Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-26

came the killing of Carmack by the Coopers,
| within a week after Patterson's reelection.
Here again young Mr. Thunderbolt took
| long leap up the Tower. Carmack was shot
down in the late afternoon. That night
Tennessee, in valley and on mountainside,
| in town and in country, was a powder maya
zine which needed only spark to set it off
in an explosion of violence that might have
reached a state of anarchy. From dark until
far into the next morning Lea seated in the
office OF his newspaper, received on the tele-
phone such messages as these:
Luke, we've got three hundred men here
ready to shoot if you want u.s."
LEA, we're ready to catch train for
| Nashville if you want that Patterson gang
| shot up"
Offers of armed force came from every
section of the State. They were made in
were infamed by long and bitter political
fight, and from men outraged by the thought
of the assassination. To them all Lea re-
| piled that further bloodshed must be avoided,
and that the law would attend to its own
business. 1t was significant that at such a
| time the grizzled mountaineers and the ex-
perienced business men of the cities appealed
| for the final word to the young publisher.
| But he got another message that night.
| 1t came from the Patterson camp and said,
"If you refer in your paper tomorrow to this
thing as a murder or an assassination, we'll
shoot you and burn down your newspaper
plant
The next morning the paper was out with
flaming headlines describing the murder"
and the ASSASSINATION of Carmack.
Last fall "The Tennesseean" grew into
"The Tennesseean and American While
the campaign was hottest and "The Aner1-
can was championing the cause of the OPP
position, Thunderbolt Lea struck in a vital
spot. He bought controlling interest in "The
American" in one night and deprived the foe
of its one great newspaper representative.
He now owns and edits the two, having
merged them under the joint name.
Wiping Out the Pattersons
THEN, in the course of time, there came
= the necessity for electing another Gov
ernor or rejecting Patterson. Again the
litical mess. When the steam had cleared
away Patterson had withdrawn "for the sake
of party welfare" The Democrats, the 3old-
line" members of the party, had nominated
Fiddling Bob Taylor as their last chance.
And Lea, working nightly for his @pro-
gressive" policies, had effected fusion be-
tween the Republicans and the progressive
Democrats and had put the merger back of
Ben W. Hooper, a Republican and the prod
uct of an orphan asylum.
Lea did this because, having beaten Pat
terson out of denomination he wanted to
put all the Patterson crowd out of Office.
Hooper won. Not even the beloved person
atty and the wide popularity of Fiddling
Bob could withstand the terrific strength of
the Lea-Hooper organization. This hap
pened last fall.
At the Top of the Tower
NOW comes the last chapter of the story.
I The State Legislature met to choose
United States Senator to succeed James B.
Frazier There followed deadlock of three
weeks, during which the regular" Democrats
had as their leading candidates the tried old
warriors Luke Wright and Benton McMillin,
and the Fusionists, Republicans, and 3pro-
gressive" Democrats we're backing Frazier
and Enloe. The fighting was hard, and it
was about as easy to change a vote as it was
an airy and slight thing for Mahomet to
make the mountain come galloping to his