The Battle
of Athens
by Lones Seiber
The
American Heritage Magazine
The GIs came home to
find that a political
machine had taken over
their Tennessee county.
What they did about it
astounded the nation.
In McMinn County, Tennessee, in the early 1940s, the question was not if you farmed, but where you farmed. Athens, the county seat, lay between Knoxville and Chattanooga along U.S. Highway 11, which wound its way through eastern Tennessee. This was the meeting place for farmers from all the surrounding communities. Traveling along narrow roads planted with signs urging them to "See Rock City" and "Get Right with God," they would gather on Saturdays beneath the courthouse elms to discuss politics and crops. There were barely seven thousand people in Athens, and many of its streets were still unpaved. The two "big" cities some fifty miles away had not yet begun their inevitable expansion, and the farmers' lives were simple and essentially unaffected by what they would have called the "modern world." Many of them were without electricity. The land, their families, religion, politics, and the war dominated their talk and thoughts. They learned about God from the family Bible and in tiny chapels along yellow-dust roads. Their newspaper, the Daily
Post-Athenian, told them something of politics and war, but since it chose to avoid intrigue or scandal, a story that smacked of both could be found only in the conversations of the folks who milled about the courthouse lawn on Saturdays.
Since the Civil War,
political offices in
McMinn County had gone
to the Republicans, but
in the 1930s Tennessee
began to fall under the
control of Democratic
bosses. To the west,
in Shelby County, E.H.
Crump, the Memphis mayor
who had been ousted during
his term for failing
to enforce Prohibition,
fathered what would become
the state’s most
powerful political machine.
Crump eventually controlled
most of Tennessee along
with the governor’s
office and a United States
senator. In eastern Tennessee
local and regional machines
developed, which, lacking
the sophistication and
power of a Crump, relied
on intimidation and violence
to control their constituents.
In 1936 the system descended
upon McMinn County in
the person of one Paul
Cantrell, the Democratic
candidate for sheriff.
Cantrell, who came from
a family of money and
influence in nearby Etowah,
tied his campaign closely
to the popularity of
the Roosevelt administration
and rode FDR’s
coattails to victory
over his Republican opponent.
Fraud was suspected—to
this day many Athens
citizens firmly believe
that ballot boxes were
swapped—but there
was no proof. Over the
following months and
years, however, those
who questioned the election
would see their suspicions
vindicated. The laws
of Tennessee provided
an opportunity for the
unscrupulous to prosper.
The sheriff and his deputies
received a fee for every
person they booked, incarcerated,
and released; the more
human transactions, the
more money they got.
A voucher signed by the
sheriff was all that
was needed to collect
the money from the courthouse.
Deputies routinely boarded
buses passing through
and dragged sleepy-eyed
passengers to the jail
to pay their $16.50 fine
for drunkenness, whether
they were guilty or not.
Arrests ran as high as
115 per weekend. The
fee system was profitable,
but record-keeping was
required, and the money
could be traced. It was
less troublesome to collect
kickbacks for allowing
roadhouses to operate
openly. Cooperative owners
would point out influential
patrons. They were not
bothered, but the rest
were subject to shakedowns.
Prostitution, liquor,
and gambling grew so
prevalent that it became
common knowledge in Tennessee
that Athens was “wide
open.”
Encouraged by his initial
success, Cantrell began
what would become a tenyear
reign as the king of
McMinn politics. In subsequent
elections, ballot boxes
were collected from the
precincts and the results
tabulated in secret at
McMinn County Jail in
Athens. Opposition poll
watchers were labeled
as troublemakers and
ejected from precinct
houses.
The 1940 election sent
George Woods, a plump
and affable Etowah crony
of Cantrell, to the state
legislature. Woods promptly
introduced “An
Act to Redistrict McMinn
County.” It reduced
the number of voting
precincts from twenty-three
to twelve and cut down
the number of justices
of the peace from fourteen
to seven. Of these seven,
four were openly Cantrell
men. When Gov. Prentice
Cooper signed Woods’s
bill into law on February
15, 1941, effective Republican
opposition died in McMinn
County.
McMinn County Court,
which was still dominated
by Republicans, directed
the county to purchase
voting machines. The
Cantrell Democrats countered
by having Woods get a
bill passed in Nashville
abolishing the court
and then selling the
machines to “save
the county money.” Department
of Justice records show
investigations of electoral
fraud in McMinn County
in 1940, 1942, and 1944 —all
without resolution.
During the Civil War,
deep from within secessionist
territory, McMinn County
had sided with the Union;
in 1898 she had declared
war on Spain two weeks
before Washington got
around to it. How could
Cantrell have such undisputed
control over a county
noted for its independent
and cantankerous spirit?
One answer lies in the
Second World War: 3,526
young men, or about 10
percent of McMinn’s
population, went off
to fight. Most of those
left behind—older
and perhaps more timid—contributed
to the Cantrell machine’s
growth by remaining silent.
Still, as the war dragged
on, people began to tell
each other, “Wait
until the GIs get back—things
will be different.”
In the summer of 1945
veterans began returning
home; by 1946 the streets
of Athens overflowed
with uniforms. The Cantrell
forces were not worried.
The
more GIs they arrested,” one
vet recalled, “the
more they beat up, the
madder we got.”
Bill White recalled
coming home from overseas
with mustering-out
pay in his pocket: “There
were several beer joints
and honky-tonks around
Athens; we were pretty
wild; we started having
trouble with the law
enforcement at that
time because they started
making a habit of picking
up GIs and fining them
heavily for most anything—they
were kind of making
a racket out of it.
“After long hard
years of service—most
of us were hard-core
veterans of World War
II—we were used
to drinking our liquor
and our beer without
being molested. When
these things happened,
the GIs got madder—the
more GIs they arrested,
the more they beat up,
the madder we got …”
At last the veterans
chose to use the most
basic right of the democracy
for which they had gone
to war: the right to
vote. In the early months
of 1946 they decided
in secret meetings to
field a slate of their
own candidates for the
August elections. In
May they formed a nonpartisan
political party.
As the election approached,
there were few overt
signs of impending trouble,
although to the citizens
of McMinn County it was
apparent that something
had to happen: there
was too much at stake
on both sides. The Daily
Post-Athenian was characteristically
silent. The most significant
news item appeared on
election eve, July 31,1946,
at the bottom of page
one: VFW members in neighboring
Blount County said that
four hundred and fifty
veterans were ready to
respond to any need in
McMinn County. Above
this was a report that
Tony Pierce had killed
a muskrat in his front
yard.
The veterans fielded
candidates for five offices,
but interest centered
on the race for sheriff
between Knox Henry, who
had served in the North
African campaign, and
Paul Cantrell. Since
the 1936 election Cantrell
had gone on to the legislature
as state senator and
installed Pat Mansfield
as sheriff of McMinn
County. A big, jovial
sometime engineer for
the Louisville & Nashville,
Mansfield had done very
nicely for himself during
his term of office: his
four years as sheriff
had netted him an estimated
$104,000. But now, in
1946, Cantrell was running
for sheriff and Mansfield
for state senator.
In the final week a
flurry of advertisements
appeared in the Post-Athenian;
Cantrell enumerated the
accomplishments of the
Democratic party; Mansfield
denied that two men arrested
on July 30 with a shipment
of liquor were deputies,
even though they admitted
they were and had been
delivering “election
whiskey”; downtown
merchants announced that
all stores would be closed
on Election Day to give
employees a chance to
vote, although this had
not been necessary in
previous elections (the
merchants were perhaps
following the example
of the mayor of Athens,
Paul Walker, who would
be vacationing on Election
Day); Cantrell warned
that the veterans had
printed sample ballots
with the intention of
stuffing ballot boxes;
the veterans offered
a one-thousand-dollar
reward for verifiable
information about election
fraud and repeated a
slogan that for weeks
had sounded again and
again from their carmounted
loudspeakers: YOUR VOTE
WILL BE COUNTED AS CAST.
Two days before the
election the GIs ran
an advertisement in the
Post-Athenian: “These
young men fought and
won a war for good government.
They know what it takes
and what it means to
have a clean government—and
they are energetic enough,
honest enough and intelligent
enough to give us good,
clean government.” A
couple of pages farther
on, the Democrats had
their say: “Look
at the facts—and
you will vote for the
Democratic ticket. The
campaign fight is as
old as the hills—it
is the story of the outs
wanting back in.”
The next day, the paper
reported that veterans
from Blount County had
offered to come help
watch the polls. Mansfield
began building an army
of his own. “It
has come to my attention,” he
announced, “that
certain elements intend
to create a disturbance
at and around the polls. … In
order to see that law
and order is maintained … I
will have several hundred
deputies patrolling the
county.” He hired
all of them from outside
the county, some from
out of state. They would
crowd inside every voting
precinct. And they would
be armed.
August 1, 1946: Election
Day found voters lined
up early in the largest
turnout in local history.
Joining them were some
three hundred of Sheriff
Mansfield’s special
deputies. Trouble began
early. At 9:30 A.M. Walter
Ellis, a legally appointed
GI representative at
the first precinct in
the courthouse, was arrested
and jailed for protesting
irregularities.
Sirens wailed throughout
the morning, and police
cruisers were seen speeding
toward the jail. GIs
began gathering on Washington
Street outside L. L.
Shaefer’s jewelry
store, which served as
an office for their campaign
manager, Jim Buttram,
who had seen action in
Africa, Sicily, Italy,
and Normandy. Above the
door a sign read: “Phone
787, Jim Buttram,” the
number to which voters
were to report election
fraud. Only after prolonged
pounding did a harried
Buttram cautiously open
the door to his comrades.
As more than two hundred
GIs filled the small
store, the somber mood
of their leader told
them they were in trouble.
He showed them copies
of two telegrams dated
July 22: one he had addressed
to Gov. Jim McCord, Nashville,
Tennessee; the other
to Att. Gen. Tom Clark,
Washington, D.C. They
requested assistance
to ensure a fair election.
Neither had been answered.
Otto Kennedy, not an
ex-GI himself but a political
adviser to the veterans,
entered the office and
announced that Cantrell
had posted armed guards
at each precinct. They
all knew that this move
was in preparation for
the 4:00 P.M. poll closings
when the ballot boxes
would be moved to the
jail for counting. A
small group of the veterans
demanded an armed mobilization
and called for a leader.
Buttram declined. So
did Kennedy, but he offered
the rear of his Essankay
Garage and Tire Shop
across the street as
a meeting hall.
The group crossed the
street, held a meeting,
and agreed that those
who did not have weapons
should get them and return
as quickly as possible.
By 3:00 P.M. most were
back at the Essankay
and most were armed.
At about this time, Tom
Gillespie, an elderly
black farmer from Union
Road, stepped inside
the eleventh-precinct
polling place in the
Athens Water Works on
Jackson Street. Windy
Wise, a Cantrell guard,
told Gillespie, “Nigger,
you can’t vote
here.” When Tom
protested, Wise struck
him with brass knuckles.
Gillespie dropped his
ballot and ran for the
door. Wise pulled a pistol
and shot him in the back
as he reached the sidewalk.
The
crowd began to demand
the lives of the captives;
some veterans agreed.
The first shot of the
day brought crowds streaming
up Jackson from the courthouse.
Sheriff Mansfield’s
cruiser turned off College
Street and screeched
to a halt in front of
the Water Works, and
deputies loaded the bleeding
Gillespie into the car.
Mansfield ordered the
precinct closed, posted
four deputies outside
to guard the Water Works,
and then took Gillespie
to jail. A dozen veterans
from the Essankay started
up Jackson toward the
Water Works. They were
unarmed.
During the confusion
following the shooting,
the two GI poll watchers,
Ed Vestal and Charles
Scott, had been seized
and held hostage inside
the Water Works by Wise
and another Cantrell
deputy, Karl Neil. When
the veterans reached
the Water Works, the
crowd began taunting
the armed guards. As
Wise and Neil stood at
a window watching the
angry throng outside,
Vestal and Scott plunged
through the plate-glass
windows and ran bleeding
for the protection of
the crowd. Wise stepped
through the broken glass,
waving his pistol; several
veterans rushed forward
but were quickly pulled
back to safety. One of
them shouted, “Let’s
go get our guns!” and
they left for the Essankay.
In the meantime Chief
Deputy Boe Dunn had his
men form a cordon from
the building to his cruiser,
and the ballot box was
carried out to the car.
Wise told Dunn about
the GIs’ threat;
the chief deputy ordered
two of his men to GI
headquarters to arrest
those whom Wise could
identify. The rest of
the deputies piled into
the cruiser, which sped
back toward the jail.
When the two deputies
reached the GI headquarters,
they were disarmed and
taken prisoner; so were
two others sent later
as reinforcements. A
crowd began to gather
outside; three more deputies
came with pistols drawn,
only to be pummeled and
dragged inside. The crowd
began to demand the lives
of the captives; some
of the veterans agreed.
This talk alarmed Otto
Kennedy, and he left,
vowing to have no part
in murder. The crowd
began to disperse, and
most of the GIs left;
soon a small nucleus
of veterans was alone
with seven hostages.
The veterans took the
hostages to the woods,
ten miles out of town,
beat them, and shackled
them to trees.
A polling place for
the twelfth precinct
had been set up in the
back of the Dixie Cafe,
across Hornsby Alley
from the jail, and it
was commanded by Minus
Wilburn for Cantrell.
Bob Hairrell and Leslie
Dooley, who had lost
an arm in North Africa,
were assigned as the
Gl poll watchers. Throughout
the day they had observed
Wilburn letting minors
vote and handing cash
to adult voters. At 3:45
P.M., when Wilburn attempted
to allow a young woman
to vote despite the fact
that she had no poll-tax
receipt and that her
name did not appear on
the registration list,
Hairrell’s patience
gave out. As Wilburn
reached to deposit the
ballot, Hairrell grabbed
his wrist. Wilburn slapped
him across the head with
a blackjack and kicked
him in the face as he
fell to the floor. Then
he closed the precinct,
ordered Hornsby Alley
blocked at both ends,
and, with a procession
of guards, crossed the
lawn to the jail with
the ballot box and the
GIs as captives.
The Cantrell forces
had calculated that if
they could control the
first, eleventh and twelfth
precincts in Athens and
the one in Etowah, the
election was theirs.
The ballot boxes from
the Water Works (the
eleventh) and the Dixie
Cafe (the twelfth) were
safely in the jail. The
voting place for the
first precinct, the courthouse,
was barricaded by deputies
who held four GIs hostage,
and Paul Cantrell himself
had Etowah under control.
By 6:00 P.M. it seemed
to be over. GI headquarters
was deserted, and unhappy
crowds moved quietly
along the streets. Another
election had been stolen,
and nothing could be
done about it.
At the Strand Movie
Theater across from the
courthouse, the marquee
read: “Coming Soon:
Gunning for Vengeance.”
Bill White, who had
fought in the Pacific
while still in his teens
and come home an ex-sergeant,
had gotten angrier as
the day wore on. At two
in the afternoon he had
harangued the group of
veterans in the Essankay,
saying: “You call
yourselves GIs—you
go over there and fight
for three and four years—you
come back and you let
a bunch of draft dodgers
who stayed here where
it was safe, and you
were making it safe for
them, push you around. … If
you people don’t
stop this, and now is
the time and place, you
people wouldn’t
make a pimple on a fighting
GI’s ass. Get guns…”
In the early evening
White went to get the
guns himself. He sent
two GIs to get a truck
and, with a few other
veterans, perhaps a dozen,
he headed for the National
Guard armory. There,
he said in a 1969 interview,
he “broke down
the armory doors and
took all the rifles,
two Thompson sub-machine
guns, and all the ammunition
we could carry, loaded
it up in the two-ton
truck and went back to
GI headquarters and passed
out seventy high-powered
rifles and two bandoleers
of ammunition with each
one.” By 9:00 P.M.
Paul Cantrell, Pat Mansfield,
State Rep. George Woods,
who was also a member
of the election commission,
and about fifty deputies
were locked inside the
jail and going through
the ballot boxes. The
presence of Mansfield
and Woods meant that
a majority of the election
commission was on hand,
so the tallies could
be certified and validated
on the spot. More deputies
were still barricaded
in the courthouse, but
along the streets none
were to be seen. If the
Cantrell forces had been
a bit more wary, they
might have spotted some
shadows slipping up the
embankment directly across
the street from the jail.
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!” Moments
later the night exploded
in automatic weapons
fire 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.” Bullets
ricocheted up and down
White Street. “I
shot a second man; his
leg flew out from under
him, and he crawled under
a car.” The veterans
bombarded the jail for
hours, but Cantrell and
his accomplices, secure
behind the red-brick
walls, refused to surrender.
As the uncertain battle
dragged past midnight,
the GIs began to have
some uneasy second thoughts.
They knew that they had
violated local, state,
and federal laws that
night, and if Cantrell
was not routed before
his rescuers arrived,
they might spend the
rest of their lives in
prison. Rumors compounded
their fears: “The
National Guard is on
the way!” “The
state troopers are here!” “Birch
Biggs and his gang are
coming!” (Biggs
ran Polk County more
ruthlessly than Cantrell
ran McMinn.)
If the veterans had
known the truth, they
would have been less
apprehensive. George
Woods had telephoned
Biggs earlier that night
for help. Biggs was not
there, but his son, Broughton,
took the call. His answer: “Do
you think I’m crazy?” Woods
then slipped out of town.
The veterans were eager
to end the battle. Some
of them made Molotov
cocktails, others went
to the county supply
house for dynamite. The
gasoline bombs proved
ineffective, but at 2:30
A.M. the dynamite arrived.
At about this time an
ambulance pulled around
to the north side of
the jail. Assuming it
was for the evacuation
of the wounded, the veterans
let it pass. Two men
jumped in, but then,
instead of returning
to the hospital, the
ambulance sped north
out of town. The men
were Paul Cantrell and
Pat Mansfield.
At 2:48 A.M. the first
dynamite was tossed toward
the jail; it landed under
Boe Dunn’s cruiser,
and the explosion flipped
the vehicle over on its
top, leaving its wheels
spinning. Three more
bundles of dynamite were
thrown almost simultaneously;
one landed on the jail
porch roof, another under
Mansfield’s car,
and the third struck
the jail wall. The explosions
rattled windows throughout
the town; leaves fell
from the trees, debris
scattered for blocks,
and the jailhouse porch
jumped off its foundation.
The deputies barricaded
in the courthouse a block
away rushed onto the
balcony, eager to surrender.
The jail’s defenders
staggered from their
ruined stronghold and
handed the ballot boxes
over to the veterans.
With the Cantrell forces
conquered, ten years
of suppressed rage exploded.
The townspeople set upon
the captured deputies
and, but for the GIs,
probably would have killed
them all. Minus Wilburn,
a particularly unpopular
deputy, had his throat
slashed; Biscuit Farris,
Cantrell’s prison
superintendent, had his
jaw shattered by a bullet;
and Windy Wise was kicked
and beaten senseless.
Joined by a number of
their fellows, the GIs
cleared the jail of the
rioters and locked up
their prisoners for the
night.
At dawn the veterans
slipped from the jail,
made their way through
the detritus of the battle,
and dispersed into what
they hoped would be anonymity.
Miraculously there had
been no deaths. But on
August 2 a page-one headline
in The New York Times wrongly trumpeted the
news: TENNESSEE SHERIFF
is SLAIN IN PRIMARY DAY
VIOLENCE. All day long
reporters with cameras
and notebooks poured
into town to photograph,
question, analyze, and
write. And every newcomer
passed the sign on Highway
11:
WELCOME TO ATHENS
“The Friendly City”
The “victory” of
the veterans that night
in August 1946 appeared,
at first, to have settled
nothing. The national
press was almost unanimous
in condemning the action
of the GIs. In an editorial
perhaps best reflecting
the ambivalence of a
startled nation, The New
York Times concluded: “Corruption,
when and where it exists,
demands reform, and even
in the most corrupt and
boss-ridden communities,
there are peaceful means
by which reform can be
achieved. But there is
no substitute, in a democracy,
for orderly process.” The
syndicated columnist
Robert C. Ruark commented: “There
is very little difference,
essentially, between
a vigilante and a member
of a lynch mob, and if
we are seeking an answer
to crooked politics,
the one that the Athens
boys just propounded
sure ain’t it.” Commonweal cautiously compared the
battle to the American
Revolution, then went
on to say that “nothing
could be more dangerous
both for our liberties
and our welfare than
the making of the McMinn
County Revolution into
a habit.”
In the early days of
August 1946 a power vacuum
existed in McMinn County
that easily could have
spawned anarchy. Armed
GIs patrolled streets
that were still tense
with rumors of a Mansfield
army poised to reclaim
Athens. Hundreds of men
were issued permits to
carry weapons, and machine
guns on rooftops guarded
the approaches to town.
Several times groups
of veterans rushed to
barricade roads and occasionally
they terrorized innocent
travelers in their attempt
to thwart an invasion
that never came.
On August 4 Pat Mansfield
telegraphed his resignation
as sheriff of McMinn
County to Governor McCord
and requested that Knox
Henry fill his unexpired
term, which would end
on September 1. Henry
was appointed immediately,
and the next day State
Rep. George Woods returned
to the county under GI
protection to convene
the election commission
and certify the election.
A cheer rang out in the
courthouse when Woods
rose as the canvass ended
and announced that Knox
Henry was elected sheriff
by a vote of 2,175 to
1,270.
After their victory,
GIs with machine guns
waited for a Cantrell
counterattack.
On August 11, 1946,
the five GIs elected
to office in McMinn announced
that they would return
to the county all fees
in excess of five thousand
dollars. Elsewhere in
Tennessee, E. H. Crump
and his machine were
finally on the way out,
with the election of
Gov. Gordon Browning
and a young United States
senator, Estes Kefauver.
For a full year afterward
the national press seized
upon the most insignificant
news from Athens as evidence
of the veterans’ “lawlessness.” There
was, indeed, remarkably
little criminal prosecution
in the wake of that violent
night. Only one man had
charges brought against
him: Windy Wise, the
deputy who shot the old
black farmer, Tom Gillespie,
drew a sentence of one
to three years.
As for the larger results
of the Athens rebellion,
the GIs universally hailed
the return of the “independent
vote” to the community
and the election of “fine
people” to lead
it. The national press
continued to show interest
in what had happened
(the best, if incomplete,
account of it at the
time was a Harper’s article by Theodore White).
Finally, on the first
anniversary of the violent
election, the Times reported, “Today
it appears that this
political coalition of
World War II veterans
for direct action in
community affairs, which
many at the time regarded
as a factor likely to
develop nationally in
the postwar period, was
purely [a] local phenomenon
in which veteran participation
was incidental.” With
this epilogue the press
turned away from tiny
Athens.
Knox Henry served two
terms as sheriff of McMinn
County and was succeeded
by Otto Kennedy. Paul
Cantrell, after seeking
temporary asylum in Chattanooga,
returned to Etowah and
continued to operate
the bank there with his
brothers. They are all
dead now, as is Jim Buttram.
Otto Kennedy still lives
in Athens. Pat Mansfield
returned secretly to
Athens on August 8, 1946,
to resign his membership
on the election commission.
He met with Otto Kennedy
for two hours, apparently
with no ill feeling on
either side, and then
announced: “I’m
through with politics
for good. It’ll
sure mess you up sometimes.
I’m going back
to railroading.”
Athens has not changed
that much in forty years.
There is a new courthouse,
an imposing structure
that is too large for
its site. The old one
burned down during renovations
in 1964. Farmers no longer
gather on the square;
there is no place for
them. An effort at downtown
renovation can only be
described as timid, a
cautious imitation of
similar projects in the
larger cities. They have
a new jail, an austere
building that seems to
embody the adage that
crime does not pay. The
Daily Post-Athenian is
alive and well and still
comfortably middle-of-the-road.
In the mid-fifties Athens
was isolated by a new
highway that intercepts
Highway 11 south of Niota
and rejoins it at Riceville.
Along it a new Athens
grew, a town of McDonald’s,
Kawasaki, and Pizza Hut.
If you ask people along
the street about the
election of August 1946,
they will point up White
Street and mumble something
vague about a shoot-out.
There are no signs or
monuments to commemorate
the event; people have
forgotten or do not wish
to remember. But the
graying manager of a
local store, a friendly
sort and so gentle with
his grandchildren, squeezed
off round after round
at the jail that night.
And the driver snoozing
behind the wheel of his
cab, not really caring
whether he catches a
fare or not, helped wrap
and toss the deadly bundles
of dynamite that sailed
through the night air.
You can bet they remember.
A native Tennessean,
Lones Selber was seven
at the time of the events
he describes here. He
watched the battle from
the corner of White and
Washington streets.
The editors wish to
thank Thomas J. Baker,
Jr., whose study of the
McMinn County political
machine provided valuable
additional information.
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