HAMPTON, Ga. -- Herman Talmadge didn't think too much of it when some of the boys came up with the idea of writing in his name for governor in case his ailing father didn't make it to the swearing-in.
``You buy insurance on your house. You don't expect it to burn,'' the retired U.S. senator recalled matter-of-factly in a 1996 interview.
But that's exactly what happened 52 Decembers ago to the house his father and the ``wool hat'' crowd built over two decades of Populist politicking.
Gov.-elect Eugene Talmadge died before he could be sworn into office. By New Year's Day, three men -- including his son Herman -- had dibs on Georgia's highest office, beginning perhaps the most bizarre episode in Georgia's colorful political history.
The seeds of the famous ``three governors controversy'' were sown when the 1945 state constitution was written, leaving open to debate the order of succession in the event a governor-elect never took office.
The issue may never have come up if Eugene Talmadge hadn't been set on winning a fourth term in 1946.
The elder Mr. Talmadge, a folksy orator in red suspenders dubbed the ``Wild Man from Sugar Creek,'' had been the dominant figure in Georgia politics since he shocked longtime Agriculture Commissioner J.J. Brown and courthouse gangs across Georgia in the 1926 Democratic primary.
The voice of the poor white dirt farmer, he became one of the first Democrats to break with President Franklin Roosevelt over the New Deal, though Georgia benefited greatly from the influx of federal money.
By the end of World War II, Gov. Ellis Arnall was near his final year in office and Herman Talmadge was a naval officer coming home from the Pacific.
At that time, a governor could serve only one four-year term. Mr. Arnall wanted state lawmakers to pass a proposed constitutional amendment to let him run for re-election, but he didn't have the votes in the General Assembly.
So Eugene Talmadge -- whom Mr. Arnall had ousted in 1942 -- qualified to run, with son Herman writing his platform.
In those days, only the Democratic primary mattered. Mr. Talmadge won over a strong field with the help of rural poor voters aided by the repeal of the poll tax.
Just after the summer primary, Herman Talmadge recalled, his father started to act strangely. A few days before the state Democratic convention, a blood vessel ruptured in Eugene Talmadge's stomach.
The Talmadge boys wondered what would happen if their man didn't last until inauguration day.
The way they read the constitution, if Eugene Talmadge died, the General Assembly would choose between the second- and third-place vote-getters in the general election. The word went out on the Talmadge network -- write in Herman's name.
``We didn't have any idea my father's illness was serious,'' Herman Talmadge recalled. ``But we didn't think it would hurt to have an insurance policy.''
Eugene Talmadge won the general election without any real opposition. The press reported his son finished second with 675 write-in votes.
In December, Herman Talmadge went to see his father, who was gravely ill, in an Atlanta hospital. In Talmadge: A Political Legacy, a Political Life, he writes that his father told him, ``Son, there was a fellow in here the other day. He told me, `Gene, you know every man, woman and child in the state of Georgia is praying for you. Even folks who never prayed before in their lives.' ''
The governor-elect cracked a smile and added, ``Half of them are praying I'll recover and half of them that I won't.''
He died Dec. 21. Three days later, things started happening.
Mr. Arnall announced that under the state constitution, he could remain governor another four years. But he declared he would turn the job over to M.E. Thompson, the newly elected lieutenant governor, once he was sworn in the following month.
Prominent Talmadge leaders balked.
No, they claimed, the state constitution allowed legislators to pick the next governor between the top two write-in vote-getters.
Attorney General Eugene Cook ruled Jan. 3, 1947, that Mr. Arnall could stay in office pending a resolution.
A tabulation committee initially found Herman Talmadge had finished third among the write-ins and was out of the running. However, 58 new -- and many speculated fraudulent -- write-in votes were found in Mr. Talmadge's home county of Telfair, putting him back on top.
The General Assembly elected Herman Talmadge at 1:50 a.m. on Jan. 15. He immediately took the oath of office and delivered an inaugural address.
Thousands of people, many of them Talmadge supporters, had been milling around the Capitol since 10 a.m. the day before. The crowd was in a feisty mood by the time the young Mr. Talmadge and his escort committee marched down to the governor's office to take over.
``They were pretty indignant, and some of them were liquored up,'' Mr. Talmadge said.
They found the door to the governor's office locked, but two Talmadge backers battered it down. Mr. Talmadge then confronted Mr. Arnall, but the incumbent called him a ``pretender'' and wouldn't budge.
So Mr. Talmadge urged his supporters to calm down and go home. The next day, he stuck a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson in his belt and returned to take possession of the governor's office, after having the locks changed so Mr. Arnall couldn't get back in.
He also appointed a new state patrol commander, revenue commissioner, highway director and parks commissioner. Mr. Arnall's appointees refused to resign.
Not about to give up, Mr. Arnall set up his governor's office at the information booth in the Capitol rotunda. But a Talmadge legislator dropped a huge firecracker from an overhead railing, making a loud enough explosion that a reporter phoned in word of an assassination attempt at the Capitol.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Arnall moved his headquarters to his Atlanta law office.
On Jan. 18, Mr. Thompson was sworn in as lieutenant governor and the attorney general recognized him as acting governor. Mr. Thompson then made his own appointments to some of the same positions Herman Talmadge had filled only days before.
He set up a third governor's office, in downtown Atlanta.
When Mr. Thompson was sworn in, Mr. Arnall resigned. But Mr. Talmadge and his supporters insisted Mr. Thompson had no claim to the job, and Mr. Talmadge presided over a bitter General Assembly session during which lawmakers passed a budget and approved reinstatement of the old white primary.
On March 19, the Georgia Supreme Court, which Mr. Talmadge maintained was stacked with political enemies of his father, voted 5-2 to end 63 days of dual governorship, siding with Mr. Thompson.
The court ruled the General Assembly could elect a governor only if no candidate in the general election received a majority.
That provision came into play 19 years later, when Republican Bo Callaway out-polled Democrat Lester Maddox but didn't receive a majority.
Ironically it was Mr. Arnall, making a comeback attempt, who got enough write-in votes to force the issue to the Democrat-controlled General Assembly, which elected Mr. Maddox.
Mr. Thompson's turbulent reign didn't last long.
A little more than a year after his court victory, Herman Talmadge beat him in a special election for Eugene Talmadge's unexpired term. He repeated the victory two years later in the general election for good measure.
``I resolved to take my case to the people,'' Mr. Talmadge said. ``I was vindicated by the people.''
While neither Mr. Thompson nor Mr. Arnall won elected office again, Herman Talmadge went on to serve in the U.S. Senate from 1957 to 1981.
In his last election, he beat back a stiff Democratic primary challenge from a rising political star named Zell Miller, only to be beaten by unknown Republican Mack Mattingly as President Ronald Reagan's landslide swept the country. Mr. Miller, who later became governor, retired from public office last month.
James Salzer is based in Atlanta and can be reached at (404) 589-8424 or mnews@mindspring.com.
