Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Oh, Sophie, one of these days, I'm gonna do that,
Speaker 2: and it's gonna sound like I'm doing another like a
Speaker 2: tonal shriek. But then I'm just gonna like jump right
Speaker 2: into the opening soundtrack from The Lion King, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna be fucking amazed.
Speaker 1: What's so wild is when you did that, I was
Speaker 1: immediately thinking of Lion King, like I think you're almost there.
Speaker 2: Were I was very very close. I was very close.
Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking the Lion King. I'll say it. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to be grit ced.
Speaker 2: You grew up with the bad Lion King, not the
Speaker 2: good one.
Speaker 3: That's not true. Fuck off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I assume you were raised on the Donald Glover
Speaker 2: Lion King. What a mistake, What a horrible mistake.
Speaker 3: Why would you ever do another version? Garrison was not
Speaker 3: born last Thursday? What are we doing?
Speaker 2: I don't remember when the new Disney movies come out.
Speaker 2: I just know they have off putting cgi versions of
Speaker 2: all together for four years.
Speaker 3: It's terrible. Sound right, I think it doesn't sound Wronger, No,
Speaker 3: it's been four years. Sophie's well, yeah, slightly.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you right now, my mental health
Speaker 2: is going to plummet the day you're able to rent
Speaker 2: a car. It's going to be a disase.
Speaker 3: It's coming soon. It's coming soon.
Speaker 1: The the the Donald Glover Lion King predates predates us,
Speaker 1: because that was twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, all right, all right, all right, anyway, welcome
Speaker 3: to behind the Bastards. I guess we have this new
Speaker 3: cold open thing, which I'm still not super familiar with.
Speaker 3: But uh, it's pretty pretty chilly. So it's pretty chilly
Speaker 3: in here.
Speaker 2: It's pronounced chile Garrison, and it's it's correct. The difference
Speaker 2: between you know you you're yeah. Sorry, I don't have
Speaker 2: an additional bit beyond that, but I got you there,
Speaker 2: nailed it.
Speaker 3: I really set you up for that one.
Speaker 2: He really did. What are we talking about today, buddy?
Speaker 3: Oh? Just a normal guy from the nineteen thirties, seemed
Speaker 3: to Eugene Talmage.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, let's get back into.
Speaker 3: It right where we left off. Jean had as little
Speaker 3: racism convention to try to oust FDR. Right, he has
Speaker 3: his eyes set on the presidency, and he was really.
Speaker 2: The only tactic for ousting FDR was it was racism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ever shooting workers, Yeah, because everyone else loved him.
Speaker 3: They're like, well, he's not racist enough. Let's try that.
Speaker 2: Let's see if that works.
Speaker 3: The other pressing problem for Gene at this junction is
Speaker 3: that in the previous year, the state failed to secure
Speaker 3: an appropriation spill, so there's no way for the state's
Speaker 3: finances to work going into nineteen thirty six. And this
Speaker 3: is kind of Gene's main problem, especially after his little
Speaker 3: failed racism convention. So at this point we're kind of
Speaker 3: early in nineteen thirty six. The state does have money,
Speaker 3: it just has no legal process to divert or spend
Speaker 3: that money. So in order to use the cash, Gene
Speaker 3: needs to convince the treasurer to sign checks on unappropriated funds,
Speaker 3: which is technically constitutional, but by I would say, creatively
Speaker 3: interpreting the law. Gene claimed that he could write check
Speaker 3: some money appropriated as far back to nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 3: using funds that were not paid in full. He also
Speaker 3: requested that various state departments hold on to their tax
Speaker 3: collections or just give them directly to Gene and fully
Speaker 3: bypass the treasury. So this was his plan to kind
Speaker 3: of hold on to money. Now, Unfortunately for Gene, the
Speaker 3: treasurer had already begun receiving tax payments from the various
Speaker 3: state departments, and by February thirteenth, the state had begun
Speaker 3: to run out of operating funds. Now days later, Gene
Speaker 3: proclaimed the state would have the exact same appropriations bill
Speaker 3: as in nineteen thirty five, arguing that since the legislature
Speaker 3: already approved that budget, it was thus legal indefinitely, which
Speaker 3: is not just not how state budgets work. Now, the
Speaker 3: Treasurer was of the opinion that this whole affair was
Speaker 3: veering on unconstitutionality.
Speaker 2: He was worried, Garrison, I need you to say that
Speaker 2: word again.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, it's it's a long's there's a lot
Speaker 3: of syllables in here.
Speaker 2: Unconstitutional, unconstitutionality is unconstitutionality, Okay, okay, okay, unconstitutionality. That's probably
Speaker 2: a word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's mostly a word. It was, it was he
Speaker 3: was scared of his unconstitutional word. I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 3: is a word, Sophie. You've no.
Speaker 1: I'm so tired. I'm so tired.
Speaker 3: I can't it's a word. Unconstitutionality. That's a word.
Speaker 2: Robert and I are.
Speaker 3: Both so fucking tired.
Speaker 1: You can just tell.
Speaker 3: According to according to the Cornell Law Institute.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Shout out Cornell. My grandma went there. Now.
Speaker 3: The treasurer, a guy named George Hamilton, was also worried
Speaker 3: that Talmage might just try to personally seize all the
Speaker 3: states cash kept in banks around the state, possibly with
Speaker 3: millions falling falling into the direct control of Gene. So
Speaker 3: treasure Hamilton asked FDR to secure state bonds in federal
Speaker 3: vaults so that Gene couldn't legally access them, and FDR
Speaker 3: was apparently happy to make life harder for Eugene Talmage.
Speaker 3: I'm going to quote from Gene's biography by William Anderson. Quote,
Speaker 3: the Treasurer carefully drilled his staff on what to do
Speaker 3: in the event he was thrown out of office. They
Speaker 3: were to remove all collateral bonds and cash from state vaults,
Speaker 3: set an eight hour timelock on the empty vault, and
Speaker 3: run for the Federal Reserve and the local banks where
Speaker 3: they were to deposit both cash and bonds. Speed was
Speaker 3: essential because of the closeness of the treasurers at the
Speaker 3: Governor's office. Unquote. It's just like they were basically had
Speaker 3: their offices just across the hallway. We don't they have enough.
Speaker 2: You know what we don't have enough of in modern
Speaker 2: politics is capers. You know there is the capers. That's
Speaker 2: a caper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some good capers in this episode, so uh speak.
Speaker 3: Speaking speaking of capers, I love bagels. Now, Talmidch wanted
Speaker 3: to test his own power by asking the school superintendent,
Speaker 3: a guy named M. D. Collins, and the asylum warden
Speaker 3: to put in requests for money, pressuring the treasurer to
Speaker 3: write the checks. Now, the treasurer caught worded this ahead
Speaker 3: of time, and, not wanting to be caught denying funds
Speaker 3: to schools and mental patients, he contacted the superintendent ahead
Speaker 3: of time and made secret arrangements to send him into hiding,
Speaker 3: putting him up in putting him up in an Atlanta hotel. So,
Speaker 3: as expected, Jeane went looking for the superintendent and was
Speaker 3: quite pissed when he just couldn't find him anywhere in
Speaker 3: the city.
Speaker 2: Again, what happened to Caper's right? Why don't we do
Speaker 2: this anymore? All we got all we have now is
Speaker 2: like fascism and very disappointing. Governors want to I want
Speaker 2: a caper, Tim Walls, go steal the declaration of independence,
Speaker 2: you know, get out there.
Speaker 3: They didn't have like sell phoes, they didn't have like email.
Speaker 3: You couldn't send official requests digitally. You had to actually
Speaker 3: you had to actually find five physically.
Speaker 2: And then it was very easy to just put someone
Speaker 2: in a basement and gape them there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just keep someone hiding in a hotel in downtown
Speaker 3: Atlanta and you just like can't find us.
Speaker 2: No, they might as well be on the fucking moon.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, on February twentieth, as Gene was still looking
Speaker 3: for mister Collins, the Comptroller and the Treasurer publicly announced
Speaker 3: that they would not be signing checks for the governor,
Speaker 3: claiming his proclamation was invalids having a grandfather clause which
Speaker 3: avoided the old unspent appropriations, and declared this now a
Speaker 3: constitutional battle. The press had basically all turned on Jeane
Speaker 3: at this point, tired from his antics, and an Atlanta
Speaker 3: Constitution headline read the Governor's legal attempt at dictatorship Now
Speaker 3: four years later.
Speaker 2: You got to have some respect for a title that
Speaker 2: tells it like it is.
Speaker 3: There's some this some pretty good like nineteen thirties headlines
Speaker 3: that we're going to get to today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean journalists made a comfortable income and had
Speaker 2: like support staff and stuff back then. So yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, four days later, Jean wrote an executive order firing
Speaker 3: a comptroller Harrison and a treasurer Hamilton, and both of
Speaker 3: whom declared that they would have to be literally thrown
Speaker 3: out of office. I'm going to quote from Anderson again. Quote.
Speaker 3: This tactic was designed to make Gene look militaristic, a bully,
Speaker 3: a dictator who ruled not by law but by force.
Speaker 3: Since Jean's martial law order from September nineteen thirty four
Speaker 3: was still in effect, that's like a year and a
Speaker 3: half later. He just had the state under marshal law
Speaker 3: for like a year and a half. He had the
Speaker 3: National Guard at his disposal. Upon hearing the men would
Speaker 3: not leave, he ordered the adjunct to General Lindley Camp,
Speaker 3: who had been waiting for this, to take a couple
Speaker 3: of plainclothes men and get Harrison out of his office.
Speaker 3: It was early in the morning. Camp was not a
Speaker 3: violent man. He asked Harrison politely but firmly, to leave.
Speaker 3: You're no longer comptroller, and you'll have to leave this office.
Speaker 3: Camp said Harrison, and seated behind his desk looked disappointed
Speaker 3: that no armed force had shown up. He asked, where
Speaker 3: are the soldiers? Camp leaned long over the desk and drawled,
Speaker 3: I'm some soldiers. Harrison got up and incredible. Some soldiers
Speaker 3: is pretty good. There's not all all of.
Speaker 2: The riz in every single elected leader in the country
Speaker 2: right now doesn't add up to that line. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: we just we just we don't have that kind of
Speaker 2: we don't have that kind of juice anymore.
Speaker 3: Oh, Treasurer Hamilton put up.
Speaker 1: Sophy say, it's the quietly getting up and leaving for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like, you can't respond to that.
Speaker 3: You just have to get up to leave.
Speaker 2: You've lost You've lost that engagement. It's time to just
Speaker 2: leave the room now.
Speaker 3: Hamilton, the treasurer, put up a bit more of a fight,
Speaker 3: at least according to Jean's assistant Henry Sperlin, who recounted
Speaker 3: the ordeal quote, I went in in fan Hamilton sitting
Speaker 3: at his desk. I told him he would have to
Speaker 3: leave his office at once. He pulled a large pistol
Speaker 3: out and placed it on the desk and said, I
Speaker 3: am my favorite negotiating tactic. It's good, he said, I
Speaker 3: am constitutionally elected to this office, and I have the
Speaker 3: means to protect it.
Speaker 2: You just convinced me to run for office, because man,
Speaker 2: that would be fun. That would feel good, That would
Speaker 2: feel good.
Speaker 3: Continuing from Spurlin quote, I turned around and went back
Speaker 3: across the hall to the Governor's office and told him
Speaker 3: that George had a big pistol on the desk and
Speaker 3: was refusing to leave. Jean blew up.
Speaker 2: Knowing the Times that was like a thirty eight.
Speaker 3: Jean blew up and started yelling for the adjunct to
Speaker 3: General at the top of his lungs, Lindley, Lenley, Lenley.
Speaker 3: About that time, the Adjunct General came walking through the
Speaker 3: door and said, to keep quiet, Governor. I heard you
Speaker 3: all the way across the street.
Speaker 1: So fine.
Speaker 3: So the actric General, along with some some soldiers, went
Speaker 3: into Hamilton's office and literally picked him up out of
Speaker 3: his chair, and while being carried out at his office,
Speaker 3: Hamilton yelled to his assistants who were running around with
Speaker 3: the last of the Treasury's bonds in cash.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Anderson says that that the guardsman just.
Speaker 2: The wrong turn in this country.
Speaker 3: We took, we took a wrong turn in this country.
Speaker 2: So much more exciting. We used to do it, right,
Speaker 2: That's a democracy you can be proud of. Right, then
Speaker 2: you're reading about.
Speaker 3: Yeah oh yeah. Now. Anderson says that the guardsman brought
Speaker 3: his assistants were just like running from the capitol in fear,
Speaker 3: when in actuality, they were taking the last of the
Speaker 3: state's money to be deposited in FDR's federal vaults. So
Speaker 3: after Hamilton was read from the Capitol, he contacted the
Speaker 3: bank telling him that he was still in fact the
Speaker 3: legal treasurer and instructed them to not pay out any
Speaker 3: money and told the post office to not deliver any
Speaker 3: mail directed to the Treasurer to Jean's new replacement, a
Speaker 3: guy named Toby Daniel, and the post office complied with this.
Speaker 3: I guess people justked Hamilton. I'm Nico from Maerson here. Quote.
Speaker 3: It had been a long and busy day in the
Speaker 3: state government, a day which ended in total confusion about
Speaker 3: who controlled what. Hamilton was seen just before dark attacking
Speaker 3: his nameplate and title on a door across town as
Speaker 3: Jane prepared to move on the state vaults. Unquote. I
Speaker 3: dislike that Treasurer. Hamilton just set up his own like
Speaker 3: fake office across town be like, you know, I'm obviously
Speaker 3: still the treasurer. I'm gonna make myself my own office.
Speaker 3: So the next day, Jean's new treasurer, Toby Daniel, went
Speaker 3: to the vaults and he found them sealed shut with
Speaker 3: this eight hour time lock. Jane was never known as
Speaker 3: a patient man, so he ordered locksmith's to cut open
Speaker 3: this safe with gas torches. As soldier stood. Guard men
Speaker 3: cut open the vaults to find nothing. They were complete.
Speaker 3: That's completely empty. Oh that's fun. That's that's a good God. Damn,
Speaker 3: it's a good image. Yeah, Eugene talented with a cigar
Speaker 3: and some soldiers looking at people cut open a vaults
Speaker 3: gas torches. Do it find nothing? Yeah? No, It's like
Speaker 3: it's a fantastic caper. So Gene was extremely upset at this,
Speaker 3: and he said, seemed.
Speaker 2: Like the kind of guy who would take that in
Speaker 2: the spirit of good fair play.
Speaker 3: No, no, no. He sent Toby Daniel to the Fulton
Speaker 3: National Bank to cash out one hundred grand, but the
Speaker 3: bank refused to honor the check. Every sequence of events
Speaker 3: left Gene just getting more and more pissed. He wrote
Speaker 3: an angry letters to bank president, telling him that the
Speaker 3: bank would have to now pay seven percent interest on
Speaker 3: this state's nine hundred thousand dollars, and if they didn't
Speaker 3: want to deliver cash to Toby Daniel, the governor's executive assistant,
Speaker 3: would be authorized to accept the state's money. The bank
Speaker 3: continued to refuse to hand over any cash, saying that
Speaker 3: it was the quote unquote unanimous decision of the council
Speaker 3: of all the clearinghouse banks that they could not feel
Speaker 3: entirely safe until there had been some judicial determination over
Speaker 3: the question of the state's financial situation. To quote Anderson
Speaker 3: here quote Hamilton's strategy had worked. Gene exploded in anger,
Speaker 3: turning his fury erroneously on the legislature and the federal government.
Speaker 3: He said a clique in the House of Representatives had
Speaker 3: hatched a plot a year earlier in Washington, trying to
Speaker 3: force the state to call an extra session to drain
Speaker 3: off money and force Jane to raise taxes. He said
Speaker 3: the mess was deliberately brought on by the new Deal unquote. Now,
Speaker 3: the Georgia Constitution required that the treasurer be bonded before
Speaker 3: assuming office, but no local bonding company wanted to be
Speaker 3: anywhere near this shit show. But Jean's friend John Whitley,
Speaker 3: found an insurance company all the way in Fort's Scott,
Speaker 3: Kansas that would bond Toby Daniel for three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Jean asked the highway board chairman, a guy named mister Wilbur,
Speaker 3: to put up sixty five thousand, which he quite reluctantly
Speaker 3: agreed to, and John Whitley covered the rest. Jean's lstreak
Speaker 3: continued when it was learned just days later that seventeen
Speaker 3: million dollars in federal road funds were being held because
Speaker 3: Jeans spent three million dollars of this money on other
Speaker 3: state expenses, which not allowed. Not cool. You can't do that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like you should be able to
Speaker 2: do whatever you can get away with as the governor, right,
Speaker 2: like that ought to be the rule. It's like cheating
Speaker 2: at poker. Right, as long as they don't catch you
Speaker 2: in the act, you're good.
Speaker 3: The problem is that that they is that they always
Speaker 3: caught him. That was the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is an issue.
Speaker 3: And George Hamilton at this point was promising to fight
Speaker 3: to the last to see that the law shell rule
Speaker 3: and not a tyrannical despot who has gone mad with
Speaker 3: egotism Now, According to the Atlanta Journal, thirty six out
Speaker 3: of forty four state papers were now against Talmage, with
Speaker 3: the Gainesville Eagle writing he has out heralded Herod in
Speaker 3: a despotic dictatorial action that transcends the throttling of Louisiana
Speaker 3: by Huey Long. Anderson writes. A survey of newspapers from
Speaker 3: across the state reflected the shock and repulsion many had
Speaker 3: felt for this latest example of Talmadge enforcing his will.
Speaker 3: The Cordell Dispatch worried he's gonna be worse than Hitler
Speaker 3: or Mussolini, which which isn't true.
Speaker 2: That's not that this is this is nineteen thirty gotta
Speaker 2: get At this point in twenty twenty four, we could
Speaker 2: confidently say not as bad as either of those kids.
Speaker 3: Cornell Dispatch debugged, Sorry, your prediction was wrong.
Speaker 2: It would have been pretty funny if, like his his
Speaker 2: term had ended with the United States Marines occupying Atlanta,
Speaker 2: like the just bombing it to craters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that that would has that would has been
Speaker 3: debunked there. The nineteen thirty six prediction did did not
Speaker 3: come to pass.
Speaker 2: That's a tragic situation.
Speaker 3: The Columbias Inquirer wrote that he is a quote paper
Speaker 3: machet dictator, a sort of amusing political clown who slipped
Speaker 3: into the governor's office during the storm of the depression,
Speaker 3: which is I would say is more accurate. The Brunswick
Speaker 3: News asked how long Georgia would have to be quote
Speaker 3: misruled by this crazy governor who suffers hallucinations of grandeur
Speaker 3: and imaginary greatness. Gene's answer to all of that was
Speaker 3: that this was a political plot to keep him off
Speaker 3: the campaign trail, saying, this invasion of states rights can
Speaker 3: hold me in Georgia, but the New Deal is going
Speaker 3: to be defeated this year. So at this point, Roosevelt's
Speaker 3: and supporters were trying to get the state Democratic Chairman,
Speaker 3: Hugh Howell to call for a presidential primary to further
Speaker 3: embarrass Gene during the financial crisis and add to the
Speaker 3: pressure facing Talmage. But Howell and Talmadge knew what was
Speaker 3: up and didn't take the bait, especially since Roosevelt was
Speaker 3: absolutely dominating Talmage in even like the most like rule polls.
Speaker 3: He was not very popular during this whole financial crisis.
Speaker 3: On the first of March, the third month into this crisis.
Speaker 3: Gene met with all the banks and asked for the
Speaker 3: state's money to be released, which they again denied. Anderson notes,
Speaker 3: quote it was the kind of request he did not
Speaker 3: like to make, particularly since they refused him. He stormed out,
Speaker 3: saying he would scorch the bankers. His plan was to
Speaker 3: write checks to pay for school bills. If the bankers
Speaker 3: refused to honor them, public pressure would be directed away
Speaker 3: from Gene. It didn't work, unquote, so in response to this,
Speaker 3: Gene quote unquote fired the banks, and the bank's attorney
Speaker 3: asked the Fulton Superior Court to rule on which treasurer
Speaker 3: could legally sign checks. Gene filed a lawsuit with the
Speaker 3: Post Office for not delivering the Treasurer's mail to Daniel,
Speaker 3: and Daniel filed a lawsuit in a lower court against
Speaker 3: Hamilton and hopes that would force him to reveal where
Speaker 3: the collateral bonds were being kept, as still nobody could
Speaker 3: find where they were. So at this point, you like
Speaker 3: all of the business leaders for calling for a special
Speaker 3: legislative session to end this crisis. The editor of the
Speaker 3: Constitution of the newspaper privately promised a glowing editorial of
Speaker 3: Gene if he called for a special session to pass
Speaker 3: an appropriations bill, prompting other papers to do the same,
Speaker 3: with a Gene then emerging from this crisis as a hero.
Speaker 3: But the editor warned that if Gene refused to call
Speaker 3: a session, the newspaper would do everything in its power
Speaker 3: to get him impeached the majority of the state Senate signification.
Speaker 2: Imagine a newspaper having any juice at all in an
Speaker 2: election at this point the constitution in simple period of time.
Speaker 3: At this point like this, this specific paper held a
Speaker 3: great deal of power in the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, I mean that used to be. There
Speaker 2: were a lot of papers that were powered both like
Speaker 2: regionally and in the cut. Like, it's just we're in
Speaker 2: a completely different media situation now.
Speaker 3: Nowadays the AJAC is still like an influential paper in
Speaker 3: like city and state politics in Georgia, but it's not
Speaker 3: what it was and then I.
Speaker 2: Thirties, No one you would not have I mean, it'd
Speaker 2: be fascinating to see someone try, but like an editor
Speaker 2: go out and say, like, we will write you a
Speaker 2: great editorial if you if you carry out this policy, right.
Speaker 3: But if you don't, we're gonna get too beached.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's just a completely different planet in terms
Speaker 2: of print media influence.
Speaker 3: At this point, i'm majority of the Senate sign a
Speaker 3: petition pleading for a special session, but Gene claimed that
Speaker 3: there was no emergency, thus no reason to call for
Speaker 3: a special session, and on March fourteenth, the court ruled
Speaker 3: that neither Hamilton nor Daniel could withdraw money that had
Speaker 3: not been appropriated, but did not yet rule on which
Speaker 3: man was the legal treasurer. When Gene tried to get
Speaker 3: checks written on oil tax money, a judge legally prohibited
Speaker 3: money from being paid out to the new comptroller, and
Speaker 3: on March eighteenth, the oil companies threatened to withhold their
Speaker 3: tax payments until Gene removed their monetary liability to quote
Speaker 3: Anderson quote. The next day, Hamilton asked the courts to
Speaker 3: a judge him as trusure, and the state's labor leaders
Speaker 3: saw an injunction against Daniel. On March twenty third, the
Speaker 3: state revenue commissioner quit. By the end of that week,
Speaker 3: Jeane had bought radio time to defend his actions and
Speaker 3: explain his reasons for fighting FDR. On air, he said
Speaker 3: he was no dictator, but that he had no alternative
Speaker 3: but to run the state's finances in order to feed
Speaker 3: the sick and the insane. Unquote, he's not bad at spin.
Speaker 2: You knownforunate nothing. I think that probably would work today
Speaker 2: on a disappointing number of the people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people are very susceptible to dictators, as I'm sure
Speaker 3: everyone who's been looking at politics the past eight years
Speaker 3: is well aware. The financial crisis neared its end starting
Speaker 3: April eleventh, when four out of the six judges overseeing
Speaker 3: the case disqualified themselves by having affiliations with the banks. Now,
Speaker 3: this was Jane's saving grace, as it was his legal
Speaker 3: duty to replace the judges, so he just picked four
Speaker 3: of his friends, and a month later, the judges formally
Speaker 3: ruled in Gene's favor five to one. The banks released
Speaker 3: the money, Hamilton returned the collateral bonds hidden in the
Speaker 3: federal vaults, and the flow of federal highway funds went
Speaker 3: back to the state. Talmadge supporters were a static. His secretary,
Speaker 3: Carlton Mobley later said, quote, the man was unbelievable. We
Speaker 3: used to all worry like hell when he'd get himself
Speaker 3: into these situations. There would seem no possible way he
Speaker 3: could come out on top and then at the darkest
Speaker 3: moment he would land on his feet unquote. So that
Speaker 3: that that is how Gene navigated this little, this little
Speaker 3: financial crisis and some and somehow came out on top.
Speaker 3: Do you know what also likes topping?
Speaker 2: Well, Garrison, whoa, whoa. I'm gonna know, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: I'm gonna correct you there, because when Sophie and I
Speaker 2: started this podcast, you know, we had big story session.
Speaker 2: We're working out what we were going to accept from advertisers,
Speaker 2: and I remember it was like hour eight or nine.
Speaker 2: You know, We're both sitting across the big table at
Speaker 2: the office and we both turn at the same time
Speaker 2: and said, only bottoms, you know, And that's been our
Speaker 2: guiding principle in terms of advertisers from the beginning here.
Speaker 2: You know, that's that's that's really our only standard. We'll
Speaker 2: take X on mobile, clear bottom. We wouldn't take British petroleum,
Speaker 2: that's a top.
Speaker 1: Obviously, we wouldn't take X on mobile.
Speaker 2: We would take X on. We wouldn't send us some money.
Speaker 1: Guys, they tried, that's a switch.
Speaker 2: Chevron's a clear switch. We're not taking them, Chevron asked us.
Speaker 1: Both it was both.
Speaker 3: It was both.
Speaker 1: We've gotten, but we've gotten We've gotten requests from both
Speaker 1: to do like sustainability campaigns for both those guys.
Speaker 2: Yes, we do turn down money people. Yeah, not often,
Speaker 2: but we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, Okay, we are so back, man, George. George
Speaker 3: is doing great right now. We just had a massive
Speaker 3: chemical fire, which makes my throat feel terrible, and I
Speaker 3: still have to I still have to read through three
Speaker 3: thousand words.
Speaker 2: I made this the other day. But you're really a
Speaker 2: Southerner when the town you live in has been blanketed
Speaker 2: and poisoned because a chemical factory has exploded because it
Speaker 2: got bought by a private equity company who then gutted
Speaker 2: the operations staff and completely fucked all of the safety procedures.
Speaker 3: The air is terrible.
Speaker 2: I lived in West and it was the same thing
Speaker 2: where like they had a fire they had not like
Speaker 2: they were reliant upon like a volunteer firefighting team that
Speaker 2: had not been properly trained in chemical fires. They put
Speaker 2: water on said fire, and it exploded and wiped out
Speaker 2: the whole fire department.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Georgia is strong right now. We're really hanging in there. Case.
Speaker 2: No, I was looking at the map of where all
Speaker 2: of the chlorine gas is going to be tomorrow has
Speaker 2: his lofts end down?
Speaker 3: It sucks, It sucks. I woke up today with my
Speaker 3: throat being on fire. Now. Jean was still eyeing up
Speaker 3: an office in Washington as he couldn't run a third
Speaker 3: consecutive term as governor, But as Gene observed just near
Speaker 3: total widespread support for FDR, he got too afraid to
Speaker 3: directly challenge the man and backed down. As a backup plan,
Speaker 3: Jene was considering a run as George's favorite son to
Speaker 3: stoke a brokered convention, but only if Roosevelt did poorly
Speaker 3: in the primary. But Roosevelt ran completely unopposed in the
Speaker 3: primary and basically won the presidency by default, ending Jane's
Speaker 3: presidential ambitions. To quote Anderson here, what seemed like a
Speaker 3: year long camouflaged chase after the presidency came to a
Speaker 3: sputtering end. On Wednesday, June seventeenth, the State Executive Committee
Speaker 3: meant to choose Roosevelt delegates for the national Convention and
Speaker 3: to witness the political death of Gene Talmadge. Not to
Speaker 3: be upstaged, the corpse came striding briskly through the lobby,
Speaker 3: grinning broadly shaken hands and slapping backs as he moved
Speaker 3: through the crowded lobby. One man refused to shake his hand,
Speaker 3: saying sullenly he didn't want to meet any new acquaintances
Speaker 3: that day. The explosive Talmage called the refusal and insult
Speaker 3: and order the man to remove his glasses. Jean's instant
Speaker 3: theory betrayed his real feelings over The meeting, mainly ensued
Speaker 3: between the man and Jean's entourage, scattering people over the lobby.
Speaker 3: Gene was pushed away from the scuffling, and it ended quickly.
Speaker 3: Unquote that's sad. A good old, good old fashioned state
Speaker 3: democratic fist fight. Love to see it.
Speaker 2: We again, we need it. Like if the if the
Speaker 2: VP debate last night had involved a fist fight for
Speaker 2: one thing, I do think Walls would have very clearly
Speaker 2: won that.
Speaker 3: He would have want ye.
Speaker 2: Ja d Vance obviously probably is an endurance edge. He's
Speaker 2: much younger man. But jd Vance, there's no way he's
Speaker 2: ever been hit in the face. He should have been anyway.
Speaker 2: I I I support this.
Speaker 3: We need to, we need to return now. With the
Speaker 3: presidency beyond Jean's grasp, he decided to challenge the popular
Speaker 3: Richard Russell for his seat in the US Senate. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the long term Chalmage loyalist Hugh Howell was hoping to
Speaker 3: succeed Gen as governor. Once Gan announced his run for
Speaker 3: the Senate, Howell made statements in the press talking about
Speaker 3: how he could continue Jeane's legacy and was dropping hints
Speaker 3: for Gene to endorseh but Gene eventually broke the news
Speaker 3: that he was instead backing his personal friend Charles RedWine,
Speaker 3: and Howell was quite upset that Gene was unwilling to
Speaker 3: return any political favors and was caught in a weird
Speaker 3: place since Howell still wished to kind of remain in
Speaker 3: the Talmadge orbit, but in doing so it was inhibiting
Speaker 3: his progress as a politician. More on him later now.
Speaker 3: Jane threw another one of his big like kickoff barbecue
Speaker 3: rallies in McRae on July fourth, where he announced red
Speaker 3: Wine for governor and his run for the Senate, unveiling
Speaker 3: his platform to quote unquote protected Georgia, which included outlawing
Speaker 3: a national debt, cutting the federal budget to under a
Speaker 3: billion dollars, removing members of the cabinet who try to
Speaker 3: change our form of government, which I think is like
Speaker 3: an anti communist thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it may have something to do too with like
Speaker 2: voting rights.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, yes, because that becomes a big thing
Speaker 3: later on when the federal government was pushing for no
Speaker 3: more white only primaries, and he also pushed for like,
Speaker 3: you know, other like lasi faire capitalist policies. Now, Jean
Speaker 3: finished this rally by symbolically passing the governor's torch by
Speaker 3: gifting RedWine his own trademark red suspenders to quote andrewsand Quote,
Speaker 3: though suspicious that Talmadge had become a living political party,
Speaker 3: were interested to see if the voter loyalty could now
Speaker 3: be so manipulated. Could Jean project his authority onto others unquote?
Speaker 3: Now this is a question I've certainly had regarding like
Speaker 3: what will happen to the Republicans in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 3: Like depending on how this next election goes, Like how
Speaker 3: are they going to survive up like a post Trump party?
Speaker 3: Will Trump be able to pass his authority onto someone
Speaker 3: else or will they go in a completely new direction.
Speaker 3: That's certainly been a question on my mind. Now this
Speaker 3: this same day, State senator and KKK member Ed Rivers
Speaker 3: announced his candidacy for governor, running on the most liberal
Speaker 3: platform in the state's history, which he called the Little
Speaker 3: New Deal. So despite being in some ways economically progressive
Speaker 3: for white people, he was like all these guys just
Speaker 3: insanely racist. Gene decided just to do one speech a
Speaker 3: week while Russell mounted an intense statewide campaign to keep
Speaker 3: his Senate seat away from Governor Talmach, branding Gene as
Speaker 3: a trader to the Democratic Party for his previous like
Speaker 3: you know racism convention and all of his appeals against FDR. Now,
Speaker 3: this campaign was essentially Gene against both the state and
Speaker 3: the National Democratic Parties. Jean had no campaign manager, he
Speaker 3: had no headquarters, and was opposing both both the state
Speaker 3: and the National Party. He was set to make a
Speaker 3: campaign stop in Monroe, Georgia, the site of the strikes
Speaker 3: last year that Jean suppressed with concentration camps and the
Speaker 3: National Guard. The union workers were planning to make Gene
Speaker 3: know just how welcome he was with a gold old
Speaker 3: fashioned egg throw in which god we should we should
Speaker 3: bring back now word a head.
Speaker 2: In Australia, they've been doing it, at least they were
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's been some in the UK as well, but
Speaker 3: I guess like milkshaking has kind of become the new
Speaker 3: egg throwing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean it did for a while. I
Speaker 2: feel like that stopped bringing all the boys to the yard,
Speaker 2: yeah a while ago.
Speaker 3: Sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's tragedy.
Speaker 3: Now, word of this made its way to made its
Speaker 3: way to Gene and the National Guard arrived early to
Speaker 3: secure the area. The rumor was that one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty five armed men came down from Atlanta, with locals
Speaker 3: witnessing car loads of strangers arriving carrying pistols. Now, Lindley
Speaker 3: Camp denied that the guardsmen were sent, saying that it
Speaker 3: was actually local boys armed from the area who volunteered
Speaker 3: to keep the peace. But the police chief claimed otherwise
Speaker 3: and saying that they were in fact guardsmen from Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Whatever the case. To the union workers, governor Challemage had
Speaker 3: once again invaded their town with armed goons to do
Speaker 3: his bidding. Like this level of like security for a
Speaker 3: politician was uncommon for the time. It's kind of more
Speaker 3: normalized now, but back then this was like really odd.
Speaker 2: It is interesting the degree to which Americans had to
Speaker 2: be taught that you could shoot your politicians. Like, we
Speaker 2: learned that very rapidly, and then things had to change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, wasn't if I remember correctly, wasn't Huey
Speaker 3: Long Shot? I think long was shot and they might
Speaker 3: have been.
Speaker 2: He might have had two attempts on him, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I think he was. I think he survived at least one.
Speaker 2: Let's double check that though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he was. He was assassinated. Yeah, so like
Speaker 3: and like for Jane. Because of how much this security
Speaker 3: was uncommon for the time, it certainly did damage his
Speaker 3: reputation as like a wanna be military dictator, although kind
Speaker 3: of now we are very used to this type of security.
Speaker 3: During during the Senate race, the recently promoted editor at
Speaker 3: the Constitution, a guy named Ralph McGill who later became
Speaker 3: a prominent anti segregationist journalist. He began writing about Jene's
Speaker 3: relationship with John Whitley, the highway construction guy, and insinuated
Speaker 3: some kind of ethical financial arrangement between the two regarding
Speaker 3: highway construction contracts. Now twice that summer, John Whitley found
Speaker 3: McGill at campaign events and brutally beat him to a
Speaker 3: bloody pulp while threatening to kill the man if he
Speaker 3: didn't stop writing about him, and Gene just kicking McGill
Speaker 3: on the ground, dragging his body around in the dirt
Speaker 3: and smashing his head into hard columns in a hotel lobby.
Speaker 3: It was it was pretty it was pretty grisly stuff
Speaker 3: to quote Whitley quote, I beat the lion bastard until
Speaker 3: I got tired. I'd rest, then beat him some more
Speaker 3: until he was bleeding good. Then I told him McGill,
Speaker 3: next time I see you, I'm gonna have a pistol
Speaker 3: and I'm going to kill the hell out of you quote,
Speaker 3: which you could just it's it's good to know that, Auntie,
Speaker 3: that anti journalist violence does does go back far.
Speaker 2: We really, I mean, you're not really doing your job
Speaker 2: as a journalist if if people aren't saying that kind
Speaker 2: of thing about you occasionally.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anderson writes that McGill wasn't too badly hurt in
Speaker 3: the kerfuffles, but he was energy to quote unquote returned
Speaker 3: to his typewriter with a vengeance unquote, which yeah, that yeah,
Speaker 3: that makes sense, returned to his typewriter with a vengeance.
Speaker 3: This race, Gene was kind of forced into playing political
Speaker 3: defense for one of the first times in his career,
Speaker 3: Russell would go would go after Jane for using racism
Speaker 3: to distract from his otherwise empty politics, saying, when a
Speaker 3: politician runs out of arguments, knows that in the minds
Speaker 3: of the people, he is convicted of pure custness in
Speaker 3: keeping the old people of Georgia from getting their pensions,
Speaker 3: then he comes hollerin N word, N word, N word.
Speaker 3: Gene responded by saying, quote, you hear false interpretations in
Speaker 3: my service to you. Russell says, I go around yell
Speaker 3: and N word. Well, I don't believe in sending Negroes
Speaker 3: down here to rule over the white people, which he's
Speaker 3: not really refuting what Russell is saying.
Speaker 2: No, no, you are.
Speaker 3: You are not killing those rumors like it's it's again,
Speaker 3: this is everyone racist. At this time, Russell was also
Speaker 3: a raging racist. He was a segregationist right like. He
Speaker 3: just didn't like how Gene was kind of not very
Speaker 3: classy about it. Jane was so like like open and
Speaker 3: like brash. Russell was also a racist guy, but he
Speaker 3: wanted politics to be something other than just blaming black
Speaker 3: people for everything like that. That is where the bar
Speaker 3: was at this point. Now in August, Senior Sonator George
Speaker 3: Walter joined the Russell campaign in an effort to finally
Speaker 3: beat Talmadge and the background politics he represented. By mid August,
Speaker 3: Hugh Howell was refusing to campaign with Jean, and one
Speaker 3: of the first to join team Talmadge, lamar Udeau from
Speaker 3: McRae had become an advisor to Ed Rivers in the
Speaker 3: governor's race. So Jane was bleeding support and losing allies.
Speaker 3: Now that the two candidates agreed to some kind of
Speaker 3: back to back speech showdown. On August twenty sixth thirty
Speaker 3: high school girls escorted Russell onto stage in parody of
Speaker 3: Jean's platoon of armed guards. Anderson writes, quote, Russell thought
Speaker 3: he already saw the tide turning when farmers began taking
Speaker 3: off their red suspenders at his speeches and symbolically laying
Speaker 3: them at his feet. Unquote, Russell addressed Talmage as old
Speaker 3: Republican gene and this is where we start to really
Speaker 3: see like this is the beginning of the Southern Democratic
Speaker 3: Party stopping being Democrats, right like like FDR's forced liberalization,
Speaker 3: and people like Talmage, these kind of old demagogues who
Speaker 3: are like Democratic Party men are becoming more like the
Speaker 3: northern conservative Republicans. So like, I think Eugene Talent, which
Speaker 3: is kind of like the is one of the last
Speaker 3: of these like real like southern Democrats, and a lot
Speaker 3: of his politics very clearly paved the way for the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party to kind of split away and do this
Speaker 3: like kind of fabled like swap right where most of
Speaker 3: these kind of supporters would would later in like ten
Speaker 3: twenty years be voting Republican even though they forever had
Speaker 3: always been had always been Democrats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, I mean this is this is the beginning
Speaker 2: of I don't know if it's the end, but it's
Speaker 2: the beginning of our current hell right, this is where
Speaker 2: it all starts, and it all starts because people were like,
Speaker 2: what if black folks got to enjoy some of the
Speaker 2: benefits of the social safety net that we're constructing in
Speaker 2: this country Old Republican Gene yep. So Russell came with
Speaker 2: a list of questions that he demanded Gene answer when
Speaker 2: it was his turn to take the stage. Base They
Speaker 2: were mostly about like how his programs would actually help
Speaker 2: people and how he would get money to help farmers
Speaker 2: with his ultra conservative economic plans. But upon taking the stage,
Speaker 2: Gene immediately discarded these questions, saying, quote, it would take
Speaker 2: a Philadelphia lawyer all day to answer them quote, which
Speaker 2: I think is an amusing old timing remark. Now, the
Speaker 2: Russell staff took this day as a victory for their candidate,
Speaker 2: and Gene later actually agreed. On the second to last
Speaker 2: day of the race, a massive fistfight broke out at
Speaker 2: his rally in Dalton, Georgia. From the podium, Gene tried
Speaker 2: to stop people from breaking up the fight, saying, don't
Speaker 2: pay any attention to them. The Talmadge boys can whip them,
Speaker 2: let them fight it out. About half their crowd was
Speaker 2: listening to Gene's speech, the other half were in this
Speaker 2: ongoing brawl. The local deputy sheriff was severely beaten by
Speaker 2: five of Jean's National guardsmen and then had all of
Speaker 2: them arrested. We really loved to see cop On caught violence.
Speaker 2: At the end of his speech, the open melee was
Speaker 2: still raging on, and Governor Talmadge quickly left town. Come
Speaker 2: election day, Gene lost in a massive landslide, one of
Speaker 2: the biggest in the state's history. Jean carried only sixteen
Speaker 2: counties to Russell's one hundred and forty three and was
Speaker 2: beat two to one in the popular vote. The governor's
Speaker 2: race had very similar results, with the New Deal candidate
Speaker 2: Ed Rivers beating Talmadge Stooge red Wine by over one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand votes. Longtime Talmage man Tom Linder lost his
Speaker 2: race for Agricultural Commissioner, and George Hamilton the Treasurer, got
Speaker 2: his revenge by just utterly destroying Toby Daniel in the
Speaker 2: election that Daniel even lost his street that he lived
Speaker 2: on in Lagrange, according to William Anderson. To quote Anderson,
Speaker 2: it had come to be said that Gene Talmadge had
Speaker 2: a guaranteed vote of one hundred thousand, and that statement
Speaker 2: rang true to one hundred thousand Georgians. Gene Talmadge was
Speaker 2: almost a deity. His hold was hypnotic and unshakable on
Speaker 2: this core constituency. But while his stand against the New
Speaker 2: Deal did not affect the vote of his own constituency,
Speaker 2: it lost the election because of the fact that it
Speaker 2: had on the swing vote, though the bifactional electorate either
Speaker 2: for or against Gene seemed stronger than ever in undecided
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand or so votes, swung the election. This
Speaker 2: swing group was not polarized for or against Gene, and
Speaker 2: these voters cannot be placed in a particular group that
Speaker 2: had a predictable behavior. Most of them were simply convinced
Speaker 2: that the new deal was helping them more than herding them.
Speaker 2: Another influential factor was the high voter turnout to the
Speaker 2: largest in Georgious history. Jane drew from a hardcore group,
Speaker 2: and the numbers did not sluctuate much above one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty thousand. The wealthy and the very poor had
Speaker 2: once again combined for Gene, but he had lost the
Speaker 2: labor vote, which was growing, and also much of the
Speaker 2: middle class unquote. I find this kind of political breakdown
Speaker 2: to be quite interesting both how even still we find
Speaker 2: conservatives are able to get both the ultra wealthy and
Speaker 2: the ultra poor to vote for them in a counterintuitive way,
Speaker 2: and how Gene had this like very hardcore group of
Speaker 2: supporters that viewed him as like a god and would
Speaker 2: vote for him regardless of like anything. But he did
Speaker 2: lose in the swing vote. Now, as for the governor's race,
Speaker 2: Gene was able to pass off his hardcore supporters to
Speaker 2: red Wine, getting over one hundred and twenty thousand of
Speaker 2: these votes, but he completely failed to attract any of
Speaker 2: the one hundred thousand anti Talented voters and was unable
Speaker 2: to move any of the importan swing voters to red
Speaker 2: Wine on his anti New Deal Talmadge inspired platform. Jean's
Speaker 2: grip on the state Democratic Party was slipping, and he
Speaker 2: had begun to lose to the New Deal. So, for
Speaker 2: the first time in over ten years, in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: Jean was out of a government job. He now spent
Speaker 2: his time building his cattle herd, doing little speaking engagements,
Speaker 2: and using his newspaper The Statesman to project his message
Speaker 2: across Georgia. As he planned his next move, his eyes
Speaker 2: were still set on the Senate, but this time on
Speaker 2: the even more respected Senior Senator Walter George Anderson writes,
Speaker 2: those who questioned Jane's good judgment in thirty six questioned
Speaker 2: his sanity in nineteen thirty eight. Basically, George was like
Speaker 2: the archetypal respected elder statesman. Going against him was like crazy. Luckily,
Speaker 2: Jean brought his twenty five year old son, Hermann Talmadge
Speaker 2: to serve as campaign manager, who actually did grow to
Speaker 2: be a pretty good political navigator. His new nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: eight platform differed from his previous bouts against the New Deal.
Speaker 2: Instead of using vague nostalgic rhetoric pointing towards the old ways,
Speaker 2: this time Jeane sought to address the consequences of the
Speaker 2: New Deal as he saw them, attack the new big institutions,
Speaker 2: and uplift the little guy. He called for a migration
Speaker 2: back to farms and promised to stop a government waste
Speaker 2: by using fedral relief money to buy land to give
Speaker 2: to citizens willing to farm it, and to convert the
Speaker 2: civilian conservation camps into vocational education campuses to provide a
Speaker 2: practical job oriented training in contrast to the frivolous liberal universities,
Speaker 2: another conservative mainstay. His campaign speeches this year were described
Speaker 2: as like increasingly protectionist, isolationist, nationalist, and much more populist.
Speaker 2: We're getting closer to the full breakout of World War two,
Speaker 2: and Gene was pretty pretty firmly like an isolationist and
Speaker 2: a nationalist. Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that.
Speaker 4: I mean, yep, yeah, it is entirely unsurprising. Yeah to town,
Speaker 4: which tried to frame Senator George as a trader to
Speaker 4: small farmers, particularly because of his support of coconut milk.
Speaker 4: That was one of the main ways he attacked George
Speaker 4: as betraying as betraying US dairy farmers. Now Gene wasn't
Speaker 4: the only guy targeting Senator George, though. FDR was increasingly
Speaker 4: beefing with the southern wing of the party, and by
Speaker 4: the late nineteen thirties he sought to unseat some of
Speaker 4: the old Guard from the Senate that were inhibiting progress.
Speaker 4: Senator George was a particularly influential member of this group,
Speaker 4: and so FDR targeted him for removal. Not many Georgia
Speaker 4: Democrats wanted to go up against the popular Senator, but
Speaker 4: the Roosevelt Dems finally settled on a Russell's nineteen thirty
Speaker 4: four campaign manager, a man named Lawrence Camp, to take
Speaker 4: on George. FDR made this really confusing public appearance with
Speaker 4: Senator George in early August, where Roosevelt delivered a quite
Speaker 4: polite attack on his personal friend George, calling him a
Speaker 4: fake liberal and dismissed Talmage as no kind of real concern,
Speaker 4: and then endorsed Lawrence Camp.
Speaker 2: FDR, we don't make him like that anymore.
Speaker 3: No you invite your friend to like a campaign event,
Speaker 3: and then you just suspended the day.
Speaker 2: Attacked shit talk him, just just rat fuck him.
Speaker 3: He's really good.
Speaker 2: FDR was maybe our most effective rat fucker president. He
Speaker 2: really knew how to rat a man.
Speaker 3: He didn't care. He don't care.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the benefit of dying of polio is
Speaker 2: you don't give a round fuck.
Speaker 3: Like Gane tried to reprogize this speech to discredit George
Speaker 3: and brushed aside Camp as like a coattail writer and
Speaker 3: an un serious candidate. Now Roosevelt try to just We're
Speaker 3: worried that his campaign against George might give Talmage the election,
Speaker 3: but that outcome didn't really concern FDR. He thought that
Speaker 3: even if Talmadge got in the Senate, Jen would just
Speaker 3: make a fool out of himself. The problem with George
Speaker 3: was that he was influential. If he went a certain way,
Speaker 3: forty other senators would follow suit. Tal Imridge, on the
Speaker 3: other hand, was unlikely to attract followers in the Senate,
Speaker 3: and Jane was quite happy with what he saw as
Speaker 3: liberal infighting and became even more certain that it would
Speaker 3: lead to his victory in the county unit vote. With
Speaker 3: the liberal vote being split now three ways, as long
Speaker 3: as his hardcore of one hundred thousand supporters went out
Speaker 3: to vote, he saw no way for him to lose.
Speaker 3: I'm going to quote from Anderson here on this kind
Speaker 3: of anecdote about what the southern voter was thinking about
Speaker 3: going into the nineteen thirty eight election. Quote one old
Speaker 3: offensive sitter in Warm Springs told a reporter he was
Speaker 3: voting for Senator Talmadge, Governor Rivers, and President Roosevelt. Quote
Speaker 3: Talmidg is promising forty acres of land, Rivers promises to
Speaker 3: exempt it from taxation, and Roosevelt will rent it from us.
Speaker 3: Why not vote for all of them and sit on
Speaker 3: the porch and collect a steady income unquote. Okay, so
Speaker 3: they voting very It's like they're totally fine voting for
Speaker 3: conservative talentage and progressive FDR. Like that's that's totally fine,
Speaker 3: And the policies can actually work in conjunction just to
Speaker 3: help these like guys eating up all the slant. Do
Speaker 3: you know what I enjoy eating up?
Speaker 2: Robert well Garrison, I've i've i've I've heard some rumors,
Speaker 2: but I don't like that.
Speaker 3: I don't like that absolutely not. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Remember remember that meal we had during the DNC where
Speaker 1: there was a literal metal screw in your food?
Speaker 3: I remember that?
Speaker 2: Yes? Do you remember that riot where afterwards I got
Speaker 2: us like two hundred dollars worth of Popeyes because we
Speaker 2: were all so depressed.
Speaker 3: I think it happened a few times. We had a
Speaker 3: lot of really late night Chinese food and a lot
Speaker 3: of Top Eyes. Oh, the good old days, the good old.
Speaker 1: Turber Gears likes to eat foods with literal meneral screws
Speaker 1: in them, and Popeyes got it.
Speaker 3: And of course these products and services.
Speaker 2: We drinks over that screw. That was great.
Speaker 3: We did get a lot of free drinks over that screw.
Speaker 3: They were really really worrying. Someone was like attacking, attacking
Speaker 3: these DNC journalists. Oh God, okay, we are so back.
Speaker 3: Come election day, early results gave Talmadge a small lead.
Speaker 3: Stop the count, Stop the count, But Jean Jean's initial
Speaker 3: celebration was premature because the next day after after election Day,
Speaker 3: it was clear that Walter George actually beat Jeane by
Speaker 3: forty thousand votes. Urban migration was affecting Jean's ability to
Speaker 3: win elections. Some of the county races were quite close,
Speaker 3: and a difference of just over two hundred vot in
Speaker 3: certain counties would have given Talmage the election under the
Speaker 3: county unit system, but Gene wasn't going to back down
Speaker 3: this time. He refused to concede the election and announced
Speaker 3: he would contest the vote. Stop this deal, Gene filed
Speaker 3: complaints with the Democratic Committee in thirty four counties, claiming
Speaker 3: a recount would qute unquote clearly give me the election
Speaker 3: to quote Anderson. The Talmage office had been literally flooded
Speaker 3: with phone calls and letters complaining of voting irregularities. Many
Speaker 3: were sworn affidavits. People claimed that dead people, children, and
Speaker 3: non residents had voted for George, payoffs, had payoffs had
Speaker 3: been made, counting falsified, and ballots pre marked unquote. Time
Speaker 3: is a flat circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so nothing does change?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely not. As a backup plan, Gene hatched
Speaker 3: another scheme to overrule the county unit election by making
Speaker 3: enough of a big fuss over the recounts and voting irregularities.
Speaker 3: Jene hopes to pressure the domnatorial candidates, Hugh Howell and
Speaker 3: Ed Rivers into having their delegates name Talmadge Senator at
Speaker 3: the October convention using this little piece of party law.
Speaker 3: This was an odd strategy, considering that Gene was not
Speaker 3: currently in the good graces of either man, but he
Speaker 3: was getting desperate, and when it became clear that crucial
Speaker 3: counties were going to reject his complaints, Jen began sending
Speaker 3: letters to friends in the counties asking for assistance. One
Speaker 3: such letter read, get all the evidence of regularities in
Speaker 3: the election that you can. If you can get any
Speaker 3: evidence of money being used, get this in AFFI David form.
Speaker 3: We will then appeal it to the convention in Macon
Speaker 3: on October fifth. Now, the counties did not like having
Speaker 3: their elections questioned. Gene's accusations of misconduct were near unanimously rejected,
Speaker 3: and counties billed him for the trouble. At he cost,
Speaker 3: which is also a good thing. We don't see as
Speaker 3: much anymore, being like you made us do all this
Speaker 3: extra work here, We'll just send you a bill. His
Speaker 3: appeal to the State Executive Committee was also rejected in
Speaker 3: a sixty one to four vote. Gene responded to the
Speaker 3: ruling by saying, the very resistance of the State Executive
Speaker 3: Committee to recount bears out our contentions that something was wrong. Sure, sure, buddy,
Speaker 3: of course. Yeah. As his grasps for power continued to fail,
Speaker 3: Jean became increasingly angry and desperate. He called on his
Speaker 3: supporters to march on the Macon Convention to demand that
Speaker 3: Jane's accusations be heard. He tried to planet Jasis.
Speaker 2: Man, Really, there is nothing new under the sun. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the heartbreakers here is I had thought Trump
Speaker 2: was a little more original than he really is. And
Speaker 2: you know, it just hate. It sucks when you find
Speaker 2: out your heroes are aren't Robert Robert.
Speaker 3: You know that just hurts.
Speaker 2: It hurts.
Speaker 3: The night before the convention, some friends of Jean staged
Speaker 3: an intervention in his hotel, begging him to a admit
Speaker 3: that he lost. But wow, how the times a fucking changed.
Speaker 3: But supporters crashed the intervention to convince Jane to keep fighting,
Speaker 3: which he did. He immediately doubled down. He sent Tom
Speaker 3: Linder to tell Hugh Howell that if he released his
Speaker 3: delegates to Gene, Gene would help him win the nineteen
Speaker 3: forty governor's race. Now, Howell was still mad that Jean
Speaker 3: had turned his back on him in the last election,
Speaker 3: and it was now Howell that refused to help Jeane.
Speaker 3: The convention came, Gene and his cronies were going around
Speaker 3: trying to course a roll call decision on Jeene's election denial.
Speaker 3: Governor Ed Rivers actually allowed this to happen, confident that
Speaker 3: the result would serve Gene one final humiliation, and he
Speaker 3: was correct. Jane's call for a reconsideration of the vote
Speaker 3: was firmly shut down. Jane went into a tantrum, telling
Speaker 3: supporters that it was Hugh Howell's fault that they had
Speaker 3: failed at the convention, saying, quote, we had stacks of
Speaker 3: evidence at the making convention, but they refused to even
Speaker 3: look at it. The great trouble there was that Hugh
Speaker 3: Powell sold out the talent which people and appoint and
Speaker 3: appointed George men as delegates unquote again just flat circle shit.
Speaker 3: We had, we had all, we had, all this evidence.
Speaker 3: They refused to look at it. It's been stolen, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Basically, what happened here was that Jean's disinterest
Speaker 3: and periodic disrespect of the machinery of party politics, as
Speaker 3: well as like state and county power structures, finally began
Speaker 3: to damage him. Politically, what once helped to get him
Speaker 3: into power was now self sabotaging his ability to hold
Speaker 3: onto power and effectively navigate party politics. So after his
Speaker 3: second Senate defeat in a row, Jean wished to return
Speaker 3: to his comfort zone and retake the governor's office in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty nine. Gene kept relatively low profile, but he
Speaker 3: would still travel around the state to speak at local
Speaker 3: clubs and organizations, nothing too notable, but ensured that he
Speaker 3: remained a presence to his core base at like rural
Speaker 3: barbecues and church socials. Meanwhile, a loose organization of Jeane's
Speaker 3: political allies spent the year quietly lobbying courthouse gangs and
Speaker 3: promoting Jane as governor across the state. Ed Rivers couldn't
Speaker 3: seek reelection, so Jane's biggest competition was his friend turned rival,
Speaker 3: Hugh Howell, who tried to run for a third time.
Speaker 3: I'm going to quot from Anderson again quote. A number
Speaker 3: of factors made the return of Talmage possible. One was
Speaker 3: the scandalous debts run up by Rivers the state was
Speaker 3: almost bankrupt. Another was the shadow of a world war
Speaker 3: and the anxieties that fear produced a crisis was created.
Speaker 3: There was a need for strength, a desire for the
Speaker 3: simple solution in a complex and confusing world. A future
Speaker 3: that no one wanted made the past a psychological crutch.
Speaker 3: Gene Talmadge, the iron man of action, would once again
Speaker 3: ride on to the political stage to save the day.
Speaker 3: He saw no way he could lose. He had in
Speaker 3: two elections been recognized as a man disjointed from the times.
Speaker 3: That fact that had been his strength in earlier races
Speaker 3: but became his weakness, now again would be his strength.
Speaker 3: Unsettled times had thrown the people out of sea depth.
Speaker 3: With war threatening, they began to look for that well
Speaker 3: worn path. They dug back in their past and found
Speaker 3: the certainty they had been seeking. Old Gene. He was
Speaker 3: their crutch in a way, only this time it was
Speaker 3: war and needless bankruptcy that demanded an aura of toughness.
Speaker 3: Now I find this quote to be one of the
Speaker 3: more like unsettling in how it kind of shows how
Speaker 3: the backwardness can like flip flop, like how things that
Speaker 3: are your strength can become your weakness, and then as
Speaker 3: times get tougher, that can be your strength again. And
Speaker 3: considering the current economic situation, in this country as well
Speaker 3: as raging wars in the Middle East. It does not
Speaker 3: leave me with tons of comfort.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, if you're reading history right, it never should. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that is a particularly because you're never safe
Speaker 2: in a democracy, right. The upside is you have a
Speaker 2: degree of agency over the political system, but you are
Speaker 2: always waiting for the worm to turn in such a
Speaker 2: way that the very worst people are empowered and it
Speaker 2: will always happen. Yeah, never, there's no getting away from it, Like,
Speaker 2: there's no Somebody made a post on the subburn at
Speaker 2: the other day where they were like, is it just
Speaker 2: are we just going to every four years be worried
Speaker 2: about becoming a dictatorship? And like, yeah, bro it feels
Speaker 2: so to homie, that's how that's that's how it is.
Speaker 3: Speak speaking of dictator some of Jeene's advisors wanted him
Speaker 3: to give his opening campaign speech from above the crowd
Speaker 3: through his office window in Atlanta, but Jean thought this
Speaker 3: would make him look too much like Mussolini.
Speaker 2: You can, really it says a lot about the period
Speaker 2: of time that that was no longer a good thing
Speaker 2: because there was. Yeah, there were several years where they
Speaker 2: would have been like you should do it. It'll make
Speaker 2: you look like Mussolini.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I mean you're like in nineteen forty now late,
Speaker 3: it's become a little cool date Like Jane likes Mussolidi.
Speaker 3: She just knows that it's not going to play well
Speaker 3: in this moment.
Speaker 2: So intead, instead, that's what I would have said, That's
Speaker 2: how I would have taken him down.
Speaker 3: Instead, Jane dawned his red suspenders and stood on a
Speaker 3: chair outside the Capitol to officially announce his campaign to
Speaker 3: an excited crowd of supporters. To draw up an interest
Speaker 3: in the campaign and demonstrate the return of like personality
Speaker 3: theatrical politics, the Talmage team wrote a song and turn
Speaker 3: it into a record that would play before every Talmage speech.
Speaker 3: I'm going to read some of the lyrics here that
Speaker 3: that are that are in this book. And Apple Jesus
Speaker 3: Christies are so bad, and Apple for the teacher is
Speaker 3: very fine, indeed, but sad to state, and apple is
Speaker 3: not all the teachers need, the needless of state employees
Speaker 3: and the government so wild had a very marked effect
Speaker 3: on every Georgia child. Unfortunately, these are all of the
Speaker 3: lyrics I can find. But it's just a song about
Speaker 3: how big. How about how big a government is hurting children?
Speaker 3: And this saw everyone became sick of this song because
Speaker 3: this was now the only song I would play before
Speaker 3: all of the talentage speeches, just on a loop. This
Speaker 3: was the first. This was like the first ession of hell.
Speaker 3: Like usually before campaign speeches, they had like live music.
Speaker 3: They they just to have like you know, just some
Speaker 3: some like local band would like play some tunes. This
Speaker 3: now they were hooking up a record to like to
Speaker 3: like loudspeakers and it's blasting out hell bad bad. Now.
Speaker 3: Jean's son, Herman Talmadge, was growing increasingly influential within the
Speaker 3: Talmadge machine and provided his father a newfound political savvy.
Speaker 3: Though Gene was reluctant at first, Hermann struck a deal
Speaker 3: with the Georgia New Deal Democrats for their backing in
Speaker 3: exchange for an ever so slightly more liberal Talmage platform
Speaker 3: focusing on education and the economy. The resulting platform was
Speaker 3: widely deemed the most like, legitimate and practical out of
Speaker 3: Talmadge's whole career. To quote Anderson, a Talwich victory was
Speaker 3: so certain that the race took on a great deal
Speaker 3: of boredom. Fistfights at speeches a common occurrence, began getting
Speaker 3: as much press attention as the speeches themselves unquote. Kind of.
Speaker 3: The most emblematic day of the nineteen forty race was
Speaker 3: on July twenty seventh. All of the candidates held rallies
Speaker 3: in Warm Springs. Gene didn't arrive on time, but his
Speaker 3: customs song blared over the loudspeakers on repeat, drowning out
Speaker 3: the other candidates.
Speaker 2: Oh Man perfect on stage.
Speaker 3: Jane's opponents took turns attacking him, with one targeting Gene
Speaker 3: for quote boasting he had read Hitler's book seven times,
Speaker 3: although he said he was too busy to read any
Speaker 3: other books on cost and.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm one of the very few people who have
Speaker 2: read mind cop because that book is not seven times,
Speaker 2: not a readable book.
Speaker 3: Seven times. This is literally a joke in the Boys.
Speaker 3: This is literally a joke in the Boys.
Speaker 2: That's nuts.
Speaker 3: That's too many times to have read mind comp. No,
Speaker 3: They're like, there's there's a great episode where they asked
Speaker 3: their like Tucker Carlson analog, have you ever read mind
Speaker 3: comp It's like, yeah, like a few times, I guess,
Speaker 3: And they're like, there's a few times.
Speaker 2: I will say my favorite mind comp joke is in
Speaker 2: the movie Churchill The Hollywood Years, in which Christian is
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill, where one of the one of the King
Speaker 2: of England's servants sees a copy of mind comp Bias
Speaker 2: bed and goes me and camp f, what's this a
Speaker 2: gay prison novel?
Speaker 3: That's great? Perfect.
Speaker 1: They did that exact Tucker Carlson thing and in succession
Speaker 1: with with yes as a scene in succession And.
Speaker 3: Maybe this was Succession, not the boys. Maybe I'm confusing it,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's both. Who knows. I could be confusing
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson analogs because they're always Tucker.
Speaker 1: It's it's always Tucker.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now No. Gene arrived late from a hemoroid operation and
Speaker 3: literally upstaged one of his opponents who was in the
Speaker 3: middle of a speech, and this disturbance sparked a massive
Speaker 3: brawl beneath the stage that only got worse when Jene
Speaker 3: tried to speak to quote William Anderson quote. The crowd
Speaker 3: was now full of devilment, and while supporters spoke for Gene,
Speaker 3: a car was set afire in the back of the
Speaker 3: crowd and people swirled to watch it burn. It was
Speaker 3: just like the old days. About the only punches Gene's
Speaker 3: opponents were able to land that summer were in regard
Speaker 3: to Talmadge's early admiration for Europe's rising dictators. They all
Speaker 3: honed in on Gene's propensity for militaristic action and pointed
Speaker 3: to where that type of action had gotten Europe. Gene
Speaker 3: ignored them, unquote. The election for the Democratic primary was
Speaker 3: held on nine to eleven, and the results handily gave
Speaker 3: Gene a clear and decisive victory. Just truly, truly the
Speaker 3: worst nine to eleven. Jane got like three hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty county unit votes. He just completely swept the race.
Speaker 3: Gene arrived late to his own celebration party and left
Speaker 3: early to pass out in his hotel room. He was
Speaker 3: getting old, he was having hemorrhoid operations. He wasn't the
Speaker 3: same kind of fiery young man that that started his career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by the time you're having Yeah, hemorrhoid operations make
Speaker 2: you fiery, but maybe a different kind of fire. Different fiery, Yeah, different,
Speaker 2: different sort of fire.
Speaker 3: The Georgia Democratic convention next month was referred to as
Speaker 3: a Talmadge orgy and was full of over four thousand
Speaker 3: Talmadge fanatics in red suspenders times of Flat Circle.
Speaker 1: So much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, and four thousand, that's that's not a small
Speaker 3: amount for like.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's it for like decent crowd today, for like
Speaker 2: for like a local.
Speaker 3: For like a local political convention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, Journalist Ralph McGill wrote, quote, Talmadge has something only
Speaker 3: few men have. He has that quality that makes men
Speaker 3: want to follow him, to fight for him, to defend
Speaker 3: him unquote. Now, Jean sent his son Herman to promise
Speaker 3: FDR that they were going to bury the hatchet quote unquote,
Speaker 3: and that they would be fully cooperative in the war effort,
Speaker 3: but Jean's personal feelings differed. I'm going to end this
Speaker 3: episode with one final quote from Anderson that kind of
Speaker 3: lays out what Gene was like going into World War two. Quote.
Speaker 3: The Nazi devastations in Europe brought out the isolationism in Talmach.
Speaker 3: He saw the conflict as a potential drain on the
Speaker 3: American economy. There was for him, little value in foreign
Speaker 3: aid taking money from the hungry farmer's pocket. Talmach singled
Speaker 3: out FDR as the main force behind America's growing involvement
Speaker 3: in the war and This increased his hatred of the man.
Speaker 3: He felt that if the United States remained strong, the
Speaker 3: country would be left alone. He said in November, quote,
Speaker 3: if you lead a bulldog around with you, nobody is
Speaker 3: likely to jump on you. Unquote. In the same breath,
Speaker 3: he warned, quote America cannot take the stand of being
Speaker 3: permanent guard for Europe. Some thought Jean's isolationism had gotten
Speaker 3: out of hand when he wrote some highly favorable editorials
Speaker 3: about to Japan in The Statesman after that country had
Speaker 3: just killed thousands of Chinese. Japan thought it had an
Speaker 3: ally in gene and invited a member of his newspaper
Speaker 3: to quote, witness the real life and the scenic beauties
Speaker 3: of Japan. They represent them to the American people through
Speaker 3: your newspaper. Unquote.
Speaker 2: There's no more natural ally for the governor of Georgia
Speaker 2: than the Empire of Japan. Let's just say it.
Speaker 3: Let's just fascist Japan. He literally sent over his employees
Speaker 3: to tell no, his employees were invited to Japan by
Speaker 3: the fascist party to like give it a glowing, a
Speaker 3: glowing review in his in his own newspapers Unit seven
Speaker 3: thirty one.
Speaker 2: Thing, Really, Sam's interesting, Why don't we try a local
Speaker 2: version of that.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Jene was an innocent duke who was
Speaker 3: so desperate to keep attention from leaving the poor farmer
Speaker 3: that he would even try to syctify war makers. Others
Speaker 3: saw this as indicative of the dark side of Gene.
Speaker 3: When people were calling him a dictator, he said, I'm
Speaker 3: what you call a minor dictator. But did you ever
Speaker 3: see anybody that was much good who didn't have a
Speaker 3: little dictator in him? Unquote He's not wrong that.
Speaker 2: He's actually not wrong about that.
Speaker 3: I mean this is like a little yeah, that is healthy.
Speaker 2: It's not just politics. Like everyone I've ever worked with
Speaker 2: who's who's a good like manager, has a little bit
Speaker 2: of that something.
Speaker 1: I feel you have to write, I feel attacked.
Speaker 2: That's how movies dior. Yeah, you need a little bit
Speaker 2: of dictator. He's not He's not wrong about that, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's the same thing, Like there's a degree to
Speaker 2: which you need that. I mean, yeah, like that's that's how.
Speaker 1: I'm being a complimented.
Speaker 2: And that's both it's accomplissent.
Speaker 3: But I mean no, like this, he like embraced this
Speaker 3: like minor dictator refrain and then to conclude from Anderson
Speaker 3: quote Jane's early admiration for Hitler, the fact that he
Speaker 3: had read Hitler's book seven times, and his tendency to
Speaker 3: surround himself with huge military staffs and nonchalantly call for
Speaker 3: martial law gave it an eerie backing to his words unquote,
Speaker 3: so yeah, that's Gene circa nineteen forty. He's sending his
Speaker 3: employees and I believe actually his own son to Japan
Speaker 3: as special guests of the Japanese government. He's reading Mine
Speaker 3: com a few too many times. I would say little.
Speaker 2: Six too many times. Yeah, I'm fine with up to one.
Speaker 3: And certainly embracing the dictatorial attacks on him by saying,
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, you, you got to be a
Speaker 3: little bit of a dictator. So, yeah, that is a
Speaker 3: big That is Gene.
Speaker 2: That's that's how I podcast. You know, a little bit
Speaker 2: of a dictator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is that is Gene. At this point, he
Speaker 3: is he's getting old, he's getting a little worn out,
Speaker 3: but he's he's he's still hanging in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he really is. Boy, this man has some
Speaker 2: staying power. Well, he's an innovator. You got to give
Speaker 2: him that.
Speaker 3: We will, we will finish this. This this four part
Speaker 3: series on gene Uh. In the next episode, where we
Speaker 3: are going to where we are going to discuss just
Speaker 3: as as a little hint, something called the Cocking Affair,
Speaker 3: which is kind of one of the last of of
Speaker 3: Jean's scandals. So get excited for that. We're gonna have
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of good cocking uh jokes.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: Talk out with our talk out, That's.
Speaker 1: What we're going to do. Behind the Bastards is a
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