The Evening Star (August 2, 1946)
Victorious veterans restore quiet after Tennessee vote riot
18 hurt in fighting; machine concedes as jail is captured
Violence flares at elections
ATHENS, Tennessee: Three youthful ex-servicemen, one using his shirt as a camouflage jungle-style, fire at the Minn County Jail here, where deputized officers had barricaded themselves. The violence flared over yesterday’s primary election. (AP Wirephoto)
ATHENS, Tennessee (AP) – A bipartisan group of veterans, their election to McMinn County offices conceded by a leader of the opposition, brought quiet to bullet-ridden Athens today after a bloody six-hour gun battle around a now battered jail.
At least 18 persons were injured, six seriously, in the election day strife which began yesterday after noon and continued until 3 a.m., when a score or more deputized officers surrendered their hold on the two-story brick prison building.
Before complete order could be restored, several automobiles were overturned or stripped and fighting swept over this town of 7,000, suddenly bereft of formal law enforcement from county agencies.
A mobilization of State Guardsmen was cancelled and a spokesman for the forces of the former GIs said they would maintain order until a mass meeting Monday, when it was hoped some provision for filling country offices would be made.
Clark orders inquiry
In Washington Attorney General Clark ordered an investigation today of the gun battle. The Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department was directed to determine whether federal laws were violated.
The battle of the jail, pocked and battered from bullets and homemade bombs tossed by GI sympathizers, was a direct outgrowth of the bitter political campaign waged by the veterans to overturn the Democrat organization of State Sen. Paul Cantrell, in power for a decade.
Armed sheriff’s deputies moved two ballot boxes to the jail Thursday afternoon, shortly after the polls closed at 4 p.m. and trouble, long brewing, burst into the open.
A group of the GIs disarmed seven of the deputized officers, beat them and shoved them into automobiles for a swift ride out of town.
Crowd moves on jail
At 9 p.m. a crowd, estimated at 500 and now armed with pistols and light rifles, moved on the jail, occupied by the force of deputies.
Ralph Duggan, a former lieutenant commander and a leader of the GI forces, said the crowd was “met by gunfire” and because they had “promised that the ballots would be counted as cast,” they had “no choice but to meet fire with fire.”
The exchange of fire, sporadic for six hours, ended after the jail was rocked by four blasts of explosives and one of the deputies shouted down for a halt because “we are dying in here.”
One report, telephoned from within the jail during the night, said two men inside had been killed but it proved false.
Deputies march out
The deputies, hands high in air, marched out of the building, were searched and 21 returned to the jail under GI guards. One officer, identified by onlookers as Deputy Windy Wise, was manhandled by a group which surged about him but apparently was not seriously harmed.
Mr. Cantrell’s whereabouts were not known. Sheriff Pat Mansfield, shirt-sleeved and without his badge, was seen in the company of a physician after the surrender. He apparently was unharmed but newsmen could not reach him for a statement.
George Woods, a county election commissioner and high in the Cantrell organization, had agreed to certify the GI slate of candidates as winners of the election, Mr. Duggan said. The latter added that “we had to use guns to win this election but we promise the next one will be peaceful.”
Ballot boxes recovered
The ballot boxes, torn open with their contents strewn about a jail office, were recovered by the GI forces.
Mr. Duggan called the mass meeting for Monday and said it was planned to have winners formally inducted as interim officials. Their terms normally would start September 1.
Dr. W. E. Foree of the Foree Hospital listed six persons he said were seriously hurt. They are:
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J. W. Neal, 70, a bystander, leg wounds.
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Constable Bryan Sharpe, whose left leg was shattered by bullets as he sat in a car in front of the jail, suffering principally from loss of blood.
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Biscuit Farrin, a deputy sheriff, shattered jaw.
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Minis Wilburn, throat cut.
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Bob Harrell, brain concussion from blow on head.
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Tom Gillespie, wounded in back.
Spectators were being permitted to file through the battered jail building, but were not permitted in the cell block which held the deputies or in the cell where the ballot boxes were locked.
The guards, posted by the veterans, did line up the deputies for a news picture, however.
The sheriff whose election was conceded after the surrender, Knox Henry, a veteran of North Africa in the recent war, arrived on the scene today. He said he spent the night in jail at Sweetwater, Tennessee, for “safe keeping.”
“They were going to kill me yesterday, and I had to leave town,” Mr. Henry said.
Mr. Henry said “we” are still looking for two of the deputies in addition to Sheriff Mansfield.
Called ‘pitiful’ mess
“It’s a pitiful mess, but they asked for it,” he said. “When I left yesterday, I gave her (the election) up.” He said he understood the Election Commission had certified his entire ticket as elected and “I feel good today.”
The wounded all were among the men besieged in the jail.
One defender was found lying, severely wounded, inside the jail door.
The outbreak occurred after two young veterans backing the all-GI slate for county offices broke out of a polling place through a glass window to report fraud in the vote counting.
The veterans were James Ed Vestal and Charles Scott, who were in the polling place serving as a clerk and a watcher. They said they had been ordered to sit at the front of the counting room and had been denied the right promised them to witness the count. They fell as they broke through the glass and landed on the sidewalk.
A deputy sheriff leveled a pistol at the GIs, Managing Editor James E. Jarvis of the Chattanooga Times, a spectator, said. The former soldiers walked into the crowd with their hands held up and a roar came up from the onlookers.
“Let’s go get ‘em,” shouted members of the crowd.
The crowd increased in numbers and shooting started after armed sheriff’s deputies carried two of the town’s three ballot boxes into the jail. Shotguns, rifles and pistols were used.
Other election disturbances were reported during the day yesterday, with photographers clashing with election officials in two cases.
J. B Collins, a Chattanooga News Free Press photographer, reported that he had been jailed briefly at Athens after taking a picture at a polling place which he said officers were closing 10 minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline.
Mr. Collins said he was held for an hour and a half and that his film was taken from him and destroyed.
At Memphis, photographer George Pierce of the Press-Scimitar said an election official smashed his flash bulb after he made a picture of a padlocked ballot box.
The CIO-PAC chairman at Memphis said two of his poll watchers were ousted from voting places but later were allowed to return. Other watchers, the CIO-PAC said, were told to keep a distance of 20 to 50 feet away from the ballot boxes.
Jake Tipton, about 60, was shot fatally in front of a rural polling place near Tellico Plains. Two men were treated for knife wounds at Sweetwater. These incidents were not linked definitely with the election.