ELECTION DAY VIOLENCE

Chronicle (Levin), 3 August 1946, Page 5

ELECTION DAY VIOLENCE

Press Assn.-

Gun Fights In Tennessee TROOPS TO RESTORE ORDER

By Telegraph

■Copyright

Received Friday, 8.50 p.m. NEW YORK, August 2. Election day violence flames in Monroe and McMinn Counties where ex- ( servicemen's tickets opposed Demo- . cratic incumbents for county ofiices, > Btates a message from Madisonville, Tennessee. One man was shot dead in ! iront of a voting place at Monroe and j otliers were admitted to hospital withj knil'e wouncls. Serious violence is reported from [ Athens wkicli is the capital of McMinn County. A journalist reported that exservicemen told him. to leave the city to escape being killed, after he discovered they were planning to storm the county gaol. According to one broadcast from Athens, all women were ordered off the streets. Guuhre could plainly be heard durmg the broadcast. A sheriff at a county gaol, interviewed by telephone, declared that 200 to 300 shots had been iired. The conversation was broken oli when the sheriff declared: "Things are too hot to talk I now. There's nioo violence at the gaoL right now. ' ' i

oupporters of the ex-servicemen's j ticket were seen to break out of one 1 poilmg both, after which police oftic- j lals removed the baliot box. Soon aiterwards seven policemen were disarmed by a crowd of ex-servicemen ana supporters. They were beaten and then hustled into a car and driven from the city. The State Adjutant, General Hilton Butter, announced t midnight that he was niobiiising the 0th Regiment of the State Guard. lfe saicl he did 110 1 know where the troops would be sent or wnat they wouid do but he would see the Governor about that. General Butler said he was talking to a State Guard oflicer at McMinn County gaol who calied lus attention to shots wnich

coiud be heard over the telephone. Then another shot apparently severed tne connection. "Right then I decided to qiut mvestigating and start movmg, ' lie said. uovernor McCord rushed to the State capital at hl ashville after he received iiews of the vioience but stateu he had 110 plans to send troops to IVicMinii oounty unless requested. Two men are reported to have been kiiied and ac least Zz v/otuiued 111 a gun lignt betwecn a crowd estirnated at 1000 surroiuiding McMinn County goai Uo wnich baliot boxes from two poiiing places had been translerred eanier under a heavy armed guard) and election otticials barricaded mside. The besiegers, using pistois and light riiies, exclianged volley after volley with the gaoi defenders who later teieIinoneci an appeal for lielp. ±;yewitiiesses of an inciuent in which two war veteraiis broke through a giass uoor oi a polling place to conipiam aoout tne vote counting methods, said the deputy sheriff levened a pistol at tneni. a crowd then assembied and giuiiire broke out. General Btitler lias announced that eicuients of the Muldie Tennessee Brigade of the home Guard have been lxiouilised and would move into Athens at the same time as the Gth Regiment. ' ' I am not going in there without enougn troops to iestore ortter," ne said.

Guufire capped a series of hectic events marking the Tennessee prnnaries, in which the veteran Senator, K. D. McKellar, is apparently winning a sixtn term nommation against the chalienger, E. W. Carmack, who tonight refused to concede to McKellar \lespite a deficiency in votes already counted. Carmack declared there haci been "many indications of fraud" in the campaign and added that his fight against ' •ciictators' ' had only just begun. Aiter a spokesman for the crowd gave the defenders of the McMinn County gaol a chance to leave the buiiding, four explosions rocked the three-storey brick buildmg, blowing a hoie in one corner and demolishing a motor car which had been used to block the entrance. The deputy, three minutes after tlie' final blast was tojich- „■ etl ■ Qlf, leaned out of 'a window. and • shouted: "We will give up. /W'e're dying in here. ' ' Fifty men with hands above their heads filed from the gaol. There was a swift surge around one officer who was badly mauled. All the deputies were searched and marched back into gaol to be lockeci up.