When government becomes riddled with corruption and intimidation,....then, there is really very little Americans can do....but rebel.
And so it came to pass.
1. "In 1946 a corrupt government was overthrown in Athens,TN by a fed up citizenry. Corruption in the election process had made it impossible for the citizens votes to be counted. The corruption was finally met by brute force and rule of law was established once again..... If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions..... if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee." Eleanor Roosevelt on the Second Amendment & The Battle of Athens, page 1
2. After the war, returning veterans had no interest in maintaining the status quo. They had, after all, just fought a war against fascism and were well-trained to deal with home-grown dictators. In 1946, the vets organized and ran a slate of candidates against the local thugocracy. When the sheriff and his deputies tried to steal the election using violence and intimidation to do it the vets gathered their weapons. "
The Second Amendment and the Battle of Athens ? Behind Blue Lines
3. It was like Nazi Germany here, said thirty-seven-year-old, graying, Navy veteran Ralph Duggan. Cantrells deputies were nothing but a lot of swaggering, strutting storm-troopers, drunk most of the time, beating up our citizens for the slightest reason. Know what they did? In elections, they just kicked out the poll-watchers or else they took the ballot boxes to be counted in the privacy of Cantrells bank. They even used guns and blackjacks, back in 1940, to prevent 400 people from voting...... the Circuit Court jury brought in a guilty verdict against three Cantrell deputies. But the judge simply fined the deputies one cent each, told them to be good boys, and let them go free. " Ralph G. Martins," The GI War"
4. "... in the 1930s Tennessee began to fall under the control of Democratic bosses. .... eventually controlled most of Tennessee along with the governors office and a United States senator..... 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 FDRs coattails to victory over his Republican opponent..... citizens firmly believe that ballot boxes were swappedbut there was no proof. .... 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.
5. In the summer of 1945 veterans began returning home; by 1946 the streets of Athens overflowed with uniforms..... 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.
6. .... 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.
7. .... 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, ******, you cant 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 ... 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,...
8. .... 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.
9. .... 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,.... dynamite was tossed toward the jail;.... the jailhouse porch jumped off its foundation. The deputies barricaded in the courthouse a block away rushed onto the balcony, eager to surrender. The jails defenders staggered from their ruined stronghold and handed the ballot boxes over to the veterans.
10. 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..... 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..... 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." The Battle Of Athens | American History Lives at American Heritage
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9fVABaWkAM]The Battle Of Athens: Fighting for Liberty, Restoring the Rule of Law - YouTube[/ame]
And so it came to pass.
1. "In 1946 a corrupt government was overthrown in Athens,TN by a fed up citizenry. Corruption in the election process had made it impossible for the citizens votes to be counted. The corruption was finally met by brute force and rule of law was established once again..... If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions..... if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee." Eleanor Roosevelt on the Second Amendment & The Battle of Athens, page 1
2. After the war, returning veterans had no interest in maintaining the status quo. They had, after all, just fought a war against fascism and were well-trained to deal with home-grown dictators. In 1946, the vets organized and ran a slate of candidates against the local thugocracy. When the sheriff and his deputies tried to steal the election using violence and intimidation to do it the vets gathered their weapons. "
The Second Amendment and the Battle of Athens ? Behind Blue Lines
3. It was like Nazi Germany here, said thirty-seven-year-old, graying, Navy veteran Ralph Duggan. Cantrells deputies were nothing but a lot of swaggering, strutting storm-troopers, drunk most of the time, beating up our citizens for the slightest reason. Know what they did? In elections, they just kicked out the poll-watchers or else they took the ballot boxes to be counted in the privacy of Cantrells bank. They even used guns and blackjacks, back in 1940, to prevent 400 people from voting...... the Circuit Court jury brought in a guilty verdict against three Cantrell deputies. But the judge simply fined the deputies one cent each, told them to be good boys, and let them go free. " Ralph G. Martins," The GI War"
4. "... in the 1930s Tennessee began to fall under the control of Democratic bosses. .... eventually controlled most of Tennessee along with the governors office and a United States senator..... 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 FDRs coattails to victory over his Republican opponent..... citizens firmly believe that ballot boxes were swappedbut there was no proof. .... 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.
5. In the summer of 1945 veterans began returning home; by 1946 the streets of Athens overflowed with uniforms..... 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.
6. .... 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.
7. .... 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, ******, you cant 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 ... 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,...
8. .... 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.
9. .... 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,.... dynamite was tossed toward the jail;.... the jailhouse porch jumped off its foundation. The deputies barricaded in the courthouse a block away rushed onto the balcony, eager to surrender. The jails defenders staggered from their ruined stronghold and handed the ballot boxes over to the veterans.
10. 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..... 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..... 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." The Battle Of Athens | American History Lives at American Heritage
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9fVABaWkAM]The Battle Of Athens: Fighting for Liberty, Restoring the Rule of Law - YouTube[/ame]
