The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1937-07-08
CALL MILITIA
TO MILL AFTER
FURIOUS FIGHT
Limited Operations Are
Resumed Under Defense
of Machine Guns
EACH SIDE BLAMING
TROUBLE on OTHER

ALCOA, Tenn, July 8. (UP)
National guardsmen today sur
rounded the Aluminium company
plant to prevent further violence
on picket lines. Two men are
dead and 10 are in hospitals af-
ter yesterdays gun battle be-
tween strikers and police. The
dead are Henson Click, striker.
and W. M. Hunt, policeman.
Click was the first fatality of
the furious fight between police
and striking aluminium workers,
who have paralyzed the Alumni
mum Sheet mill here for seven
weeks. But w. H. Hunt, an Alcoa
policeman, died later from a bull
let wound in the abdomen.
Under guns of machine gun
companies from Maryville and
Knoxville, the Aluminium Sheet
mill resumed limited operations.
Union leaders, however, were at
tempting a strike in the power
house which supplies it's electric
ity-a maneuver which would
paralyze the plant if successful.
Union leaders and police ex-
changed counter staten ntS,
charging each other with respon-
sibility for the fight in which II
strikers and four policemen fell
with bullet wounds. ..
Arthur Lively, chief of Alcoa
police, said his officers opened
fire only after being subjected to
a barrage of pistol bullets from
the picket line before the struck
plant. Fred Wetmore, president
of the Alcoa -looSl OF. the Alum
mum Workers Of America. co..
tered with the assertion that nofs9s
Of the men on the picket lines
was armed.
The wounded policemen, Wet
more charged, were caught In the
cross fire from their fellow police
men. The strikers, he said, were
retreating when police opened
fire.
After II strikers and four Of
ficers were sent to hospitals with
gunshot wounds after day Of
gun fights, battles with fists and
clubs and an alleged dynamiting.
the shift was changed at z p. m.
without incident.
The rioting began when a por-
ton of the 5000 workers who
walked out on strike May IL
started "back to work" march.
The company announced reopen
ing of the plant after peace ne
gotiation broke down at Pitts
burgh, Pa, last night.
Spokesman for the striking
workers, police and the plant man
charged each other with
responsibility for the initial gun
shot which set off the fusillade
before gates of Sheet mill No J..
Meanwhile, electricians in the
Calderwood powerhouse, which
supplies the vast plant with most
of its power, were called out;
Skeleton crews which remained
on duty, however, kept the gen
orators turning and operations in
the Aluminium company were not
intcrfercd with.
Earlier Wednesday a blast, al
legedly a dynamite bomb, cut the
mower line fro mCalderwood and
the scheduled sheet mill
reopening several hours:
The troops were ordered by
Adiutant General X. O. Smith.
Machine gun companies from
Knoxville and Maryville and a
detachment from Nashville and
Athens were sent here immediate
". General Smith rushed here
to take charge. .u
On a fishing trip at Gallstln'
Tenn, Governor Gordon Brown,
ING said martial law probably VIII
not be necessary.
"The troops are only a proven
tive measure" said the governor
"Their presence does not constl-
tute martial law and they were
sent only to- prevent further v'o-
lence and bloodshed."