Roosevelt, together with his own letter that stated: "I take it that you approve of paying farm labor 40 to 50 cents per day". Roosevelt wrote back: "Somehow I cannot get into my head that wages on such a scale make possible a reasonable American standard of living". For all his populism and his self-image as the defender of the small white farmers of Georgia, Talmadge tended to side with the interests of the wealthier land-owning families of the state. He was strongly opposed to Roosevelt's efforts to raise wages in the South, believing that this would undercut the South's only economic advantage, namely of having the lowest wages in the United States. Roosevelt by contrast believed that raising wages would increase consumption and hence spur the economy out of the Great Depression. When Georgia textile workers went on strike on September 1, 1934, Talmadge declared martial law during the third week of the strike. He directed four thousand National Guard troops to arrest all picketers throughout the state. He ordered the prisoners to be held behind the barbed wire of a former World War I prisoner of war camp for trial by a military tribunal. While the state interned about one hundred or so picketers, the show of force effectively ended picketing throughout most of the state. When Talmadge discovered that one of the employers had hired the notorious strikebreaker Pearl Bergoff, he had Bergoff and his two hundred men detained by the Georgia National Guard and deported to New York City. Although often tied to both controversy and corruption, Talmadge was re-elected in 1934, carrying every county but three in the state's Democratic primary. When the Public Service Commission, a body elected by the voters, refused to lower utility rates, he appointed a new board to get it done. When the Highway Board resisted his efforts to control it, Talmadge declared martial law and appointed more cooperative members to the board. When the state treasurer and comptroller general refused to cooperate, the governor ordered state police to remove them physically from their offices in the state capitol. Critics denounced him as a dictator, a demagogue, and a threat to the tranquility of the state. His supporters considered him to be a friend of the "common man" and one of the state's most outstanding governors. In October 1934, Talmadge ousted John Cohen, the pro-New Deal chairman of the Georgia