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Much has been written – and a new book is underway – about the armed revolt in the mid-1940s in eastern Tennessee counties just to the west of us.
Native sons who had served faithfully in the American victory over Germany and Japan came home to McMinn and Polk counties only to be victimized by crooked Democrat sheriffs, who ruled supreme.
Their brutal deputies were paid a small fee for each arrest, so the ex-soldiers soon found themselves in jail on trumped-up charges of public drunkenness, fined by the bad sheriffs’ justices of the peace, often physically beaten up in the process.
With the male population gone off to fight in foreign war zones, law enforcement candidates were few and rules were forgotten. Some deputies had criminal records of their own, little respect for any law.
Got so bad up near Athens it was said that some of the deputies stopped a bus on the highway and arrested all the passengers on made-up charges, just to collect their fees.
Of course, police brutality and election fraud were common, as the sheriffs held on to their power.
New political party
The Good Government League formed in McMinn, a non-partisan group of disgruntled Democrats, Republicans and ex-GIs mad as hell. The league dived headfirst into the local 1946 election, with its own slate of officeholders, determined to defeat the machine.
They would watch and guard the ballot boxes closely and their motto was, “Every vote to be counted as it was cast.” There would be no stuffing the boxes with faked ballots.
It ended with the National Guard being called out to keep the peace, the GIs in a big gun battle with the sheriff’s men, who had holed up in a building with the ballot boxes. At the official count, the GGL won big, and its candidates were the winners.
The Good Government League was facing a similar challenge in Polk County, organized heavily at Copperhill and started working on the 1948 election.
Guns and death
Both sides were openly carrying guns at Turtletown, Ducktown and Copperhill, feelings running high. My source for some of this was editor of the weekly newspaper there, which is now defunct.
“The last rally of our Good Government League was set for Benton,” Ed Middleton told me in the 1970s. “We all went in a caravan. But the opposition had covered the river road (U.S. 64) with roofing nails, and all our cars got flat tires.”
He told me one of the polling places at the August election was a vacant house, the ballot box there being watched by the armed GIs. One of the opposition forces tried to disconnect the electricity, putting it in dark so the box could be doctored.
“He tried to pull the main fuse box but the soldiers stopped him,” Ed said. “Then he started climbing the transformer pole, to cut off the power there. One of those GIs just shot him dead off the pole, like you’d shoot a squirrel.”
The GIs guarded the ballot boxes and escorted them to Benton’s courthouse for the official count, which the league won handily.
But the reform movement didn’t last long and soon it was back to politics as usual. A league spokesmen said, “We eliminated one political machine only to see another one take its place.”
A state historical marker stands in Athens, site of the battle. A writer there is doing a book on the incidents, which he said already has 100,000 words and is still being researched.
Wally Avett first wrote for the Cherokee Scout as editor in 1969. His books are available as signed copies at the Scout office in Murphy. Call him at 837-5531 or email wallyavett@gmail.com.