by John Ryan
The history books record the gubernatorial election in Georgia of 1946 as one of the most bizarre elections of any time or any place. They report the fact that after the election there were three candidates left, each of whom claimed to have won. Each had some merit to his claim and ultimately the courts had to sort things out. What the historians have missed, however, is that there was yet a fourth winner who probably had as legitimate a claim as the other three. That man was Charlie Trippi, the quarterback of the University of Georgia football team.
The winner of the Democratic primary in 1946 had been Eugene Talmadge, a former U.S. Senator and Governor. Ole Gene, as he was known, was a spell-binding, segregationist, stump speaker (he actually had a portable stump he carried with him) famous for campaigning in shirt sleeves and fiery red gallowses. In those days, victory in the Democratic primary was tantamount to election as there was no effective Republican opposition to put up a candidate in the General Election. Every name on the ballot in the General Election was a Democrat; one either voted for the winner of the Democratic primary, wrote in some other name or just didn’t vote at all for that office. Naturally, the Democrats always won.
Ole Gene was getting along in years and looking pretty doddery in1946. A clever supporter of his asked what would happen if Ole Gene won the primary but died before they could get him inaugurated. A quick reading of the Georgia Constitution suggested that in such an event, the General Assembly could choose between the two living candidates with the next most votes. But Ole Gene’s name was the only name on the ballot. Georgians had a tradition of writing in votes for just about anyone in order to protest the one party vote system so, if Ole Gene died before they could get him inaugurated, there was no telling who the next governor of Georgia would be.
To protect the state from this unpleasant prospect (and to keep the Governor’s job in the family), the Talmadge forces decided to mount a highly secret campaign to write in the name of Ole Gene’s son Herman (pronounced “Hummon”) on the ballot in the General Election. About one hundred of Talmadge’s closest friends and relatives from his home town of McRae were let in on the secret and, on election day, they dutifully tramped to the polls and wrote in Hummon’s name for governor. Then they went home and slept peacefully knowing that they had taken care of the situation if the worst should indeed come to pass. It did!
Shortly after election day, and before inauguration day, Ole Gene breathed his last. Every lawyer and politician (in Georgia the terms were synonymous) began studying the Constitution as assiduously as they had the day before their own bar exams. The usual conclusion was that the Constitution was vague as to whether the job went to the new Lieutenant Governor-elect or the General Assembly’s choice between the second and third highest vote getters. The Talmadge people were confident that they had the law AND, with their stealth write-in campaign, the votes on their side.
Meanwhile in Athens, the home of the state university, less than one hundred miles away from the capitol, Atlanta, a conspiracy of a different sort had been bubbling away. Athens was a center of liberalism, not to say left wing extremism (all things are relative in Georgia). The very word “Talmadge” was an obscenity that nice people in Athens did not utter in polite society. As it became clear that the only name on the ballot for the governor’s position would be that [expletive deleted], the power brokers in Athens decided to take remedial action: they would mount a write-in campaign to give the liberal voters an alternative as a protest vote. They had no financial resources available to mount a campaign and no expectation of winning, so their effort was a stealth write-in campaign entirely different from the one in McRae; and one which escaped attention in Atlanta.
In order to achieve the maximum possible impact for their protest the Athens liberals decided to choose a name that had recognition all across the state in hopes that other similar movements might spring up. And who but CHARLIE TRIPPI, the quarterback of the University of Georgia football team, could fill that bill? Even though he patently lacked the legal qualifications, Trippi became a candidate for governor, probably without even knowing it at the time. He certainly had the name recognition: he had been the quarterback of the Georgia team that had beaten UCLA 9 to 0 in the Rose Bowl of 1943 and had received the award for Most Valuable Player in that game. After the Rose Bowl he had disappeared into the Army when football was temporarily eclipsed by World War II.
When the war ended, all of the servicemen were not discharged at once, but were fed slowly back into civilian life in order to prevent mass unemployment. A point system was set up to accomplish this smooth process. An enlisted man got so many points for each month of domestic service, even more for each month of foreign duty and extra points for decorations and awards. Those with the most points were discharged first and so on down the line. Trippi didn’t have enough points to be discharged from the WAC, but his services were badly needed by the Georgia Bulldogs. The powerful senior senator from Georgia, Richard B. Russell, was made aware of this great problem and he arranged for Trippi to be discharged prematurely, just in time for the start of the 1946 season. The fact that he didn’t have nearly enough points for a discharge was a mere detail. The start of Trippi’s political career coincided with the start of his 1946 football season; a coincidence that was not entirely accidental.
When Ole Gene died, as expected, the General Assembly set to work to decide who the next Governor should be. The Lieutenant Governor-elect claimed the position was rightfully his. The Talmadge forces claimed that the choice should be made by the General Assembly between the two candidates with the most write–in votes. The out-going Governor, a self-proclaimed “Progressive” who by law could not succeed himself, chimed in by announcing that since he had no legally elected successor, he was still the Governor. The situation was a mess that was complicated by the fact that no one knew the identities of the two people with the most write-ins. A recount of the ballots was hastily ordered.
In a highly unexpected turn of events, Hummon was not among the top two in write-in votes. The leader in write-in votes was the liberal (relatively speaking) Democrat whom Ole Gene had defeated in the primary. The runner up was Charlie Trippi. Hummon came in third! This was a disaster for the Talmadge forces. They were now faced with a choice between a politician they loathed and a football player they knew by name only. The football player probably would be more malleable and hence the lesser of the evils, but no one could be certain which way the state Supreme Court would go. If they could only get Hummon back in the running, the Talmadge forces reasoned, they would improve immeasurably their chances to control the Governor’s office, particularly since the state Supreme Court did not have a record of being impervious to political pressure. It was time for desperate measures!
The party faithful took it upon themselves to do a last look-around in the polling places of Ole Gene’s home county. To everyone’s great surprise they found a ballot box that had inexplicably been overlooked before! It was promptly bundled up and hauled off to Atlanta where the counting had taken place. When opened in the presence of the proper officials and the votes counted, there were more than enough write-in votes for Hummon to put him in first place among the write-ins. And Trippi slipped to third place and was, therefore, out of the race.
In the excitement of the moment, no one apparently noticed a peculiar thing about the tally sheet which accompanied the ballots. The tally sheet recorded the names of the voters in the order in which they had voted; the last 26 names were in precise alphabetical order! No one did the arithmetic then, but the probability that 26 voters would arrive by sheer chance at the polling place in alphabetical order was about four in one billion. That was just one more messy detail not to worry about.
Trippi returned to the Georgia Bulldogs and then went on to the pros where he played for the Chicago Cardinals. During a modestly successful professional career, he was selected for the Pro Bowl twice. His professional football career was apparently more rewarding than his political career had been and he was never a factor in the political arena again.
As for the governor’s job, the decision went to the Georgia Supreme Court which concluded that Ole Gene, though quite dead, had nevertheless been the Governor of Georgia and that his successor should be the Lieutenant Governor-elect. Furthermore, they ruled that a special election should be held in two years in order to start again with a clean slate. The out-going Governor relinquished the Governor’s chair to the Court’s choice and Hummon graciously conceded to general approbation. .In the special election two years later, Hummon won in a landslide against the man to whom the Supreme Court had awarded the position and ultimately went on to become a powerful senator in his own right.
And, so ended one of the strangest elections in history; one which almost put the quarterback of the Georgia Bulldogs into the Governor’s chair.
