Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-09-02
COURT TO HEAR BITTER
BLUE RIDGE JUOGESHIP
CONTEST WEDNESDAY

Now that Chairman William j. Harris,
or the state Democratic executive COM
mlttee, has completed the committee by
naming the fifteen members for the state
at large, and has called the entire COM
mlttee to meet in Atlanta on Wednesday
lot the purpose of considering the con-
tested judgeship nomination in the Blue
Ridge circuit, that interesting and sensa-
tonal fight is of immediate concern.
The situation in the Blue Ridge circuit
Is no new story. For years elections in
that vicinity have reeked with scandal
Nowhere else in Georgia is factionaIism
so rampant or feeling so bitter
1t was that way when George f. Gober
was Judge. The strenuousness and the
uncompromising meanness-no other word
seems to fit SO exactly-of politics in the
Blue Ridge were the things that finally
drove Gober from the bench and to a
residence in another part of the state.
And not that Gober nor vet his faction
ever were thought to be sprouting an
gelic wings either
The lineup in the Blue Ridge-in dear
old Gilmer and Fannin and Pickens," par
ucularly-is most peculiar. There Repub-
llcans and Democrats are about evenly
divided Party lines are tightly drawn.
party principles are doggedly adhered to,
even if heartily misunderstood and mis-
interpreted in hundreds of instances.
Divided by the War.
The people in Gilmer and Fannin and
Pickens are pure Anglo Saxon. They
have been right there for more than a
hundred years-they and their fathers,
and their grandfathers and their great
grandfathers before them
They divided into two camps when the
Civil war came along-many of them
going into the Union army, and as many
more into the Confederate.
In many sections of Massa chusetts
Union sentiment was not nearly so ram
pant in the SOS as II was in Gilmer and
Fannin and Pickens and in many sections
of Virginia Confederate sentiment was
less aggressive than it was in these three
mountainous counties of northeast Geor-
gia.
If there is truly a section of the country
where they do not know the war is
over" it is in Gimer and Fannn and
Pickens counties Georgia,
In these sections every mans political
pedigree is known. The people have mar
ried and intermarred, and often the bit
terest of political enemies up there will be
found to be closely connected by family
| ties
Democratic men have welded Republi-
can women, and Republican mon have
married Democratic women.
! The mix-up would seem to have beer
so thorough and complete that fractional
lines might have been expected to dis
appear But not so-apparently they be-
come more and more definite as time goes
| along.
Few Fair Elections There.
! 1t is doubtful whether a perfectly fail
election has been held in Gilmer in TWEEN
! ty years. If Democrats rule the ma
! chinery, Republicans are ruthlessly ruled
off the registration lists and kept out o
| the ballot boxes. And it is exactly anC
precisely the other way around
The adherents of Judge Patterson.
party to the immediate fight on Morris
claim that Gilmer county was stolen fo
Judge Morris. 1t may have been Pat
terson produces much evidence to uphol,
| his case
Taking the Patterson petition in hanC
and going through it as the counts arr
arranged, it sets up these alleged facts
That Patterson, outside of Gilmer county
received a majority over Morris of So
votes; that Judge Morris knew this be
fore the Gilmer county returns were com
piled and announced that he called VI