Battle of Athens (1946)

In 1936, the E. H. Crump political machine based in Memphis, controlled much of Tennessee; their influence extended to McMinn County with the introduction of Paul Cantrell, Democrat candidate for sheriff. Cantrell, who came from a wealthy and influential family in nearby Etowah, tied his campaign closely to the popularity of the Roosevelt administration. Cantrell rode FDR's coattails to victory over his Republican opponent in what came to be known as the "vote grab of 1936", which delivered McMinn County to the Crump Machine. The sheriff and his deputies were paid under a fee system, whereby they received money for every person they booked, incarcerated, and released. The U.S. Department of Justice had investigated allegations of electoral fraud in McMinn County in 1940, 1942, and 1944, but had not taken action. During the war, two servicemen on leave were shot and killed by Cantrell supporters. According to a contemporaneous article by Theodore H. White in ''Harper's Magazine'', one veteran, Ralph Duggan, who had served in the Pacific in the Navy and became a leading lawyer postwar, "thought a lot more about McMinn County than he did about the Japs. If democracy was good enough to put on the Germans and the Japs, it was good enough for McMinn County, too!" == Initial confrontations ==

Water Works polling place The county election polls opened on August 1, 1946. Normally, there would be about 15 patrolmen on duty for the precincts, but about 200 armed deputies were on patrol for the election, many of them from other counties and states. In Etowah, a GI poll watcher requested that the ballot box be opened and certified as empty. Although he was legally allowed to make the request, he was arrested and taken to jail. In Athens, Walter Ellis protested irregularities in the election and was also arrested and charged with what was explained to him as a "federal offense". When the GIs heard the deputies had taken the ballot boxes to the jail, White exclaimed, "Boy, they doing something. I'm glad they done that. Now all we got to do is whip on the jail." Recognizing that they had broken the law and that Cantrell would likely receive reinforcements in the morning, the GIs felt the need to resolve the situation quickly. The deputies knew little of battle tactics, but the GIs knew them well. By taking up the second floor of a bank across the street from the jail, the GIs would be able to return fire from the jail from above. By 9:00 pm, Paul Cantrell, Pat Mansfield, George Woods (Speaker of the State House of Representatives and Secretary of the McMinn County Election Commission), and about 50 deputies were in the jail, allegedly rummaging through the ballot boxes. Woods and Mansfield constituted a majority of the election commission and could therefore certify and validate the count from within the jail. == Battle ==

Estimates of the number of veterans besieging the jail vary from several hundred White had at least 60 under his command. White split his group, with Buck Landers taking up position at the bank while White took the rest to the post office. Lones Selber, then seven years old and observing from a nearby street, wrote later in a 1985 American Heritage article: "Opinion differs on exactly how the challenge was issued." White says he was the one to call it out: "Would you damn bastards bring those damn ballot boxes out here or we are going to set siege against the jail and blow it down!" Automatic weapons fire erupted, punctuated by shotgun blasts. "I fired the first shot," White claimed, "then everybody started shooting from our side." A deputy ran for the jail. "I shot him; he wheeled and fell inside of the jail". White's group thwarted an attempt by deputies outside the jail to reinforce (or take refuge in) the jail. Some people in the jail managed to escape through the back door. End of the battle and vote counting How the fighting ended is also disputed. Byrum reported: "By 3:30 am, the men holding the jail had been dynamited into submission, and by early morning George Woods was calling Ralph Duggan to ask if he could come to Athens and certify the election of the GI slate. White reported that "when the GIs broke into the jail, they found some of the tally sheets marked by the machine had been scored fifteen to one for the Cantrell forces." When the final tally was complete, Knox Henry was declared the winner of the election. The morning of August 2 found the town quiet. Some minor acts of revenge happened, but the public mood was one of "euphoria that had not been experienced in McMinn County in a long time". Governor McCord initially moved to activate the National Guard, but quickly rescinded the order. The GIs called a meeting in the courthouse to certify the election. The approximately 400 in attendance elected a special committee, headed by Methodist minister Bernie Hampton and joined by C. A. Anderson and Gobo Cartwright, two members of the Business Men's Evangelical Committee, were to preserve law and order. George Woods, the escaped Secretary of the County Election Commission, sent a written missive saying: "Next Monday at 10 am I will sign an election certificate certifying that the GI ticket was elected." Later, the veterans turned responsibility for maintaining order in Athens over to Police Chief Herbert Walker. The GIs said they were still "holding control" of McMinn County until September 1, when Knox Henry was to be installed as sheriff. Sheriff-elect Knox Henry returned to McMinn County after having spent the night in safe keeping in the Sweetwater jail. Sheriff Henry, a 33-year-old former Army Air Force sergeant, observed, "They were going to kill me yesterday, and I had to leave town." == Nearby conflicts ==

In adjacent Meigs County, a similar conflict broke out. On August 5, the Meigs County Election Commission certified Republican Oscar Womac as sheriff. Womac admitted to a reporter that he had ordered some associates to burn "a bunch of ballots". The ballots, he claimed, were found in the Meigs County Courthouse the previous day. The Chattanooga Times reported that Sheriff J. T. Pettit claimed the Peakland ballot box was taken at gunpoint by Womac and companions from the County Clerk's office the day before the ballot burning. "There was little we could do to stop him; he was armed, and the four men with him were armed", Sheriff Pettit said. ==Aftermath==

The recovered ballots certified the election of the five GI Non-Partisan League candidates. League member Knox Henry received 2,175 votes against 1,270 for Sheriff Cantrell. The League also won the other races: Frank Carmichael won as trustee 2,194 to 1,270; George Painter won the county clerk race 2,175 to 1,198; the circuit court clerk broke 2,165 to 1,197 for Charles Picket. The McMinn County Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts had called for Mayor Walker to resign immediately after the gunfight. The "Battle of Athens" was followed by veteran movements in other Tennessee counties to promote a statewide coalition against corrupt political machines in the upcoming November elections. Governor McCord countered an attempt to form a "Non-Partisan GI Political League" by directing the Young Democrats Clubs of Tennessee to recruit ex-GIs. The "Crump Organization", based in Shelby County, also worked against the nascent GI organization. A convention was held in Alamo, Tennessee, with the intention of establishing a new national party; the convention was discouraged by General Evans Carlson, USMC, who argued that the GIs should work through the existing political parties. The new GI government of Athens quickly encountered challenges, including the re-emergence of old party loyalties. On January 4, 1947, four of the five leaders of the GI Non-Partisan League declared in an open letter: "We abolished one machine only to replace it with another and more powerful one in the making." The GI government in Athens eventually collapsed, the movement quickly faded, and politics in the state returned to normal. The Non-Partisan GI Political League replied to enquiries by veterans elsewhere in the United States with the advice that political violence was not the appropriate method of resolving political differences. ==Legacy==

Joseph C. Goulden in The Best Years 1945–1950 discussed the Battle of Athens, how it sparked ex-GI political movements in three other Tennessee counties, as well as other boss-ruled Southern states, led to a convention with representatives from several Southern states, and how it raised fears that veterans would resort to further violence. Eleanor Roosevelt expressed a somewhat popular opinion that GIs should be checked for violent tendencies before they were demobilized; White came to see her point. ==References==