Behind the Bastards - Part One: America's First Fascist Governor

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Garrison Davis is joined by Robert Evans to discuss Eugene Talmadge, the racist southern country lawyer who became a dictator. (4 Part Series) Sources: The Wild Man From Sugar Creek by William AndersonRace and Racism in the United States by Charles A. Gallagher, Cameron D. Lippard Labor in the South by F. Ray Marshall https://www.ajc.com/news/special-reports/when-georgia-had-three-governors-the-story-that-won-george-goodwin-journalism-prize/PNNohvV4spaPsd5lFSzbkK/ https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/blog/the-three-governors-controversy/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that is, you know, a podcast. I don't know what to say. You're not always knowing what to say at the start of a week, and that's where I am this week. You just don't seem like you're qualified to host the podcast today. Yeah, no, that's why we've brought in a ringer, our equivalent of Sophie, who's a baseball guy? That's not my sport, but.

That's not your sport. LeBron. That is my sport, but I don't know you guys. You're into baseball now. Okay, okay, but not guys baseball, interesting. Baseball, baseball. Nate Silver. No. He's into baseball.

The Nate silver of baseball Oh, oh, what's the what's the guy's name from the Dodgers that my mom would be so disappointed in me? I don't know for you. Hey, of course totally show. Hey, you Tony. Yeah I know who he is. My mom loves him. I'm on garrison is the that guy of Helping me out with my podcast for this week and next week. Because you know, Garrison, in my culture, Italians, we have a ritual that's gone back thousands of years when a young person turns 22 to celebrate their entry into adulthood, where they research and write like a 16,000 word essay on a figure from Georgia state history. This goes back to ancient Roman times, in which Georgia didn't

exist as a state. So actually there were no adults in Italy for a very long period of time, which is a large part of why the Catholic church got up to some of the trouble it got up to. Oh, that's not good. That's, that's, absolutely not. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearth the plot to murder a one woman wiki leaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a Mafia state.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. of professional shoplifting. So you can make a thousand dollars a day shoplifting. Yeah. And I end up outside the mansion of the shoplifting queen herself. I hear the cops. Dude, I think we should go. Listen to Queen of the Con Season Six, The California Girls on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black, gay, non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy. But not in the way you think.

Messy as in I'm human and flawed. I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. History is filled with unexpected stories and I'd like to tell you about them. I'm Aaron Manke, and for the past six years, I've been sharing history's most curious tales on my podcast, Cabinet of Curiosities, such as the surprising country that invented the croissant and the wrestling champ who won the White House. And now these amazing stories and many more have been compiled into my new book. Curious to know more? Pre-order Cabinet of Curiosities, available November

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Open your free iHeart app and search true story of the fake zombies and start listening. Anyway, who are we learning about this week, buddy? of the fake zombies and start listening. Anyway, who are we learning about this week, buddy? So when I first moved to Georgia, kind of one of the first people I heard about that would be like a contender for a pretty fucked up guy is one of the old governors. Now, he served during the 1930s, so you can already tell there's going to be some fucked up stuff going on.

Probably not going to be a happy story in several specific ways. Yeah. So I was first told that this was like, this was like Georgia's main fascist. And that's saying something. It is saying something. And the more I looked into him, the more he kind of just felt like kind of the template for like conservative fascist like governorship, especially this kind of new wave

that we're seeing in the United States. And he's kind of like America's first like real fascist in some way. Now I know people point to Huey Long, the governor of our neighboring state. And if you don't know Huey Long was the governor of our neighboring state. And if you don't know, Huey Long was the governor of Louisiana, who was like kind of a dictator of Louisiana, but definitely definitely more on closer to further left, at least than the guy we're talking about.

He was much more socially liberal. He certainly was a dictator and in some ways kind of a more efficient dictator. He actually knew how to like be a dictator. Well, yeah, he was the Tito of the United States, yeah. Our guy for these next few weeks, Eugene Atalmage, was not a super efficient dictator, but he really wanted to be, and he certainly was a fascist.

Excellent. And that's who we're gonna be looking at for these next few weeks, and kind of how his reign over Georgia modeled what, you know, these like, like DeSantis and all these kind of new, new kind of more fascist governors, kind of how they have kind of replicated this sort of governing strategy. So that's, that's what we're looking at today. Let's start by kind of going back to lay the groundwork for the area that Gene grew up in. So Gene's great grandfather was born in New Jersey and moved to Georgia in the early 1820s after first like traveling the South while serving under Andrew Jackson in his attack

on the Creek Nation where he drove Native Americans from Alabama and Georgia deep into Florida. Great Grandpa Talmich decided to settle in central Georgia and started buying up hundreds of acres of land and began his career as a cotton farmer. Gene's biographer, a guy named William Anderson from Athens, Georgia, refers to this period as the birth of cotton culture. He was part of a large wave of settlers moving into the deep south after the indigenous tribes were killed off and forcibly relocated by Andrew Jackson. During this period, there

was certainly a desire for slaves as like a status symbol and obviously to help with like farm labor, especially if you didn't have a big family. Now it's, it's unclear if Gene's family had slaves, like they certainly would have liked them, but. But it wasn't the norm economically to be able to afford them. At least not for like his grandparents. Yeah. And they had a large enough family

that they kind of ran their farm that way. Now it is a little tricky to find tons of information on this guy, on Eugene Talmadge, because he's really looked over as a historical figure because he represented a moment that people would rather just kind of blaze past. He was like an unfortunate obstacle in the inevitable progress of history. So people kind of just skipped over him largely in the history books. There's really only one book that gets into him in depth. That's his biography, The Wild Man from Sugar Creek by Willie Manderson, which did a whole bunch of interviews

with like friends, enemies, political associates and rivals to kind of draw a picture of this guy. Now that book was published in the seventies, but like 30 years after Gene's demise. And it certainly criticizes Gene for his racism, but there's only so much you can do for being a book about Southern history written by a guy raised in this period. They were at a specific point in that stage and it was not where we are now.

Yeah. So I've also kind of supplemented some of the research that William Anderson did in that book with a few other books like Race and Racism in the United States by Charles A. Gallagher and Cameron D. Lipter, as well as the book Labor in the South by F. Ray Marshall. No, I am choosing to read that as Gallagher, the stage comedian. Gerson, do you know who Gallagher was? I have heard of a man named Gallagher.

Oh, that's a shame. He was, well, wasn't very good, actually, but he was a guy who hit fruit with a mallet. Anyway. Wow. So now, to kind of demonstrate how there's certain periods of Southern history that is kind of just skipped over by the history books, we don't really know what Gene's family was up to during the Civil War. They were certainly certainly were pro Confederates. I think we know kind of what they were up to during the Civil War. Yes, it's just not discussed in great detail. Yeah. But Gene's father, a man named Thomas Romalgas Talmage, which is a fantastic southern name. He grew up in the wake of the Civil War during the Reconstruction era. Now, Thomas had the

then rare privilege of attending the University of Georgia, but returned to his grandfather's land to continue to farm and process cotton. And he got wealthy by learning that there was more money in the processing of cotton rather than just the growing of it. Now Thomas married a girl named Carrie Roberts, the daughter of the so-called meanest man in Jasper County, a lawyer named Eugene Roberts. And the couple had their first son in 1884 and named him after Carey's father. This is Eugene Talmage. What a night. We really don't have that anymore.

Like being able to be like the meanest man in a county. He's the meanest man in Jasper County. I couldn't tell you what the meanest man in Multnomah County was. I couldn't tell you the meanest man in any county I've ever lived in. And that's really, that's an example of like how we've lost our, the collective spirit that once made this nation great, you know?

That's kind of what Eugene Talmadge believed. He was right. Robert, we could make Robert the meanest man in Multnomah County easily. Yeah, I don't know. That's true. I don't know. That's true. I don't know. We have a lot of cops, although they don't live here.

Also true. Now Thomas wasn't raising his kids to just be simple farm hands, and he works to guarantee that his children had the highest quality education provided in the area. Now, Gene was kind of a sickly kid, and he remained a little bit sickly throughout his whole life. He was very, very lean, very thin. And it was apparent to his family from a very young age that he would not be one to labor away in the fields. Anderson writes, he tried the plow as a boy,

but his mind was recognizably his strong suit. Now, Gene's dictatorial ambitions could be seen from quite an early age, as his childhood hero was none other than Napoleon. Oh, see. Which is an immediate red flag. Yeah, that's a red flag. That's a red flag. If you're kids into Napoleon,, you gotta stop that shit. Crack down hard. I spent all my time reading Hitler books as a little kid, and that only turned out marginally better. You are the best case scenario for a kid who's really into Hitler books. But Napoleon was definitely the Hitler of that period.

And yeah, you just got to... He needed more... You know what, Garrison? He needed more time with the plow. You know? A little more time with that plow would have fixed him up. Maybe enough that he gets threshed and he doesn't ever learn how to read better. He was not built for the plow. And Gene was really obnoxious about it, too.

I mean, read a quote from Anderson here, quote, He baited family members and houseguests by betting them he could quote passages from a volume of Napoleon's biography that he constantly carried around. Absolutely not. Oh my god. Geez. I bet you don't think I can do it, he would say, until someone would answer that they didn't believe he could.

A verbatim quote would then issue forth and its length and precision never failed to impress all who heard it. I'm not an expert parent here, but I think the right way to respond to that is you get a sprayer and you just spray them in the face a little bit. Every time they try to like get you to ask them a Napoleon quote, you just get them right in the face. Yeah, like a cat.

Yeah, like a cat. You have a little spray bottle, like no, stop. You don't want to hurt them, you just want to teach them that's not how we behave in public, you know? A little bit of water, yeah. Genghis Khan's on the line, Napoleon, a hard no. Yeah. Hard no? Yeah.

And just to say one more time, Robert, you're not a parent, let alone an expert. I have two entire cats. Sure. And I raised them. And this is roughly your parenting strategy yeah nice cats cats are fine around Tanner right Garrison it's other kinds of explosive might just use it as a litter box on it yeah it's essentially just tracking that all over the house you know there's no reason you couldn't and

then you can blow it up afterwards. This is not a bad idea. You don't have to do the litter anymore. You don't have to do the litter, just shoot it. Just once a week, take your box of Tenerite into the backyard. Just shoot it with a.308, this is perfect. Man, I think I've got a new product idea. That's certainly a better idea

than what Gene was up to as a kid because he was quite the little bastard. As a 12 year old, he had his private pony and buggy ride to his school, the Hillard Institute for Boys, just insufferable. And he was also a debate kid. Schoolmates recounted he was a very skilled debater who almost like never lost and had a very devilish spirit. He was also quite a mean child as

the grandson of the meanest man in Jasper County. Gene said that the quote, n-word boys I grew up with would call me mean Lou Gene because I was so damn mean, unquote. And this continued all throughout his life. He was consistently not just like extremely racist, but like just in general, a very cruel man. Yeah. Um, like for fun, he would, he would just start fights between boys at school and then he would just sit and watch them go at it.

Uh, this is also something he continued to do late into his career. He didn't want to be a part of the fighting. He just wanted to watch it happen. I he's reminding me a little bit of Peter Thiel because I'm working on his episodes now. So I'm reading about him as a child. And he wasn't exactly this kind of kid, but there's this like this commonality and like they

recognize that they're smarter than other people. And their primary, the primary thing that they take from that is I should fuck with them. Yeah, yeah, no, that's like. And I need to be ruling them. Yeah, his capacity to like manipulate people and gain pleasure out of that. Yeah. And then eventually wield power over them. That's definitely like an early drive.

And like, that's why he likes Napoleon. Like, yeah, that's why he found Napoleon to be a compelling figure. We need to just, all Napoleon books, we need to coat in like a form of lithium that just gets in through your skin and really just lithium these kids the fuck out. Honestly, that's the right call. That might have happened to Jeed

because he, spoiler alert, he didn't live super long. So he may have very well been poisoned by a great many things that were around this area of like rural Georgia in the in the 20s 30s. People talk about microplastics just thinking about all the ways that they're going to damage our reproductive health and lead to cancer clusters, yada yada yada. Think of how many assholes are going to check out early thanks to that stuff, you know? We could really dodge a few major bullets there.

Every week I buy a pallet of bottled water and I just hook it in the back of a high school, you know? What is, what, continue Garrison. So although Napoleon was the childhood hero of Jean, a populist speaker named Tom Watson was his first real political inspiration on the local level. Anderson writes that Watson became Gene's quote unquote spiritual leader and that Gene was quote fascinated by his fiery style,

understanding of the rural mind and his electrifying manner of speech, unquote. Now, Watson later became like a kind of like politician and lawyer who, as he got older, got increasingly racist and increasingly anti-Semitic. As kind of as liberalization was setting in in the 20th century, what he would do, he would go around Georgia just blaming black people and Jewish people for like all of the resulting economic complications that like liberalism and modernism was was like encroaching onto Georgia.

So this is this is Jean's like real like like really local hero. The guy he actually thinks like Jean knows he's not going to be like an actual Napoleon, but he can be a Tom Watson. Yeah. So later in college, Jean would brag about how far he would walk to attend a Tom Watson speech. And he would just get so excited talking about it that he would start walking around and pacing, pacing around the room telling his friends. He was he was super into this guy. Now, like his father, he attended the University of Georgia in Athens, where he served as football manager and was a

champion debater. He continued to continue to be a debate kid until his death. After school, he started teaching in the small farming town of Auburn, Georgia, which he quickly found to be quite boring. Gene loved debate and intellectual combat, so he decided to go back to Athens and enroll in law school to become a lawyer like his hero, Tom Watson. He graduated in 1907 and moved to Atlanta to work in a law firm. But he was still just very unsatisfied with work. He just wasn't doing very well. Gene's father didn't really know how to help him because he was quote unquote so goddamn mean. It's like even his father knew like you just can't

succeed in life because you're just like a cruel person. Yeah. Now, a friend of his father, a legislator named William Peterson, offered for Gene to stay at his home with his sister in the small town of Ailey in South Georgia to straighten him out. There he could live cheaply and start his own law practice. Another woman was living in the house, a young widow with a child from South Carolina named Mitt or nicknamed Mitt. What year is he in school? What year was this?

He graduated law school in 1907. Okay. So he moved. This is this is around like the late like 19 aughts. Yeah. So technically he could have been a Rhodes Scholar, but he wasn't. I guess we all could have been a Rhodes Scholar, but he wasn't. I guess so. We all could have been a Rhodes Scholar. I think Rhodes Scholar was like 1902, 1903 when it first started. So technically he could have been,

but he wasn't. I guess so. I guess so. Okay. So Mitt from South Carolina, didn't really like that a city slicker was gonna be living in the same house as her. So when Jean arrived, she quickly met him first to charge him just an exuberant rent to scare him off. But he agreed, and the two actually started to get along quite well.

Jean appreciated her for, as he said, her sassiness. Anderson writes that her independent nature, as well as her quote, infectious sense of humor, complimented the Talmadge wit unquote. So they quickly got along and a courtship began, which resulted in Jean having to move out of the house as it would be improper for the couple to be living under the same roof. Of course. So Jean relocated to the nearby community of Mount Vernon, where he had a small law office across from the courthouse with an older lawyer named Colonel Underwood,

another great Southern name. This whole story is peppered with some just fantastic names. Now, in Mount Vernon, he gained our reputation for being a short tempered dick, which he was. There was one time he falsely blamed a neighbor kid for letting out his pony and threatened to beat the hell out of the kid.

An old Mount Vernon local called him, quote, the meanest son of a bitch I've ever met, unquote. And so this is he continued just to be like a really mean guy. And he was not a very popular man, not just because of his bubbly personality, but also because the sort of cases he took on, which were often ones that like older, more established lawyers could afford to pass up on. So like murders, muggings, and dealing with clients just so poor that they could only pay in chicken, eggs, and milk.

Jean took just nearly every case offered. Anderson writes of one instance where Eugene defended a black woman, quote, who was so poverty stricken that she gave him her four young boys as partial payment or perhaps because she could not afford to keep them. I mean, first off, I got to say, what else are you going to do with four young boys, Garrison? It's it's this is this is a pretty uncomfortable little little tidbit here. I don't know. Robert, Gene took the boys and fixed a place for them in a small barn behind his house.

Sounds nice. That's like an ADU. Sure. The boys did odd jobs around the house and stories still circulate about how he used to beat the hell out of them when they disobeyed him. Now it's gotten problematic. You know? Oh, not the not the kind of sort of slavery.

No, it was starting to sound like, could, look, there was no slavery here, you know? Maybe? Robert. It's absolutely slavery curious. It is slavery, it's adjacent to slavery. I was thinking it was like the reverse of three men and a baby, four kids, and a guy who wants to be the dictator of Georgia.

I don't think it's that charming. Now, Anderson, there was three men and a baby. OK, Anderson closes this little anecdote by saying there's no proof that he kept them, but the rumor still does. No proof that he kept the children. What a horrible thing to have someone say about you. We have we also just have no clue like what happened to these. Yeah, where do they go? How long he had them? Yeah, just kind of this these kind of disappear from his biography after after like a few paragraphs. They're just like oh well

sure So when life gets you children is to something that will never know To them yeah, Don't finish that thought. Yeah, but I don't I can't. We don't know what happened to them. Now, Jean and Mitt got married in 1909, and she and her son, John, moved into the small Mount Vernon home where they lived for two years as Jean struggled as a lawyer.

Now, they were just doing so poorly that Jean decided to quit law altogether and move on to Mitt's deceased husband's farm on Sugar Creek about 23 miles away in the town of McRae. Mitt says, quote, we weren't hardly in the place and starting to plant before Jean decided he didn't want to be no farmer. You could say he liked being a farmer, but he didn't like farming, unquote. And I think this is one of the truest statements about Gene's career. He loved the political idea of being a farmer.

He hated farm work. He did not enjoy it at all. He would almost do anything to avoid it. But he found great solace in the concept of being a farmer. Now, Mitt eventually just took over farming operations to support the family as Gene returned to his struggling career in law. Do you know what else I struggle with Robert?

Wow. Saying several of the words in that last sentence, but you know. Yes, that is true. Who am I to judge on that account? Words are often a struggle, as well as the products and services that support this podcast, the eternal struggle for advertising, I guess. Yes, yes. I'm writing a book in German about...

Nope. OK, anyway, here's some ads. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel de Lilla. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unearths the plot to murder a one woman Wiki WikiLeaks. Tiffany exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad free, subscribe to the iHeartTrueCrimePlus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black, gay, non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy. But not in the way you think. Messy as in I'm human and flawed. I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Okay let's put this messy round of smash or pass.

Okay, here it is, smash or pass. Spit play. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about bodily fluids being on me unless it's... Oh! Ah! Because we're doing the pull out message.

We're living on the edge. Oh my God! I was not expecting that. Baby, like I always say, if you know how to work that body, that sexualness, and that heart, you're unstoppable. Embrace your power. That's really what we're going to do on this show. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. They stroll in like regular shoppers.

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But she's just a worker bee. I actually confront the real shoplifting queen herself. Just wanted to see if you'd be interested in talking to me about charges and stuff. No, I have no comment. A mother of three orchestrating all her crimes from a secluded hilltop mansion. We're walking around the perimeter of the house now.

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Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. History is filled with strange, unusual and unexpected stories. Stories about people who have accomplished extraordinary things, pets that have gone above and beyond events that have defied explanation. And I'd like to tell you about them. I'm Aaron Manke. And for the past six years, I've been sharing the most curious tales in history with millions of listeners around the world on my hit podcast, Cabinet of Curiosities.

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are sold. Learn more over at GrimAndMild.com slash Curiosities. Garrison. It's hard not to make a Mein Kampf joke when someone says the word struggle. You know, that's my struggle. We will at some later point learn about Gene's Mein Kampf opinions because he did have them. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, did Gene get a chance to read the follow-up? That's like an episode three or four thing.

But Gene did have Mein Kampf opinions. Yeah. And they weren't great. All right. Hitler, okay, sorry. So at this point in Georgia, it was essentially just a one-party state wholly controlled by the White's-only primary election dictated who occupied governmental positions.

In the late 1800s, Georgia informally adopted a primary election system called the county unit system, which was formally signed into law in 1917. It functioned kind of like Georgia's own version of the Electoral College, allowing each county a certain number of votes in party primaries, which could overrule the popular vote. The eight most populated counties had six votes each. 30 medium-sized counties had four votes, and the last 121 counties with very small rural populations had two votes each. So this system was designed and worked to maintain rural control over the whole state, as only a few tiny counties had the same voting power as the entire population of Atlanta and other growing urban centers.

The county unit system tied Georgia to the past amidst a period of rapid industrialization and urban growth. The system was managed by local county officials who were often corrupt and demanded favors or promises in exchange for votes, acting as a sort of lobbying group for the county. I'm going to quote from Anderson here, quote, the rule power source created a group of power wielders known as the courthouse gang. Comprised of city and county officials, the newspaper editor, the sheriff, and county lawyers,

the gang represented the common denominator of Georgia's power structure. Each gang had its own idiosyncratic ways of operating, of obtaining power and losing it. Members were the power brokers for the community. The gangs formed complex associations of power with the state's money sources in urban Atlanta that grew stronger during the first two decades of the century as technology moved into Georgia."

So there was like this tension between the political power, which was held in rural counties, and the monetary influence, which resided in Atlanta. What marked a good politician or power broker was one's ability to thread that needle. Now, almost immediately upon arriving in McRae, Gene began asking around about the local courthouse gang. In his old towns of Ailey and Mount Vernon, the courthouse gang there was under the control of the Peterson family, who facilitated Gene's move to the area, so he wisely avoided getting into unnecessary fights with the local establishment. But in McRae, this ceased to be the case. This was his first opportunity to play at politics, as he sensed the local political structure was unstable and positions of power were often in flux. Now, Jean had varied naked ambitions of power, but he preferred picking fights with the courthouse gang rather than appeasing them.

He was so immediately disliked by this exclusive collection of power brokers that the other lawyers saw him as quote, the N word who came to town. So just just just using racism as a way to call someone essentially like an unwanted stranger. So that's how they started to that's how they started referring to Jean. Now, he also just became so unpopular that it became hard for him to win a case before the jury. Gene continued to struggle with his law of practice as he managed his farm through the years up and through World War I. At this point, he operated what they call a two-mule farm.

He grew cotton and sugar cane and then moved on to peanuts. He hired white and black farm hands, none of which were treated great. Hey, whoa, DEI. But the black ones were treated much worse. Okay, well that's probably fine with the people who are angry about DEI. Okay, well, okay, there you go.

Woke. Woke on the idea that everyone was all pretty racist and pretty violent and pretty fucked up. So if that's what woke means, then yes. I mean, sort of an anonymous interview from 1941, a close friend of Jean recalled, quote, Jean was like a lot of farm bosses back then. He did knock the hell out of a black if he crossed him.

Oops. I remember when he was governor, he hit one of his farm N words upside the head with a pistol and the pistol went off. The N word ran under the house holding his head and Gene got a little scared that he killed him. He told me to go look under the house to see if he was all right. By the time I got there, the N word had run home, packed his bags and left."

Wow. That's one of those remarkable passages where like every additional clause makes it worse. Yes. Yeah. Instances like this were not uncommon for Gene. Anderson writes, quote, Gene later admitted to flogging a Negro man and appeared ashamed of it, saying good people could be misguided and do bad things. Disregarding this remorseful apology, Talmadge's attitude towards blacks was that they were

childlike, basically stupid, barely moved from a savage ancestry, and should be closely controlled." Now, Jean was just well known locally to have racist outbursts of violence. During World War I, a Jewish man and his wife from the North were accompanied by their black butler traveling back home from Florida. While passing through McRae, the woman and her butler walked through town snacking on apples. And the display of a white woman and a black man alone eating food together shocked and angered the local shop owners. As news reached the courthouse, Gene

busted out the door, brandishing an axe, with another lawyer armed with a hammer. Gene charged towards the butler, screaming, I'm gonna get you, N-word. And the white lady threw apples at Gene, and a mob descended and demanded the couple leave town, which they did, abandoning the black butler who was left to flee on his own. Anderson notes that quote, no one ever did find the poor servant unquote. So another one of these incidents, I like you can't like name all of them. This is just like a such a common, common occurrence. Now Anderson writes quote, this incident reflects the complexity and the cruelty of the racial situation. Jean saw nothing wrong with having Negroes eat lunch at his table and cook his food as long as

they don't sit next to his wife. But he considered it unthinkable to have a black man accompany a white woman down the street eating apples together, no matter how innocent their motives. To explain his position towards black people in the 1920s is to explain that of most Georgians." of black people in the 1920s is to explain that of most Georgians." By 1918, Gene's, or rather Mitt's, farming venture was a steady operation, but his law practice was still largely a failure, and his political aspirations remained completely unrequited. His first real brush with politics arose when the office of solicitor to the city court became vacant.

Now, it wasn't a big position, but it could provide a foot in the door. Now, Jean had the perfect idea to secure his spot in the open post. He wrote to his father, who was a very well connected and well respected man in Atlanta and asked him to speak with the governor about appointing Eugene to the position. Now the governor was apparently happy to oblige, but instead of this impressing the local courthouse gang, this only made them hate Jean more. Because of course, you're just asking your fancy dad to give you this post instead of actually having to work for it yourself. Now, they were so unhappy with this state of affairs

that they had the office voted out of existence by the legislature. They just they really wanted nothing to do with Jean. One of the stories about how Jean got into politics was that the local courthouse gang was refusing to grade the roads around his farm. So he sought office to do it himself. Now this is like most certainly like not the main reason he got into politics. He was always interested in politics. But this is a story that was deployed for his own political gain over time. Now, at this point in Georgia, rail, oil and power were the main political industries. But with the advent of the automobile, the age of the

road was around the bend. Georgia roads were famously quite bad in the 1920s and rural roads were often way too rough for like buggies and cars and really only good for horses and walking. Same today honestly. I mean sometimes in certain areas. Gene made friends with multiple early road builders including a man named John Whitley who would later become one of his best friends. Gene also struck up a friendship with the so-called most knowledgeable road builder in the area, a man named J.C. Thrasher, another fantastic name. That's an amazing name. Oh, man.

I'm gonna steal that man's name to write a fucking TV show. Like, I almost like 45 minute episodes, 26 a season, about a guy who repossesses cars in Miami. Yeah, that's a good like repo man. Yeah, JC Thrasher. Yeah. Now, Thrasher and Gene bonded over their shared aspirations of getting into the courthouse gang, both feeling like they've been screwed over by the local establishment. Now, Thrasher wanted to run for county commissioner and Gene

volunteered to be his campaign manager. He ran Thrasher as an independent since the Democratic Party was tied in with the local courthouse gang, but he managed to get Thrasher elected. As soon as he took office, Thrasher appointed Gene as attorney for the county. The courthouse gang had finally been broken and the pair began their successful road building program. But after only being a county attorney for like just a few months, Gene wanted more. He decided to run for state representative. His wife, Mitt, wasn't thrilled as she didn't really care much for Gene's

political aspirations and felt that he was abandoning the farm that they had spent a decade building, which he absolutely was. But nevertheless, Gene persisted and announced his candidacy in a short statement. I'm going to quote from Anderson here, quote, much of the Talmadge future in politics can be read in this first announcement. Know the poor voter, articulate few problems and fewer solutions and bear down heavily on your own honesty. Do nothing, but do it with honor." Unquote.

And yeah, Gene had kind of had like a libertarian-esque undercurrent to a whole bunch of his campaign. He certainly- I often do. Which is like funny, because like he is a dictator, but he's like a libertarian dictator. It's a thing in US politics in particular, kind of no matter who you are

You have to have some libertarian even to the present day some libertarian signposting in here I mean Kamala just did this with her like I have a gun I'd shoot someone who broke into my house comes into my house Yeah, you have to do it a little bit because it's just so baked into what Americans are, you know, so I get that yeah to what Americans are, you know? So I get that. Yeah. Gene mostly ran his campaign alone. He would get up early and ride around on county roads, talking with farmers, rail workers,

and shopkeepers. Anderson notes, quote, Gene knew that he had to counter years of bad publicity from the gang and many unpopular court fights, unquote. And despite Gene's work to counter this bad publicity, he did lose 756 votes to 1,187 votes, which gives you an idea of like the voting population of this area. Yeah, yeah. But Gene took the loss well,

knowing that he did reasonably well for his first run, and he didn't want to damage the positive reputation that he'd worked hard to build up that summer. With his newly garnered goodwill, Gene became friends with the old leader of the gang, Lamar Mordeaux, eventually moving into his law office. Gene's second attempt to run for office was in 1922, this time for the State Senate. In attempts to discredit him during the race, the courthouse lawyers convened a grand jury to accuse Talmage of having sex with his plowing mule, which is a tried and true political tactic. It's just accusing your opponent of having sex with

animals. It is an old one that simply will not go away. Still, Gene was improving as a politician, evidenced by winning the popular vote in the three-county race. Yet the courthouse gang decided that this election would be subject to the county unit system and chose to overrule the popular vote just to spite Jean. Jean was now 40 years old. He couldn't manage to get elected to local office and really only got where he was via the courtesy of family and friends, and was continuously outmaneuvered by his enemies. But despite his losses, he kept thinking bigger.

Around 1924, Jean took a trip to Atlanta to, in the words of his friend and long-term political ally Henry Sperlin, quote, find the biggest dog he could to decide who to run against. Now, while in Atlanta, Gene encountered the agricultural commissioner, old JJ Brown, another great name, who's described as a huge man wearing a huge hat surrounded by a personal posse. Now, Gene was enamored.

He was like strong pimp vibes. Yeah, of course, who's not? Yes, very much so. Absolutely, yeah. And Gene was enamored by this, right? Of course. You see your first pimp, that's an important moment in every young boy's life.

Gene wants to be a guy with a big hat surrounded by a personal posse. That's like all he wants in life. Who doesn't? No, Anderson notes that quote, in rural Georgia, with its weak central government and strong agricultural economy, the office of agricultural commissioner had emerged as one of the more powerful unquote. And old JJ Brown was in with big fertilizer. And while he was like famously corrupt, he was also one of the most powerful men in the state,

controlling a very fierce political lobby and awarded supporters with cushy oil and fertilizer inspector jobs. To stand a chance against JJ, Gene would need substantial political assistance. Luckily, he'd become friendly with the editor of the very, very influential Atlanta Constitution newspaper, who, like many others, wanted to see old JJ go. But sympathetic coverage wasn't enough to go up against JJ. Now, old JJ Brown's open display of corruption was turning more

and more lawmakers against him. A state legislator named Tom Linder was heading up in efforts to find someone to run against Brown. On a trip home to South Georgia, Linder happened to encounter Talmadge while going farm to farm selling fertilizer. Talmadge had heard of Linder, and the two started talking politics. He mentioned that he was looking for someone to run up against old JJ with the backing of 100 legislators, but everyone was just too scared to run. Gene quickly ran over

and told Lamar Mordeaux about this coincidental opportunity. And a few and a few nights later, both men showed up outside Linder's house, announcing that Jean would like a run for agricultural commissioner. Though he didn't have the best political track record, Jean was feisty. And more importantly, literally no one else was willing to go up against JJ at this point. Now, Gene's wife was not pleased, and she only found out about his candidacy while shopping in town one day. At this point, Gene and Mitt were not talking much

about Gene's political career. That's sad. Yeah, I mean, Mitt's very busy having to run Gene's farm, so she has a lot to do. Fair enough. Being a girl boss. Kind of, kind of. Although Gene will take all the credit for the farm.

Well, that's what being a boy boss is. That is what being a boy boss is. Real Zuckerberg energy from our man Gene here. Now, some in the local courthouse gang were very quick to snitch on Jean, but a fair amount of them were wrangled into supporting him. Anderson notes that for Jean's haters, it was kind of a win-win scenario

for him to run against a powerful man like JJ, because if he lost, which he most certainly would, his ambitions would once again be completely crushed, and if he somehow won, then Jean just wouldn't be their problem anymore. Now, Mordeau headed up inner county relations, going around talking to different newspapers, courthouse gangs, and churches. And the election had a few other local boys from across the state eventually running on a similar platform against Brown, but Jean stood out because of his presentation and theatrics, reminiscent of the populist Tom Watson, as well as the favorable coverage

in the Constitution. And Murdo later just paid off two candidates to drop out of the race. This way, Gene was able to present himself as the lone combatant standing against all odds. Talmadge was absolutely trying to fill in the populist power vacuum left by the death of his adolescent inspiration, Tom Watson. Gene started using little nicknames to attack his opponents, calling JJ's corrupt oil inspectors oily boys. That's not bad. That's not bad. That's a good start. That's a good start. So it's a good start. Yeah. Oily boys. It's like how Trump started with Crooked Hillary before he reached his apotheosis with-

Sleepy Joe. No, Meatball Ron. Meatball Ron. Meatball Ron. That was his finest hour. That's his Battle of Britain. You can see the uptick, right? We got, we got.

Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Meatball Ron. You did it. You did it. Just nuked him. That was the verbal equivalent of a fucking cruise missile. No, Anderson does write, again, he wrote this in the 70s, quote, Gene had an unusual talent for coming up with simple, easy to remember, funny phrases, unquote. That's all it takes.

That's a staple of politics. easy to remember funny phrases." Unquote. Politics. Yeah. That's a staple of politics. To continue from Anderson, quote, Gene had developed an uncanny intuition about the emotional motivation of the farmer. He knew they were gut motivated, responsive to emotional appeals and extremes, and had a strong propensity for irrationality. They possessed great pride, a fantastic sense of their past, and an appreciation for it, and they were suspicious of things strange and

alien. The strategy of erecting faceless enemies and conspiracies, warring against the little man, the haves against the have-nots, had been used definitively by Watson, and the disciple had learned well from the master. His language could be earthy, profane, grammatically atrocious, and very provincial. In rice-laded rural areas, it was tailored to be understood by the most ignorant farmhand. Simple, uncluttered, blunt discourse punctuated with bile passages and rural humor. His language was also very adaptable. He was a highly educated man, capable of polish and refinement and sophisticated dialogue." Unquote.

So he kind of like code switched in talking to like rural farmers, he would talk a certain way and talking to like people in Atlanta, he would talk a different way. Because like he wasn't a hick, like he went to the University of Georgia, he went to law school. He was a very well educated guy. But he understood the value in playing one. No, no, no, no, no, because he literally said he wants people

to think he's a farmer, but he hates farming. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying he wanted people to, he understood the value of playing as a hick. Exactly, exactly. Very unbranned for him. He kind of introduced, if not introduced, he kind of popularized this very like theatrical style

of politics for the US governor. Like this is this is where he made his bread and butter was being a very like theatrical. I think I think Anderson calls it a politics of crisis, like a theatrical politics of crisis. That was his main tactic. Yeah. And do you know what our main tactic is, Robert? Well, it's actually that, Garrison. I'm a big fan of the politics of crisis, which is why I'm trying to convince everybody listening that there's a high stakes presidential election occurring

when you and I both know the lizards picked the winner months ago. Oh, God. Anyway. Okay, here's some ass. It's a good bit, I'm just not gonna continue. I just can't. No, no, here's some ass. It's a good bit. I'm just not going to continue. I just can't.

No, no, no, no, no, no. There's only so far we should go into that. Otherwise, somebody's going to send us a message on Reddit that makes me regret the last several years of work I've done. Anyway, here's some ass. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. My name is Manuel de Lilla. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unearths the plot to murder a one woman WikiLeaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad free, subscribe to the I Heart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. My name is Brandon Kyle Goodman. I'm a black gay non-binary author, TV writer, actor, and I'm messy. But not in the way you think. Messy as in I'm human and flawed.

I'm on a mission to destroy shame around sex. And the only way to do that is to talk about sex. So that's what we'll do on my brand new podcast, Tell Me Something Messy. Okay, let's play this messy round of smash or pass. Okay, here it is, smash or pass, spit play. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about bodily fluids being on me unless it's...

Oh! Ah! Because we're doing the pullout message. We're living on the edge. Oh my God! I was not expecting that. Baby, like I always say, if you know how to work that body, that sexualness, and that heart, you're unstoppable. Embrace your power.

That's really what we're going to do on this show. Join me on Tell Me Something Messy with brand new episodes every Thursday on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. They stroll in like regular shoppers. Did it ever occur to you that all these crazy shoplifting stories are actually connected? Eight million dollar retail theft ring.

I'm going deep undercover. It's hard to visualize you with hair. To connect the dots and expose this secret world. It's 100% human trafficking. So you can make a thousand dollars a day shoplifting? Yeah. But she's just a worker bee. I actually confront the real shoplifting queen herself. Just wanted to see if you'd be interested in talking to me about charges and stuff. No, I have no comment. A mother of three orchestrating all her crimes from a secluded hilltop mansion.

We're walking around the perimeter of the house now. I hear the cops. Dude, I think we should go. Let's roll. We're running from the cops. Listen to Queen of the Con, season six, The California Girls on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Gosh, if I was one of those California girls,

I'd be sweating. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right. In our own world, we're two space cadets and totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars,

discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right, and if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey! Join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the MyKultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time.

History is filled with strange, unusual and unexpected stories. Stories about people who have accomplished extraordinary things. Pets that have gone above and beyond. Events that have defied explanation. And I'd like to tell you about them. I'm Aaron Manke, and for the past six years, I've been sharing the most curious tales in history with millions of listeners around the world on my hit podcast, Cabinet of Curiosities. With well over 120 million downloads to date, listeners have been fascinated by such tales as the surprising country that invented the croissant, the stowaway turned hero who helped capture a Nazi spy, and the wrestling champ who went on to win the White

House. And now, finally, nearly 200 of these amazing stories from the podcast have been gathered into one book. Curious to know more? Pre-order Cabinet of Curiosities, available November 12th, wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Learn more over at GrimAndMile.com slash Curiosities. So that's why I think if the electoral count is tied, the Senate's obviously gonna pick Tim Walz. That's been the plan the whole time.

It's already been orchestrated. It's very, oh, oh, we're back. Oh, hi. Oh, sorry, hey, yeah. Guys, guys, guys. Welcome, this is Behind the Bastards. We're returning once again. A podcast about how Tim Walz absolutely

is not descended from an iguana. Look, I haven't gone through his childhood photos, seen pictures of his parents. I can't prove to you that he's part iguana, you know? That's just not a thing I'm going to do. He's not got no iguana. Nebraska, famously known for its iguana population. DNA, absolutely.

It has a lot of, like, you can keep an iguana in a terrarium garrison, don't be racist. What is happening? Speaking of racism, Eugene Talmich. Uh-huh. Oh boy. So now, to Gene's delight, again, we are in the race for the agricultural commissioner.

And to Gene's delight, again, we are in the race for the Agricultural Commissioner, and to Gene's delight, JJ Brown challenged him to multiple debates, the first of which would take place in McRae. Now, this is exactly what Gene was wanting. Now, JJ had heard that Gene was unpopular in his hometown and thought it would be like an easy win. But JJ made the mistake of only hearing from Gene's local critics and failed to realize the ability of a small town to rally together against a big, slimy, like big city politician. This was going to be the biggest political event in the town's history. And folks were genuinely excited to see that fiery Gene Talmadge go at it again.

Gene absolutely dominated in the debate using the hometown crowd to his advantage. Not that that was needed, though, as the second debate was in JJ's hometown in North Georgia, and once again, Talmadge handed JJ Brown a humiliating defeat. Anderson writes that, quote, Brown had been run off the stump in his own hometown, unquote. Now, Jean returned to McRae for Election Day, where he won 123,000 votes to 66,000 votes. I gotta say, the number of voters has really leapt up since the last election. Yes, indeed. Jean also just completely dominated in the county unit system, getting 362 county unit votes to Brown's meager 52.

Ouch. To quote Anderson, quote, the Atlanta press and the Georgia legislature provided flesh and blood to a skeleton conceived and bound together by the tremendous energies and aspirations of Eugene Talmage. Unquote. And I think this is, this is, this is really crucial place for a skeleton metaphor, but I'm on board.

Gene was often very skeletal, like he kind of looked like a walking skeleton. He doesn't look like a skeleton. I like skeletons, you know, I love someone with a skeleton. So I think it's important to point out that like both the Atlanta press and the Georgia and the Georgia legislature would later like hate Gene Talmich. And yet they are the ones responsible for first getting him into power. It was only through their coverage

and only through their assistance that he was made into the monster that he would like become. Without their participation, he probably would have stayed just a small country lawyer. It was specifically their help that allowed him to get to where he was. Now, Gene fulfilled his campaign promises of cutting the bloated number of inspectors, and while he removed any remnants of the old corrupt JJ regime, he did tend to hire a lot of his own family members. And he won re-election in 1928, but for a man in such a high political position, he

had a very juvenile understanding of the state economy. He cannot understand why Southern bankers favored appeasing Wall Street over helping local farmers. Jean weaponized fears of Southern inferiority and oppression, preaching that rich Northerners were using their influence to keep the agricultural South subservient to the North. Anderson writes that this belief, quote, drove him beyond old South conservatism to the point of no-nothingism and a semi-rejection of all things geographically and idealistically removed from the South, unquote. He ran a column in the department's own newspaper, The Market Bulletin, which ostensibly existed to communicate directly with

farmers. But he mostly used it to spread his economic and political philosophy. Right. This is how you just send like updates on like farming and like agricultural information because the internet doesn't exist. But Gene has used this as his own Twitter feed. Just just posting, posting his like economic opinions. This is a thing like with the very worst people

in like the 20th century is they all found ways to independently create Twitter for themselves. This is also- Everyone wants to have a Twitter. Yeah, everyone wanted a Twitter. And all of the worst people figured out how to make their own. Yes, yes, absolutely. Now, Jean won re-election a third time in 1930, and this year marked the first time

in the state's history that a majority of the population weren't living on a farm. Basically, since the Civil War, Georgia, especially rural Georgia, was stuck in a culturally imposed political isolation. But now, people were fleeing the countryside in droves as a mixture of economic hardships, developing technology, and urban growth, as Anderson puts it, quote, brought the reality of the world to Georgia, unquote. And basically, this forced modernism that was encroaching provided a compelling alternative to farm life for the rural population. At the start of the Depression, the average price of farmland and cotton fell by one half.

And Jean still did basically nothing to help his supporters weather these bad times. He mostly just encouraged people to stay on the farm and he lambasted the federal- Keep farming, starve out there, you know? Yeah, because he thought that was more noble than taking help from the federal government, literally. He spent all of his time just complaining about the federal farm

bureau's recommendations and attempts to help people, saying that their efforts were like un-American, right? Trying to give people like money to like get food, trying to start lending cooperatives, trying to encourage people to just farm a little bit less land so they have a sustainable supply and demand ecosystem. Now, it's just very clear, Gene lacked the economic knowledge to effectively enact any change. So instead, he blamed all of the state's

agricultural and economic woes on Wall Street and bankers, quote unquote. The poor economic situation seriously put into question the image of individual frontier self-sufficiency. So why were people still supporting Talmadge, even though he was so ill-equipped to understand their current economic situation, with the farmers often just ignoring his advice, but voting for him anyway?

I'm going to quote from Anderson to kind of answer that question. Quote, Gene was saying, we do not want to become dependent on our government, and they were desperately looking for relief. The Georgia farmer had lost the will to care for himself because he had lost the ability. This forced him to think beyond himself and realize that this was now a world of alternatives to staying on the farm. These new directions in which the farmer was moving were apparently creating a problem of conscience.

And by supporting the voice of the past, Jean Talmadge, they were absolving guilty feelings about leaving the past, unquote. So while farmers were struggling, Jean was actually having quite a bit of fun. He would take road trips with his friends. That's good, I hate it when people put their back into their work and just are miserable.

If you're gonna be a dictator, you might as well enjoy the path to dictation. He was having a good time. At this point, he was less of a dictator and more just like an absent figure. He's on the road, yeah. He just wasn't doing it. This is like, in terms of his libertarian approach,

this is him being a libertarian. He's just not doing anything. That's the dream of every ruler. People are in a severe agricultural crisis and as the commissioner He's just being like good luck stay out there. Don't stop farming and like that's it Meanwhile, he's taking road trips with his friends and family to to places like Charleston's Botanical Gardens to go Love study, but to quote-unquote study agriculture sure

The the commissioners hard outweigh your own not working for us to quote-unquote study agriculture. Sure. The commissioner's hard at work studying agriculture. Figure out why it's not working for us. Yeah, yeah. And she just kept hiring family members and had the state pay for cars that they crashed. And he also didn't report the tax money he collected to the state treasury

instead of putting it into his friend's bank accounts. Well, that's being a good friend. The state doesn't need to handle this money. I'll deal with that. I'll just put it in Bill's account. That's not, cause you look, Garrison, the state, you know, could get up to all sorts of corruption and agains,

but Bill, he's just gonna spend that on hooch and chew. Hooch and chew. Not beer. Beer is big no-no. Look, if Joe Biden had just sent $20 billion to the guy who provides him with Zins, none of us would have an issue with it, right? You know, that's all I'll say. So what got Gene into real trouble though,

was when he completely unauthorized, used the state's money to buy 82 carloads of hogs from Georgia farmers and shipped them to Chicago to sell. Again, if Joe Biden had bought 82 carloads of hogs, we'd be fine with it. Hold on, I've lost my place in this. Sure. That's a good number of carloads of hogs.

Although a car back then, you're only fitting what? Two to four hogs max. That's really not that many hogs. It's about $14,000 worth of hogs in 1920s money. So it's a lot of hogs. That seems like a decent quantity of hogs, yeah. Now, this was an illegal and just bizarre attempt to help the local hog market by buying these hogs

and shipping them to Chicago to sell at a higher price. And this was all behind the governor's back. This scheme lost the state anywhere from 12 to 20 thousand dollars, depending who you ask, which is between 225 thousand to 375 thousand dollars in today's money. So he lost the state a good deal of money. This is the kind of scam Eric Adams would get caught doing today. Yes. No, he lost the state, basically, at least the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars

with this weird hog scheme. And in the summer of 1931, his questionable practices finally caught up with him with a Senate investigation that tasked to look into his conduct. I'm gonna quote from Anderson here, quote, "'The committee disclosed that Gene had paid $40,000, 800,000 in today's money in salaries to himself and members of his family over a three year period. This also includes their expenses such as yearly

trips to the Kentucky Derby. Sure, of course. Well, that's that's a bit that's necessary though. You can't, you can't run agricultural research. There's a certain minimum number of mint juleps you need to be effective in Georgia government You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run.

You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run.

You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run.

You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can't run. You can do it. That'll be fun. That'll be a good bond. In the calm year of 2025, where hopefully nothing will happen. It'll be the only interesting thing occurring is our trip to the Derby. God, I hope so.

You and I are both gonna learn about new kinds of racism. Not new kinds of racism, but new to us. Yeah, new to me, a Canadian. Well, there's racism in the South, and then there is like family money racism in the South. And that, you really got to go to the Derby to catch a load of that. I believe that. Or one of those plantation weddings. It is like Gene's favorite place to go.

So yeah, I can see that. The Senate committee eventually called for a second hearing to investigate Gene's use of fertilizer tax money, which instead of sending it to the Treasury, he was depositing into the accounts of his friends. Gene refused to appear before the second hearing, claiming the committee had no power to demand his appearance, which the committee responded by asking for contempt proceedings and vaguely threatening impeachment. This was all a little ironic after Gene ran as the big anti-corruption candidate.

But Talmadge was eventually forced to show up at the investigative committee hearing where he proudly stated, quote, if I stole, it was for farmers like yourselves, unquote. And this determination and dedication to helping farmers by, again, stealing hogs was enough to strike down an impeachment resolution by 114 votes to 22. At this point, the Senate was also kind of full of farmers who weren't very smart. So they were like, yeah, gee, you go.

So he was fine. But to appease a few of the angry senators who wanted the governor to take action in court, Governor Russell tasked his AG to undergo his own investigation, which eventually recommended that Talmadge pay back the state $15,000 for the hogs and his stepson's job as a clerk. But the governor didn't actually take action on this because he was planning a run for the US Senate and didn't want to anger the farmers. So Gene essentially just got away with all of this, emerging as a sort of like Robin Hood figure who would steal from the stage to help the farmers. Now come 1932, the governor was running for US Senate

and Gene had his eyes on the governor's office. The hometown crowd from McRae traveled to Atlanta to pay for the qualifying fee and announce his candidacy. Gene had largely been able to get around the courthouse gangs by appealing directly to the vast swaths of the rural population, and as commissioner, he made enough contacts in various counties that an election campaign organization could rather spontaneously take form. The state's largest road builder, John Whitley, who was old friends with Gene, got close to his political circle once again, with the prospect of Gene taking over the highway department. Gene was really obsessed in this campaign with paying off state debt, which he viewed

as an evil long-plaguing the South. Gene was also worried by the then presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt's calls for a more involved federal government. To quote from Anderson, quote, Jean knew that if the starving farmer were given food money as a handout, the southern farmer would therefore remain in subjugation, only this time to the government instead of the local bank or Wall Street. Psychological indebtedness far worse than the region's traditional financial indebtedness. Jean's obsession with debt as evil was an example of his inability to distinguish the symptom from the disease. His 1932 platform was flawed by this failing, and thus he attacked peripheral issues that

ironically served to maintain the very problems he was trying to cure. Gene had entered the race naming the issue high taxes and high government spending. The other candidates joined him in unison. The entire slate were by the book old line conservatives who saw the answers to the day's problems in yesterday's solutions." The one piece of government spending that Jean did earnestly support was pensions for Confederate veterans. Of course.

Which he did like, this was actually something he like sincerely advocated for. This wasn't like a political gesture. No, this was clearly something that was important to him. Yeah. It was. Like he saw Confederate veterans as like paragons of the lost world that Gene was like fighting to return to. You know, some of us,

I just don't think we should give out participation trophies, you know? So true, brother. So true. Now, on July 4th, a massive barbecue rally was held in McRae, drawing huge numbers with the Atlantic Constitution providing extremely thorough coverage, which they did for no other candidate this race. As Gene traveled the state giving speeches, he was dubbed the wild man from Sugar Creek. Even though he was politically ill prepared, his personality was perfect

for the Depression period. His performance was a distraction from the harsh reality of rural life, and if not much else, offered the sweet taste of nostalgia. Anderson writes that, quote, those who attached their dreams to his words could, in a small part, escape those realities by believing in Eugene Talmadge, unquote. Gene was seen as the clear frontrunnerner and his platform relied on his ability to make a speech so impactful, so unforgettable in the lives of the attendees that they would immediately become Talmadge loyalists.

Gene utilized his supporters planted in the crowd to queue him up for certain topics and encourage audience interaction. All of his opponents attacked Talmadge's personal record instead of his platform, focusing on his near impeachment, his Senate and a gene investigation, and the whole hog incident. But Gene was able to flip this around and turn the hog incident into a sort of rallying cry. Planted members in the crowd would queue up by shouting, tell us about them pigs you stole, Gene. And Gene would lean in and point his finger at the crowd and say, they say I stole.

Yeah, it's true I stole, but I stole for you, you men and overalls, you dirt farmers. And the crowd would just eat it up. Amazing stuff, man. You know, Garrison, I should announce here, when I run for president, I wanna promise the American people one thing, which is that there will be a hog-based scandal

within my first year in office. I guarantee you. I haven't settled on the specific hog-based scandal, but there will be a hog-based scandal. I guarantee it. No, I do think it is important to note how all of these attacks on Gene's record, he's able to completely flip around and turn into like assets, right?

Like he's, he's smart. All of the ways that people attack him as ways to make himself stronger. Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's the, it's the kind of thing Trump's able to do too. It's political judo, right? It's like using the momentum of your enemy's attacks in order to advance. Yeah. It's, it's. you hate, you hate, cause it does seem to be,

there's a degree with both Trump and with Talmadge, cause there's not like a class on this, and you really don't get this, I don't even know what they would have been reading that would have taught them this. I mean, there's bits of history where you get pieces of this. I always have the feeling with most of the guys who are good at this, it's instinctive

to a significant degree. Yeah, no, it's like, it has to be just kind of how, like how their general demeanor is. And it just it just has a degree of like uncanny overlap. Yeah. Now, gene supporters were also sometimes sometimes troublemakers. To quote Anderson, quote, Although they were never instructed by Jean to disrupt the opponent's speeches, the Talmudge plants could wreak havoc on the other candidates. Their tactics did not include booing, but they did go in for causing suspicious accidents,

like setting a car on fire during an opponent's speech. The resulting smoke and sirens would invariably send the crowd racing towards the fire, leaving the hapless speaker without an audience." So instead of heckling the speaker, they would just start a fire to distract everybody, which is actually a pretty effective tactic. Yeah, it does work. People love running towards fires. Yeah. Portland kids in 2020, Eugene Delmich, demonstrative fires to distract from other actions. Yeah. Beautiful.

Oh, Gene was also obsessed with crowd size. He would intentionally book venues that were too small for the expected crowd. So that so that reporting would say that there was an overflowing crowd at every event. So to newspaper readers, Gene would seem like he was an overflowing crowd at every event. So to newspaper readers, Gene would seem like he was just exceedingly popular. He would also ask local sheriffs to count how many people were in attendance, usually about 15,000, which was bigger than the size of like an average county, which would get the sheriff to proudly proclaim that each event was a record crowd size. Again, it's very similar like overlap, right?

There's no class that teaches you, you should really care about crowd size. It's just what these guys go for. Now in less than two months, Gene made over 50 speeches and talked in front of more than 75,000 Georgians. I'm gonna quote a little anecdote from Anderson. Quote, so completely has he sold his image

as one of the boys that in one small town, the big limousine in which he was riding was turned back because they thought that Talmwitch would resent so much wealth being displayed at a speech. Gene was not recognized in the back seat. So the driver turned around and drove outside town where a farmer driving an ox cart was hailed down. Gene climbed on board and in a more acceptable transportation was enthusiastically welcomed at the gate

from which he had just been turned away, unquote. So yeah, this was all theater. This was all play acting for Gene. Theater, Garrison. You live in the South now, talk like it. Theater? Theater. Is that how you say it, Robert?

I'm going to the theater night That's not what that's not how people in Georgia talk. I often get made fun of for my sorry southern country lawyer accent You Joe Yankees. I just don't don't understand the truth south Which exists roughly around two and a half hours around the small town? I grew up in Oklahoma. Texas, Oklahoma. Everything else is Yankees. Sure. Sure, Robert. Fucking El Paso carpet baggers. We got we got one page to go through, buddy. Let's let's wrap this up. OK.

Now, as the race went on, Gene started pushing a conspiracy theory that all the other candidates were conspiring to split up the county unit vote, causing a runoff. Smart, smart. Anderson notes, quote, the picture of a sinister movement afoot had high appeal for the entertainment starved farmers who knew enemies had to be on the land, but could never identify them, unquote, which is just a perfect, perfect insight into the mind of the conservative voter. Now, although a runoff election was expected,

as the results began coming in, it was clear that Gene had achieved a huge victory. He handily won the popular vote by 30,000, along with 246 county unit votes against all his opponents combined total of 146. Now, there was only 240,000 votes in total. So that's the voting population of Georgia in 1932. Now, Jean's wife, Mitt, never moved to Atlanta while he served as commissioner.

But after this election, she reluctantly moved to Atlanta with their kids. And the Talmage family turned to the governor's mansion in the upscale Ansley Park into a sort of makeshift farm, but mostly as like a political gesture. Mitt built a chicken coop in the backyard and they put an old cow on the front lawn. During cocktail parties, the cow would often escape to run off and chow down and tear up the nearby golf course, which is great because this area, I think this is now kind of like around like Piedmont Park. If there should be way more cows walking around this area of Atlanta,

just ruining the golf courses, that would be fantastic. Almost immediately, the Senate was not too fond of Gene and largely ignored his proposed programs. The legislature refused to pass his reduced tax and utility rates, his Highway Department reorganization bill. But most devastating to Gene, his promise for a three dollar car tag, which was a staple of his election campaign.

Though he did get back pay for Confederate veterans past. So there you go. The Georgia legislature is always, always coming through for what really matters. That's good. That's good. I'm sure there's still somebody in Georgia's legislature working on that bill. Oh, absolutely. We're just leaving checks on the graves.

Gene also vetoed his fair share of bills, I think around 40. And Anderson notes that a complete breakdown had occurred between the executive and legislative branches of government. Essentially nothing was really getting done. But with this weakened legislature, Gene's dictatorial methods began to manifest. Gene thought that there was a conspiracy against him by the former governor and his allies for Gene to fail. So as soon as the legislature adjourned, he began to utilize archaic executive power. Talmage suspended all regular state taxes for two years, citing authority granted in a 1821 law.

This is how he was able to force his three, his promised $3 license plate by ordering that all automotive tax be dropped to $3. Now, Gina had a lot of guys throughout his career who would just troll through like really, really old outdated laws to find like what loopholes of executive power like existed. This is like one of his core tactics,

was finding any way to exercise the fullest extent of executive power by often going through laws that were over 100 years old. To quote Anderson, quote, "'It was a coup that made the lawmakers look even worse, "'and in the public's eye, "'propelled Gene out of the whole mess. "'The Motor Vehicle Commission didn't like the idea

"'and refused to sell tags for $3. "'G told the man that he was off the state payroll, and almost as quickly, the Commissioner notified the Governor that the tags would be sold for $3 after all." Now, even without him getting his bills passed, Gene would attempt to exert control by directly puppeteering state agencies. The first he needed to queue was the unwieldy highway department, which was taking 53% of the state budget. It was essentially the biggest political lever in the state, because roads controlled where everyone went, and you could use road funds as a bargain for county courthouse

gangs and to get election favors. Jean bargained with the board to fire road engineers to cut down on costs, with Gene just refusing to approve budgets and issue payments until his demands were fulfilled. At this time, Gene was also being pressured to call for a special session to legalize beer, an issue that Gene largely found inconsequential,

saying, beer? Why this is hard liquor country, beer is a fad, unquote. If you find it weird that beer was ever illegal in Georgia, there's a documentary called Smokey and the Bandit that you can watch that will explain this to you. Now, Gene mostly didn't wanna call this extra session, mostly out of fear that they would strike down his $3 car tag and remove his ability to leverage power

over the highway department. Now, during this spat, Gene was also picking a fight with the Public Service Commission over high utility rates, saying that there was a conspiracy between the five commissioners to charge high rates, and by alleging this, he was able to take action under Georgia code to remove state officials who were derelict in their duties

and appoint their successors. You can maybe notice a trend here that he often was convinced or at least claimed that there was all kinds of conspiracies against him. Always, no matter what, there was always a conspiracy against him. So as things were heating up in Atlanta, Eugene Talmadge traveled to New York City in mid-June accompanied by four National Guard bodyguards. Rumors circulated that Talmadge was undergoing a military occupation of the Capitol and the Treasury. To quote Anderson,

National Guardsmen were seen quietly moving about the Capitol grounds armed with machine guns. Simultaneously, it was leaked that $2 million had been taken from banks and placed in the Treasury vault because the Highway Department was going to sue in federal court. If the court granted in their favor, the money could not be touched if it was on state property." Unquote. Gene was questioned about these odd occurrences of like moving money and armed men to which he only smiled and replied,

military matters must necessarily be kept secret. Unquote. Yeah. That's, that scans. This whole sequence of events is extremely prophetic for what Jeanne's reign over Georgia would look like in the next like 10 years. Now look, if I'm in power, am I going to have the National Guard follow me around

so that there's always a body of soldiers meeting me wherever I show up like the Emperor in Star Wars, absolutely. But they're gonna be dressed like those red guys, you know? You know the red guys from Star Wars, Garrison? That's the outfit. Oh, I'm very familiar. Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. With the Imperial Guard?

Robert, excuse me. Excuse me. I'm retooling, we're selling all of the National Guard's tanks and weapons in order to buy screen accurate Imperial Guard uniforms from Star Wars. You can get a pretty good one for about a thousand bucks. I already see this. All we got to sell is like three or four M wraps, you know, good to go.

That is where we're going to end our story today with jeans kind of military coup. And we will we will learn what he did with this military coup in the next episode. Well, what a what a man. What a man. We did a man. What a man. What a mighty not very good man. No.

Is that song ring a bell to you, Garrison? No, no. Anyway, I'm on Twitter at the boat. I still post. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on Twitter, too,Botai, still posting through the void. Heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on Twitter too,

but I don't really post that much anymore. No, you've been good. I've gotten it. I took it off my phone. I've been breaking the habit, just like that Linkin Park song, even though Linkin Park's been canceled. All right, I'm done.

Tragic. 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. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a Mafia state. Carely and 100% ad free, subscribe to the iHeartTrueCrimePlus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. make $1,000 a day shoplifting. Yeah. And I end up outside the mansion of the shoplifting queen herself. I hear the cops. Dude, I think we should go.

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