Word: genes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Ballots & Boll Weevils. Gene Talmadge had long followed the career of Georgia's mellifluous, rabble-rousing Senator Tom Watson. Gene approved of Watson's Populist movement and its appeal to country voters, and set out along the Watson trail to accomplish similar triumphs. The Georgia farmers of the 1920s were being battered by the boll weevil, would soon be battered harder by the Depression. Gene established himself as their champion. He filed for state commissioner of agriculture in the 1926 election, swept out a corrupt incumbent. When he could spare time, Herman helped by tacking up posters...
...Decline and Fall. He stayed late only if the class was debating. Other days he went home to his chores. One afternoon in 1930, while Herman was picking turnips, the house caught fire and burned to the ground (with one casualty, a German shepherd dog named Al Smith). Gene, who was spending weekdays in Atlanta as agriculture commissioner and only weekends at home as a father, took advantage of the fire to move the family to Atlanta. Herman entered Druid Hills School, found himself better grounded in his subjects than the city boys...
...BMOC. Graduating as salutatorian of his class, he argued against Gene's suggestion that he work his way through Georgia Tech. Herman got his own way: studying law at the University of Georgia as his father had done. With a car and more spending money than the average student, Herman became a big man on campus. He got Bs with little book-cracking, loafed, played poker, dated coeds. Remembers one: "He was pretty forward, but he was good company." Pledged to Sigma Nu, his father's fraternity, Herman helped guide a revolt by smaller fraternities against...
While Herman was debating airily on the campus, his father was speaking in earnest on the hustings. Running for governor, Gene was charged with dishonesty during his term as commissioner of agriculture; he had once shipped Georgia hogs to Chicago to find a higher price, wasted $11,000 in state funds. Gene laughed off the criticism in his speeches to rural voters: "Sure, I stole it, but I stole it for you." The explanation delighted the hard-pressed countrymen. They rolled up the Talmadge vote. The Talmadges moved into the ugly stone governor's mansion in Atlanta...
...Power. When Gene campaigned for a second term, 21-year-old Herman made a rousing maiden political speech at Rebecca, Ga., helped his father carry every county but three. As governor, Gene booted out his motor vehicles commissioner for refusing to cut prices on automobile licenses to $3 on Gene's say-so. When the public-service commission would not lower utility rates, Gene ordered the commissioners to trial before him, found them guilty of using railroad passes, as punishment replaced them with his own men. His most outrageous move came after the state treasurer refused to dole...