Eleanor Roosevelt

This morning, Election Integrity activist Bernie Ellis emailed me a 1946 newspaper column by Eleanor Roosevelt in which she defends the men of McMinn County, WWII veterans all, who took the matter of free and fair elections into their own hands during the Battle of Athens (TN).

In the column – which The Daily Post Athenian Managing Editor Richard Edwards confirmed did indeed appear in the August 7, 1946 issue – is a general warning against abuse of power aimed at politicians everywhere.

But in light of recent events in which Tennessee’s Secretary of State Tre Hargett sent two TBI agents to pay Mr. Ellis a visit because of a reference he made to the Battle of Athens in a comment on the Nashville Scene’s Pith in the Wind blog, it’s almost as if Mrs. Rooselvelt were reaching up to box Mr. Hargett’s ears from beyond the grave:

We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn County, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. 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.

…

Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.

This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you can be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.

If this is a Tennessee version of “A Christmas Carol” playing out before our eyes, who will visit Mr. Hargett next? Step right up, Alice Paul!

UPDATE: The reprint of Mrs. Roosevelt’s column originally appeared in the Athens, TN paper with the following: Editor’s Note — Our attention has been called to Mrs. Roosevelt’s column upon McMinn. She seems to have grasped the facts and significance better than any other outside writer.