ELECTION DAY VIOLENCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 250, 3 August 1946, Page 5

ELECTION DAY VIOLENCE

TROOPS CALLED OUT COUNTY OFFICES IN U.S. SOUTHERN STATES (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 9.30). NEW YORK. Aug. 2. Election day violence flamed in the Monrce and McMinn counties, where ex-servicemen’s tickets opposed Democratic incumbents for county offices, states a message from Madisonville, Tennessee. One man was shot dead in front of a voting place in Monroe. Others were admitted to hospital with knife wounds. Serious violence was reported from Athens, which is the capital of McMinn County. A journalist reported that an ex-serviceman told him to leave the city to escape being killed after he discovered that they were planning to storm the county gaol. According to one broadcast from Athens all women were ordered off the streets. Gunfire could plainly be heard during the broadcast.

The sheriff at the county gaol, interviewed by telephone, declared that 200 to 300 shots had been fired. The conversation was' broken off when the sheriff declared: “Things are too hot to talk now. There’s mob violence at the .gaol right now.”

Supporters of the ex-servicemen’s ticket were seen to break out of one polling booth, after which police officials removed the ballot box. Soon afterwards seven policemen were disarmed by a crowd of ex-servicemen and supporters. They were beaten and then hustled into a car and driven from the city. The State Adjutant-General, Mr Hilton Butler, announced at midnight that he was mobilising the Sixth Regiment of the State Guard. He said he did not know where the troops would be sent or what they would do, but he would see the Governor about that.

Mr Butler said lie* was talking to a State guard officer at McMinn County gaol, who called his attention to shots which could be heard over the telephone. Then another shot apparently severed connection.

“Right then, I decided to quit investigating and start moving,” he declared. Governor McCord rushed to the State Capital, Nashville, after he received news of the violence, but stated he had no plans to send troops to McMinn County unless requested. Two men are reported to have been killed and at least 22 wounded, in a gun fight between a crowd estimated at 1000 surrounding the McMinn County gaol, to which the ballot boxes from two polling places were transferred earlier under a heavily armed guard, and election officials barricaded inside. Appeal for Help The besiegers, using pistols and light rifles, exchanged volley after volley with the gaol defenders, who later telephoned an appeal for help. Eye-witnesses of an incident in which two war veterans broke through the glass door of a polling place to complain about the vote counting methods, said the deputy sheriff levelled a pistol at them. -A crowd then assembled and gunfire broke out. Mr Butler announced that elements of the Middle Tennessee brigade of the Home Guard were mobilised and would move into Athens at the same time as the Sixth Regiment. “I am not going in there without enough troops to restore order,” he added. Gunfire capped a series of hectic events marking the Tennessee primaries, in which veteran Senator K. D. McKellar is apparently winning his sixth term nomination against his challenger, Mr E. W. Carmack, who to-night refused to concede to Mr McKellar in spite of his deficiency in votes already counted. Mr Carmack declared that there had been “many indications of fraud” in the campaign. He added that his fight against, the “dictators” had only just begun. Hole Blown in Gaol. After a spokesman for the crowd gave the defenders of the McMinn County gaol a chance to leave the building, four explosions, rocked the three-storey brick building, blowing a hole in one corner and demolishing a motor car which had been used to block the entrance. The deputy three minutes after the final blast was touched off leaned out of the window and shouted: “We will give up. We are dying in here.” Fifty men with their 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 the gaol to be locked up. Veterans recovered ballot boxes from the gaol. Their spokesman said: “The G.l.’s are elected and will serve as your county officials beginning on September 1.” He added that the report that two were killed inside the gaol, which was given from a telephone within the building, was untrue.