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Outside the Capitol at Atlanta on an eventful night in 1947, the January landscape lay wet with rain, and a low mist wreathed the statue of Freedom topping the limestone building. Inside, the Georgia legislature commenced the final act of a political drama opened 25 days earlier when gallus-snapping Gene Talmadge, after 20 years of politics and prejudice, died on the eve of his fourth gubernatorial term. Aware that Gene was seriously ill on election day, some supporters had cast write-in votes for his son, gone out to marshal dead voters whose names could shoot his total higher. Now as the rain pattered outside, and shouting, drinking countrymen watched from the gallery, the legislature considered the two men eligible to succeed the departed Gene. With smug solemnity and a 161-87 vote, it chose Herman Talmadge, 34.
After the crowd howled approval, Herman took the oath, pledged himself to strengthen the white primary and Georgia's county unit-voting system. Flanked by family and advisers, he marched one flight down to the governor's office, where outgoing Governor Ellis Arnall awaited the legislature's decision. Said Herman: "I have come to take over." Snapped Arnall: "I consider you a pretender. Get out." Herman got, was back in seven hours, after state troopers had changed the locks on the doors. Herman Talmadge held the Capitol and the governor's mansion until the State Supreme Court 67 days later ruled that he had taken office illegally. But even as he yielded, Georgians understood that a new comet was brilliant in their political sky.
Horns & Tail. Next January, when the U.S. Senate convenes for the first session of the 85th Congress, the same Southern comet will rise over the national horizon as strapping (6 ft., 196 lbs.) Herman Eugene Talmadge, 43, segregationist and isolationist, takes the seat of one of the U.S.'s great senatorial statesmen, aging (78) and respected Walter George. To outward appearances, Herman has progressed not only beyond his father's viciousness and venom but beyond the uncertainties that haunted the brash youth who seized the governorship in Atlanta that rainy night nearly ten years ago. Smooth and suave as an actor, Herman in his "tel-lee-vision" (as he calls it) appearances has convinced Georgians "that a Talmadge doesn't have horns and a tail, and that he wears shoes." He has abandoned his father's blatant white-supremacy tactics, instead speaks airily of constitutional government and the people's right to rule.
Abetted by the Southern propensity for returning Senators and Congressmen to Washington term after term (which gives the South a stranglehold on 34 different House and Senate committees in a Democratic Congress). Herman Talmadge is prepared to enjoy the privilege and power of Senate seniority for a long, long time. Predicts one Georgia political expert: "The man who will beat Herman is still a teen-ager."