The Wild Man from Sugar Creek, by William Anderson

SO GODDAM MEAN

It may have been that Gene Talmadge, the most colorful and probably the most destructive personality in Georgia politics since Tom Watson, was born angry. Sardonic, tempestuous, and dissolute (he died of cirrhosis of the liver), Talmadge seems the exemplar of that familiar breed of men who enter politics because it offers them institutionalized turbulence. His childhood hero was Napoleon, and within months of becoming governor in 1932 he declared martial law and seized the state highway department.

JC

About the Author

Jack Chatfield

SO GODDAM MEAN

It may have been that Gene Talmadge, the most colorful and probably the most destructive personality in Georgia politics since Tom Watson, was born angry. Sardonic, tempestuous, and dissolute (he died of cirrhosis of the liver), Talmadge seems the exemplar of that familiar breed of men who enter politics because it offers them institutionalized turbulence. His childhood hero was Napoleon, and within months of becoming governor in 1932 he declared martial law and seized the state highway department.