Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-09-03

Now that Chairman William j. Harris,
OF 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
mittee to meet in Atlanta on Wednesday
Tor the purpose of considering the con-
tested judgeship nomination in the Blue
hldge circuit, that interesting and sensa-
tlonal fight is of immediate concern.
Ihe situation in the Blue Ridge circuit
Is no new story. For years elections in
mat vicinity have reeked with scandal
Nowhere else in Georgia is factionalisn
so rampant or feeling so bitter.
1t was that way when George +. Gdber
was Judge. The strenuousness and the
uncompromising meanness-no other word
seems to lit SO eXacuy-of politics in the
Blue Ridge were the things that finally
drove Gober from the bench ana to a
residence in another part of the state
ana not that Gober nor yet his faction
ever We're thought to be sprouting an
gelic wings, either.
The lineup in the Blue Ridge-in dear
old Gilmer and Fannin and Pickens." par
tcularly-is most peculiar. There Repub-
leans and Democrats are about event,
divided. Party lines are tightly drawn
even if heartily misunderstood and mis-
interpreted in hundreds of instances.
Divided by the War.
The people in Gilmer and Fannin aDt
Pickens are pure AnGlo-Saxo 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 then
going into the Union army, and as man!
more into the Confederate
In many sections of Massachusetts
Union sentiment was not nearly 50 ram
pant in the COS as it was in Gimer anC
Fannn 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 Gilmer and Fannin anC
Fickens counties, Georgia!
In these sections, every mans politica
pedigree is known. The people have mar
ried and intermarried, and often the bit
terest of political enemies MP there will be
found to be closely connC cted by famiN
ties
Democratic men have welded Republi-
can women. and Republican mon have
married Democratic women.
The miN-up would seem to Rave beer
so thorough and complete that factiora
lines might have been expected to dis.
appear But not A-apparently they be-
come more and more definite as time goes
along.
Few Fair Elections There
It is doubtful whether a perfectly fail
election has been held in Gimer in TWEEN.
ty years. If Democrats rule the ma.
chinery, Republicans are ruthlessly ruleC
off the registration lists and kept out o
the ballot boxes. And it is exactly an,
precisely the other way around
The adherenrs of Judge Patterson.
party to the immediate fight on Norris
claim that Gilmer county was stolen TO
Judge Morris. 1t may have been. Pat
terson produces much evidence to uphol,
! his case.
Taking the Patterson petition in hant
and going through 1t as the counts ar,
arranged it sets up these alleged facts
| That Patterson, outside of Gilmcr county
received a majority over Morris of 52
| votes; that Judge Morris knew this be
fore the Gilmor county returns were com.
piled ana announced; that he called u,