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