Ol' Gene's Boy

Herman Eugene ("Hummon") Talmadge, 35, who had tried it on once before for size, triumphantly accepted the mantle of the governorship of Georgia last week. He allowed it would be a good fit after some tailoring.

The 75th governor of Georgia and the youngest in the U.S., Hummon used the opportunity to shout out the first rebel yell at Harry Truman since the election. "I am proud to say," rasped Hummon, "that [my] administration will throw the full force of your state's governmental machinery behind our Senators and Congressmen in their fight against any anti-Southern measures that may be brought before the next session of Congress."

Otherwise, young Hummon conducted the inauguration far more sedately than the midnight oath-taking 23 months ago, when he was sworn in by the legislature (to replace his late father) on the strength of 675 write-in votes. His tenure then had lasted 63 days, cut short by a decision of the seven-member Georgia Supreme Court that his "inauguration" was illegal. This time, the court was conspicuously absent from the ceremonies. House Speaker Fred Hand, who introduced all notables, sniggered an explanation: "Someone told me that the Supreme Court came in and found that their seats were filled. And someone in the seats said, 'You-all put him out and we put him in.' " The justices had come to the inauguration and had departed when--like a lot of other invited guests--they found that pushing Talmadgites had taken the guest seats.

The crowd, as liberally sprinkled with businessmen as with rednecked farmers, was well-behaved and almost blase. Unlike his late "Poppuh," Hummon snapped no galluses and shook no dank hair at his constituents. Some three-syllable words like "constructive" and "progressive" even slipped into his speech. Some Georgians wondered hopefully if Atlanta Constitution Editor Ralph McGill's prophecy of last September might not be true: "What appears to be the greatest triumph of the old pattern in the South is actually its death struggle."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.