Word: hummon
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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After two weeks in office, young Governor Herman ("Hummon") Talmadge still held his favored position on the neck of state. But the constitutionality of his succession was far from settled. Lieut. Governor Melvin E. Thompson, who called himself governor and acted like one, kept crying that Hummon was a fraud...
Georgia reacted noisily. Hundreds of citizens gathered at impromptu meetings to attack Hummon. Two thousand students from eight Georgia colleges marched on the capitol, hanged Hummon in effigy, and bayed from the street outside. And the state assembly lagged in carrying out Hummon's orders for a white primary bill; so many of his legislative backers left town one day that Thompson's minority was almost able to vote a long recess...
...Coop de Tote." Hummon was not abashed. He got the legislators together for a pep talk, gave them a piece of oratory distinguished mainly by his unique pronunciation of coup d'état. Hummon made it "coop de tate." He went on the air to cry that radicals were plotting to "destroy the dominance of the white race in the South"-and to suggest that his followers mail in nickels and dimes to pay for the radio time he had used, a matter of $1,637.66. To demonstrate his innate kindliness he even got himself photographed giving a dollar...
Pincer Movement. For three days the two governors jockeyed for capitol office space like raccoons snatching at pieces of cheese. On the first day Hummon got nothing better than a desk in a side office. But that night he had the locks changed on the doors. The next day he strode in at 7 o'clock and grabbed the desk in the executive office-from which Arnall had thoughtfully removed all his correspondence. Gathering impetus, Hummon also moved his family into the governor's mansion (which Arnall had vacated also), and left his wife and mother happily "unstopping...
...denied even this. Hummon sent one Jimmy Dykes (237 boarlike pounds of smalltime politician) to sit at it instead. Said Jimmy, when Arnall arrived: "Ellis, you remind me of a hawg. Did you ever slop a hawg? The more you give him the more he wants and he never knows when to get out of the trough...