Part Three: America's First Fascist Governor

Garrison and Robert return to discuss Eugene Talmadge’s takeover of state finances and his fight against the new deal.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh, Sophie, one of these days, I'm gonna do that,
and it's gonna sound like I'm doing another like a
tonal shriek. But then I'm just gonna like jump right
into the opening soundtrack from The Lion King, and you're
gonna be fucking amazed.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
What's so wild is when you did that, I was
immediately thinking of Lion King, like I think you're almost there.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Were I was very very close. I was very close.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
I wasn't thinking the Lion King. I'll say it. I'm
not going to be grit ced.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
You grew up with the bad Lion King, not the
good one.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
That's not true. Fuck off.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I assume you were raised on the Donald Glover
Lion King. What a mistake, What a horrible mistake.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Why would you ever do another version? Garrison was not
born last Thursday? What are we doing?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I don't remember when the new Disney movies come out.
I just know they have off putting cgi versions of
all together for four years.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's terrible. Sound right, I think it doesn't sound Wronger, No,
it's been four years. Sophie's well, yeah, slightly.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm going to tell you right now, my mental health
is going to plummet the day you're able to rent
a car. It's going to be a disase.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's coming soon. It's coming soon.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
The the the Donald Glover Lion King predates predates us,
because that was twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Okay, okay, all right, all right, all right, anyway, welcome
to behind the Bastards. I guess we have this new
cold open thing, which I'm still not super familiar with.
But uh, it's pretty pretty chilly. So it's pretty chilly
in here.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
It's pronounced chile Garrison, and it's it's correct. The difference
between you know you you're yeah. Sorry, I don't have
an additional bit beyond that, but I got you there,
nailed it.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I really set you up for that one.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
He really did. What are we talking about today, buddy?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Oh? Just a normal guy from the nineteen thirties, seemed
to Eugene Talmage.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hell yeah, let's get back into.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
It right where we left off. Jean had as little
racism convention to try to oust FDR. Right, he has
his eyes set on the presidency, and he was really.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
The only tactic for ousting FDR was it was racism.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, ever shooting workers, Yeah, because everyone else loved him.
They're like, well, he's not racist enough. Let's try that.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Let's see if that works.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
The other pressing problem for Gene at this junction is
that in the previous year, the state failed to secure
an appropriation spill, so there's no way for the state's
finances to work going into nineteen thirty six. And this
is kind of Gene's main problem, especially after his little
failed racism convention. So at this point we're kind of

(02:44):
early in nineteen thirty six. The state does have money,
it just has no legal process to divert or spend
that money. So in order to use the cash, Gene
needs to convince the treasurer to sign checks on unappropriated funds,
which is technically constitutional, but by I would say, creatively
interpreting the law. Gene claimed that he could write check

(03:08):
some money appropriated as far back to nineteen thirty three,
using funds that were not paid in full. He also
requested that various state departments hold on to their tax
collections or just give them directly to Gene and fully
bypass the treasury. So this was his plan to kind
of hold on to money. Now, Unfortunately for Gene, the
treasurer had already begun receiving tax payments from the various

(03:31):
state departments, and by February thirteenth, the state had begun
to run out of operating funds. Now days later, Gene
proclaimed the state would have the exact same appropriations bill
as in nineteen thirty five, arguing that since the legislature
already approved that budget, it was thus legal indefinitely, which
is not just not how state budgets work. Now, the

(03:54):
Treasurer was of the opinion that this whole affair was
veering on unconstitutionality.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
He was worried, Garrison, I need you to say that
word again.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Okay, all right, it's it's a long's there's a lot
of syllables in here.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Unconstitutional, unconstitutionality is unconstitutionality, Okay, okay, okay, unconstitutionality. That's probably
a word.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, it's mostly a word. It was, it was he
was scared of his unconstitutional word. I'm pretty sure this
is a word, Sophie. You've no.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I'm so tired. I'm so tired.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
I can't it's a word. Unconstitutionality. That's a word.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Robert and I are.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Both so fucking tired.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
You can just tell.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
According to according to the Cornell Law Institute.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Shout out Cornell. My grandma went there. Now.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
The treasurer, a guy named George Hamilton, was also worried
that Talmage might just try to personally seize all the
states cash kept in banks around the state, possibly with
millions falling falling into the direct control of Gene. So
treasure Hamilton asked FDR to secure state bonds in federal
vaults so that Gene couldn't legally access them, and FDR

(05:06):
was apparently happy to make life harder for Eugene Talmage.
I'm going to quote from Gene's biography by William Anderson. Quote,
the Treasurer carefully drilled his staff on what to do
in the event he was thrown out of office. They
were to remove all collateral bonds and cash from state vaults,
set an eight hour timelock on the empty vault, and
run for the Federal Reserve and the local banks where

(05:28):
they were to deposit both cash and bonds. Speed was
essential because of the closeness of the treasurers at the
Governor's office. Unquote. It's just like they were basically had
their offices just across the hallway. We don't they have enough.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know what we don't have enough of in modern
politics is capers. You know there is the capers. That's
a caper.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, there's some good capers in this episode, so uh speak.
Speaking speaking of capers, I love bagels. Now, Talmidch wanted
to test his own power by asking the school superintendent,
a guy named M. D. Collins, and the asylum warden
to put in requests for money, pressuring the treasurer to

(06:11):
write the checks. Now, the treasurer caught worded this ahead
of time, and, not wanting to be caught denying funds
to schools and mental patients, he contacted the superintendent ahead
of time and made secret arrangements to send him into hiding,
putting him up in putting him up in an Atlanta hotel. So,
as expected, Jeane went looking for the superintendent and was

(06:33):
quite pissed when he just couldn't find him anywhere in
the city.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Again, what happened to Caper's right? Why don't we do
this anymore? All we got all we have now is
like fascism and very disappointing. Governors want to I want
a caper, Tim Walls, go steal the declaration of independence,
you know, get out there.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
They didn't have like sell phoes, they didn't have like email.
You couldn't send official requests digitally. You had to actually
you had to actually find five physically.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
And then it was very easy to just put someone
in a basement and gape them there.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, just keep someone hiding in a hotel in downtown
Atlanta and you just like can't find us.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, they might as well be on the fucking moon.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah. So, on February twentieth, as Gene was still looking
for mister Collins, the Comptroller and the Treasurer publicly announced
that they would not be signing checks for the governor,
claiming his proclamation was invalids having a grandfather clause which
avoided the old unspent appropriations, and declared this now a
constitutional battle. The press had basically all turned on Jeane

(07:40):
at this point, tired from his antics, and an Atlanta
Constitution headline read the Governor's legal attempt at dictatorship Now
four years later.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
You got to have some respect for a title that
tells it like it is.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
There's some this some pretty good like nineteen thirties headlines
that we're going to get to today.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, I mean journalists made a comfortable income and had
like support staff and stuff back then. So yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Now, four days later, Jean wrote an executive order firing
a comptroller Harrison and a treasurer Hamilton, and both of
whom declared that they would have to be literally thrown
out of office. I'm going to quote from Anderson again. Quote.
This tactic was designed to make Gene look militaristic, a bully,
a dictator who ruled not by law but by force.

(08:26):
Since Jean's martial law order from September nineteen thirty four
was still in effect, that's like a year and a
half later. He just had the state under marshal law
for like a year and a half. He had the
National Guard at his disposal. Upon hearing the men would
not leave, he ordered the adjunct to General Lindley Camp,
who had been waiting for this, to take a couple
of plainclothes men and get Harrison out of his office.

(08:48):
It was early in the morning. Camp was not a
violent man. He asked Harrison politely but firmly, to leave.
You're no longer comptroller, and you'll have to leave this office.
Camp said Harrison, and seated behind his desk looked disappointed
that no armed force had shown up. He asked, where
are the soldiers? Camp leaned long over the desk and drawled,

(09:10):
I'm some soldiers. Harrison got up and incredible. Some soldiers
is pretty good. There's not all all of.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
The riz in every single elected leader in the country
right now doesn't add up to that line. I'm sorry,
we just we just we don't have that kind of
we don't have that kind of juice anymore.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Oh, Treasurer Hamilton put up.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Sophy say, it's the quietly getting up and leaving for me.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like, you can't respond to that.
You just have to get up to leave.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
You've lost You've lost that engagement. It's time to just
leave the room now.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Hamilton, the treasurer, put up a bit more of a fight,
at least according to Jean's assistant Henry Sperlin, who recounted
the ordeal quote, I went in in fan Hamilton sitting
at his desk. I told him he would have to
leave his office at once. He pulled a large pistol
out and placed it on the desk and said, I
am my favorite negotiating tactic. It's good, he said, I

(10:17):
am constitutionally elected to this office, and I have the
means to protect it.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
You just convinced me to run for office, because man,
that would be fun. That would feel good, That would
feel good.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Continuing from Spurlin quote, I turned around and went back
across the hall to the Governor's office and told him
that George had a big pistol on the desk and
was refusing to leave. Jean blew up.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Knowing the Times that was like a thirty eight.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Jean blew up and started yelling for the adjunct to
General at the top of his lungs, Lindley, Lenley, Lenley.
About that time, the Adjunct General came walking through the
door and said, to keep quiet, Governor. I heard you
all the way across the street.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
So fine.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
So the actric General, along with some some soldiers, went
into Hamilton's office and literally picked him up out of
his chair, and while being carried out at his office,
Hamilton yelled to his assistants who were running around with
the last of the Treasury's bonds in cash.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Anderson says that that the guardsman just.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
The wrong turn in this country.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
We took, we took a wrong turn in this country.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
So much more exciting. We used to do it, right,
That's a democracy you can be proud of. Right, then
you're reading about.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah oh yeah. Now. Anderson says that the guardsman brought
his assistants were just like running from the capitol in fear,
when in actuality, they were taking the last of the
state's money to be deposited in FDR's federal vaults. So
after Hamilton was read from the Capitol, he contacted the
bank telling him that he was still in fact the

(11:59):
legal treasurer and instructed them to not pay out any
money and told the post office to not deliver any
mail directed to the Treasurer to Jean's new replacement, a
guy named Toby Daniel, and the post office complied with this.
I guess people justked Hamilton. I'm Nico from Maerson here. Quote.
It had been a long and busy day in the
state government, a day which ended in total confusion about

(12:22):
who controlled what. Hamilton was seen just before dark attacking
his nameplate and title on a door across town as
Jane prepared to move on the state vaults. Unquote. I
dislike that Treasurer. Hamilton just set up his own like
fake office across town be like, you know, I'm obviously
still the treasurer. I'm gonna make myself my own office.

(12:44):
So the next day, Jean's new treasurer, Toby Daniel, went
to the vaults and he found them sealed shut with
this eight hour time lock. Jane was never known as
a patient man, so he ordered locksmith's to cut open
this safe with gas torches. As soldier stood. Guard men
cut open the vaults to find nothing. They were complete.

(13:04):
That's completely empty. Oh that's fun. That's that's a good God. Damn,
it's a good image. Yeah, Eugene talented with a cigar
and some soldiers looking at people cut open a vaults
gas torches. Do it find nothing? Yeah? No, It's like
it's a fantastic caper. So Gene was extremely upset at this,

(13:30):
and he said, seemed.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Like the kind of guy who would take that in
the spirit of good fair play.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
No, no, no. He sent Toby Daniel to the Fulton
National Bank to cash out one hundred grand, but the
bank refused to honor the check. Every sequence of events
left Gene just getting more and more pissed. He wrote
an angry letters to bank president, telling him that the
bank would have to now pay seven percent interest on
this state's nine hundred thousand dollars, and if they didn't

(13:56):
want to deliver cash to Toby Daniel, the governor's executive assistant,
would be authorized to accept the state's money. The bank
continued to refuse to hand over any cash, saying that
it was the quote unquote unanimous decision of the council
of all the clearinghouse banks that they could not feel
entirely safe until there had been some judicial determination over
the question of the state's financial situation. To quote Anderson

(14:20):
here quote Hamilton's strategy had worked. Gene exploded in anger,
turning his fury erroneously on the legislature and the federal government.
He said a clique in the House of Representatives had
hatched a plot a year earlier in Washington, trying to
force the state to call an extra session to drain
off money and force Jane to raise taxes. He said

(14:40):
the mess was deliberately brought on by the new Deal unquote. Now,
the Georgia Constitution required that the treasurer be bonded before
assuming office, but no local bonding company wanted to be
anywhere near this shit show. But Jean's friend John Whitley,
found an insurance company all the way in Fort's Scott,

(15:00):
Kansas that would bond Toby Daniel for three hundred thousand dollars.
Jean asked the highway board chairman, a guy named mister Wilbur,
to put up sixty five thousand, which he quite reluctantly
agreed to, and John Whitley covered the rest. Jean's lstreak
continued when it was learned just days later that seventeen
million dollars in federal road funds were being held because

(15:21):
Jeans spent three million dollars of this money on other
state expenses, which not allowed. Not cool. You can't do that.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
I mean, I feel like you should be able to
do whatever you can get away with as the governor, right,
like that ought to be the rule. It's like cheating
at poker. Right, as long as they don't catch you
in the act, you're good.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
The problem is that that they is that they always
caught him. That was the problem.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, that is an issue.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
And George Hamilton at this point was promising to fight
to the last to see that the law shell rule
and not a tyrannical despot who has gone mad with
egotism Now, According to the Atlanta Journal, thirty six out
of forty four state papers were now against Talmage, with
the Gainesville Eagle writing he has out heralded Herod in

(16:07):
a despotic dictatorial action that transcends the throttling of Louisiana
by Huey Long. Anderson writes. A survey of newspapers from
across the state reflected the shock and repulsion many had
felt for this latest example of Talmadge enforcing his will.
The Cordell Dispatch worried he's gonna be worse than Hitler

(16:28):
or Mussolini, which which isn't true.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
That's not that this is this is nineteen thirty gotta
get At this point in twenty twenty four, we could
confidently say not as bad as either of those kids.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Cornell Dispatch debugged, Sorry, your prediction was wrong.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
It would have been pretty funny if, like his his
term had ended with the United States Marines occupying Atlanta,
like the just bombing it to craters.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, so that that would has that would has been
debunked there. The nineteen thirty six prediction did did not
come to pass.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's a tragic situation.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
The Columbias Inquirer wrote that he is a quote paper
machet dictator, a sort of amusing political clown who slipped
into the governor's office during the storm of the depression,
which is I would say is more accurate. The Brunswick
News asked how long Georgia would have to be quote
misruled by this crazy governor who suffers hallucinations of grandeur

(17:26):
and imaginary greatness. Gene's answer to all of that was
that this was a political plot to keep him off
the campaign trail, saying, this invasion of states rights can
hold me in Georgia, but the New Deal is going
to be defeated this year. So at this point, Roosevelt's
and supporters were trying to get the state Democratic Chairman,
Hugh Howell to call for a presidential primary to further

(17:46):
embarrass Gene during the financial crisis and add to the
pressure facing Talmage. But Howell and Talmadge knew what was
up and didn't take the bait, especially since Roosevelt was
absolutely dominating Talmage in even like the most like rule polls.
He was not very popular during this whole financial crisis.
On the first of March, the third month into this crisis.

(18:08):
Gene met with all the banks and asked for the
state's money to be released, which they again denied. Anderson notes,
quote it was the kind of request he did not
like to make, particularly since they refused him. He stormed out,
saying he would scorch the bankers. His plan was to
write checks to pay for school bills. If the bankers
refused to honor them, public pressure would be directed away
from Gene. It didn't work, unquote, so in response to this,

(18:32):
Gene quote unquote fired the banks, and the bank's attorney
asked the Fulton Superior Court to rule on which treasurer
could legally sign checks. Gene filed a lawsuit with the
Post Office for not delivering the Treasurer's mail to Daniel,
and Daniel filed a lawsuit in a lower court against
Hamilton and hopes that would force him to reveal where
the collateral bonds were being kept, as still nobody could

(18:53):
find where they were. So at this point, you like
all of the business leaders for calling for a special
legislative session to end this crisis. The editor of the
Constitution of the newspaper privately promised a glowing editorial of
Gene if he called for a special session to pass

(19:14):
an appropriations bill, prompting other papers to do the same,
with a Gene then emerging from this crisis as a hero.
But the editor warned that if Gene refused to call
a session, the newspaper would do everything in its power
to get him impeached the majority of the state Senate signification.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Imagine a newspaper having any juice at all in an
election at this point the constitution in simple period of time.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
At this point like this, this specific paper held a
great deal of power in the state.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, no, no, no, I mean that used to be. There
were a lot of papers that were powered both like
regionally and in the cut. Like, it's just we're in
a completely different media situation now.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Nowadays the AJAC is still like an influential paper in
like city and state politics in Georgia, but it's not
what it was and then I.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Thirties, No one you would not have I mean, it'd
be fascinating to see someone try, but like an editor
go out and say, like, we will write you a
great editorial if you if you carry out this policy, right.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
But if you don't, we're gonna get too beached.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, like that's just a completely different planet in terms
of print media influence.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
At this point, i'm majority of the Senate sign a
petition pleading for a special session, but Gene claimed that
there was no emergency, thus no reason to call for
a special session, and on March fourteenth, the court ruled
that neither Hamilton nor Daniel could withdraw money that had
not been appropriated, but did not yet rule on which
man was the legal treasurer. When Gene tried to get

(20:43):
checks written on oil tax money, a judge legally prohibited
money from being paid out to the new comptroller, and
on March eighteenth, the oil companies threatened to withhold their
tax payments until Gene removed their monetary liability to quote
Anderson quote. The next day, Hamilton asked the courts to
a judge him as trusure, and the state's labor leaders
saw an injunction against Daniel. On March twenty third, the

(21:04):
state revenue commissioner quit. By the end of that week,
Jeane had bought radio time to defend his actions and
explain his reasons for fighting FDR. On air, he said
he was no dictator, but that he had no alternative
but to run the state's finances in order to feed
the sick and the insane. Unquote, he's not bad at spin.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
You knownforunate nothing. I think that probably would work today
on a disappointing number of the people.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, people are very susceptible to dictators, as I'm sure
everyone who's been looking at politics the past eight years
is well aware. The financial crisis neared its end starting
April eleventh, when four out of the six judges overseeing
the case disqualified themselves by having affiliations with the banks. Now,
this was Jane's saving grace, as it was his legal

(21:50):
duty to replace the judges, so he just picked four
of his friends, and a month later, the judges formally
ruled in Gene's favor five to one. The banks released
the money, Hamilton returned the collateral bonds hidden in the
federal vaults, and the flow of federal highway funds went
back to the state. Talmadge supporters were a static. His secretary,

(22:11):
Carlton Mobley later said, quote, the man was unbelievable. We
used to all worry like hell when he'd get himself
into these situations. There would seem no possible way he
could come out on top and then at the darkest
moment he would land on his feet unquote. So that
that that is how Gene navigated this little, this little

(22:32):
financial crisis and some and somehow came out on top.
Do you know what also likes topping?

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Well, Garrison, whoa, whoa. I'm gonna know, I'm gonna I'm
I'm gonna correct you there, because when Sophie and I
started this podcast, you know, we had big story session.
We're working out what we were going to accept from advertisers,
and I remember it was like hour eight or nine.
You know, We're both sitting across the big table at
the office and we both turn at the same time
and said, only bottoms, you know, And that's been our

(23:03):
guiding principle in terms of advertisers from the beginning here.
You know, that's that's that's really our only standard. We'll
take X on mobile, clear bottom. We wouldn't take British petroleum,
that's a top.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Obviously, we wouldn't take X on mobile.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
We would take X on. We wouldn't send us some money.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Guys, they tried, that's a switch.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Chevron's a clear switch. We're not taking them, Chevron asked us.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Both it was both.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
It was both.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
We've gotten, but we've gotten We've gotten requests from both
to do like sustainability campaigns for both those guys.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yes, we do turn down money people. Yeah, not often,
but we do.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah. No, Okay, we are so back, man, George. George
is doing great right now. We just had a massive
chemical fire, which makes my throat feel terrible, and I
still have to I still have to read through three
thousand words.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
I made this the other day. But you're really a
Southerner when the town you live in has been blanketed
and poisoned because a chemical factory has exploded because it
got bought by a private equity company who then gutted
the operations staff and completely fucked all of the safety procedures.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
The air is terrible.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
I lived in West and it was the same thing
where like they had a fire they had not like
they were reliant upon like a volunteer firefighting team that
had not been properly trained in chemical fires. They put
water on said fire, and it exploded and wiped out
the whole fire department.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, Georgia is strong right now. We're really hanging in there. Case.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
No, I was looking at the map of where all
of the chlorine gas is going to be tomorrow has
his lofts end down?

Speaker 3 (24:47):
It sucks, It sucks. I woke up today with my
throat being on fire. Now. Jean was still eyeing up
an office in Washington as he couldn't run a third
consecutive term as governor, But as Gene observed just near
total widespread support for FDR, he got too afraid to
directly challenge the man and backed down. As a backup plan,

(25:10):
Jene was considering a run as George's favorite son to
stoke a brokered convention, but only if Roosevelt did poorly
in the primary. But Roosevelt ran completely unopposed in the
primary and basically won the presidency by default, ending Jane's
presidential ambitions. To quote Anderson here, what seemed like a
year long camouflaged chase after the presidency came to a

(25:31):
sputtering end. On Wednesday, June seventeenth, the State Executive Committee
meant to choose Roosevelt delegates for the national Convention and
to witness the political death of Gene Talmadge. Not to
be upstaged, the corpse came striding briskly through the lobby,
grinning broadly shaken hands and slapping backs as he moved
through the crowded lobby. One man refused to shake his hand,

(25:53):
saying sullenly he didn't want to meet any new acquaintances
that day. The explosive Talmage called the refusal and insult
and order the man to remove his glasses. Jean's instant
theory betrayed his real feelings over The meeting, mainly ensued
between the man and Jean's entourage, scattering people over the lobby.
Gene was pushed away from the scuffling, and it ended quickly.
Unquote that's sad. A good old, good old fashioned state

(26:18):
democratic fist fight. Love to see it.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
We again, we need it. Like if the if the
VP debate last night had involved a fist fight for
one thing, I do think Walls would have very clearly
won that.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
He would have want ye.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Ja d Vance obviously probably is an endurance edge. He's
much younger man. But jd Vance, there's no way he's
ever been hit in the face. He should have been anyway.
I I I support this.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
We need to, we need to return now. With the
presidency beyond Jean's grasp, he decided to challenge the popular
Richard Russell for his seat in the US Senate. Meanwhile,
the long term Chalmage loyalist Hugh Howell was hoping to
succeed Gen as governor. Once Gan announced his run for
the Senate, Howell made statements in the press talking about
how he could continue Jeane's legacy and was dropping hints

(27:03):
for Gene to endorseh but Gene eventually broke the news
that he was instead backing his personal friend Charles RedWine,
and Howell was quite upset that Gene was unwilling to
return any political favors and was caught in a weird
place since Howell still wished to kind of remain in
the Talmadge orbit, but in doing so it was inhibiting
his progress as a politician. More on him later now.

(27:28):
Jane threw another one of his big like kickoff barbecue
rallies in McRae on July fourth, where he announced red
Wine for governor and his run for the Senate, unveiling
his platform to quote unquote protected Georgia, which included outlawing
a national debt, cutting the federal budget to under a
billion dollars, removing members of the cabinet who try to
change our form of government, which I think is like
an anti communist thing.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, it may have something to do too with like
voting rights.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yes, yes, yeah, yes, because that becomes a big thing
later on when the federal government was pushing for no
more white only primaries, and he also pushed for like,
you know, other like lasi faire capitalist policies. Now, Jean
finished this rally by symbolically passing the governor's torch by
gifting RedWine his own trademark red suspenders to quote andrewsand Quote,

(28:18):
though suspicious that Talmadge had become a living political party,
were interested to see if the voter loyalty could now
be so manipulated. Could Jean project his authority onto others unquote?
Now this is a question I've certainly had regarding like
what will happen to the Republicans in twenty twenty eight,
Like depending on how this next election goes, Like how

(28:39):
are they going to survive up like a post Trump party?
Will Trump be able to pass his authority onto someone
else or will they go in a completely new direction.
That's certainly been a question on my mind. Now this
this same day, State senator and KKK member Ed Rivers
announced his candidacy for governor, running on the most liberal
platform in the state's history, which he called the Little

(29:00):
New Deal. So despite being in some ways economically progressive
for white people, he was like all these guys just
insanely racist. Gene decided just to do one speech a
week while Russell mounted an intense statewide campaign to keep
his Senate seat away from Governor Talmach, branding Gene as
a trader to the Democratic Party for his previous like

(29:22):
you know racism convention and all of his appeals against FDR. Now,
this campaign was essentially Gene against both the state and
the National Democratic Parties. Jean had no campaign manager, he
had no headquarters, and was opposing both both the state
and the National Party. He was set to make a
campaign stop in Monroe, Georgia, the site of the strikes

(29:43):
last year that Jean suppressed with concentration camps and the
National Guard. The union workers were planning to make Gene
know just how welcome he was with a gold old
fashioned egg throw in which god we should we should
bring back now word a head.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
In Australia, they've been doing it, at least they were
for a while.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yes, there's been some in the UK as well, but
I guess like milkshaking has kind of become the new
egg throwing.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah yeah, I mean it did for a while. I
feel like that stopped bringing all the boys to the yard,
yeah a while ago.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Sad.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, that's tragedy.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Now, word of this made its way to made its
way to Gene and the National Guard arrived early to
secure the area. The rumor was that one hundred and
twenty five armed men came down from Atlanta, with locals
witnessing car loads of strangers arriving carrying pistols. Now, Lindley
Camp denied that the guardsmen were sent, saying that it
was actually local boys armed from the area who volunteered

(30:42):
to keep the peace. But the police chief claimed otherwise
and saying that they were in fact guardsmen from Atlanta.
Whatever the case. To the union workers, governor Challemage had
once again invaded their town with armed goons to do
his bidding. Like this level of like security for a
politician was uncommon for the time. It's kind of more
normalized now, but back then this was like really odd.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
It is interesting the degree to which Americans had to
be taught that you could shoot your politicians. Like, we
learned that very rapidly, and then things had to change.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, I mean, wasn't if I remember correctly, wasn't Huey
Long Shot? I think long was shot and they might
have been.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
He might have had two attempts on him, but yeah,
I think he was. I think he survived at least one.
Let's double check that though.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, no, he was. He was assassinated. Yeah, so like
and like for Jane. Because of how much this security
was uncommon for the time, it certainly did damage his
reputation as like a wanna be military dictator, although kind
of now we are very used to this type of security.
During during the Senate race, the recently promoted editor at

(31:47):
the Constitution, a guy named Ralph McGill who later became
a prominent anti segregationist journalist. He began writing about Jene's
relationship with John Whitley, the highway construction guy, and insinuated
some kind of ethical financial arrangement between the two regarding
highway construction contracts. Now twice that summer, John Whitley found
McGill at campaign events and brutally beat him to a

(32:10):
bloody pulp while threatening to kill the man if he
didn't stop writing about him, and Gene just kicking McGill
on the ground, dragging his body around in the dirt
and smashing his head into hard columns in a hotel lobby.
It was it was pretty it was pretty grisly stuff
to quote Whitley quote, I beat the lion bastard until
I got tired. I'd rest, then beat him some more

(32:30):
until he was bleeding good. Then I told him McGill,
next time I see you, I'm gonna have a pistol
and I'm going to kill the hell out of you quote,
which you could just it's it's good to know that, Auntie,
that anti journalist violence does does go back far.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
We really, I mean, you're not really doing your job
as a journalist if if people aren't saying that kind
of thing about you occasionally.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Yeah. Anderson writes that McGill wasn't too badly hurt in
the kerfuffles, but he was energy to quote unquote returned
to his typewriter with a vengeance unquote, which yeah, that yeah,
that makes sense, returned to his typewriter with a vengeance.
This race, Gene was kind of forced into playing political

(33:16):
defense for one of the first times in his career,
Russell would go would go after Jane for using racism
to distract from his otherwise empty politics, saying, when a
politician runs out of arguments, knows that in the minds
of the people, he is convicted of pure custness in
keeping the old people of Georgia from getting their pensions,
then he comes hollerin N word, N word, N word.

(33:38):
Gene responded by saying, quote, you hear false interpretations in
my service to you. Russell says, I go around yell
and N word. Well, I don't believe in sending Negroes
down here to rule over the white people, which he's
not really refuting what Russell is saying.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
No, no, you are.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
You are not killing those rumors like it's it's again,
this is everyone racist. At this time, Russell was also
a raging racist. He was a segregationist right like. He
just didn't like how Gene was kind of not very
classy about it. Jane was so like like open and
like brash. Russell was also a racist guy, but he

(34:15):
wanted politics to be something other than just blaming black
people for everything like that. That is where the bar
was at this point. Now in August, Senior Sonator George
Walter joined the Russell campaign in an effort to finally
beat Talmadge and the background politics he represented. By mid August,
Hugh Howell was refusing to campaign with Jean, and one

(34:35):
of the first to join team Talmadge, lamar Udeau from
McRae had become an advisor to Ed Rivers in the
governor's race. So Jane was bleeding support and losing allies.
Now that the two candidates agreed to some kind of
back to back speech showdown. On August twenty sixth thirty
high school girls escorted Russell onto stage in parody of
Jean's platoon of armed guards. Anderson writes, quote, Russell thought

(34:59):
he already saw the tide turning when farmers began taking
off their red suspenders at his speeches and symbolically laying
them at his feet. Unquote, Russell addressed Talmage as old
Republican gene and this is where we start to really
see like this is the beginning of the Southern Democratic
Party stopping being Democrats, right like like FDR's forced liberalization,

(35:24):
and people like Talmage, these kind of old demagogues who
are like Democratic Party men are becoming more like the
northern conservative Republicans. So like, I think Eugene Talent, which
is kind of like the is one of the last
of these like real like southern Democrats, and a lot
of his politics very clearly paved the way for the

(35:44):
Democratic Party to kind of split away and do this
like kind of fabled like swap right where most of
these kind of supporters would would later in like ten
twenty years be voting Republican even though they forever had
always been had always been Democrats.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, yep, I mean this is this is the beginning
of I don't know if it's the end, but it's
the beginning of our current hell right, this is where
it all starts, and it all starts because people were like,
what if black folks got to enjoy some of the
benefits of the social safety net that we're constructing in

(36:21):
this country Old Republican Gene yep. So Russell came with
a list of questions that he demanded Gene answer when
it was his turn to take the stage. Base They
were mostly about like how his programs would actually help
people and how he would get money to help farmers
with his ultra conservative economic plans. But upon taking the stage,
Gene immediately discarded these questions, saying, quote, it would take

(36:43):
a Philadelphia lawyer all day to answer them quote, which
I think is an amusing old timing remark. Now, the
Russell staff took this day as a victory for their candidate,
and Gene later actually agreed. On the second to last
day of the race, a massive fistfight broke out at
his rally in Dalton, Georgia. From the podium, Gene tried

(37:04):
to stop people from breaking up the fight, saying, don't
pay any attention to them. The Talmadge boys can whip them,
let them fight it out. About half their crowd was
listening to Gene's speech, the other half were in this
ongoing brawl. The local deputy sheriff was severely beaten by
five of Jean's National guardsmen and then had all of
them arrested. We really loved to see cop On caught violence.

(37:25):
At the end of his speech, the open melee was
still raging on, and Governor Talmadge quickly left town. Come
election day, Gene lost in a massive landslide, one of
the biggest in the state's history. Jean carried only sixteen
counties to Russell's one hundred and forty three and was
beat two to one in the popular vote. The governor's

(37:46):
race had very similar results, with the New Deal candidate
Ed Rivers beating Talmadge Stooge red Wine by over one
hundred thousand votes. Longtime Talmage man Tom Linder lost his
race for Agricultural Commissioner, and George Hamilton the Treasurer, got
his revenge by just utterly destroying Toby Daniel in the
election that Daniel even lost his street that he lived

(38:07):
on in Lagrange, according to William Anderson. To quote Anderson,
it had come to be said that Gene Talmadge had
a guaranteed vote of one hundred thousand, and that statement
rang true to one hundred thousand Georgians. Gene Talmadge was
almost a deity. His hold was hypnotic and unshakable on
this core constituency. But while his stand against the New

(38:30):
Deal did not affect the vote of his own constituency,
it lost the election because of the fact that it
had on the swing vote, though the bifactional electorate either
for or against Gene seemed stronger than ever in undecided
one hundred thousand or so votes, swung the election. This
swing group was not polarized for or against Gene, and
these voters cannot be placed in a particular group that

(38:52):
had a predictable behavior. Most of them were simply convinced
that the new deal was helping them more than herding them.
Another influential factor was the high voter turnout to the
largest in Georgious history. Jane drew from a hardcore group,
and the numbers did not sluctuate much above one hundred
and forty thousand. The wealthy and the very poor had
once again combined for Gene, but he had lost the

(39:12):
labor vote, which was growing, and also much of the
middle class unquote. I find this kind of political breakdown
to be quite interesting both how even still we find
conservatives are able to get both the ultra wealthy and
the ultra poor to vote for them in a counterintuitive way,
and how Gene had this like very hardcore group of

(39:34):
supporters that viewed him as like a god and would
vote for him regardless of like anything. But he did
lose in the swing vote. Now, as for the governor's race,
Gene was able to pass off his hardcore supporters to
red Wine, getting over one hundred and twenty thousand of
these votes, but he completely failed to attract any of

(39:55):
the one hundred thousand anti Talented voters and was unable
to move any of the importan swing voters to red
Wine on his anti New Deal Talmadge inspired platform. Jean's
grip on the state Democratic Party was slipping, and he
had begun to lose to the New Deal. So, for
the first time in over ten years, in nineteen thirty seven,
Jean was out of a government job. He now spent

(40:17):
his time building his cattle herd, doing little speaking engagements,
and using his newspaper The Statesman to project his message
across Georgia. As he planned his next move, his eyes
were still set on the Senate, but this time on
the even more respected Senior Senator Walter George Anderson writes,
those who questioned Jane's good judgment in thirty six questioned
his sanity in nineteen thirty eight. Basically, George was like

(40:42):
the archetypal respected elder statesman. Going against him was like crazy. Luckily,
Jean brought his twenty five year old son, Hermann Talmadge
to serve as campaign manager, who actually did grow to
be a pretty good political navigator. His new nineteen thirty
eight platform differed from his previous bouts against the New Deal.

(41:03):
Instead of using vague nostalgic rhetoric pointing towards the old ways,
this time Jeane sought to address the consequences of the
New Deal as he saw them, attack the new big institutions,
and uplift the little guy. He called for a migration
back to farms and promised to stop a government waste
by using fedral relief money to buy land to give
to citizens willing to farm it, and to convert the

(41:24):
civilian conservation camps into vocational education campuses to provide a
practical job oriented training in contrast to the frivolous liberal universities,
another conservative mainstay. His campaign speeches this year were described
as like increasingly protectionist, isolationist, nationalist, and much more populist.

(41:45):
We're getting closer to the full breakout of World War two,
and Gene was pretty pretty firmly like an isolationist and
a nationalist. Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
I mean, yep, yeah, it is entirely unsurprising. Yeah to town,
which tried to frame Senator George as a trader to
small farmers, particularly because of his support of coconut milk.
That was one of the main ways he attacked George
as betraying as betraying US dairy farmers. Now Gene wasn't

(42:19):
the only guy targeting Senator George, though. FDR was increasingly
beefing with the southern wing of the party, and by
the late nineteen thirties he sought to unseat some of
the old Guard from the Senate that were inhibiting progress.
Senator George was a particularly influential member of this group,
and so FDR targeted him for removal. Not many Georgia

(42:40):
Democrats wanted to go up against the popular Senator, but
the Roosevelt Dems finally settled on a Russell's nineteen thirty
four campaign manager, a man named Lawrence Camp, to take
on George. FDR made this really confusing public appearance with
Senator George in early August, where Roosevelt delivered a quite
polite attack on his personal friend George, calling him a

(43:03):
fake liberal and dismissed Talmage as no kind of real concern,
and then endorsed Lawrence Camp.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
FDR, we don't make him like that anymore.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
No you invite your friend to like a campaign event,
and then you just suspended the day.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Attacked shit talk him, just just rat fuck him.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
He's really good.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
FDR was maybe our most effective rat fucker president. He
really knew how to rat a man.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
He didn't care. He don't care.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
You know, that's the benefit of dying of polio is
you don't give a round fuck.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Like Gane tried to reprogize this speech to discredit George
and brushed aside Camp as like a coattail writer and
an un serious candidate. Now Roosevelt try to just We're
worried that his campaign against George might give Talmage the election,
but that outcome didn't really concern FDR. He thought that

(44:00):
even if Talmadge got in the Senate, Jen would just
make a fool out of himself. The problem with George
was that he was influential. If he went a certain way,
forty other senators would follow suit. Tal Imridge, on the
other hand, was unlikely to attract followers in the Senate,
and Jane was quite happy with what he saw as
liberal infighting and became even more certain that it would
lead to his victory in the county unit vote. With

(44:22):
the liberal vote being split now three ways, as long
as his hardcore of one hundred thousand supporters went out
to vote, he saw no way for him to lose.
I'm going to quote from Anderson here on this kind
of anecdote about what the southern voter was thinking about
going into the nineteen thirty eight election. Quote one old
offensive sitter in Warm Springs told a reporter he was

(44:43):
voting for Senator Talmadge, Governor Rivers, and President Roosevelt. Quote
Talmidg is promising forty acres of land, Rivers promises to
exempt it from taxation, and Roosevelt will rent it from us.
Why not vote for all of them and sit on
the porch and collect a steady income unquote. Okay, so
they voting very It's like they're totally fine voting for
conservative talentage and progressive FDR. Like that's that's totally fine,

(45:07):
And the policies can actually work in conjunction just to
help these like guys eating up all the slant. Do
you know what I enjoy eating up?

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Robert well Garrison, I've i've i've I've heard some rumors,
but I don't like that.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
I don't like that absolutely not. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Remember remember that meal we had during the DNC where
there was a literal metal screw in your food?

Speaker 3 (45:39):
I remember that?

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yes? Do you remember that riot where afterwards I got
us like two hundred dollars worth of Popeyes because we
were all so depressed.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
I think it happened a few times. We had a
lot of really late night Chinese food and a lot
of Top Eyes. Oh, the good old days, the good old.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Turber Gears likes to eat foods with literal meneral screws
in them, and Popeyes got it.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
And of course these products and services.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
We drinks over that screw. That was great.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
We did get a lot of free drinks over that screw.
They were really really worrying. Someone was like attacking, attacking
these DNC journalists. Oh God, okay, we are so back.
Come election day, early results gave Talmadge a small lead.

(46:34):
Stop the count, Stop the count, But Jean Jean's initial
celebration was premature because the next day after after election Day,
it was clear that Walter George actually beat Jeane by
forty thousand votes. Urban migration was affecting Jean's ability to

(46:54):
win elections. Some of the county races were quite close,
and a difference of just over two hundred vot in
certain counties would have given Talmage the election under the
county unit system, but Gene wasn't going to back down
this time. He refused to concede the election and announced
he would contest the vote. Stop this deal, Gene filed
complaints with the Democratic Committee in thirty four counties, claiming

(47:16):
a recount would qute unquote clearly give me the election
to quote Anderson. The Talmage office had been literally flooded
with phone calls and letters complaining of voting irregularities. Many
were sworn affidavits. People claimed that dead people, children, and
non residents had voted for George, payoffs, had payoffs had

(47:36):
been made, counting falsified, and ballots pre marked unquote. Time
is a flat circle.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah yeah, so nothing does change?

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yeah, no, absolutely not. As a backup plan, Gene hatched
another scheme to overrule the county unit election by making
enough of a big fuss over the recounts and voting irregularities.
Jene hopes to pressure the domnatorial candidates, Hugh Howell and
Ed Rivers into having their delegates name Talmadge Senator at
the October convention using this little piece of party law.

(48:10):
This was an odd strategy, considering that Gene was not
currently in the good graces of either man, but he
was getting desperate, and when it became clear that crucial
counties were going to reject his complaints, Jen began sending
letters to friends in the counties asking for assistance. One
such letter read, get all the evidence of regularities in
the election that you can. If you can get any

(48:31):
evidence of money being used, get this in AFFI David form.
We will then appeal it to the convention in Macon
on October fifth. Now, the counties did not like having
their elections questioned. Gene's accusations of misconduct were near unanimously rejected,
and counties billed him for the trouble. At he cost,
which is also a good thing. We don't see as

(48:53):
much anymore, being like you made us do all this
extra work here, We'll just send you a bill. His
appeal to the State Executive Committee was also rejected in
a sixty one to four vote. Gene responded to the
ruling by saying, the very resistance of the State Executive
Committee to recount bears out our contentions that something was wrong. Sure, sure, buddy,

(49:17):
of course. Yeah. As his grasps for power continued to fail,
Jean became increasingly angry and desperate. He called on his
supporters to march on the Macon Convention to demand that
Jane's accusations be heard. He tried to planet Jasis.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Man, Really, there is nothing new under the sun. I mean,
one of the heartbreakers here is I had thought Trump
was a little more original than he really is. And
you know, it just hate. It sucks when you find
out your heroes are aren't Robert Robert.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
You know that just hurts.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
It hurts.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
The night before the convention, some friends of Jean staged
an intervention in his hotel, begging him to a admit
that he lost. But wow, how the times a fucking changed.
But supporters crashed the intervention to convince Jane to keep fighting,
which he did. He immediately doubled down. He sent Tom

(50:15):
Linder to tell Hugh Howell that if he released his
delegates to Gene, Gene would help him win the nineteen
forty governor's race. Now, Howell was still mad that Jean
had turned his back on him in the last election,
and it was now Howell that refused to help Jeane.
The convention came, Gene and his cronies were going around
trying to course a roll call decision on Jeene's election denial.

(50:37):
Governor Ed Rivers actually allowed this to happen, confident that
the result would serve Gene one final humiliation, and he
was correct. Jane's call for a reconsideration of the vote
was firmly shut down. Jane went into a tantrum, telling
supporters that it was Hugh Howell's fault that they had
failed at the convention, saying, quote, we had stacks of
evidence at the making convention, but they refused to even
look at it. The great trouble there was that Hugh

(51:00):
Powell sold out the talent which people and appoint and
appointed George men as delegates unquote again just flat circle shit.
We had, we had all, we had, all this evidence.
They refused to look at it. It's been stolen, et cetera,
et cetera. Basically, what happened here was that Jean's disinterest
and periodic disrespect of the machinery of party politics, as

(51:21):
well as like state and county power structures, finally began
to damage him. Politically, what once helped to get him
into power was now self sabotaging his ability to hold
onto power and effectively navigate party politics. So after his
second Senate defeat in a row, Jean wished to return
to his comfort zone and retake the governor's office in

(51:43):
nineteen thirty nine. Gene kept relatively low profile, but he
would still travel around the state to speak at local
clubs and organizations, nothing too notable, but ensured that he
remained a presence to his core base at like rural
barbecues and church socials. Meanwhile, a loose organization of Jeane's
political allies spent the year quietly lobbying courthouse gangs and
promoting Jane as governor across the state. Ed Rivers couldn't

(52:06):
seek reelection, so Jane's biggest competition was his friend turned rival,
Hugh Howell, who tried to run for a third time.
I'm going to quot from Anderson again quote. A number
of factors made the return of Talmage possible. One was
the scandalous debts run up by Rivers the state was
almost bankrupt. Another was the shadow of a world war
and the anxieties that fear produced a crisis was created.

(52:28):
There was a need for strength, a desire for the
simple solution in a complex and confusing world. A future
that no one wanted made the past a psychological crutch.
Gene Talmadge, the iron man of action, would once again
ride on to the political stage to save the day.
He saw no way he could lose. He had in
two elections been recognized as a man disjointed from the times.

(52:50):
That fact that had been his strength in earlier races
but became his weakness, now again would be his strength.
Unsettled times had thrown the people out of sea depth.
With war threatening, they began to look for that well
worn path. They dug back in their past and found
the certainty they had been seeking. Old Gene. He was

(53:10):
their crutch in a way, only this time it was
war and needless bankruptcy that demanded an aura of toughness.
Now I find this quote to be one of the
more like unsettling in how it kind of shows how
the backwardness can like flip flop, like how things that
are your strength can become your weakness, and then as

(53:32):
times get tougher, that can be your strength again. And
considering the current economic situation, in this country as well
as raging wars in the Middle East. It does not
leave me with tons of comfort.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
No, I mean, if you're reading history right, it never should. Yeah,
but yeah, that is a particularly because you're never safe
in a democracy, right. The upside is you have a
degree of agency over the political system, but you are
always waiting for the worm to turn in such a

(54:05):
way that the very worst people are empowered and it
will always happen. Yeah, never, there's no getting away from it, Like,
there's no Somebody made a post on the subburn at
the other day where they were like, is it just
are we just going to every four years be worried
about becoming a dictatorship? And like, yeah, bro it feels
so to homie, that's how that's that's how it is.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
Speak speaking of dictator some of Jeene's advisors wanted him
to give his opening campaign speech from above the crowd
through his office window in Atlanta, but Jean thought this
would make him look too much like Mussolini.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
You can, really it says a lot about the period
of time that that was no longer a good thing
because there was. Yeah, there were several years where they
would have been like you should do it. It'll make
you look like Mussolini.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yes, yeah, I mean you're like in nineteen forty now late,
it's become a little cool date Like Jane likes Mussolidi.
She just knows that it's not going to play well
in this moment.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
So intead, instead, that's what I would have said, That's
how I would have taken him down.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Instead, Jane dawned his red suspenders and stood on a
chair outside the Capitol to officially announce his campaign to
an excited crowd of supporters. To draw up an interest
in the campaign and demonstrate the return of like personality
theatrical politics, the Talmage team wrote a song and turn
it into a record that would play before every Talmage speech.
I'm going to read some of the lyrics here that

(55:36):
that are that are in this book. And Apple Jesus
Christies are so bad, and Apple for the teacher is
very fine, indeed, but sad to state, and apple is
not all the teachers need, the needless of state employees
and the government so wild had a very marked effect
on every Georgia child. Unfortunately, these are all of the

(55:58):
lyrics I can find. But it's just a song about
how big. How about how big a government is hurting children?
And this saw everyone became sick of this song because
this was now the only song I would play before
all of the talentage speeches, just on a loop. This
was the first. This was like the first ession of hell.
Like usually before campaign speeches, they had like live music.

(56:21):
They they just to have like you know, just some
some like local band would like play some tunes. This
now they were hooking up a record to like to
like loudspeakers and it's blasting out hell bad bad. Now.
Jean's son, Herman Talmadge, was growing increasingly influential within the
Talmadge machine and provided his father a newfound political savvy.

(56:44):
Though Gene was reluctant at first, Hermann struck a deal
with the Georgia New Deal Democrats for their backing in
exchange for an ever so slightly more liberal Talmage platform
focusing on education and the economy. The resulting platform was
widely deemed the most like, legitimate and practical out of
Talmadge's whole career. To quote Anderson, a Talwich victory was

(57:05):
so certain that the race took on a great deal
of boredom. Fistfights at speeches a common occurrence, began getting
as much press attention as the speeches themselves unquote. Kind of.
The most emblematic day of the nineteen forty race was
on July twenty seventh. All of the candidates held rallies
in Warm Springs. Gene didn't arrive on time, but his

(57:27):
customs song blared over the loudspeakers on repeat, drowning out
the other candidates.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Oh Man perfect on stage.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Jane's opponents took turns attacking him, with one targeting Gene
for quote boasting he had read Hitler's book seven times,
although he said he was too busy to read any
other books on cost and.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Look, I'm one of the very few people who have
read mind cop because that book is not seven times,
not a readable book.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Seven times. This is literally a joke in the Boys.
This is literally a joke in the Boys.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
That's nuts.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
That's too many times to have read mind comp. No,
They're like, there's there's a great episode where they asked
their like Tucker Carlson analog, have you ever read mind
comp It's like, yeah, like a few times, I guess,
And they're like, there's a few times.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
I will say my favorite mind comp joke is in
the movie Churchill The Hollywood Years, in which Christian is
Winston Churchill, where one of the one of the King
of England's servants sees a copy of mind comp Bias
bed and goes me and camp f, what's this a
gay prison novel?

Speaker 3 (58:32):
That's great? Perfect.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
They did that exact Tucker Carlson thing and in succession
with with yes as a scene in succession And.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
Maybe this was Succession, not the boys. Maybe I'm confusing it,
or maybe it's both. Who knows. I could be confusing
Tucker Carlson analogs because they're always Tucker.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
It's it's always Tucker.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
Now No. Gene arrived late from a hemoroid operation and
literally upstaged one of his opponents who was in the
middle of a speech, and this disturbance sparked a massive
brawl beneath the stage that only got worse when Jene
tried to speak to quote William Anderson quote. The crowd

(59:15):
was now full of devilment, and while supporters spoke for Gene,
a car was set afire in the back of the
crowd and people swirled to watch it burn. It was
just like the old days. About the only punches Gene's
opponents were able to land that summer were in regard
to Talmadge's early admiration for Europe's rising dictators. They all

(59:37):
honed in on Gene's propensity for militaristic action and pointed
to where that type of action had gotten Europe. Gene
ignored them, unquote. The election for the Democratic primary was
held on nine to eleven, and the results handily gave
Gene a clear and decisive victory. Just truly, truly the
worst nine to eleven. Jane got like three hundred and

(59:59):
twenty county unit votes. He just completely swept the race.
Gene arrived late to his own celebration party and left
early to pass out in his hotel room. He was
getting old, he was having hemorrhoid operations. He wasn't the
same kind of fiery young man that that started his career.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah, by the time you're having Yeah, hemorrhoid operations make
you fiery, but maybe a different kind of fire. Different fiery, Yeah, different,
different sort of fire.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
The Georgia Democratic convention next month was referred to as
a Talmadge orgy and was full of over four thousand
Talmadge fanatics in red suspenders times of Flat Circle.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
So much.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Yeah, man, and four thousand, that's that's not a small
amount for like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Oh, that's it for like decent crowd today, for like
for like a local.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
For like a local political convention.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Now, Journalist Ralph McGill wrote, quote, Talmadge has something only
few men have. He has that quality that makes men
want to follow him, to fight for him, to defend
him unquote. Now, Jean sent his son Herman to promise
FDR that they were going to bury the hatchet quote unquote,
and that they would be fully cooperative in the war effort,

(01:01:14):
but Jean's personal feelings differed. I'm going to end this
episode with one final quote from Anderson that kind of
lays out what Gene was like going into World War two. Quote.
The Nazi devastations in Europe brought out the isolationism in Talmach.
He saw the conflict as a potential drain on the
American economy. There was for him, little value in foreign

(01:01:36):
aid taking money from the hungry farmer's pocket. Talmach singled
out FDR as the main force behind America's growing involvement
in the war and This increased his hatred of the man.
He felt that if the United States remained strong, the
country would be left alone. He said in November, quote,
if you lead a bulldog around with you, nobody is
likely to jump on you. Unquote. In the same breath,

(01:01:59):
he warned, quote America cannot take the stand of being
permanent guard for Europe. Some thought Jean's isolationism had gotten
out of hand when he wrote some highly favorable editorials
about to Japan in The Statesman after that country had
just killed thousands of Chinese. Japan thought it had an
ally in gene and invited a member of his newspaper

(01:02:21):
to quote, witness the real life and the scenic beauties
of Japan. They represent them to the American people through
your newspaper. Unquote.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
There's no more natural ally for the governor of Georgia
than the Empire of Japan. Let's just say it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Let's just fascist Japan. He literally sent over his employees
to tell no, his employees were invited to Japan by
the fascist party to like give it a glowing, a
glowing review in his in his own newspapers Unit seven
thirty one.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
Thing, Really, Sam's interesting, Why don't we try a local
version of that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Oh my god. Jene was an innocent duke who was
so desperate to keep attention from leaving the poor farmer
that he would even try to syctify war makers. Others
saw this as indicative of the dark side of Gene.
When people were calling him a dictator, he said, I'm
what you call a minor dictator. But did you ever

(01:03:16):
see anybody that was much good who didn't have a
little dictator in him? Unquote He's not wrong that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
He's actually not wrong about that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
I mean this is like a little yeah, that is healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
It's not just politics. Like everyone I've ever worked with
who's who's a good like manager, has a little bit
of that something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
I feel you have to write, I feel attacked.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
That's how movies dior. Yeah, you need a little bit
of dictator. He's not He's not wrong about that, right,
Like it's the same thing, Like there's a degree to
which you need that. I mean, yeah, like that's that's how.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
I'm being a complimented.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
And that's both it's accomplissent.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
But I mean no, like this, he like embraced this
like minor dictator refrain and then to conclude from Anderson
quote Jane's early admiration for Hitler, the fact that he
had read Hitler's book seven times, and his tendency to
surround himself with huge military staffs and nonchalantly call for
martial law gave it an eerie backing to his words unquote,

(01:04:22):
so yeah, that's Gene circa nineteen forty. He's sending his
employees and I believe actually his own son to Japan
as special guests of the Japanese government. He's reading Mine
com a few too many times. I would say little.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Six too many times. Yeah, I'm fine with up to one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
And certainly embracing the dictatorial attacks on him by saying,
I mean, come on, you, you got to be a
little bit of a dictator. So, yeah, that is a
big That is Gene.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
That's that's how I podcast. You know, a little bit
of a dictator.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Yeah, that is that is Gene. At this point, he
is he's getting old, he's getting a little worn out,
but he's he's he's still hanging in there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, Yeah, he really is. Boy, this man has some
staying power. Well, he's an innovator. You got to give
him that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
We will, we will finish this. This this four part
series on gene Uh. In the next episode, where we
are going to where we are going to discuss just
as as a little hint, something called the Cocking Affair,
which is kind of one of the last of of
Jean's scandals. So get excited for that. We're gonna have

(01:05:33):
a lot of a lot of good cocking uh jokes.
I guess yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Talk out with our talk out, That's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
What we're going to do. Behind the Bastards is a
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(01:06:03):
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