Requests for help in Athens were unheeded
(Editor’s note: a series)
After fighting Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism, victorious World War II veterans began returning home to McMinn County in late 1945. In their absence, Paul Cantrell and Pat Mansfield, with support from the E.H. Crump political machine, had tightened control over elected and appointed political offices in Athens and the county.
A game of political leapfrog began in January 1946, when Sheriff Mansfield announced he was running for the state Senate and Sen. Cantrell decided to return to his former position as sheriff. Residents speculated that Cantrell was “missing the fee system’s lucrative profits as sheriff” and that law enforcement money outweighed state legislator power.
McMinn veterans banded together to fight the Cantrell and Mansfield regimes but realized the danger in their actions. They held meetings in secret to field their own list of candidates for the five positions that would be on the ballot in the upcoming election. They never met twice in the same place, fearful of Cantrell’s spies. The veterans went public with their campaign in May, just two months before the scheduled Aug. 1 elections. Their candidate list was
Second in nonpartisan, with three Republican candidates and two Democrats. Knox Henry, a decorated North African Campaign veteran, led the ticket and courageously stood against Cantrell.
The veteran leaders met together in a public forum and announced their goal: reform in McMinn County that would assure “fair and transparent elections.” Understanding the resentment created by previous elections, where the victor had won “through blatant fraud,” they proclaimed a new era with a campaign slogan that struck home — “Your Vote will be Counted as Cast.” Speeches included references to liberty and the basic right of the people to “choose” their leaders in a republic, the government created by the Founders and those who had “fought in the American Revolution.”
Cantrell’s response was swift. His machine realized its chance of maintaining political and financial control of the county rested on keeping all veterans from voting. Since McMinn County had only one voter registration book for veterans, that record was found to have “been misplaced” each time a veteran attempted to register. Those who had been successful in previously registering to vote by returning time and time again were now randomly arrested and their poll tax receipts confiscated. Without the receipt, they could not vote.
The veterans telegraphed the U.S. Justice Department, urging Attorney General Tom Clark to send election monitors to McMinn County to oversee “fair elections.” They received no reply. Understanding that no help was coming from the federal government and that much of Tennessee government was under the control of the Crump machine, the veterans organized a 60-man militia, led by veteran Bill White, to limit Cantrell’s intimidation, prevent fraud and reduce the chances that the election might turn violent. The Fighting Bunch, the local name for their volunteer election militia, soon learned that Cantrell had hired 200 outof-state men, sworn in as deputies, to help oversee the election and to work with 15 McMinn County deputies.
Election Day approached, and the veterans tried once again to obtain assistance. This time they sent telegrams to the governor and his attorney general. Neither answered.
The Aug. 2, 1946, Chattanooga Daily Times reported that Congressman John Jennings Jr. of Knoxville had wired U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark, “urging that the Federal Government intervene to prevent impending bloodshed in the McMinn County elections.” The article mentioned that the Republican Jennings formerly represented McMinn County, often called attention to the corrupt Cantrell organization, and chose to get involved at the request of friends in the besieged county.
Jennings explained that he had asked several times for federal oversight in McMinn County’s election. In a face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C., he had presented the attorney general with more than 3,000 sworn affidavits about fraud in the 1942 elections, adding that Clark had done “nothing about the matter.” Jennings’ fears were confirmed when a “pitched battle between McMinn County Sheriff Pat Mansfield with about 75 deputies, and a large and hostile political force, broke out at the Athens jail” the same day.
The Chattanooga Daily Times reported that Tennessee Speaker of the House George Woods of Etowah, a friend of state Sen. Paul Cantrell, had “persuaded the governor to send the state guard to Athens.” The speaker provided a statement to the Times: “There is a pitched battle in progress around the Athens jail … .”
Linda Moss Mines, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County historian, serves as secretary of the Chattanooga Area Veterans Council. For more information on local history, visit Chattahistoricalassoc.org.