Speaker 2: kind of what the first thing that happened was a
Speaker 2: little patchwork of different dictators.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, and this is just like just prior to
Speaker 3: like the European dictator emerging. Yeah, you know, he's like
Speaker 3: like Mussolini and Hitler like on the rise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well this is what year is this?
Speaker 3: This is nineteen thirty three, So yeah.
Speaker 2: Mussolini's been in power for a little over a decade
Speaker 2: and Hitler's just about just about taking power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like World War two is going to be ramping
Speaker 3: up soon, You're not, We're not there yet. Now, little
Speaker 3: did the Highway Department know all of these legal battles
Speaker 3: against Gena were actually completely pointless because there was a
Speaker 3: new bill reorganizing the Highway Department that said the state
Speaker 3: attorney General has the sole right to represent the Highway
Speaker 3: Board in court. So on July first, the age he
Speaker 3: announced that he was now the lawyer for the Highway
Speaker 3: Department and dismissed the case. Previously he was he was
Speaker 3: a lawyer for the defense, and then he said that
Speaker 3: he's now also the lawyer for the plaintiff and close
Speaker 3: the entire case out. And somehow this worked. I really,
Speaker 3: I really don't know how legally that should play out.
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on the law, but what knowledge
Speaker 2: I do have, I don't think it's supposed to work.
Speaker 3: That you're not supposed to be the lawyer for both sides.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: That's generally not supposed Yeah, yeah, but fascinating play though.
Speaker 2: You got to give him, You got to give credit
Speaker 2: for Kutzpah.
Speaker 3: Gene had a lot of guys who would just look
Speaker 3: into like very like minute details of state law, and
Speaker 3: he would he would like weaponize that. He had a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of his like workers would just
Speaker 3: be tasked with like looking into old state laws and
Speaker 3: also and also new laws just to see how much
Speaker 3: he could like flex power. And this is kind of
Speaker 3: an example of that. A few weeks later, Gene also
Speaker 3: came out on top of the utility hearings and subsequently
Speaker 3: fired all of the public service commissioners. Jane was able
Speaker 3: to capitalize on a weakened legislature and insufficient safeguards to
Speaker 3: seize near total power over the state departments and local government.
Speaker 3: After his victory, Jane appointed friends and family to the
Speaker 3: department boards and called for the release of the ten
Speaker 3: million dollars in frozen federal funds. The federal government told
Speaker 3: Gene that he must ensure the money only gets spent
Speaker 3: on road construction, and that his militia must cease their
Speaker 3: operation of the capital in order for the money to
Speaker 3: be sent. And thus the military style occupation of Georgia
Speaker 3: lasted from June nineteenth to July twenty ninth. And that's
Speaker 3: Jane's first real dictator moment. Is like just immediately putting
Speaker 3: the state capital under a military occupation. That gives you
Speaker 3: a sense of kind of how he goes about political problems.
Speaker 2: How far away can we be from the next time
Speaker 2: someone does that.
Speaker 3: Months. Yeah, Like Jean loved the military aesthetic for his.
Speaker 2: Kentucky meat the horrible uniforms they wore back then, the
Speaker 2: Terrible hats Man. It just just looked.
Speaker 3: Great for his Kentucky Derby trip, which he did annually,
Speaker 3: but this one in nineteen thirty four, Jean got all
Speaker 3: of his friends and family custom military dress uniforms to wear.
Speaker 2: See that, that's ten pot dictator shit.
Speaker 3: Right, you're just actually caused plague as like a military leader.
Speaker 3: You're the governor of Georgia. What are you doing?
Speaker 2: And the governor militant? Yes. Yes.
Speaker 3: After all the partying at the Kentucky Derby, Jane wanted
Speaker 3: to return to Atlanta by overnight train so he could
Speaker 3: sleep on the way. So Jean and his friend John Whitley,
Speaker 3: and the New Highway Board chairman left early to catch
Speaker 3: the train, though upon boarding, they discovered the dining card
Speaker 3: already closed for the night, so Jean told Whitley to
Speaker 3: quote get off and go find some coffee and sandwiches.
Speaker 3: We'll hold the train unquote. Now, Whitley took a porter
Speaker 3: to help ensure the train wouldn't leave without him. The
Speaker 3: diner at the train station was out of cups, so
Speaker 3: Whitley bought the whole coffee urn and forced the porter
Speaker 3: to carry it back to the train, but they were
Speaker 3: too late. The train left without both of them. Whitley,
Speaker 3: with the Sandwiches coffee urn and the porter in tow,
Speaker 3: hailed a taxi caap and ordered the driver to follow
Speaker 3: the train to its next stop. I'll quote now from
Speaker 3: William Anderson quote. On the train, Jeane was giving the
Speaker 3: conductor hell for leaving his friends, and the conductor was
Speaker 3: trying to run the tal which party off the train
Speaker 3: because Whitley had their tickets. The taxi creening through one
Speaker 3: small Tennessee town, was sirens to halt by the sheriff.
Speaker 3: Peering into the cab, the sheriff saw a man in
Speaker 3: military dress, a black porter holding a coffee urn, and
Speaker 3: a terrified driver. The sheriff figured it was John Dillinger
Speaker 3: in disguise with his gag.
Speaker 2: I do love the idea that John Dillinger walks around
Speaker 2: with his coffee guy while he's like on their run
Speaker 2: from the law.
Speaker 3: Yeah. A long and loud argument finally can the sheriff
Speaker 3: of their identity, and he waved them onto into the night.
Speaker 3: The next morning, a very dusty Kentucky taxi was seen
Speaker 3: pulling up to the Georgia capital. A man in rumpled
Speaker 3: military dress waved goodbye to his driver and the porter,
Speaker 3: who still had his arm around the coffee urn.
Speaker 2: That Dallager in a military uniform. I mean there's a lot.
Speaker 3: He's in disguise. He's in disguise.
Speaker 2: No, it'll catch that.
Speaker 3: From that day on, Whitley was known as Taxi John,
Speaker 3: and another improbable story had been added to the burgeoning
Speaker 3: Talmadge folklore. Unquote m Taxi John. To kind of fill
Speaker 3: in that Talmadge folklore. I have a few kind of
Speaker 3: small anecdotes to give a better sense of Gene as
Speaker 3: both a person and as a politician. Jean was driving
Speaker 3: around town to his friend Henry Sperlin, and they came
Speaker 3: up on a patrolman checking for licenses. Sperlin recalled that
Speaker 3: Gene quote, leaned out of the window and cussed the
Speaker 3: man out for doing it. Soon after that, he spoke
Speaker 3: before the highway patrol and told them their job was
Speaker 3: not to be stopping the poor people in Georgia, but
Speaker 3: to help them out. Unquote, this is like Jeane's more
Speaker 3: like libertarany Like yeah, side. Jane was just very anti
Speaker 3: license in general. He would get mad at fishwartans for
Speaker 3: finding people who were fishing without a license.
Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with that, So.
Speaker 3: Like this is like Jean's politics are kind of interesting
Speaker 3: because yeah, he's an authoritarian dictator but almost like a libertarian.
Speaker 3: Nothing went wrong with that.
Speaker 2: He went, the state should the state should only fund
Speaker 2: his military bodyguard, but it certainly should not be checking
Speaker 2: whether or not people can drive.
Speaker 3: That was that was basically his politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the states get it.
Speaker 3: The state shouldn't be like helping anyone out either. There,
Speaker 3: Like they shouldn't be like paying, like paying for you
Speaker 3: to like farm better. They should just like pay for
Speaker 3: me to have fun and kind of stay out of
Speaker 3: everyone else's business. Whenever Gene would get into bad moods,
Speaker 3: he get what he would get one of his boys
Speaker 3: basically out of pocket private assistance to drive his Buick
Speaker 3: down in the open roads south of Atlanta, with Jeane
Speaker 3: sitting real low in the back seat, hiding under his
Speaker 3: wide brim hat. One of his drivers recalled quote, I
Speaker 3: remember driving Gene when he was in one of them moods,
Speaker 3: and the only words he would ever say were go faster,
Speaker 3: go faster, and I'd say, goddamn it, Jeene, it won't
Speaker 3: go any faster. And then he'd say, are you going
Speaker 3: ninety because he knew it would go ninety, And I'd
Speaker 3: say it's on ninety, and that he'd sink back into
Speaker 3: his spell unquote.
Speaker 2: He just wanted to know the car was going as
Speaker 2: fast as it could go.
Speaker 3: It's as fast as it could just blazing through those
Speaker 3: Georgia roads. There was like an aura of informality in
Speaker 3: his office, at least compared to other governors. He had
Speaker 3: no regularly scheduled meetings with advisors, and he had a
Speaker 3: very free form approach to office management. Farmers would flock
Speaker 3: to his office in droves just just to speak with
Speaker 3: the governor, as Gene told him to during speeches, and
Speaker 3: he received a staggering amount of mail from his supporters.
Speaker 3: Whenever Jean saw a farmer outside of he'd welcome them
Speaker 3: in cutting past whoever had reserved an appointment. There was
Speaker 3: just generally a lot of people in and out of
Speaker 3: his office, but Jean would refuse to take most advice
Speaker 3: unless it was presented as already in line with his
Speaker 3: ultra conservative philosophy. Once he made a decision he would
Speaker 3: not change his mind. Speaking to a friend and political mentor,
Speaker 3: Lamar Murdeau, he said, quote, you would never make a
Speaker 3: governor because you admit you were wrong too much. I'll
Speaker 3: never admit I'm wrong even if I am, and I'll
Speaker 3: never apologize. If I made a mistake, I'll ignore it
Speaker 3: and in time it'll work itself out. Unquote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is the essence of how Donald
Speaker 2: Trump got where he is. Like that, that is how
Speaker 2: you do it, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: Similar. Speaking of mister Trump, a friend of Jean said
Speaker 3: that Gene, you usually had about four girlfriends going at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 2: Well, a man like that who could stay away.
Speaker 3: He was described as like having a real magnetism around women.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. They also read a military bodyguard, so you know,
Speaker 2: might have been a couple of things going on there.
Speaker 3: That is true. A friend recalled, quote, I remember one
Speaker 3: day he was going out to visit one and was
Speaker 3: worried he might be seen. He asked me to get
Speaker 3: him a wig and a mustache, which I did, and
Speaker 3: he wore that into the night. Unquote. He's just wearing
Speaker 3: those little like glasses and fake mustaches as a disguise,
Speaker 3: hoping that no one will recognize the governor. Gene would
Speaker 3: also just bolster rumors of his own infidelity. His biographer
Speaker 3: Anderson remarked, quote, he was reported to have jumped in
Speaker 3: and out of every bedroom in Atlanta. To Gene, it
Speaker 3: was almost part of his radically masculine appeal. Unquote Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: radically masculine appeal.
Speaker 2: Look, if there's if there's one thing the lady's like Garrison,
Speaker 2: it's a man who's followed around by a bunch of
Speaker 2: armed men they don't know at all times.
Speaker 3: That's always that always puts me at ease.
Speaker 2: Yeah, m yes, that's why everyone loves the airport.
Speaker 3: Gina apparently became a better husband and family man as
Speaker 3: he aged his wife wouldn't be hard.
Speaker 2: That's a low bar given the start of this story.
Speaker 3: His wife absolutely knew about all the cheating, and she
Speaker 3: eventually did become like a trusted political advisor to Jeane.
Speaker 2: Okay, she was one of those deals where she's really
Speaker 2: in it more for the things besides companionship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like tied together for life. They like got
Speaker 3: along very well. Even though you know, Jeane's always out
Speaker 3: doing whatever he's doing okay now. Gene was also raising
Speaker 3: up his favorite son, Herman, to continue the Talmadge career
Speaker 3: in politics. Herman's wife, Betty, recounted her experiences of the
Speaker 3: Talmadge household. Quote, Gene and Mitt were not so demonstrative
Speaker 3: with their affections. I remember taking our first child to
Speaker 3: see Jane at the mansion. He would hold it, but
Speaker 3: he seemed uncomfortable when I said he could the baby
Speaker 3: if he wanted. Unquote, just this very southern frail man
Speaker 3: just uncomfortable holding a baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: And though Gene was not really a hardcore Christian himself,
Speaker 3: he would use religion to appeal to his rule constituency.
Speaker 3: Gene heavily familiarized himself with the Bible, and his memoration
Speaker 3: of scripture impressed Southern preachers. Most Sundays he could be
Speaker 3: found in a different country church serving as guest preacher.
Speaker 3: His knowledge of the Bible was very encyclopedic, but very performative.
Speaker 3: He told a friend, quote, I wish I was religious,
Speaker 3: but I just ain't. And I do believe that like
Speaker 3: he just he just didn't click with religion, but he
Speaker 3: knew it was valuable politically.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a great believe It's from the movie,
Speaker 2: the old, very old movie Spartacus. There's a great line
Speaker 2: that's attributed to Pompey when he's like tutoring Caesar, and
Speaker 2: Caesar's like, you don't believe in the gods, and He's like, well, publicly,
Speaker 2: I do. Privately, No, no, of course not. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: it's silly. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Jean paid careful attention to talk and sound like farmers
Speaker 3: when he was in rural areas. He would basically code
Speaker 3: switch when talking to like businesses, bankers, and politicians in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: speaking with the most correct grammar and pronunciation. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: quote Anderson here to Gene. It was all theater, he
Speaker 3: felt those who criticized him for playing the role of
Speaker 3: the redneck in order to beguile the country people misunderstood
Speaker 3: his politics and his constituency. They wanted a show and
Speaker 3: a wound up Gene Talmadge was the best show in town.
Speaker 3: Through his entertainment, he gained their loyalty and trust, for
Speaker 3: the essence of his performance was their honesty. And I
Speaker 3: really liked that line that Jean's like political performance worked
Speaker 3: by weaponizing his audience's honesty. Like that was that's what
Speaker 3: sold it. And I find that to be a really,
Speaker 3: a really a poignant remark in terms of how how
Speaker 3: politicians will like definitely like court certain people and talk
Speaker 3: like them, sound like them, and try and try to
Speaker 3: try to appeal to them as a form of entertainment.
Speaker 3: There's one one last anecdote from Anderson here quote. Probably
Speaker 3: no incident better characterized to Talmage the politician in nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty three than when the state Health Board asked him
Speaker 3: for support in getting X ray clinics built in rural areas.
Speaker 3: They were desperately needed, and gen knew it, but after
Speaker 3: much discussion he said, in his characteristic way of refusing someone, Nope,
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna do it. The doctors were incredulous that
Speaker 3: he would deny his supporters this aid and asked didn't
Speaker 3: he think they needed it. He startled them by saying, yep,
Speaker 3: but I don't believe an X ray would show germs
Speaker 3: won't show nothing but air. The doctors left his office
Speaker 3: swearing that he was the dumbest educated man they'd ever met.
Speaker 3: When they had gone, he turned to a friend and said, succinctly,
Speaker 3: country folk don't believe in germs. If I sent those
Speaker 3: machines down there, they wouldn't go near them, and they'd
Speaker 3: swear I was wasting their money unquote.
Speaker 2: I hate that. He's probably right.
Speaker 3: What a fascinating little performance of acting like like acting
Speaker 3: to these doctors like you're just like some like dumb
Speaker 3: hick and then actually like really understanding your core constituency.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, if we send these down there, they'll a cues,
Speaker 2: they will do the thing because I know how like
Speaker 2: this is how I would manipulate them. If an opponent
Speaker 2: did this, right, like like someone who is against me
Speaker 2: will complain about the fact that I'm wasting their money
Speaker 2: on this. Who ha, yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 3: I find I find it to be a really a
Speaker 3: really good look at like how he politically thought and
Speaker 3: how he used political performance. And now apparently during summers
Speaker 3: he got quite tanned from staying out in the sun
Speaker 3: because he would be traveling all around Georgia countryside. One
Speaker 3: day in midsummer, while stopped at a remote South and
Speaker 3: Georgia drug store for aesoda, Jane was thrown out because
Speaker 3: the store owner thought he was black. And that's just
Speaker 3: a perfect look at this era of Georgia racism. Wow,
Speaker 3: throwing out the governor because he's just a little too
Speaker 3: tan tear not recognized as the governor obviously. But that's
Speaker 3: just a look at this at this area of Georgia.
Speaker 3: So anyway, do you know what else, No, I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna do that. Do you know what else X rays
Speaker 3: might be good for?
Speaker 2: Robert h No, I mean, I think that's just kind
Speaker 2: of a big city nonsense. Actually, you can't see anything
Speaker 2: smaller than I'm say, a tick. I think that's the
Speaker 2: smallest thing.
Speaker 3: I think the extra can actually see through the big
Speaker 3: city bullshit and give you these insightful ads. All right,
Speaker 3: we are back. Gene Talmage has turned fifty during his
Speaker 3: second year as governor. He kind of got into politics
Speaker 3: a little bit later. He tried when he was younger,
Speaker 3: kind of unsuccessfully, but by the time he's a governor
Speaker 3: for the second year, he's already fifty years old now.
Speaker 3: He kept in the press cycle this reelection by continuing
Speaker 3: to defy both state and federal courts as they were
Speaker 3: preventing him from lowering utility rates, saying, quote, I don't
Speaker 3: recognize the jurisdiction of any court to compel the governor
Speaker 3: to attend its court unquote and if courts ever tried
Speaker 3: to hold him in contempt, he just wouldn't appear. He
Speaker 3: just didn't need to. And people like liked this because
Speaker 3: courts weren't super respected courts which you would like courts
Speaker 3: are what you would use to like foreclothes on people's homes,
Speaker 3: courts would like lock up poor people. Yeah, right, So,
Speaker 3: like courts weren't popular among his main constituency even though
Speaker 3: they were like law and order types, and they were
Speaker 3: definitely popular for like racist reasons.
Speaker 2: Well it's the same, I mean, it's the same thing today, right,
Speaker 2: Like you find a lot of people out in the
Speaker 2: sticks who hate the like who hate the state troopers
Speaker 2: and shit who pull them over when they're driving drunk,
Speaker 2: even though there they might ostensibly be back the blue
Speaker 2: types otherwise.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so, the deviceive nature of conservative fandom politics were
Speaker 3: on display at genes chaotic opening speech for his nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty four re election campaign in the cotton trading town
Speaker 3: of Bainbridge, Georgia. A reporter for the Macon Telegraph overheard
Speaker 3: a restaurant owner complain, quote, my god, what's the matter
Speaker 3: with the people about this Talmadge fellow. When they talk
Speaker 3: about Talmadge. They act like they want to fight about
Speaker 3: it if anyone disagrees with them. I waited on them
Speaker 3: and I kept my mouth shut unquote.
Speaker 2: God. Yeah, this is like our prequel trilogy. Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is the revenge of the Sith of American politics.
Speaker 3: What's the deal with these Talmage people? What's up with them?
Speaker 2: They're just They're just dumb and want to fight everybody
Speaker 2: over this. This clear con man who's leading them.
Speaker 3: So though he hated the new Deal in his opening speech,
Speaker 3: Jean did publicly align himself with the popular Roosevelt, but
Speaker 3: a few seems to notice or care about this ideological discrepancy. Instead,
Speaker 3: people seemed to be much more engrossed by Jean's new
Speaker 3: red suspenders that soon became an identifiable symbol associated with
Speaker 3: Jane and his style of politics.
Speaker 2: Of course, sure, it's always it's.
Speaker 3: Well speaking at a men's club gene a frequency of suspenders,
Speaker 3: wearer was gifted a new pair of bright red suspenders.
Speaker 3: He began wearing them all around, especially at political events,
Speaker 3: as a symbol of the working man. His opposition made
Speaker 3: fun of him for this, but that only strengthened the
Speaker 3: power of the red suspenders as a political symbol aligned
Speaker 3: with Gene.
Speaker 2: Of course, yes, it's the same thing.
Speaker 3: We're doing the same shit, The Macon Telegraph wrote in September.
Speaker 3: The crowd, or many of them, had evidently been reading
Speaker 3: the newspaper stories, for they cheered the red suspenders, and
Speaker 3: the Atlantic Constitution reported Talmadge gave the crowd everything it
Speaker 3: wanted and more too. Stripping off the coat, the governor
Speaker 3: revealed a pair of red suspenders, which of course drew
Speaker 3: a round of cheers. So there you go. It's it's
Speaker 3: really the same, the same story times of flat Circle,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Now, Gen's platform for his reelection
Speaker 3: did not focus at all on the dire economic problems
Speaker 3: facing Georgia's farmers and the poor working class. Right this
Speaker 3: is like, this is the middle of the middle of
Speaker 3: the depression. And instead he only sought to increase his
Speaker 3: own political power and influence by creating an office of
Speaker 3: Lieutenant governor, increasing the governor's term to four years, and
Speaker 3: paying off state debt without raising taxes. Anderson describes the
Speaker 3: limited platform as quote, a refutation of the realities of
Speaker 3: the day, a bold, egotistical statement to the Georgia people
Speaker 3: that all they needed to solve their problems, was old
Speaker 3: Gene unquote, And yeah, he is a very like symbolic figure,
Speaker 3: like all you need is like this one guy. He
Speaker 3: he will do it. It does It doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: he actually wants.
Speaker 2: A loan can fix, yeah.
Speaker 3: But he can do it. Things things, things feel like
Speaker 3: they would be better under him, even though there's no
Speaker 3: details for how now. Gene always wanted a special periodical
Speaker 3: to communicate with his supporters and publicize his political views,
Speaker 3: just like his idol, Tom Watson. He found a small,
Speaker 3: failing southern newspaper started by a journalist named Frank Lawson
Speaker 3: called The Statesman. It was supposed to be a reformist
Speaker 3: publication for investigative journalism, and though it had some good reporting,
Speaker 3: it never really got good circulation. So Gene offered Lawson
Speaker 3: a thousand dollars loan in exchange for making him associate
Speaker 3: editor and promised to boost his circulation, which Gene did not.
Speaker 3: The paper was not doing very well under Gene's tutelage either,
Speaker 3: and essentially just became the governor's personal blog with his
Speaker 3: baby massacred. Lawson sold Gene the paper for one thousand
Speaker 3: dollars after they mailed out one hundred thousand subscription ads
Speaker 3: and got back less than fifty responses. Ooh not good, No,
Speaker 3: not good. No, I will say true Social is probably
Speaker 3: doing slightly better than Gene's Statesman.
Speaker 2: It's always the issue of like, if you're this guy
Speaker 2: and you're courting that demographic, they're not big readers.
Speaker 3: No, no, Now, Gene himself was apparently losing faith in
Speaker 3: the project with laws in writing quote TALM, which then
Speaker 3: began to discover he cannot duplicate Tom Watson's Jeffersonian for
Speaker 3: the simple reason Gene cannot write and cannot is in
Speaker 3: all caps in Lawson's piece of writing here now. Gene
Speaker 3: deployed a lot of pro Roosevelt talk during the campaign.
Speaker 3: He was a very popular political figure, especially in the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, but quietly Gene was bashing and picking fights
Speaker 3: with the FDR administration. As soon as the first New
Speaker 3: Deal programs got up and running, Jane started sending a
Speaker 3: series of letters to the White House complaining about the
Speaker 3: New Deal and attempting to advise a variety of agricultural
Speaker 3: and economic topics. In one angry letter to Roosevelt complaining
Speaker 3: about work relief programs, Gene wrote, I wouldn't plow nobody's
Speaker 3: mule for fifty cents a day when I could get
Speaker 3: one dollar and thirty cents for pretending to work on
Speaker 3: a ditch. And the White House responded by saying, I
Speaker 3: take it you approve of paying farm labor forty to
Speaker 3: fifty cents a day. Somehow I cannot get it into
Speaker 3: my head that wages on such a scale make possible
Speaker 3: a reasonable American standard of living.
Speaker 2: Unquote, was nice to have an administration that talked about
Speaker 2: shit like that.
Speaker 3: Huh yeah, never again, never, never again.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Despite all this, Gene swept his re election, winning all
Speaker 3: but three of Georgia's one hundred and fifty nine counties
Speaker 3: and got one hundred and seventy eight thousand votes compared
Speaker 3: to his opponents eighty seven thousand. He did phenomenally earlers.
Speaker 2: So few people that well, there are a lot less
Speaker 2: people able to vote too.
Speaker 3: Yes, this was a white's only primary. Yes, Anderson writes,
Speaker 3: quote Talmadge had wrecked the power structure of the state
Speaker 3: and its old voting lines through the immense force of
Speaker 3: his personality. Political scientist Vokey observed what happened in Georgia
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty four as a normal Southern reaction to
Speaker 3: a strong leader like Talmadge. He wrote, factional division of
Speaker 3: the electorate around a powerful personality is characteristic of Southern politics.
Speaker 3: By polarizing the electorate, Gene stabilized it, creating a fairly
Speaker 3: consistent bi factionalism quote. So basically what happened, because Georgia
Speaker 3: was a one party state, there did form a bifactionalism
Speaker 3: just either for or against talmuch. She became such a
Speaker 3: divisive figure.
Speaker 2: And again it's not a thing we've seen since.
Speaker 3: In this instance, he was able to pull out just
Speaker 3: a phenomenal victory because he because he essentially won the
Speaker 3: electoral college, even though there was a lot of people
Speaker 3: voting against him. Eugene Talmadge almost became a political party
Speaker 3: of his own. By nineteen thirty four, Gene's small tax,
Speaker 3: limited government version of the Southern Democratic Party became more
Speaker 3: and more distinct from the reformist increasingly liberal party of FDR,
Speaker 3: which resulted in an identity crisis of the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: in the state of Georgia. Now Shortly after Jene's reelection
Speaker 3: in September of nineteen thirty four, strikes broke out at
Speaker 3: textile mills throughout Georgia and the rest of the South.
Speaker 3: Partially emboldened by FDR, the unions had been trying to
Speaker 3: organize the mills all summer. Jane previously campaigned on being
Speaker 3: a friend of labor, especially in the nineteen twenties. He
Speaker 3: even very publicly promised last August to quote, never use
Speaker 3: the troops to break up a strike unquote. But the
Speaker 3: new deal and the works progressed administration pay rates had
Speaker 3: soured Gene on unions. As strikes and pickets continued throughout September,
Speaker 3: textile barons who were Talmadge campaign contributors were calling up
Speaker 3: Gene asking him to deploy the National Guard to quill
Speaker 3: the strikes, strikes that had already gotten violent with the
Speaker 3: owners and the CoP's own attempts to break up the strike.
Speaker 3: A police officer in Augusta shot someone to death while
Speaker 3: stuck in a trample, and in Tryon, a sheriff and
Speaker 3: a non union man were killed in a large brawl
Speaker 3: to quote the book Labor in the South by f
Speaker 3: Ray Marshall, who extensively documented this period of union activity. Quote.
Speaker 3: It turned out that one employer had hired Pearl Bergoff,
Speaker 3: a notorious strike breaker who came with two hundred hired
Speaker 3: gunmen from New York to help break the strike. But
Speaker 3: Jean had them deported unquote, So g did not want
Speaker 3: these out of town strike breakers to be running around
Speaker 3: Georgia with their New York guns. No, But as requested,
Speaker 3: Gene did deploy the National Guard to bring peace and
Speaker 3: order to the chaos. Anderson writes what happened next quote,
Speaker 3: four thousand militiamen were called out. In September, thousands of
Speaker 3: Georgians were arrested, so many that grass fields were strung
Speaker 3: up with barbed wire to hold the people. When photos
Speaker 3: hit the pages of the nation's press showing hapless Georgians
Speaker 3: being coraled like cattle, the cry went out that Talmage
Speaker 3: had created concentration camps. He was stamped to anti labor,
Speaker 3: and he lost Labour's vote forever with his broken promise.
Speaker 2: The turmoilmen did one concentration camp and you lose their
Speaker 2: vote forever.
Speaker 3: That you lose the union vote.
Speaker 2: Culture is really it goes back a lot further than
Speaker 2: i'd guess, Scarrison, that's just.
Speaker 3: Nineteen thirty four. The Wolks have taken over the turmoil
Speaker 3: ended when the militiaman brutally beat a worker to death
Speaker 3: in front of his family. By late fall of thirty four,
Speaker 3: he had personally broken the back of the unions in Georgia.
Speaker 3: This was one of the first things I heard about
Speaker 3: Talmadge when I came to Georgia and started and started
Speaker 3: talking about, like the history of politics. Here was Jane's
Speaker 3: concentration camp and his like his and his deployment of
Speaker 3: four thousand National guardsmen to just totally totally brutally crush
Speaker 3: these textile strikes back in the thirties.
Speaker 2: So I mean, yeah, that's not something I'd known about.
Speaker 2: That's fucking nuts.
Speaker 3: By the end of nineteen thirty four, Jean's intense dislike
Speaker 3: of the New Deal had shifted towards a dislike of
Speaker 3: FDR like on a more personal level. Come December, the
Speaker 3: public was to vote on the New Deal's Cotton Control Act,
Speaker 3: and Gene launched a speaking to her to strongly advocate
Speaker 3: against it. It was voted for six to one. People
Speaker 3: didn't really listen to Gene, even though they still liked
Speaker 3: to hear him talk, because the Cotton Control Act actually
Speaker 3: did help farmers, and Gene was not really offering to
Speaker 3: help much farmers.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I mean you just kind of try to
Speaker 2: talk like them, but you don't actually want to do
Speaker 2: anything that will help them, because that's going to hurt
Speaker 2: the actual like people funding you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Gene made many quotes basically saying that he did,
Speaker 3: like expressly believe that. There's a number of reasons Gene
Speaker 3: broke with FDR his deep seated fear of liberalism and
Speaker 3: the phaintom of socialism, which he saw as an almost
Speaker 3: spiritually infecting virus that destroys economies and individualism if contracted
Speaker 3: and allowed to spread. Now, also, as governor, talmuch didn't
Speaker 3: really like the idea of giving up state power to
Speaker 3: the federal government. That was also like a really big
Speaker 3: motivation is that if the Feds are in more control stuff,
Speaker 3: his personal power as governor would be diminished. In nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty four, farmers in Georgia were casting votes for both
Speaker 3: the ultra conservative Talmage and the liberal progressive New Deal.
Speaker 3: Gene could rave against the dangers of the welfare state
Speaker 3: destroying individualism and not lose too many votes because, as
Speaker 3: Anderson argues, people were voting for him to feel better
Speaker 3: mentally while still enjoying the new federal New Deal benefits. Quote,
Speaker 3: the farmer voted for Talmage because of his personality, and
Speaker 3: he voted for the New Deal not because he was
Speaker 3: a budding socialist, but because he was desperate and it
Speaker 3: seemed the only viable escape from hard times.
Speaker 2: Gen went, policies will actually help me. But I am
Speaker 2: just kind of pissed at everything, and this guy seems
Speaker 2: like he's pissed in the same way exactly.
Speaker 3: Quote, Jean lifted his spirits and the New Deal filled
Speaker 3: his stomach. The farmer could enjoy a clean conscious. Sorry,
Speaker 3: the farmer could enjoy a clean conscience while satisfying his
Speaker 3: bodily needs. And yeah, this is something that we've had.
Speaker 3: I think even like a loss of like people even
Speaker 3: now will consistently just vote against their own interests, and like,
Speaker 3: personality has just so completely won out that they will
Speaker 3: consistently vote against their own interests. Like it's hard to
Speaker 3: imagine people in the South like voting for a New
Speaker 3: Deal style program in today's age.
Speaker 2: It's like part of it is because it's been a
Speaker 2: long time since it's been there's been any kind of
Speaker 2: reliable benefit for voting for one party, for another for
Speaker 2: a lot of Americans, not that nobody sees a difference,
Speaker 2: but an awful lot of people are kind of fucked
Speaker 2: no matter who's running things, And so yeah, all there
Speaker 2: is is kind of the politics of like petulance.
Speaker 3: Jean's closest friend during this period was John Whitley, the
Speaker 3: road construction guy that Gen met, you know, a long
Speaker 3: time ago when he was living in McRae. Now, both
Speaker 3: had nearly identical political beliefs and aspirations. By the time
Speaker 3: Jane became governor, John was the most successful road contractor
Speaker 3: in the state. In this era, roads and state politics
Speaker 3: were becoming increasingly intertwined.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Whitley also happened to be an old friend of FDR
Speaker 3: and maintained that friendship during Jean's beef with the president.
Speaker 3: Jean and FDR would frequently come stay at Jean's vacation
Speaker 3: estate and hunting preserve warm springs, just at different times
Speaker 3: of the year. For both men. It was a getaway
Speaker 3: from politics. Now, John and FDR kind of rarely talked
Speaker 3: politics anymore, but during Jean's little spat around nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 3: FDR was at Whitley's getaway camp and Whitley joked, you
Speaker 3: can't spend the country out of debt. Mister President Roosevelt
Speaker 3: laughed and replied, John, you and Jean have ruined this country.
Speaker 3: Now I've got to do something about it. I'm count
Speaker 3: As governor, Jane was in charge of roads and Whitley
Speaker 3: had become the largest road contractor in the state, and
Speaker 3: their close relationship spawned accusations of corruption, bribes, and kickbacks,
Speaker 3: and there doesn't appear to be evidence of any kind
Speaker 3: of formal criminal exchange of money for favors. But Jean
Speaker 3: talked with his friend about the state's road plans, and
Speaker 3: Whitley would give Gene campaign contributions and pay for all
Speaker 3: of his vacations, so they had a mutually beneficial relationship
Speaker 3: that was kind of on the edge of corruption. Now
Speaker 3: as Jane's re election platform didn't really contain much. For
Speaker 3: his inaugural speech the new General Assembly, he mostly sought
Speaker 3: to enact all of the failed policy proposals from his
Speaker 3: first term. Jeane defended his authoritarian behavior, saying his actions
Speaker 3: were voted on by the people when they elected Gene.
Speaker 3: He asked the new legislature to formally approve his three dollars.
Speaker 3: Car tag endorse his coup of the Highway Board and
Speaker 3: Public Service Commission to cap property tax, and had the
Speaker 3: state take control of the university system, which we'll be
Speaker 3: talking more about that later. He explained that his biggest
Speaker 3: goal was now to resist federal government overreach, and that
Speaker 3: everything to alleviate the Great Depression had already been done.
Speaker 3: This speech finally made a Talmadge's firm opposition to the
Speaker 3: New Deal programs clear to the legislators. Gene's wide popularity
Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirty four election basically ensured legislative support
Speaker 3: for his platform among the new lawmakers. The new Assembly
Speaker 3: approved nearly all of his requests. More progressive legislators waited
Speaker 3: until Jane's programs had all passed to try to push
Speaker 3: forward some of the benefits of New Deal legislation. Pro
Speaker 3: FDR Democrats in Georgia were linking up to oppose Gene.
Speaker 3: Among such legislators was the newly elected House Speaker Ed
Speaker 3: Rivers and his friend Roy Harris, who were working together
Speaker 3: on a batch of progressive legislation to help Rivers run
Speaker 3: for governor. A small committee of these progressive legislators went
Speaker 3: to the Governor's mansion to present a plan to participate
Speaker 3: in federal work relief programs and ensure that federal jobs
Speaker 3: in Georgia were staffed by people from the state. I'm
Speaker 3: going to quote here from Willie Anderson. Quote. Rivers recounted
Speaker 3: what happened. He said their recitation of the millions available
Speaker 3: was met with a stony silence from Jane. After they finished,
Speaker 3: the governor said there wasn't going to be any new
Speaker 3: deal legislation passed. He said it would destroy the country
Speaker 3: with its giveaway programs. Furthermore, in the election year of
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six, there wasn't going to be any more
Speaker 3: talk of Roosevelt and Talmdg. It was only going to
Speaker 3: be Roosevelt or Talmadge. He told the startle group that
Speaker 3: they may as well make up their minds right there
Speaker 3: in the room which side of the line they were
Speaker 3: going to be on. The men didn't fully comprehend all
Speaker 3: that had been said in those few minutes, and their
Speaker 3: silence go toed gene into saying he wanted them to
Speaker 3: be in his office early the next morning to sign
Speaker 3: a report that would tell Washington not to send any
Speaker 3: more federal aid to Georgia. The battle lines were drawn
Speaker 3: very quickly but firmly that night, and Jane's influence with
Speaker 3: certain legislative leaders started a precarious decline. Unquote, do you
Speaker 3: know what, thankfully will never enter a precarious decline?
Speaker 2: Robert, are you talking about advertising, no, Garrison advertising stable?
Speaker 2: The sun in our solar system.
Speaker 3: The most stable form.
Speaker 2: Yeahs, and like every planet you know in the solar
Speaker 2: system will always be able to support life.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's how the
Speaker 3: sun works.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 3: Okay, we are back. FDR and Gene are getting into fisticuffs.
Speaker 3: Which would which would Gene Gene? I don't know. Gene
Speaker 3: was very frail. I don't know who would actually win
Speaker 3: because Fdr I feel like big guy.
Speaker 2: He's a he was a big guy, and I feel
Speaker 2: like he had obviously he wasn't physically in great fighting shape,
Speaker 2: but I feel like he did have like a kind
Speaker 2: of doggedness to him. But he probably just would have
Speaker 2: like if he could get his hands around Gene. I
Speaker 2: think it might to the fight. I would give it
Speaker 2: to Fdran.
Speaker 3: Ground.
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep distance and just kick at him
Speaker 2: a lot, you know.
Speaker 3: I think if if they both like are like just
Speaker 3: like wrestling flat flat on the ground. I think FDR
Speaker 3: could just destroy gen. Gene was very scary. You know.
Speaker 2: I used to do this kind of thing with my friends.
Speaker 2: We would we would do like underwear wrestling right where
Speaker 2: you you both have to like wrestle and get you know,
Speaker 2: there's a paradise wrestling in the summer. Yeah yeah, right,
Speaker 2: whoever can get the underwear on wins. Uh And in
Speaker 2: that case, I don't know, it's any man's game. It's
Speaker 2: any man's game.
Speaker 3: I did like it was like a fifteen minute sock
Speaker 3: wrestling match. We went crazy. There was there was there was,
Speaker 3: there was a decent audience. I got the first sock
Speaker 3: off immediately. I was going out hard. I was I
Speaker 3: was dominating those first ten minutes, and then I started
Speaker 3: to wear out bad.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of the time.
Speaker 3: This other twin pulled off my first sock. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's okay, I still have the other sock. And we
Speaker 3: went on for like five more minutes and I ripped.
Speaker 3: I ripped the other person's suck. I grab it and
Speaker 3: I tore it, but enough of the toe stayed on
Speaker 3: that it didn't count. During during those moments my other
Speaker 3: sock was taken off, and I was just devastated because
Speaker 3: I really, I really went for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I'm not sure if you were the talmage
Speaker 2: of the FDR in that situation.
Speaker 3: We would at this for like so long. I always
Speaker 3: I almost had to throw up afterwards. I was so exhausted.
Speaker 2: I had a I had an underwear wrestling match with
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who's a very good grappler, and
Speaker 2: there was a certain point in the fight where they
Speaker 2: had gotten the underwear around their leg, like one leg,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, I have fought this person
Speaker 2: often enough that I know I am not getting it
Speaker 2: off at this point. Like they They're just like there's
Speaker 2: no way I'm going to actually like force it off
Speaker 2: of them, But there's a way to make this a draw.
Speaker 2: So I just slid in with them and pulled them
Speaker 2: up and tie. Yeah, there you go. Sometimes sometimes you gotta.
Speaker 3: Yeah, think outside the briefs. I think is to say
Speaker 3: it's so progressive while still racist. Senators Rivers and Harris
Speaker 3: still pushed forward some progressive legislation, just knowing that Gene
Speaker 3: would likely vedo it. These included bills for an old
Speaker 3: age pension, free textbooks, a seven months school year, and
Speaker 3: a child a labor amendment. Gene was not pro any
Speaker 3: of that. No, it was reported in The Times Journal
Speaker 3: that Jane told a staff member he threw every piece
Speaker 3: of a New Deal bill into the trash can without
Speaker 3: ever reading it. No New Deal related legislation passed during
Speaker 3: the nineteen thirty five legislature. Jane said, quote, I'm opposed
Speaker 3: to all kinds of pensions except a soldier's pension. I
Speaker 3: do not want to see the incentive of the American
Speaker 3: people to work and lay up something for their old
Speaker 3: age destroyed. If the US were allowed to support people's parents,
Speaker 3: it will take something out of their souls.
Speaker 2: Unquote. I love that. I love that argument.
Speaker 3: Parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you know that your dad's not going to
Speaker 2: starve to death on the street, you're going to lose
Speaker 2: something important to the human experience.
Speaker 3: No, it's interesting, He's like Social Security was this start
Speaker 3: of like stealing the American soul.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: It's something that conservatives cannot really say now. No, but
Speaker 3: there there was still a fight for back then. Now.
Speaker 3: Senator Ed Rivers wanted to get elected governor in thirty six,
Speaker 3: and part of his plan was to court the education
Speaker 3: crowd by appropriating extra funds towards schools. Now, Jean knew
Speaker 3: what Rivers was up to and wouldn't officially approve funds
Speaker 3: to be paid in full. So both men, wanting credit
Speaker 3: for education funding, stalled an appropriations bill to finance the state.
Speaker 3: If an appropriations bill failed to pass, on one hand,
Speaker 3: it could be politically destructive and embarrassing for Jean, but
Speaker 3: on the other it would allow him to exert personal
Speaker 3: control over all of George's finances and operations. According to
Speaker 3: an old law a lawyer friend of his onc Now,
Speaker 3: this is what I was talking about, how like Gene
Speaker 3: had guys constantly like looking through old like old laws
Speaker 3: from like the early eighteen hundreds, just to see what
Speaker 3: kind of terms and conditions for executive power existed. The
Speaker 3: final day of the nineteen thirty five legislative session was
Speaker 3: a chaotic mess of last minute meetings trying to approve
Speaker 3: an appropriations bill and one fistfight. The Senate was met
Speaker 3: at Gene for all of his vetos and didn't want
Speaker 3: to push forward to any of his proposals. The session
Speaker 3: ended with Gene comically videoing a bill to name a
Speaker 3: highway in his honor, which the senators found funny. Gene
Speaker 3: did over one hundred and sixty vetos during this legislative session.
Speaker 3: Gene called this a history making session and one of
Speaker 3: the greatest legislatures since the Civil War. In the end,
Speaker 3: no appropriations bill was passed, and Gene declined to call
Speaker 3: additional special sessions because he was once again scared of
Speaker 3: being impeached.
Speaker 1: Incredible.
Speaker 3: Anderson writes that this was the most divided that lawmakers
Speaker 3: and the electorate had been since the decade before the
Speaker 3: Civil War, and Jane was a symbol of quote total
Speaker 3: resistance to the new way unquote. Now. Gene also vetoed
Speaker 3: a bill allowing for the sterilization of people deemed criminally insane,
Speaker 3: but he joked with his adjunct to General Lindley Camp,
Speaker 3: quote they made no provisions in here to exempt with
Speaker 3: the governor and his adjunct of General Lindley, you and
Speaker 3: I might go crazy one day, and we don't want
Speaker 3: them working on us.
Speaker 2: I love how he worked backwards selfishly into the heroic
Speaker 2: stance against Jens.
Speaker 3: I know he like he somehow somehow walked his way
Speaker 3: backwards in just into ing you are.
Speaker 2: You putting on the board for talmage there.
Speaker 3: What if what if they call me crazy? Would it's wild?
Speaker 3: Oh my god. So after this, like just after this
Speaker 3: just disastrous a session, he had a brief excursion out
Speaker 3: to his farm and Sugar Creek. But then Gene gave
Speaker 3: an interview to the New York to the New York Times,
Speaker 3: bashing FDR as an extreme radical and attacked him for
Speaker 3: his disability, saying, quote, the greatest calamity to this country
Speaker 3: is that President Roosevelt can't walk around and hunt up
Speaker 3: people to talk to. The only voices to reach his
Speaker 3: wheelchair were the cries of the gimme crowd unquote. These
Speaker 3: comments did not play well, even even like back then.
Speaker 3: On May seventh, time Much traveled to Washington to give
Speaker 3: a lengthy speech broadcast on CBS attacking the new deal
Speaker 3: in FDR, calling the National Recovery Act quote a mixture
Speaker 3: of communism, frenzied financing, and wet nursing unquote. I don't
Speaker 3: quite know what wet nursing means. I think that that
Speaker 3: might just be an old timey thing that we just
Speaker 3: have like zero context for.
Speaker 1: Because it's the literal thing. I don't I don't I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, possibly possibly. I couldn't. I couldn't find much
Speaker 3: on it, but it was it was an odd enough
Speaker 3: quote that I wanted to include it. Yeah yeah. Now,
Speaker 3: admidst to Talmadge's continuing attacks and FDR, including another remark
Speaker 3: that the president was unable to walk around and talk
Speaker 3: to people since he couldn't even walk on a two
Speaker 3: by four. Uh. A Roosevelt supporter from Georgia mailed an
Speaker 3: alleged campaign platform to the White House titled Proposed Presidential
Speaker 3: Platform for Honorable Eugene Talmach, Governor of Georgia. Now, the
Speaker 3: policies on this alleged platform included two cent postage, a
Speaker 3: return to the gold standard. We we love that, love
Speaker 3: love love that. That was that that was already a
Speaker 3: thing he was he was it on Uh you form
Speaker 3: utility and rail rates, and ending all government regulation of
Speaker 3: businesses and farm products, amending banking laws, and finally abolishing
Speaker 3: the salaries for the president and all governors and judges.
Speaker 3: What a fascinating collection of campaign platform policies.
Speaker 2: That does seem like a great way to make judges
Speaker 2: much more vulnerable to bribery.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, It's like it's just like ensuring corruption.
Speaker 2: It's also it's also ensuring only the rich can afford
Speaker 2: to do the job honestly, Like yeah, it's like a
Speaker 2: leaders to like you if like you're poor, you just
Speaker 2: can't do the job, or you starve, right, or you
Speaker 2: take bribes, whereas if you're rich, Like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's it's that. I mean, it's the same kind of
Speaker 2: logic that Trump pushed off and he's like, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to take a salary for you know, my time
Speaker 2: as president.
Speaker 3: Like no, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, the legitimacy of this document is still unknown. It
Speaker 3: was sent to the White House by by FDR supporter
Speaker 3: who was in Georgia, but this was certainly something that
Speaker 3: Gene was considering. Later that fall, he went on a
Speaker 3: nationwide speaking tour against socialism while secretly workshopping a platform
Speaker 3: to run for either US Senate or possibly the presidency.
Speaker 3: In an interesting display of differing party ideology, the Northern
Speaker 3: Republicans really wanted Gene to run for president as an
Speaker 3: anti FDR candidate, and offered to finance his tour. He
Speaker 3: was intrigued by this prospect, but as a born and
Speaker 3: raised so Southern Democrat, Jean had a little interest in
Speaker 3: the Republican Party. A presidential run would require more financing
Speaker 3: than Jane had typically received. Georgia's big business sector and
Speaker 3: upper middle class began to rally behind Gene as more
Speaker 3: of the new Deal arrived in Georgia, Anderson writes, quote ironically,
Speaker 3: the rich moved to Gene as the poor left quote
Speaker 3: now to better position himself for a presidential run. Back
Speaker 3: in October of thirty four, Jane replaced the pro Roosevelt
Speaker 3: State Democratic Chairman, Major John Cohen, who was also the
Speaker 3: editor of The Atlantic Journal, and he was replaced with
Speaker 3: a Talmadge ally named Hugh Howell. FDR tried to prevent
Speaker 3: the swap, but ultimately failed to prevent Jane's power graph.
Speaker 3: The handling of George's federal road money became the next
Speaker 3: Talmadge Versus Roosevelt spectacle. The federal government wanted the Highway
Speaker 3: Department to be reorganized in a more orderly fashion before
Speaker 3: it sent over federal road funds, as well as construction
Speaker 3: of a bridge over the Oakney River, which the state
Speaker 3: just did not want to build. Jane engineered another stalemate
Speaker 3: situation with the federal road funds by preventing the construction
Speaker 3: of this bridge. Jane could then blame the federal government
Speaker 3: for withholding rightful money and turn this into a state's
Speaker 3: rights issue, one that he hopes to campaign on nationally
Speaker 3: in the future. Mutual friends of FDR and Gen set
Speaker 3: up a secret meeting between the President and the governor
Speaker 3: for July seventeenth, where Roosevelt reaffirmed that the bridge would
Speaker 3: be built. Jane was able to weaponize this meeting by
Speaker 3: talking to reporters as he left the White House, calling
Speaker 3: FDR a damned communist. Georgia's to US senators were beginning
Speaker 3: to feel the pressure and asked FDR to change the
Speaker 3: government's position on the bridge and just push forward the
Speaker 3: money pro Roosevelt figures in Georgia were worried that the
Speaker 3: road funds debacle was going to help Talmadge in an
Speaker 3: all but inevitable presidential run. A month later, Roosevelt backed
Speaker 3: off and said that the bridge plans could be put
Speaker 3: on hold as long as the Highway Department was reorganized sufficiently.
Speaker 3: The federal money could be released now. Gene took this
Speaker 3: as a personal victory and assigned that he alone could
Speaker 3: take on the New Deal. In December, Gene traveled to
Speaker 3: New York to do a radio speech attacking Roosevelt. Gene
Speaker 3: wanted this broadcast to kickstart a national movement to defeat FDR. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: back home, it sparked a local movement to defeat Talmadge.
Speaker 3: Gene wanted his anti FDR movement to materialize in a
Speaker 3: Southern convention called the Grassroots Convention. I'm going to quote
Speaker 3: here from William Anderson. The purpose of the convention would
Speaker 3: be to create a groundswell of support against the nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty six reelection of Roosevelt. The result would be to
Speaker 3: split the solid South away from the National Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Gene Talmage would be the wedge. Its sponsor would be
Speaker 3: the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution. The whole affair
Speaker 3: read like a study in political frustration. The movers behind
Speaker 3: it were seventy five year old John Henry Kirby, Texas
Speaker 3: oil man and old Huey Longbacker and the Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith,
Speaker 3: termed by The New York Times as a semi fascist nut,
Speaker 3: and Thomas L. Dixon, author of the Klansman. Unquote, Uh, Robert,
Speaker 3: are you familiar with the Klansmen.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is the book that got made into uh
Speaker 2: what was it, the Birth of the Nation? Yeah, Birth
Speaker 2: of the Nation one of the first like really epic
Speaker 2: like blockbuster films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is well, this guy was responsible for the
Speaker 3: rebirth of the KKK like like like both both this
Speaker 3: book he had, he had like he had like a
Speaker 3: magazine I think that was under the same name, and
Speaker 3: eventually this was made into into the movie. Now all
Speaker 3: of these factors we were like working right now to
Speaker 3: kind of give the KKK it's like second life. So
Speaker 3: basically chewe long was out of the picture by now,
Speaker 3: but a whole bunch of his more fascist cronies as
Speaker 3: well as just like old like old racists. We're working
Speaker 3: with Gene for this Southern convention to oust FDR. Now,
Speaker 3: money was coming from owners and businessmen at General Motors,
Speaker 3: Coca Cola, the West Point Manufacturing Company, and other large
Speaker 3: Georgia corporations.
Speaker 2: Oh weird.
Speaker 3: As the prospect of a presidential bid increased, more Georgians
Speaker 3: were concerned with the state's finances going into nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 3: as there was no appropriations bill for the upcoming year,
Speaker 3: and Gene was very tight lipped on the issue. In
Speaker 3: late December, he met with banks who told him that
Speaker 3: they would not be lending him money unless it was
Speaker 3: allocated by the legislature, which Gene took as a personal betrayal,
Speaker 3: as the local banks were usually on his side. As
Speaker 3: Georgia entered nineteen thirty six, Talmadge was now solely in
Speaker 3: control of the state's finance. Georgia Senator Frank Dennis said
Speaker 3: in a statement, quote the old year carried out in
Speaker 3: the state of Georgia and ushered in the state of
Speaker 3: Talmadge unquote. On January fourth, Gene was lucky to find
Speaker 3: two point five million dollars in surplus funds from the
Speaker 3: previous year between pay for which would which would pay
Speaker 3: for state operations for the next month.
Speaker 2: I would like to find two and a half million
Speaker 2: dollars from the previous year. That would be nice, right,
Speaker 2: that would be nice.
Speaker 3: The very next day, the Supreme Court ruled that the
Speaker 3: New Deal farm program was unconstitutional, which Gene took as
Speaker 3: a personal endorsement and helped his plans for the upcoming
Speaker 3: grassroots Convention that Gene. Gene cast a loan vote against
Speaker 3: FDR's nomination at the annual Democrat Jackson day dinner with
Speaker 3: Time magazine, writing, quote, by the coldness of his eye
Speaker 3: and the hostile tilt of his cigar, the National Committee man,
Speaker 3: Eugene Talmadge stood out like a skeleton at a feast unquote.
Speaker 3: We used to have real writers in this country, We
Speaker 3: used to have real journalists, and we used.
Speaker 2: To have skeletons at a feast. It was a real
Speaker 2: problem back then.
Speaker 3: It really did kind of look skeletal at like in
Speaker 3: this period of his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a lot more bones back then.
Speaker 3: Initially, Roosevelt's FCC was hesitant to approve the broadcast of
Speaker 3: Gene's convention because like they knew what was going to happen,
Speaker 3: and networks also refused to broadcast it. But after the
Speaker 3: big corporate sponsors filed lawsuits, CBS relented. Now to kind
Speaker 3: of get a sense of where this is going, the
Speaker 3: convention invitations were Confederate flag themed. Now, Jean claimed the
Speaker 3: convention's goal was to quote save the nation and the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party by blocking mister Roosevelt's renomination unquote, And he
Speaker 3: added that they weren't they weren't seeking a third party,
Speaker 3: and just despite support from conservative Northern Republicans quote, we
Speaker 3: will nominate a Democrat. This exclusively a Southern fight within
Speaker 3: the party. Unquote. They expected ten thousand people to attend
Speaker 3: the convention in Macon, but only three thousand and five
Speaker 3: hundred guests arrived, most being Georgia farmers. A massive Confederate
Speaker 3: flag hung behind the stage and on every seat. There
Speaker 3: was an issue of the magazine A Woman's World, with
Speaker 3: a cover featuring Eleanori Roosevelt talking with a black man.
Speaker 3: Articles included topics such as how FDR was bad for
Speaker 3: appointing black people to office. Now, Gene gave kind of
Speaker 3: a typical kind of like more boring Talmadge speech, just
Speaker 3: calling for tax cuts, local self government and paying off
Speaker 3: national debt, tariffs, and an end to bureaucracy. I'm going
Speaker 3: to quote now from Anderson. Quote. The Platform Committee, consisting
Speaker 3: of delegates from seventeen states, agreed that FDR was not
Speaker 3: a Democrat, that a return to district constitutional construction should
Speaker 3: be made, and that Eugene Talmut should be nominated for
Speaker 3: president on the constitutional Jeffersonian Democratic ticket. Jean had not
Speaker 3: said whether or not he would run, and incredibly, the
Speaker 3: convention adjourned shortly thereafter with a very weak platform, no
Speaker 3: candidate and no final vote on a party, no plans
Speaker 3: for the future, and a lot of confusion about what
Speaker 3: this had been all about. There had been no organization,
Speaker 3: no credentials committee, no one exactly knew who was a delegate.
Speaker 3: The result of it all was that three thousand, five
Speaker 3: hundred delegates who had come quote united to oppose the Negroes,
Speaker 3: the New Deal, and Karl Marx unquote dispersed, never to
Speaker 3: be heard of again. The whole thing had been an
Speaker 3: enormous embarrassment. Meeting with Advisor Hugh Howell during the convention,
Speaker 3: Jane had agreed that the convention had failed before the
Speaker 3: first speech began unquote, So yeah, their whole racist convention
Speaker 3: sucked ass. Now publicly, Gene called the convention platform the
Speaker 3: greatest ever written in history. Mmmm.
Speaker 2: Of course again it's the set it is. It is
Speaker 2: remarkable how similar the playbooks are. Right, like that was
Speaker 2: I just had my very best debate of all time,
Speaker 2: yeakets Yeah.
Speaker 3: And even like privately admitting that this was a complete failure,
Speaker 3: but publicly this is this is the best ever in history.
Speaker 2: It's this understanding that like you still have to create
Speaker 2: a tunnel for your followers to bury into. Even if
Speaker 2: you like you have, you keep enough of a lease
Speaker 2: on reality to know that you're full of it.
Speaker 3: He he pretty much always knew what was up. He
Speaker 3: just was very selective in letting his supporters know what
Speaker 3: was up. The racial extremism on display at the convention
Speaker 3: gave the Talmadge critics plenty of ammunition. The Nation reported
Speaker 3: Gene quote rose to power entirely on the groundswell of
Speaker 3: bigotry and ignorance unquote, with his friends and advisors being
Speaker 3: described as quote a collection of a dozen dreary heels, shabby,
Speaker 3: enupt corrupt, and ku klux minded unquote.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: The outlet describes Talmadge as quote the most brazen and
Speaker 3: cheapest of these post war demagogues, and hence the most transparent.
Speaker 3: Chalmadge is no Hitler, but he is a symptom, which
Speaker 3: should be disturbing unquote.
Speaker 2: Also, it's never a good sign when you're saying, well,
Speaker 2: he's not Hitler, but.
Speaker 3: But so yeah, this is this is this is Gene.
Speaker 3: In early nineteen thirty six, he kind of failed to
Speaker 3: oust FDR. He's racist even for back then, which is
Speaker 3: again always impressive when you can be like seen as
Speaker 3: like horribly racist in the mid nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like I was going to make
Speaker 2: a Dragon Ball Z reference, but Goku doesn't deserve that anyway.
Speaker 2: There is this figure.
Speaker 3: One final anecdote before I close this Okay, there's one
Speaker 3: final anecdote before I close this episode. I'm going to
Speaker 3: read here from Anderson. Quote. Late in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 3: Gene had called his treasurer George Hamilton into his office
Speaker 3: and asked if Hamilton knew the story of Julius Caesar.
Speaker 3: Oh God, Jesus, go yeah, that's right, Buckalo. Hamilton answered yes,
Speaker 3: and Jean said, George, I believe that a Caesar is
Speaker 3: born in every century. Now, Hamilton caught the drift of
Speaker 3: what the governor was saying and said, Geed, surely you
Speaker 3: don't think you're the Caesar of this century. Yes, I
Speaker 3: do think so. Hamilton left in disbelief. Unquote great, great, Wow,
Speaker 3: these guys they're all the same.
Speaker 2: In what way are you the Caesar? What have you conquered? Gene?
Speaker 2: It's not that Sherman did it, you know, Like it's
Speaker 2: not that hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's just a great right, look into the
Speaker 3: mind of a man and the mind of almost every
Speaker 3: aspiring dictator who secretly all thinks that they're the reincarnation
Speaker 3: of Julius Caesar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading an article about like like folks
Speaker 2: who work as wealth planners for like the billionaire class,
Speaker 2: and one of the guys quotes was like a startling
Speaker 2: number of them think they are literally descended from the Pharaohs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can see that. I can see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that that is where we're gonna leave at
Speaker 3: the story of Eugene Talmage today and we will be
Speaker 3: back next week to continue his exciting journey to death.
Speaker 2: All right, well, folks, until next time, get your friends together,
Speaker 2: get some old time and military uniforms, and follow each
Speaker 2: other around on dates heavily armed. You know, people like it.
Speaker 2: Everyone loves it.
Speaker 3: Every military dress.
Speaker 2: Strangers like their dates.
Speaker 3: The wrestling contest is to remove the most about a
Speaker 3: military dress from the opponent as you can.
Speaker 2: The new big things. That's not a bad IDEA garrison
Speaker 2: a new big thing.
Speaker 3: I know people are into like the spaghetti wrestling, the
Speaker 3: baked bean wrestling, no military dress wrestling.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah yehisodes episode is over. Behind the Bastards is a
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