Part Two: America's First Fascist Governor
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What? My voice is not all the way back yet, but we're recording a podcast. My me. Hi. Wow. Sophie. Wow. Wow. Wow. I am the one who's supposed to start. I do get why you do that. It's very fun. I did. I had a great time. There was 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 pedophile, uh,

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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 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 as soon as he got into office. So that is where we are continuing now. You gotta do it fast.

Yeah, here he goes. So after he started placing military guard around the capital, he got military guards to follow around himself as well as a few of his closest allies. And they just went everywhere with him.

And Gene 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 like what a what a what.

It's kind of how he started the process of bribing RFK Jr., right? It's something he wasn't really able to do in the first term, but you just see this hunger. Every rich man wants to be followed around by a bunch of men in suits with earpieces. 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 Gene's antics by saying in response he would deploy a Boy Scout troop to guard the highway department. But Gene was not joking around. On June 19th, 1933, 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 were aiding and abetting in practices to incite insurrection so he 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 don't even have to tell me he's corrupt when he's a Judd. Like, I can put two and two together. I can put a Judd and a Judd together. Judd was put as supreme command over the highway department. And we're talking a double D Judd, right, Gare? Like, we're talking two Ds. Single D. Single D, wow. I mean, this was like 100 years ago. Wilhoyt balances it out.

They hadn't developed the technology for a double D Judd yet. But Gene invented this position as a supreme command over the highway department. Great. And that's Judd's new job. All these guys are the same. Yeah. The old board chair promised to set up his own offices, claiming he was still the rightful head of the department. Oh, yeah.

Oh, we have like an anti-pope for the highway department? Beautiful. Yes. 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 guy. Yeah.

This is something we miss in politics today. So all this happened on the same day. Later that same afternoon, the deputy sheriff, Sidney Wooten, 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 Gene's biographer, William Anderson, in his book, The Wild Man from Sugar Creek. Quote,

And which prompted the defeated board chair to call Talmadge a tyrant and a man with a quote-unquote deranged mind. 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 $1,300,000 to run the highway department, saying he felt the matter was none of the court's business and that they should, quote, not interfere with the issue, unquote.

OK, 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 like he or at least he built the basis of the playbook. Like it's only 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 dictators 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 fucks around all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huey Long didn't fuck around. Yeah. At least not until he was well-established.

The federal government got scared of what was going on and declared that they would be withholding $10 million in road funds until the situation was resolved. During a luncheon a few days later, two sheriff's deputies busted in and served Gene a $25,000 lawsuit from Sheriff Wooten for damages from his arrest earlier that month. Gene 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 coup of the highway board. And at a hearing on June 30th, the board's lawyer called Gene an outlaw and compared him to a South American dictator. This is this is in 1933. Well, I mean, they had a lot. They actually did have a lot of dictate 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. 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. Um,

Well, this is, no, what year is this? This is 1933. 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 II is going to be ramping up soon. We are not, we're not there yet. Now, little did the highway department know

All of these legal battles against Gene 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 1st, the AG announced that he was now the lawyer for the highway department and dismissed the case.

Previously, he was a lawyer for the defense, and then he said that he's now also the lawyer for the plaintiff and closed the entire case out. And somehow this worked. 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 way. You're not supposed to be the lawyer for both sides. I don't think so. That's generally not supposed. Yeah, yeah.

Fascinating play, though. You got to give him credit for chutzpah. Gene had a lot of guys who would just look into very minute details of state law, and he would weaponize that. A lot of his workers would just be tasked with looking into old state laws and also new laws just to see how much he could flex power. And this is kind of an example of that.

Great.

Great. After his victory, Gene appointed friends and family to the department boards and called for the release of the $10 million 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 Capitol in order for the money to be sent. And thus, the military-style occupation of Georgia lasted from June 19th to July 29th.

And that's that's Gene's first real, 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?

Six months? Yeah, maybe. Months away? Tops. Like, Gene loved the military aesthetic. I mean, who doesn't? 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 1934, Gene got all of his friends and family custom military dress uniforms to wear. See, that's tin pot dictatorship. Right? You're just actually cosplaying as like a military leader. You're the governor of Georgia. What are you doing?

The governor militant. Yes, yes. After all the partying at the Kentucky Derby, Gene wanted to return to Atlanta by overnight train so he could sleep on the way. So Gene 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 Gene told Whitley to, quote, get off and go find some coffee and sandwiches. We'll hold the train, unquote. 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 cab and ordered the driver to follow the train to its next stop. I'll quote now from Malim Anderson, quote, On the train, Gene was giving the conductor hell for leaving his friends, and the conductor was trying to run the Talmadge party off the train because Whitley had their tickets. This

The taxi careening through one small Tennessee town was sirened 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 gang. What? I do love the idea that John Dillinger walks around with his coffee guy while he's like on the run from the law. Yeah.

A long and loud argument finally convinced the sheriff of their identity, and he waved them on 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. Why would John Dillinger be in a military uniform? I mean, there's a lot of questions I have. He's in disguise. He's in disguise.

No one will 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. 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. John,

Gene was driving around town with 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 Gene's more like libertarian-y side. Gene was just very anti-license in general. He would get mad at fish wardens for fining people who were fishing without a license. Nothing wrong with that. So like this is like Gene's politics are kind of interesting because, yeah, he's like an authoritarian dictator, but almost like a libertarian. Yeah.

Nothing wrong with that. The state should only fund his military bodyguard, but it certainly should not be checking whether or not people can drive. That was basically his politics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, man, I get it. The state shouldn't be helping anyone out either. They shouldn't be paying for you to farm better. They should just pay for me to have fun and kind of stay out of everyone else's business. Yeah.

Whenever Gene would get into bad moods, he would get one of his boys, basically out-of-pocket private assistants, to drive his Buick down in the open roads south of Atlanta, with Gene 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 the moods and the only words he would ever say were go faster, go faster. And I'd say, God damn it, Gene, it won't go any faster. And then he'd say, are you going 90? Because he knew it would go 90. And I'd say, it's on 90. And then 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 to speak with the governor, as Gene told them to during speeches. And he received a staggering amount of mail from his supporters. Whenever Gene saw a farmer outside his office, 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 Gene 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 Murdo, 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. Yeah. Like that is how you do it. OK. Yeah. Similar. Speaking of Mr. Trump, a friend of Gene said that Gene 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. They also got 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. What?

which I did, and he wore that into the night, unquote. He's just wearing those little glasses and fake mustaches as a disguise, hoping that no one will recognize the governor. Wow. 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. I mean, radically masculine appeal. Look, if there's, if there's one thing the ladies 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 that always puts me at ease. Yeah. Yeah. That's why everyone loves the airport.

Gene 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 Gene.

Yeah, okay, so it's one of those deals where she's really in it more for the things besides companionship. Yeah, like, they're, like, tied together for life. They, like, got along very well, even though, you know, Gene'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, Jean and Mitt were not so demonstrative with their affections. I remember taking our first child to see Jean at the mansion. He would hold it, but he seemed uncomfortable when I said he could kiss the baby if he wanted. Unquote. Just this very southern, frail man, just uncomfortable holding a baby. Yeah.

That tracks. Though Gene was not really a hardcore Christian himself, he would use religion to appeal to his rural constituency. Gene heavily familiarized himself with the Bible, and his memorization 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 I 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. Yeah.

Gene 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 going to 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 like that line that Gene's political performance worked by weaponizing his audience's honesty. That's what sold it. And I find that to be a really poignant remark in terms of how politicians will definitely court certain people and talk like them, sound like them, and try to appeal to them as a form of entertainment. Yeah.

There's one last anecdote from Anderson here. Quote, probably no incident better characterized Talmadge the politician in 1933 than when the state health board asked him for support in getting x-ray clinics built in rural areas. They were desperately needed and Gene knew it. But after much discussion, he said in his characteristic way of refusing someone, nope, I ain't going to do it. The doctors were incredulous that he would deny his supporters this aid and asked, didn't he think they needed it?

Unquote.

I hate that he's probably right. What a fascinating little performance of like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Acting like... Acting to these doctors like you're just like some dumb hick. And then actually really understanding your core constituency. Yeah. No, if we send these down there, they'll accuse... They will do the thing... Because I know how to... Like...

This is how I would manipulate them if an opponent did this, right? Like someone who is against me will complain about the fact that I'm wasting their money on this. Hoo-ha. Yeah. Yeah. I find it to be a really good look at how he politically thought and how he used political performance. Yeah.

And now apparently during summers, he got quite tan 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 of Georgia drugstore for a soda, Gene 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. Terrible. Not recognized as the governor, obviously. But yeah, that's just a look at this area of Georgia. So anyway.

Do you know what else? No, I'm not going to do that. Do you know what else X-rays might be good for, Robert? No, I mean, I think that's just kind of big city nonsense, actually. You can't see anything smaller than, I'm going to say a tick. I think that's the smallest thing. I think the X-ray can actually see through the big city bullshit and give you these insightful ads. Yeah.

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All right, we are back. Gene Talmadge has turned 50 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 governor for the second year,

He's already 50 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 liked this because courts weren't super respected. Courts are what you would use to foreclose on people's homes. Courts would lock up poor people. So courts weren't popular among his main constituency, even though they were law and order types. And they were definitely popular for 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 trap, like who hate the state troopers and shit who pull them over when they're driving drunk, even though they are they might ostensibly be black back the blue types otherwise. Absolutely. So the divisive nature of conservative fandom politics were on display at Gene's chaotic opening speech for his 1934 reelection 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 this is the revenge of the Sith of American politics. What's what's the deal with these Talmadge people? What 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, Gene did publicly align himself with the popular Roosevelt. But few seemed to notice or care about this ideological discrepancy. Instead, people seemed to be much more engrossed by Gene's new red suspenders that soon became an identifiable symbol associated with Gene and his style of politics. Of course. Sure. Yeah.

It's always red, huh? It's always red. While speaking at a men's club, Gene, a frequent 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 Atlanta Constitution reported Talmadge gave the crowd everything it wanted and more to 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 really the same story. Time to flat circle, etc., etc.,

Now, Gene's platform for his reelection did not focus at all on the dire economic problems facing Georgia's farmers and the poor working class. This is 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 will do it. It doesn't matter what he actually wants. I alone can fix. Yeah. But he can do it. 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 $1,000 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 it essentially just became the governor's personal blog. With his baby massacre, Lawson sold Gene the paper for $1,000 after they mailed out 100,000 subscription ads and got back less than 50 responses. Ooh, wow.

Not good. No, not good. No, I will say true social is probably doing slightly better than jeans and statesmen. 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 Lawson writing, quote, Talmadge then began to discover he cannot duplicate Tom Watson's Jeffersonian for the simple reason Gene cannot write. Yeah. 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. Yeah. But quietly, Gene was bashing and picking fights with the FDR administration. As soon as the first New Deal programs got up and running, Gene started sending a series of letters to the White House complaining about the New Deal and attempting to advise on a variety of agricultural and economic topics. Yeah.

In one angry letter to Roosevelt complaining about work relief programs, Gene wrote, I wouldn't plow nobody's mule for 50 cents a day when I could get $1.30 for pretending to work on a ditch. And the White House responded by saying, I take it you approve of paying farm labor 40 to 50 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. It was nice to have a

An administration that talked about shit like that, huh? Yeah, never again. Never, never again.

Now, despite all this, Gene swept his reelection, winning all but three of Georgia's 159 counties and got 178,000 votes compared to his opponents, 87,000. He did phenomenally well. There were so few people that, well, there were a lot less people able to vote too. Yes. This was a whites only primary. Yes. Yeah.

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 V.O. Key observed what happened in Georgia in 1934 as a normal Southern reaction to a strong leader like Talmadge. Key wrote, factional division of the electorate around a powerful personality is characteristic of Southern politics.

By polarizing the electorate, Jean stabilized it, creating a fairly consistent bifactionalism, unquote. So basically what happened, because Georgia was a one-party state, there did form a bifactionalism just either for or against Talmadge. He became such a divisive figure. Again, not a thing we've seen since. In this instance, he was able to pull out just a phenomenal victory 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 1934, 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.

Shortly after Gene's reelection in September of 1934, 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. Gene previously campaigned on being a friend of labor, especially in the 1920s. 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 Progress 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 quell the strikes. Strikes that had already gotten violent, with the owners and the cops' 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 Berghoff, a notorious strikebreaker, who came with 200 hired gunmen from New York to help break the strike. But Gene had them deported, unquote. So Gene did not want these out-of-town strikebreakers to be running around Georgia with their New York guns. No. No.

But as requested, Jean did deploy the National Guard to bring peace and order to the chaos. Anderson writes what happened next. Quote,

When photos hit the pages of the nation's press showing hapless Georgians being corralled like cattle, the cry went out that Talmadge had created concentration camps. He was stamped anti-labor and he lost labor's vote forever with his broken promise.

The turmoil. One concentration camp and you lose their vote forever. You lose the union vote. See, cancel culture is really, it goes back a lot further than I guess, Garrison. That's just sad. 1934, the Wokes have taken over. The turmoil ended when the militiamen brutally beat a worker to death in front of his family. By late fall of 34, he had personally broken the back of the unions in Georgia. Unquote.

This was one of the first things I heard about Talmadge when I came to Georgia and started talking about the history of politics here, was Gene's concentration camp and his deployment of 4,000 National Guardsmen to just totally, totally, brutally crush these textile strikes back in the 30s. Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah, that's not something I'd known about. That's fucking nuts. Yeah.

By the end of 1934, 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 tour 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 expressly believe that. There's a number of reasons Gene broke with FDR. His deep-seated fear of liberalism and the phantom 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, Talmadge didn't really like the idea of giving up state power to the federal government. That was also a really big motivation is that if the feds are in more control of stuff, his personal power as governor would be diminished. In 1934, farmers in Georgia were casting votes for both the ultra-conservative Talmadge and the liberal progressive New Deal.

Jean 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 Talmadge 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. Left-wing 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, "'Gene' lifted his spirits, and the New Deal filled his stomach."

The farmer could enjoy a clean conscience while satisfying his bodily needs, unquote.

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 it's part of it is because it's been a long time since it's been there's been any kind of reliable vote.

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.

Gene's closest friend during this period was John Whitley, the road construction guy that Gene had met a long time ago when he was living in McRae. Now, both had nearly identical political beliefs and aspirations. By the time Gene 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 Gene's beef with the president. Gene and FDR would frequently come stay at Gene's vacation estate and hunting preserve, Warm Springs, just at different times of the year. Ha ha ha ha ha.

For both men, it was a getaway from politics. Now, John and FDR kind of rarely talked politics anymore. But during Gene's little spat around 1934, FDR was at Whitley's getaway camp. And Whitley joked, you can't spend the country out of debt, Mr. President. Roosevelt laughed and replied, John, you and Gene have ruined this country. Now I've got to do something about it. Yeah.

As governor, Gene 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 Gene 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 Gene's reelection 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. Gene 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 $3 car tag, endorse his coup of the Highway Board and Public Service Commission to cap property tax, and have 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 Talmadge's firm opposition to the New Deal programs clear to the legislators. Gene's wide popularity in the 1934 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 Gene's programs had all passed to try to push forward some of the benefits of New Deal legislation.

I'm going to quote here from Willie Manderson.

Quote, Rivers recounted what happened. He said their recitation of the millions available was met with a stony silence from Jean. 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 1936, there wasn't going to be any more talk of Roosevelt and Talmadge. It was only going to be Roosevelt or Talmadge.

He told the startled 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 goaded 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 Gene's influence with certain legislative leaders started a precarious decline. Unquote.

Do you know what? Thankfully, we'll never enter a precarious decline, Robert. Are you talking about advertising? No, Garrison, advertising is the sun in our solar system. The most stable form of business. And like every planet in the solar system, we'll always be able to support life. Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that's how the sun works. Yep, yep, yep.

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Yeah, that's better. Welcome to a new era of Samsung AI TV. Discover more at Samsung.com. Upscale every moment. Upscaling utilizes AI-based algorithms. Viewing experience may vary according to types of content and format. 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...

He was still a big guy. 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. Yeah. That he probably just would have – like if he could get his hands around Gene, I think it might – the fight, I would give it to FDR. If they were both –

If I'm fighting FDR, 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 on the ground, I think FDR could just destroy Gene. Gene was very skinny. 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 pair of underwear in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Whoever can get the underwear on wins.

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 15 minute sock wrestling match. We went crazy. There was a decent audience. I got the first sock off immediately. I was going out hard. I was dominating those first 10 minutes. And then I started to wear out bad. It's an endurance game a lot of the time. This other twink 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 the other person's sock. I grabbed it and I tore it. But enough of the toe stayed on that it didn't count. And during those moments, my other sock was taken off and I was just devastated because I really went for it.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'm not sure if you were the Talmadge of the FDR in that situation. We went at this for like so long. I almost had to throw up afterwards. I was so exhausted. 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'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 wound up at a tie. Yeah. There you go. Sometimes you got to. Yeah. Think outside the briefs, I think is the saying. That's right. Mm hmm.

So progressive, while still racist, Senators Rivers and Harris still pushed forward some progressive legislation just knowing that Gene would likely veto it. These included bills for an old age pension, free textbooks, a seven-month school year, and a child labor amendment. Gene was not pro any of that. No. No.

It was reported in the Times Journal that Gene 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 1935 legislature. Gene 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 U.S. were allowed to support people's parents, it will take something out of their souls. Unquote. Oh, I love that. I love that argument. Fuck them parents. Fuck them 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 the start of, like, stealing the American soul. Uh-huh. It's something that conservatives cannot really say now. No. But there was still a fight for it back then. Mm-hmm.

Now, Senator Ed Rivers wanted to get elected governor in 36, and part of his plan was to court the education crowd by appropriating extra funds towards schools. Now, Gene 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. Now, if an appropriations bill failed to pass, on one hand, it could be politically destructive and embarrassing for Gene, 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 uncovered. 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 1800s just to see what kind of terms and conditions for like executive power existed. The final day of the 1935 legislative session was a chaotic mess of last minute meetings trying to approve an appropriations bill and one fistfight.

The Senate was mad at Gene for all of his vetoes and didn't want to push forward any of his proposals. The session ended with Gene comically vetoing a bill to name a highway in his honor, which the senators found funny. Gene did over 160 vetoes 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 a decade before the Civil War. And Gene was a symbol of, quote, total resistance to the new way, unquote. Mm-hmm.

Now, Gene also vetoed a bill allowing for the sterilization of people deemed criminally insane. But he joked with his adjunct general, Lindley Camp, quote, they made no provisions in here to exempt the governor and his adjunct 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 eugenics. I know.

I know. He somehow walked his way backwards into... You know what? I'm putting a point on the board for Talmadge there. What if they call me crazy? What if I lose my mind? It's wild. Oh, my God. So after this just disastrous session, he had a brief excursion out to his farm in Sugar Creek.

But then Gene gave an interview 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 like back then, quote,

On May 7th, Talmadge traveled to Washington to give a lengthy speech broadcast on CBS attacking the New Deal and 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 might just be an old timey thing that we just have like zero context for.

Because if it's the literal thing, I don't know how to even process that. Possibly. Possibly. I couldn't find much on it, but it was an odd enough quote that I wanted to include it. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, amidst Talmadge's continuing attacks on 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. A Roosevelt supporter from Georgia mailed an alleged campaign platform to the White House titled Proposed Presidential Platform for Honorable Eugene Talmadge, Governor of Georgia.

The policies on this alleged platform included two cent postage, a return to the gold standard. We love that. Love, love, love that. That was that that was already a thing. He was he was it on 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 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 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 out when 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 yesterday.

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 U.S. 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 Southern Democrat, Gene had little interest in the Republican Party. A presidential run would require more financing than Gene 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, Unquote.

Now, to better position himself for a presidential run, back in October of 34, Gene replaced the pro-Roosevelt state Democratic chairman, Major John Cohen, who was also the editor of the Atlanta Journal. And he was replaced with a Talmadge ally named Hugh Howell. FDR tried to prevent the swap, but ultimately failed to prevent Gene's power grab. The handling of Georgia'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 Oconee River, which the state just did not want to build. Gene engineered another stalemate situation with the federal road funds by preventing the construction of this bridge. Gene could then blame the federal government for withholding rightful money and turn this into like a state's rights issue, one that he hopes to campaign on nationally in the future.

mutual friends of FDR and Jean set up a secret meeting between the president and the governor for July 17th, where Roosevelt reaffirmed that the bridge would be built. Jean was able to weaponize this meeting by talking to reporters as he left the white house, calling FDR a damned communist. Uh,

Georgia's two U.S. 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 a sign 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 1936 re-election of Roosevelt...

The result would be to split the Solid South away from the National Democratic Party. Gene Talmadge 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 75-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. Robert, are you familiar with The Klansman? Yes, that is the book that got made into, what was it? Birth of a Nation. Yeah, Birth of a Nation. One of the first really epic blockbuster films. This guy was responsible for the rebirth of the KKK.

Yeah. Like, both this book, he had, like, he had, like, a magazine, I think, that was under the same name, and eventually this was made into the movie. All of these factors were, like, working right now to kind of give the KKK its, like, second life. Yeah. So, basically...

Chewie Long was out of the picture by now, but a whole bunch of his more like fascist cronies, as well as just like old, like old racists, were 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. Yeah.

As the prospect of a presidential bid increased, more Georgians were concerned with the state's finances going into 1936, 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 1936, Talmadge was now solely in control of the state's finances. Georgia Senator Frank Dennis said in a statement, quote, the old year carried out the state of Georgia and ushered in the state of Talmadge, unquote.

On January 4th, Gene was lucky to find $2.5 million in surplus funds from the previous year, which would pay for state operations for the next month. I would like to find $2.5 million from the previous year. That sounds great. That would be nice. 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. Love that Supreme Court. Gene cast a lone vote against FDR's nomination at the annual Democrat Jackson Day dinner with Time magazine writing, quote,

Wow. We used to have real writers in this country. We used to have real journalists. Wow.

And we used to have skeletons at a feast. It was a real problem back then. He really did kind of look skeletal 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 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, Gene claimed the convention's goal was to, quote, save the nation and the Democratic Party by blocking Mr. Roosevelt's renomination, unquote. And he added that they weren't seeking a third party. And despite support from conservative Northern Republicans, quote, we will nominate a Democrat. This is exclusively a Southern fight within the party, unquote.

They expected 10,000 people to attend the convention in Macon, but only 3,500 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 Eleanor Roosevelt talking with a Black man. Articles included topics such as how FDR was bad for appointing Black people to office,

Now, Jean 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 17 states agreed that FDR was not a Democrat, that a return to district constitutional construction should be made, and that Eugene Talmadge should be nominated for president on the constitutional Jeffersonian Democratic ticket.

Gene 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 the delegate.

The result of it all was that 3,500 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, Gene had agreed that the convention had failed before the first speech began, unquote.

So yeah, their whole racist convention sucked ass. Yeah. Now, publicly, Gene called the convention platform the greatest ever written in history. Mm-hmm.

Of course. Again, it is remarkable how similar the playbooks are, right? I just had my very best debate of all time. Yeah. And even privately admitting that this was a complete failure, but publicly, this is the best ever in history. It's this understanding that you still have to create a tunnel for your followers to bury into. Even if you keep enough of a lease on reality to know that you're full of it.

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, inept, corrupt, and ku-klux-minded, unquote.

Unquote. The outlet describes Talmadge as, quote, the most brazen and cheapest of these post-war demagogues and hence the most transparent. Talmadge 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 Gene in early 1936. He kind of failed to oust FDR. He's racist even for back then, which is, again, always impressive when you can be seen as horribly racist in the mid-1930s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like...

I was going to make a Dragon Ball Z reference, but Goku doesn't deserve that. Anyway, what were you going to say, Gare? There's one final anecdote before I close this episode. I'm going to read here from Anderson. Quote, late in 1934, Gene had called his treasurer, George Hamilton, into his office and asked if Hamilton knew the story of Julius Caesar.

Oh, God. Jesus. Here we go. Yeah, that's right. Buckle up. 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, Jean, 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. All these guys are the same. They're all the same. In what way are you the Caesar? What have you conquered, Gene? Atlanta? It's not that. Sherman did it. You know, like, it's not that hard.

Yeah. But that's just a great 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 folks who work as wealth planners for the billionaire class. And one of the guy's quotes was like, a startling number of them think they are literally descended from the pharaohs. It's like, yeah, I can see that. I can see that.

Yeah, so that is where we're going to leave the story of Eugene Talmadge 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-timey military uniforms, and follow each other around on dates, heavily armed. People like it. Everyone loves it. Everyone loves armed strangers at their dates. The wrestling contest is to remove the most amount of military dress from the opponent as you can. It's going to be the new big thing. That's not a bad idea, Garrison. The new big thing. People are into the spaghetti wrestling, the baked bean wrestling. No, military dress wrestling. Wow. Yeah.

Anyway. The episode's over. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.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.com slash at Behind the Bastards.

I think a

A lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody.

There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today.

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Tackle these situations in stride and of course be annoyed when an unplanned expense comes up, but not let it be something that slows me down. Right. As I did with repairing my credit, you know, hiring somebody to do credit repair for me. That was a gift that I gave myself that allowed me to then, you know, get my first apartment. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. State Farm. Proud sponsor of my Cultura podcast network. At your job, do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub pulley?

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