WEBVTT - Part One: America's First Fascist Governor 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:02.920 Also media. 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:08.200 Hey everybody, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.360 that uh is, you know, a podcast. I don't know. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.800 I don't know what to say. Uh, you're not always 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.119 knowing what to say at the start of a week, 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:19.919 and that's where I am this week. 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:22.880 You just don't seem like you're qualified to host the 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:23.640 podcast today. 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:24.400 Yeah. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.040 No, that's that's why we've We've brought in a Ringer, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.040 our equivalent of Sophie, who's a baseball guy. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:31.440 That's not my sport. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.000 But that's not your sport. 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:35.519 That is my sport. But I don't know. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.800 You're into baseball now, okay, okay, but not guys baseball. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.440 Interesting baseball, baseball. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.400 Nate Silver, he's into baseball, the Nate Silver of baseball. 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.360 O Oh, what's the what's the guy's name from the 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.000 Dodgers that my mom would be so disappointed in? 0:00:53.080 --> 0:01:00.160 Men? Of course? Total Yeah, I know who he is. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:01.640 My mom loves him. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:06.080 And Garrison is that guy of helping me out with 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:10.080 my podcast for this week and next week, because you 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.600 know Garrison. In my culture Italians, we have a ritual 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.720 that's gone back thousands of years. When a young person 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.240 turns twenty two to celebrate their entry into adulthood, where 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.560 they research and write like a sixteen thousand word essay 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.360 on a figure from Georgia state history. This goes back 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:33.160 to ancient Roman times in which Georgia didn't exist as 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.679 a state. So actually there were no adults in Italy 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.520 for a very long period of time, which is a 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.640 large part of why the Catholic Church got up to 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:41.880 some of the trouble it got up to. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:48.560 Ooh, that's not good, absolutely not. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.720 Anyway, who are we learning about this week, buddy. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.440 So when I first moved to Georgia, kind of one 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.480 of the first people I heard about that would be 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.640 like a contender for a pretty fucked up guy is 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.880 one of the old governors. Now. He served during the 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.600 nineteen thirties, so you can already tell there's gonna be 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.160 some fucked up stuff going on. 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.200 Probably not going to be a happy story in several 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:19.079 specific ways. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.880 Yeah. So I was first told that this was like, 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:23.880 this was like Georgia's main. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.600 Fascist, and that's saying something. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.839 It is saying something. And the more I looked into him, 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.440 the more he kind of just felt like kind of 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.600 the template for like a conservative fascist like governorship, especially 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.400 this kind of new wave that we're seeing in the 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.280 United States, and he's kind of like America's first like 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.160 real fascist in some way. Now, I know people point 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.280 to Huey Long, Yeah, the governor of our neighboring state. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.440 And if you don't know, Huey Long was the governor 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.040 of Louisiana who was like kind of a dictator of 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.400 Louisiana but also rely definitely more on closer to further 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:04.640 left at least than the guy we're talking about. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.160 He was much more socially liberal. He certainly was a 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.320 dictator and in some ways kind of a more efficient dictator. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.880 He actually knew how to like be a dictator. 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.320 Well, yeah, he was the Tito of the United States. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.800 Yeah, our guy for these next few weeks that Eugene 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.160 and Talmadge. Uh was not a super efficient dictator, but 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.560 he really wanted to be and he certainly was a 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.080 fascist excellent, And that's who we're going to be looking 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.280 at for these next few weeks. And kind of how 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.800 his reign over Georgia modeled what you know, these like 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.480 like DeSantis and all these kind of new new kind 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.880 of more fascist governors kind of how they have kind 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.840 of replicated this sort of governing strategy. So that's that's 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.400 what we're looking at today. Let's start by kind of 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.320 going back to lay the groundwork for the area that 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.360 that Jean grew up in. So Jean's great grandfather was 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.280 born in New Jersey and moved to Georgia in the 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.119 early eighteen twenties after first like traveling the South while 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.080 serving under Andrew Jackson in his attack on the Creek Nation, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.400 where he drove Native Americans from Alabama and Georgia deep 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.880 into Florida. Great Grandpa Talmuch decided to settle in central 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.760 Georgia and started buying up hundreds of acres of land 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.200 and began his career as a cotton farmer. Jean's biographer, 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.320 Guy named William Anderson from Athens, Georgia, refers to this 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.080 period as the birth of cotton culture. He was part 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.440 of a large wave of settlers moving into the Deep 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.599 South after the indigenous tribes were killed off and forcibly 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.680 relocated by Andrew Jackson. During this period, there was certainly 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.279 a desire for slaves as like a status symbol and 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.640 obviously to help with like farm labor. Especially he didn't 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:49.240 have a big family. Now it's unclear. If Jean's family 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:54.800 had slaves, like they certainly would have liked them, but it. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.600 Wasn't the tower im economically to be able to afford them. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.160 At least not for like his grandparents. Yeah, and they 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:02.800 had a large enough family that they kind of ran 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.520 their farm that way. Now, it is a little tricky 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.800 to find tons of information on this guy on Eugene Talmage, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.880 because he's really looked over as a historical figure because 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.360 he represented a moment that people would rather just kind 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.039 of blaze past. He was like an unfortunate obstacle in 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.839 the inevitable progress of history, so people kind of just 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.240 skipped over him largely in the history books. There's really 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.320 only one one book that gets into him in depth. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.360 That's his biography of the Wild Man from Sugar Creek 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.359 by Willie Anderson, which did a whole bunch of interviews 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:39.080 with like friends, enemies, political associates, and rivals to kind 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.800 of draw a picture of this guy. Now, that book 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.920 was published in the seventies, but about like thirty years 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:53.000 after Jean's demise, and it certainly criticizes Gene for his racism, 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:54.720 but there's only so much you can do for being 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.880 you know, a book about Southern history written by a 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:58.760 guy raised in this period in. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.479 They were at a specific in that stage and it 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:03.800 was not where we are now. Yeah. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.560 So I've also kind of supplemented some of the research 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.599 that that Willie Anderson did in that book with a 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:11.560 few other books like Race and Racism in the United 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.040 States by Charles A. Gallagher and Cameron D. Liftd, as 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:16.680 well as the book Labor in the South by f 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:17.400 Ray Marshall. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.920 Now I am choosing to read that as Gallagher the 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.120 stage comedian Garson. Do you know who Gallagher was? 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.520 I have heard of a man named Gallagher. 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.359 Oh, that's a shame. He was well, he wasn't very good, actually, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.000 but he was a guy who hit fruit with a 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.520 mallet anyway. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:38.480 Wow. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.960 So now to kind of demonstrate how there's certain periods 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.920 of Southern history that's kind of just skipped over by 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.560 the history books. We don't really know what Jean's family 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.920 was up to during the Civil War. They were certainly 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:52.800 certainly were pro Confederates. 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:55.560 I think we know kind of what they were up 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:56.599 to during the Civil War. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.359 Yes, it's just not discussed in great detail. Yeah, but 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.440 Jean's father, a man named Thomas Ramalgous Talmadge, which is 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.200 a fantastic Southern name. He grew up in the wake 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.800 of the Civil War during the reconstruction era. Now Thomas 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.480 had the then rare privilege of attending the University of Georgia, 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.440 but returned to his grandfather's land to continue to farm 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.560 and process cotton, and he got wealthy by learning that 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.920 there was more money in the processing of cotton rather 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.200 than just the growing of it. Now Thomas married a 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.520 girl named Carrie Roberts, the daughter of the so called 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.480 meanest man in Jasper County, a lawyer named Eugene Roberts, 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.280 and the couple had their first son in eighteen eighty 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.360 four and named him after Carrie's father. This is Geene Talmadge. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.400 What a night. That's we really don't have that anymore, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.880 like being able to be like the meanest man in 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.960 a county. He's the meanest man in Essper. I couldn't 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.240 tell you what the meanest man in Moltnomah County was. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.119 I couldn't tell you the meanest man in any county 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.480 I've ever lived in. Yeah, And that's that's really that's 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.960 an example of how we've lost are the collective speed 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:01.720 that once made this nation great. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.840 I mean, that's kind of a Eugene Talviadge believed he 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:06.320 was right. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.880 We could make Robert the meanest man in Milton, Noma 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:11.679 County easily. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:13.559 Yeah, that's true. 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:14.679 That's true. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:16.880 I don't know. We have a lot of cops, although 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:17.600 they don't live here. 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:25.240 So also true. Now, Thomas wasn't raising his kids to 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.440 just be simple farm hands, and he works to guarantee 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.880 that his children had the highest quality education provided in 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.000 the area. Now, Gene was kind of a sickly kid, 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.720 and he remained a little bit sickly throughout his whole life. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.439 He was very, very lean, very thin, and it was 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.640 apparent to his family from a very young age that 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.520 he would not be one to labor away in the fields. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.960 Anderson writes he tried the plow as a boy, but 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:56.440 his mind was recognizably his strong suit. Now, Jean's dictorial 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.800 ambitions could be seen from quite an early age, as 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.440 his childhood hero was none other than Napoleon. Ah see, 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:07.280 which is a media red flag. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.160 Yeah, a red flag. That's a red flag. 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.120 If your kid's into Napoleon, you gotta stop that ship 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:14.240 cracked down hard. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.560 I spent all my time reading Hitler books as a 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.240 little kid, and that only turned out marginally better. 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.000 So, no, you you're the best case scenario for a 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.480 kid Butler books. 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.200 But Napoleon was definitely the Hitler of that period. And yeah, 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.560 you just got He needed more, you know what, Garrison, 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.160 he needed more time with the plow. You know, a 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.280 little more time with that plow would have fixed him up, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.559 maybe enough that he gets threshed and he doesn't ever 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:39.679 learn how to read better. 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:44.600 He was not built for the plow. And Gene was 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.920 really obnoxious about it too. I'm going to read a 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.440 quote from Anderson here. Quote. He baited family members and 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.360 house guests by betting them he could quote passages from 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.839 a volume of Napoleon's biography that he constantly carried around. Absolutely, 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.640 you don't think I can do it, he would say, 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.160 until someone would answer that they didn't believe he could. 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.880 A verbatim quote would then issue forth, and its length 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.640 and precision never failed to impress all who heard it. Unquote. 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.040 I think, Look, I'm not I'm not an expert parent here, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:15.640 but I think the right way to respond to that 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.120 a parent, you get a you get a you get 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.360 a sprayer and you you just spray him in the 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.320 face a little bit. Every time they try to like 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.920 get you, to get you to ask him a Napoleon quote, 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.839 you just get him, right, yeah, yeah, bout like no, yeah, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:31.320 you know what it's like. You know when I heard him. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:32.880 You just want to teach them, like that's not how 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.200 we behave in public. You know, a little bit of water. 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.760 Yeah, Genga's cons on the line Napoleon hard no, yeah, 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:44.040 hard no, just to say, well, we're time, Robert, you're 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:44.960 not a parent. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:51.160 Let I have I have two entire cats, sure, and 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.359 I raised them, and I mean definitely your parenting strategy. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:11:02.280 Yeah, nice cat spray. Uh uh huh. Cats are fine 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.880 around tan, right, Garrison's other kinds of explosion. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:06.600 They might just use it as a litter box, honestly. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.600 Yeah. Essentially just started tracking at all over the house. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.520 You know, there's no reason you couldn't, and then you 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.840 can blow it up afterwards. This is not anymore the 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.040 litter Just shoot it just once a week. Take your 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.520 box at ten right into the backyard. Just shoot it 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.840 with a three o eight. This is perfect. Oh man, 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.240 I think I've got a new product idea. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.280 That's certainly a better idea than what Gene was up 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.000 to as a kid, because he was quite the little bastard. 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.720 As a twelve year old, he had his private pony 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:46.400 and buggy ride to his school, the Hillard Institute for Boys, 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:51.040 just insufferable, and he was also a debate kid. Schoolmates 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.120 recounted he was a very skilled debater who almost like 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.719 never lost and had a very devilishous spirit. He was 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.840 also quite a mean child, as the grandson of the 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.920 meanest man in Jasper County. Jean said that the quote 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.120 N word boys I grew up with would call me 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.559 mean lou Jean because I was so damn mean unquote, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.320 and this continued all throughout his life. He was consistently 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.880 not just like extremely racist, but like just in general 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:23.400 a very cruel man. Yeah, Like for fun, he would 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.360 he would just start fights between boys at school and 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:26.960 he would just sit and watch them go at it. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.920 This is also something he continued to do late into 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:31.360 his career. He didn't want to be a part of 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.360 the fighting, he just wanted to watch it happen. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.200 I I He's reminded me a little bit of Peter 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.880 Teal because I'm working on his episodes. Now, so I'm 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.720 reading about him as a child, and Teal wasn't exactly 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.160 this kind of kid, but there's this like this commonality 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.720 and like they recognize that they're smarter than other people, 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.480 and their primary, the primary thing that they take from 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.000 that is I should fuck with them. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.040 Yeah. Yeah, no, he that's like. 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:58.320 And I need to be ruling them. 0:12:58.400 --> 0:12:58.600 Yeah. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:03.600 His capacity to manipulate people and gain pleasure out of that, yeah, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.600 and then eventually wheeled power over them. That's definitely like 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.600 an early drive, and like that's why he liked Napoleon, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.040 Like that's when you found a Compoleon figure. 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.480 We need to just all Napoleon books. We need to 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.640 coat in like a form of lithium that just gets 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.199 in through your skin and really just lithium. These kids 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:21.760 the fuck out. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.280 Honestly, that's the right that might have happened to Geen 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:31.199 because he spoiler alert, he didn't live super long, so 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.000 he may have very well been poisoned by a great 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.640 many things that were around this area of like rural 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.160 Georgia in the twenties thirties. 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.679 People talk about microplastics, just thinking about all the ways 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.640 that they're going to damage our reproductive health. And lead 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.840 to cancer clusters. YadA, YadA, YadA. Think of how many 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.440 assholes are going to check out early thanks to that stuff. 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.120 You know, we could really dodge a few major bullets there. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.960 Every week, I buy a palette of bottled water and 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.240 I just hook it in the back of a high school. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:01.640 You know. 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:04.040 What is what? 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:05.800 Continue Garrison. 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.000 So, although Napoleon was the childhood hero of Gene, a 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.680 populist speaker named Tom Watson was his first real like 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.880 political inspiration on the local level. Anderson writes that Watson 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.240 became Gene's quote unquote spiritual leader and that Gene was 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.760 quote fascinated by his fiery style, understanding of the rural mind, 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.320 and his electrifying manner of speech on quote Now, Watson 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:36.160 later became like a kind of like politician and lawyer who, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.880 as as he got older, got increasingly racist and increasingly 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.920 anti Semitic, as kind of as liberalization was setting in 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.600 the twentieth century, what he would do. He just goes 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.520 Georgia just blaming black people and Jewish people for like 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.960 all of the resulting economic complications that like liberalism and 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.960 modernism was was like encroaching onto Georgia. So this is 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.360 this is Gene's like real, like real like local hero 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.400 the guy he actually he's like. Gene knows he's not 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.680 going to be like an actual Napoleon, but he can 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:11.240 be a Tom Watson. So later in college, Gene would 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.360 brag about how far he would walk to attend to 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.760 Tom Watson's speech, and he would just get so excited 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.040 talking about it that he would start walking around and 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.840 pacing around the room telling his friends. So he was 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.920 super into this guy now, Like his father, He attended 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.360 the University of Georgia in Athens, where he served as 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:33.840 football manager and was a champion debater. He continue to 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.520 be a debate kid until his death. After school, he 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.240 started teaching in the small farming town of Auburn, Georgia, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.000 which he quickly found to be quite boring. Jane loved 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.720 debate and like intellectual combat, so he decided to go 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.240 back to Athens enroll in law school to become a 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.760 lawyer like his hero Tom Watson. He graduated in nineteen 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.840 oh seven and moved to Atlanta to work in a 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.480 law firm, but he was still just very unsatisfied with work. 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.840 He just wasn't doing very well. Jean's father didn't really 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:04.880 know how to help him because he was quote unquote 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.680 so goddamn. Mean, it's like even his father knew, like 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.840 you just can't succeed in life because you're just like 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:11.760 a cruel person. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:12.400 Yeah. 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.800 Now, a friend of his father, a legislator named William Peterson, 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.360 offered for Gene to stay at his home with his 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.200 sister in the small town of a Ley in South 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.640 Georgia to straighten him out. There he could live cheaply 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.280 and start his own law practice. Another woman was living 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.360 in the house, a young widow with a child from 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.840 South Carolina named Mitt or nicknamed Mitt. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.880 What what year is he in school? What year was this? 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.600 He graduated law school in nineteen oh seven? Okay, so 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.320 he moved this is this is around like the late 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.000 like like seven nineteen aughts. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.240 Yeah, so technically he could have been a Rhodes Scholar, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.400 but he wasn't. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.080 I guess, so we all could have been a Rhodes 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:57.040 school I. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.360 Think Rhodes scholar was like nineteen oh two, nineteen oh 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.880 three when it first started, So technically he could have been. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:03.720 I guess. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:04.200 So I guess. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:09.320 So, okay, so Mitt from South from South Carolina didn't 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.560 really like that a city slicker was going to be 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:13.840 living in the same house as her. So when Gine arrived, 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.520 she quickly met him first to charge him just an 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.320 exuberant rent to scare him off, but he agreed, and 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.480 the two, actually you started to get along quite well. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:32.399 Gene appreciated her for, as he said, her sassiness. Anderson 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.800 writes that her independent nature as well as her quote 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:39.920 infectious sense of humor, complimented the talmadge wit unquote. So 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.879 they quickly got along and a courtship began, which resulted 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:44.320 in Gene having to move out of the house, as 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.160 it would be improper for the couple to be living 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.760 under the same roof. Of course, so Jane relocated to 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.639 the nearby community of Mount Vernon, where he had a 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.080 small law office across from the courthouse with an older 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.880 lawyer named Colonel Underwood, another great Southern name. This this, 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.680 this whole story is is peppered with some just fantastic names. 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.479 Now in Mount Vernon, he gained reputation for being a 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.760 short tempered dick, which he was. There was one time 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.120 he falsely blamed a neighbor kid for letting out his 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.280 pony and threatened to beat the hell out of the kid. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.760 An old Mount Vernon local called him, quote the meanest 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.639 son of a bitch I've ever met, unquote. So this 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.680 is in Kikika did just to be like a really 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.600 veen guy. And he was not a very popular man, 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.359 not just because of his bubbly personality, but also because 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.480 the sort of cases he took on, which were often 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.159 ones that like older and more established lawyers could afford 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.640 to pass up on. So like murders, muggings, and dealing 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.840 with clients just so poor that they could only pay 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.720 in chicken, eggs and milk, Jene took just nearly every 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.760 case offered. Anderson writes of one instance where Eugene defended 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.040 a black woman quote who was so poverty stricken that 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.880 she gave him her four young boys as partial payment, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.920 or perhaps because she could not afford to keep them. 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.240 I mean, first off, I gotta say, what else are 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:02.920 you gonna do with four young boys? Garrison? 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.800 It's it's this is this is a pretty uncomfortable little, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:13.400 uh little tidbit here. Uh, I don't Robert Jean took 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.480 the boys and fixed a place for them in a 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:17.280 small barn behind his house. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.640 Sounds nice. That's like an a du Sure, the. 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.080 Boys did odd jobs around the house, and stories still 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.239 circulated about how he used to beat the hell out 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.119 of them when they bade him. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.359 Now it's gotten problematic, you know. 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.680 Oh not the not the kind of sort of slavery. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.439 It was starting starting to sound like, couldn't look there 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:42.200 was no slavery here, you know, babes Robert, it's absolutely slavery. Curious, 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.800 it is like its adjacent to slavery. I was thinking 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:48.840 it was like the reverse of three men in a baby, 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:50.879 four kids, and a guy who wants to be the 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:52.920 dictator of Georgia. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:59.639 I don't think it's that charming, now, Okay. Ederson closes 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.119 is this litle anecdote by saying, there's no proof that 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:06.680 he kept them, but the rumor still does for six children. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.600 What a horrible thing to have someone say about you. 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.359 We have also, we also just have no clue like 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.080 what happened to these kids, where did they go? How 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.639 long he had them? They just kind of they just 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.000 kind of disappeared from his biography after like a few paragraphs. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.240 They're just like, oh, well, sure, so you. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:33.080 Children do something we'll never know to them, Yeah. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.320 Don't finish that thought. 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:37.560 But I don't. I can't. 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.520 We don't know what happened to them now. Geene and 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.320 Mit got married in nineteen oh nine, and she and 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.240 her son John moved into the small Mountain Vernon home, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.399 where they lived for two years as Gina struggled as 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.520 a lawyer. Now they were just doing so poorly that 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.159 Gene decided to quit law altogether and move onto midst 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.000