Part Two: America's First Fascist Governor

Garrison and Robert continue the tale of Gene Talmadge with his first military style coup of Georgia and his battle against FDR.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media what my voice is not all the way
back yet, but we're recording a podcast Miami.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi Wow, Sophie, Wow wow Wow. I am the one
who's supposed.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
To start Get that.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's very fun.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I had a great time working legit.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
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.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
A likely thing for you to be doing.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
You know that, Garson. I've tested many intros out on you.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yes, yes, and.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
You can send me the reimbursement for that therapy later, Gear.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
But you know that's tax deductible. Oh good, good business expense,
personal my personal work. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
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.

(01:41):
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.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
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

(02:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
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

(02:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
He fired all the board members and appointed a man
named Judd P. Wilhoyt, which is another great Southern name,
just great stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
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.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Jud Judd was put as supreme command over the Highway Department.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
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.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
But Jed invented this position as a supreme command over
the Highway Department. And that is that's.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Judd's guys, are the same.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, the old board a chair promised to set up
his own offices. Clay, he was still the rightful head
of the department.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
We have like an anti pope for the highway department.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
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.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
This is something we miss in politics today.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
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.

(04:36):
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

(04:58):
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,

(05:20):
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.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
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.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
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

(05:59):
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.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Long was a planner, and Long he didn't fuck around.
Would be how I would describe the way.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Gene fox around all the time.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Huey Long didn't fuck around, yeah, at
least now until he was well established.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
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

(06:42):
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

(07:02):
is this is in nineteen thirty three.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
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.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
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.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, well this is what year is this?

Speaker 3 (07:28):
This is nineteen thirty three, So yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Mussolini's been in power for a little over a decade
and Hitler's just about just about taking power.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
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

(07:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I'm not an expert on the law, but what knowledge
I do have, I don't think it's supposed to work.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
That you're not supposed to be the lawyer for both sides.
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's generally not supposed Yeah, yeah, but fascinating play though.
You got to give him, You got to give credit
for Kutzpah.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
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

(08:54):
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

(09:15):
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

(09:40):
the state capital under a military occupation. That gives you
a sense of kind of how he goes about political problems.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
How far away can we be from the next time
someone does that.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Months. Yeah, Like Jean loved the military aesthetic for his.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Kentucky meat the horrible uniforms they wore back then, the
Terrible hats Man. It just just looked.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
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.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
See that, that's ten pot dictator shit.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Right, you're just actually caused plague as like a military leader.
You're the governor of Georgia. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
And the governor militant? Yes. Yes.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
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.

(10:58):
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

(11:20):
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

(11:42):
a terrified driver. The sheriff figured it was John Dillinger
in disguise with his gag.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
I do love the idea that John Dillinger walks around
with his coffee guy while he's like on their run
from the law.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
That Dallager in a military uniform. I mean there's a lot.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
He's in disguise. He's in disguise.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
No, it'll catch that.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
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

(12:46):
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

(13:11):
license in general. He would get mad at fishwartans for
finding people who were fishing without a license.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Nothing wrong with that, So.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
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.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
That was that was basically his politics.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the states get it.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
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

(14:03):
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

(14:25):
his spell unquote.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
He just wanted to know the car was going as
fast as it could go.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
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

(14:54):
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

(15:16):
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.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
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.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Similar. Speaking of mister Trump, a friend of Jean said
that Gene, you usually had about four girlfriends going at
the same time.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Well, a man like that who could stay away.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
He was described as like having a real magnetism around women.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Mm hmmm. They also read a military bodyguard, so you know,
might have been a couple of things going on there.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
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

(16:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
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.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
That's always that always puts me at ease.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, m yes, that's why everyone loves the airport.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Gina apparently became a better husband and family man as
he aged his wife wouldn't be hard.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's a low bar given the start of this story.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
His wife absolutely knew about all the cheating, and she
eventually did become like a trusted political advisor to Jeane.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Okay, she was one of those deals where she's really
in it more for the things besides companionship.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
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

(17:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
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.

(18:32):
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.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
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.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
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

(19:23):
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

(19:48):
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

(20:09):
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

(20:31):
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

(20:53):
swear I was wasting their money unquote.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
I hate that. He's probably right.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
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.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
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.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
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

(21:47):
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.

(22:08):
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?

Speaker 2 (22:18):
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.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
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,

(22:50):
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

(23:12):
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

(23:32):
definitely popular for like racist reasons.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
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.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
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

(24:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
God. Yeah, this is like our prequel trilogy. Yeah, this
is the revenge of the Sith of American politics.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
What's the deal with these Talmage people? What's up with them?

Speaker 2 (24:31):
They're just They're just dumb and want to fight everybody
over this. This clear con man who's leading them.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
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.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Of course, sure, it's always it's.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
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.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Of course, yes, it's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
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

(25:49):
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

(26:12):
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

(26:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
A loan can fix, yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
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

(27:07):
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

(27:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's always the issue of like, if you're this guy
and you're courting that demographic, they're not big readers.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
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

(28:16):
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

(28:39):
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

(29:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Unquote, was nice to have an administration that talked about
shit like that.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Huh yeah, never again, never, never again.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Now.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
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.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
So few people that well, there are a lot less
people able to vote too.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
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

(29:59):
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

(30:21):
just either for or against talmuch. She became such a
divisive figure.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
And again it's not a thing we've seen since.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
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,

(30:52):
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

(31:13):
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

(31:35):
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.

(31:58):
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,

(32:22):
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

(32:44):
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.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
The turmoilmen did one concentration camp and you lose their
vote forever.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
That you lose the union vote.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Culture is really it goes back a lot further than
i'd guess, Scarrison, that's just.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
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

(33:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
So I mean, yeah, that's not something I'd known about.
That's fucking nuts.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
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

(34:15):
to hear him talk, because the Cotton Control Act actually
did help farmers, and Gene was not really offering to
help much farmers.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
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.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
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

(34:58):
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

(35:20):
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

(35:40):
seemed the only viable escape from hard times.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
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.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
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,

(36:15):
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.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
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.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
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

(37:09):
were becoming increasingly intertwined.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Now.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
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

(37:34):
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

(37:57):
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

(38:20):
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

(38:41):
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

(39:05):
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

(39:28):
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

(39:52):
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

(40:13):
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

(40:34):
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

(40:58):
know what, thankfully will never enter a precarious decline?

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Robert, are you talking about advertising, no, Garrison advertising stable?
The sun in our solar system.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
The most stable form.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeahs, and like every planet you know in the solar
system will always be able to support life.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Uh yeah, yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's how the
sun works.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
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.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
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.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Ground.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I'm going to keep distance and just kick at him
a lot, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
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.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
It's a lot of the time.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
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

(43:15):
I really, I really went for it.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah yeah, I'm not sure if you were the talmage
of the FDR in that situation.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
We would at this for like so long. I always
I almost had to throw up afterwards. I was so exhausted.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
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.

(43:52):
So I just slid in with them and pulled them
up and tie. Yeah, there you go. Sometimes sometimes you gotta.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
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

(44:22):
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

(44:44):
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.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Unquote. I love that. I love that argument.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Parents.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
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.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
No, it's interesting, He's like Social Security was this start
of like stealing the American soul.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
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

(45:36):
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

(45:57):
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

(46:18):
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.

(46:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Incredible.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
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,

(47:19):
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.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I love how he worked backwards selfishly into the heroic
stance against Jens.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
I know he like he somehow somehow walked his way
backwards in just into ing you are.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
You putting on the board for talmage there.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
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,

(48:07):
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.

(48:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Because it's the literal thing. I don't I don't I don't.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
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

(49:18):
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

(49:39):
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.

(50:03):
What a fascinating collection of campaign platform policies.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
That does seem like a great way to make judges
much more vulnerable to bribery.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Yeah right, It's like it's just like ensuring corruption.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
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

(50:36):
as president.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Like no, you're right, you're right.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
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.

(51:01):
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

(51:23):
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

(51:46):
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

(52:09):
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

(52:32):
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

(52:57):
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.

(53:17):
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.

(53:39):
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.

(54:01):
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,

(54:24):
and Thomas L. Dixon, author of the Klansman. Unquote, Uh, Robert,
are you familiar with the Klansmen.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
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.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
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

(55:04):
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

(55:27):
Georgia corporations.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Oh weird.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
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,

(55:52):
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

(56:14):
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.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
I would like to find two and a half million
dollars from the previous year. That would be nice, right,
that would be nice.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
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

(56:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
To have skeletons at a feast. It was a real
problem back then.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
It really did kind of look skeletal at like in
this period of his life.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Yeah, there were a lot more bones back then.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
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

(57:45):
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

(58:06):
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

(58:27):
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

(58:51):
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

(59:12):
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

(59:36):
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

(59:58):
greatest ever written in history. Mmmm.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
And even like privately admitting that this was a complete failure,
but publicly this is this is the best ever in history.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
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

(01:00:50):
described as quote a collection of a dozen dreary heels, shabby,
enupt corrupt, and ku klux minded unquote.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Also, it's never a good sign when you're saying, well,
he's not Hitler, but.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
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,

(01:02:13):
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

(01:02:33):
do think so. Hamilton left in disbelief. Unquote great, great, Wow,
these guys they're all the same.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Every military dress.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Strangers like their dates.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
The wrestling contest is to remove the most about a
military dress from the opponent as you can.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
The new big things. That's not a bad IDEA garrison
a new big thing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
I know people are into like the spaghetti wrestling, the
baked bean wrestling, no military dress wrestling.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
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
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(01:04:28):
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