Bloodless Triumph

CHAPTER XXIII

BLOODLESS TRIUMPH

A SLOW DRIZZLE PREVENTED Lieutenant Colonel Jack A. Warren, of the Alabama National Guard, from taking his noon-time sunbath, a luxury enjoyed only during the past three or four days after four weeks of round-the-clock work. He was processing paper work at his desk in the Armory at Phenix City at 2:30 P.M., July 22, 1954 when the sergeant interrupted him.

"Montgomery calling you, sir. General Hanna."

Warren lifted the receiver, shifting the wad of tobacco to the other side of his mouth.

"Hello," he said,

"Get hold of Sheriff Ralph Matthews and Chief of Police Pal Daniel and have 'em meet you and me in the Sheriff's office at five-thirty," Hanna said. Then he slammed down the receiver.

Warren blinked. Damned screwy situation, the general calling up like that,— something must be in the wind. Warren scrambled into his jeep to deliver the message personally. Neither Matthews nor Daniel showed any excitement and Warren returned to the Armory to await developments.

A few hours earlier, at Fort McClellan near Anniston, First Lieutenant James Roberts had picked up a busload of Alabama National Guardsmen and driven them into Anniston to eat lunch. Colonel James N. Brown, smoking his habitual cigar, looked quizzically at this crew he had just handpicked from a roster of twelve thousand names.

"Let's go, men," he said, checking his watch.

The five dozen soldiers poured into the bus, six private cars and one Army sedan and drove to the Armory in Phenix City where Brown saw them disembarked and continued on his way to the Courthouse to meet his chief, Major General Walter J. (Crack) Hanna, Adjutant General of Alabama, who already had received his own orders.

On that July 22nd, Governor Gordon Persons had summoned General Hanna to the State Capitol in Montgomery. When Hanna arrived, it was past lunch time. The Governor handed him a paper which began, "WHEREAS, organized crime has for many years existed in Russell County, Alabama, particularly in Phenix City. . . ."

"You and those Birmingham newspapers have been wanting martial rule in Russell County," the Governor said. "There it is. Be ready to take over the police functions at four o'clock."

Hanna quickly read the proclamation. "Make it four-thirty. Governor," he said. "Give me time to get back down there."

"All right, four-thirty,"

Hanna rushed to the State Military Department with Lieutenant James P. Helton, where they picked up Warrant Officer Oscar Coley, and the trio barrelled the eighty miles to Phenix City, reaching the Armory at 5:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time; 4: 17 P.M., Central Time. Hanna hopped out of the car. Lieutenant Colonel Warren was waiting,

"I want two groups of men formed right now, twelve men in each group," Hanna ordered.

The men were ready, armed with carbines, submachine guns, and automatic weapons, dressed in raincoats against the drizzle. They piled into two trucks, one batch going to the Courthouse under command of Lieutenant T. S. Haines, and the other to the City Hall with Captain Joseph T. Masters.

Hanna was accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Warren, Captain Richard A. Peacock, First Lieutenant George J. Stacey, Lieutenant Helton, and Warrant Officer Coley.

"Incidentally," said Hanna casually, turning to Warren, who, in civilian life, was a lieutenant of the Birmingham Police Department, "you're now the Sheriff of Russell County. We're taking over the Sheriff's office and police department at five-thirty."

At the Courthouse, Hanna marched into the Sheriff's office, flanked by the officers. Matthews, surrounded by most of his deputies, and Daniel were waiting. Lieutenant Haines and his men, with weapons at the ready, surrounded the Courthouse, guarding every door and window. Citizens passing by stopped to gaze in wonder.

"You deputies,' Hanna said, inside the Sheriff's office, "excuse yourselves. I want to talk to the Sheriff.*'

Dismayed, the deputies filed out.

"Sheriff," Hanna then said, "I have a duty to perform. I've been instructed by the Governor of Alabama to take over the functions of your office immediately. You and your deputies, and Chief Daniel and his policemen, will be disarmed. We'll take over your badges, your records, and your jail. All of your equipment will be impounded. My authority comes from this proclamation:

"WHEREAS, organized crime has for many years existed in Russell County, Alabama, particularly in Phenix City; and whereas, a gang of men have conspired and are conspiring to thrive on the systematic exploitation of rights; and whereas, the organized lawless activities of this gang continue to hamper the investigation of the murder and the ferreting out of the murderer of Albert Patterson and other crimes; and whereas, there exists in said community a serious emergency, a defiance of the Constitution and laws of Alabama, a state of lawlessness, breach of the peace, organized intimidation and fear, and there is continued and imminent danger thereof, which the local peace officers are unable or unwilling to subdue;

"Now, therefore, I, Gordon Persons, as Governor of Alabama and Commander in Chief of the Alabama National Guard, do hereby proclaim a state of qualified martial law in Russell County, Alabama.

"I further instruct the Adjutant General of Alabama, now actively on duty with units of the Alabama National Guard in Russell County, to take over, assume, supersede and exercise all the activities of the Sheriff of Russell County, Alabama, the Deputy Sheriffs of said county, constables. Chief of Police of Phenix City, and all police officers of said city, and until further orders from me to take and continue to take appropriate measures to suppress the state of lawlessness, intimidation, tumult and fear which reigns in said area."

Hanna departed with his entourage of Guardsmen, leaving Warren installed as the new Sheriff. It now was a few minutes past 5:30 (4:30 in Montgomery, where Governor Persons was reading the proclamation to newsmen) and Hanna was joined in the hallway by Colonel Brown. They sped the three blocks to City Hall and repeated the performance, with Brown replacing Daniel as Chief of Police.

Brown never changed expression. He had seen civil riot duty before. He was ready. His restaurant business in Birmingham would wait for his return.

Within minutes, a new page of history had been written in the annals of the National Guard, and, for that matter, into American history as well. Never before in the United States had a situation exactly similar to qualified martial rule been declared. The entire operation had been pulled off as effectively as though the unit had executed a dry-run dozens of times. The purpose of the move was to place the police jurisdiction in the hands of the Guard. Other governmental functions continued under civilian administration.

Governor Persons issued the proclamation on July 22, five weeks after Albert Patterson was slain.

He issued it after conferences with members of the State Supreme Court and authorities in federal courts; after consulting numerous constitutional lawyers in Alabama; after he held discussions in the White House in Washington, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and his brother. Major General Wilton (Jerry) Persons, an assistant to the President; and after being pressed by General Hanna, the Birmingham Grand Jury, the two Birmingham newspapers, and numerous prominent citizens to order the operation.

For the Guardsmen it was the second phase of their duty in Phenix City. The first had begun near midnight of June 18, the night Albert Patterson was assassinated.

Hanna was returning to Birmingham from Gadsden, that June night, where a new Guard unit had been activated. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony V. (Tony) Jannett III was driving. As the two men talked quietly, they caught the name '*Hanna*' over the car radio, advising him to contact Birmingham at once. It sounded urgent.

The general immediately tried to raise Birmingham on the radio, but an Alabama Highway Patrol call letter with which he wasn't familiar was being broadcast and the announcer would not relinquish the air,

"Now," said the announcer, after several minutes, "who's that trying to bust in?"

** This's General Hanna. I'm trying to reach Birmingham."

"Don't you know what a Signal Seven is?" the voice asked caustically.

"Hell, no," replied the general.

It was, the man took condescending pains to explain, a precedence signal, excluding all other calls, and he was attempting to round up patrolmen to be routed into Phenix City.

Not till he finished his lecture did the broadcaster trouble to advise Hanna to telephone his home for the message awaiting him.

Hanna and Jannett stopped near Springville, but the only telephone they spotted was an old-fashioned job that needed cranking. Once the general got through to his wife, Vera, he was informed of the Patterson affair and told that the Governor was trying to reach him.

"Step on it, Tony," Hanna said.

Jannett did just that. He did it so well that in Trussville, a policeman stopped him for speeding but waved him on after learning the reason for the hurry. Another policeman whistled him to a halt on the outskirts of Birmingham and, being advised of the need for speed, led Hanna and Jannett to the Armory on the other side of town at eighty-five miles an hour.

Hanna telephoned the Governor and received instructions to look into the situation at Phenix City. The General notified the Guard outfit, Co. C 167th Infantry, in Phenix City to alert the unit and put men on stand-by.

Next he telephoned Colonel Warren, whom police associates once had called "Doughbelly" because he weighed two hundred and twenty pounds and stood about five feet, nine inches. ("Doughbelly" Warren decided to lose weight when he learned of his nickname, and quit eating for days at a time. He lost between sixty and seventy pounds.)

Warren was thirty-seven, a guardsman for twenty two years. He had risen through the ranks and now was provost marshal of the 31st Infantry (Dixie) Division, Hanna knew him well and had confidence In his ability.

"Jack," Hanna said to Warren, "Albert Patterson's just been killed. The Governor's ordered us to Phenix City to take a look. Get your fat ass over here to the armory at four A.M., ready to go."

The General next routed out his son, seventeen-year-old Pete, a private in the Guard, to drive him and Warren to the east Alabama town. They made the one hundred and sixty miles in two hours and ten minutes, coming to a screeching halt in front of the Courthouse. Sheriff Ralph Matthews met them, declaring he had the situation well in hand.

Dissatisfied with Matthews' summing up, Hanna and Warren immediately made a personal survey of conditions to determine if troops were needed to protect life and property and to prevent the possibility of a riot. At noon, Hanna had made his decision.

"We're going to stay," he said.

He began ordering troops in from nearby cities, placing Warren in charge as commanding officer with orders to prevent property destruction, to disperse crowds, and put a stop to gambling anywhere it was encountered.

Between four and five P.M,, the men began reporting in. They were GPs with years of experience as soldiers, most of hem with police, city or county employment know-how.

Before nightfall, cots arrived from Montgomery. Lieutenant Carlton Smith, of Phenix City, and his men policed the Armory and helped patrol the county.

By six P.M., thirty-three men were on duty. They were assigned at once to patrol duty, supposedly eight hours, but they worked double shifts.

A helicopter was flown in by Captain William E. Davis on June 20 and maintained sky surveillance to spot crowds or gamblers who might be smuggling contraband out of the county over dirt roads. Within two days the whirly-bird crashed and Captain William Bishop, a civilian highway patrolman making his first flight, received a broken leg. A second helicopter was rushed in to replace the one that had been damaged.

Arrival of the Guardsmen in Phenix City created a condition the underworld, gamblers, law enforcement officers, and private citizens had not expected. It called for new strategy by the crooks. But the underworld low-rated the Guard, to its own later disillusionment.

The gambling-political combine swung into the routine which was customary when an outside influence threatened the empire. Word was passed for everyone to play dumb. Those who violated this procedure could expect retribution, but many citizens telephoned Guardsmen pleading for protection because, they said, they feared the gangsters would descend upon their homes in the night.

Among those to whom word was sent to keep his mouth shut was attorney Joe Smith, who had a few weeks earlier been nominated for the State Senate without machine support, and with backing from the Russell Betterment Association. Joe was a law-partner to his older brother, Roy, the city attorney for more than twenty years.

In the before dawn hours of June 19, Joe received a telephone call to watch his step. Frightened, he asked the troops to furnish guards for his home. He told them he was thinking of moving his family to Tennessee for safety. Both Joe and Roy feared that a wild man with a gun, a member of the gambling-political clique, would bust into their homes, blazing away. General Hanna said Joe Smith was the most terrified man in the county.

For weeks the Guard patrolled Joe's house until the State Senator-elect complained that Guardsmen were annoying his wife. The soldiers were removed in a hurry.

Shortly after Joe's fear diminished, he and brother Roy went to court with Attorney Jake Walker of Opelika to defend E. L. (Red) Cook on a charge of murder. Walker, with Joe and Roy sitting by, denounced the National Guard for bringing to Phenix City a reign of terror.

Walker said a state of fear and intimidation had seized the county since the Guard took charge. He claimed his client could not receive a fair trial as long as the Guard remained in town.

Walker made this absurd statement despite the undisputed evidence that for years, in Russell County, the machine had picked and controlled juries. Joe, the man who had to run to the Guard for protection, now was viewing the situation differently.

And, despite his apprehensions after the murder, it was Joe Smith again who appeared in court as one of the lawyers for the area's acknowledged kingpins; Gamblers Hoyt Shepherd and Jimmy Matthews and Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller.

The first night that Hanna and Warren were in Phenix City they rode through the vice area to make certain everything was calm. They also wanted to learn firsthand whether gambling had ceased as Hanna had directed.

Honky-tonk operators were eye-balling the situation. When they saw Hanna's car stop at the Bama Club, the sidewalk contingent closed in to learn the score. Someone in Hanna's car, while it was cruising slowly, had heard a noise coming from the Bama Club that sounded like slot machines.

Hanna went up to the door and banged on it with his closed fist. Stewart McCollister and J. D. Abney, two big bruisers, answered the knock, Hanna, about five feet eight inches, with close-cropped grey hair, looked up at them, his jaw jutting forward.

"Are you bastards gambling in there?" he asked.

''You can't talk to a private citizen like that,'* one of the two replied,

"The hell I can't," Hanna said, "I didn't come here to teach you bastards a Sunday School lesson."

Three Guardsmen who had been patrolling shoved their way into the club. They found employees using a machine to sack nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars taken from slot machines. The next day Hanna ordered a truck around to confiscate the gambling devices.

As he was leaving, Hanna was stopped by Abney and McCollister who offered to send him a case of Scotch and a case of bourbon, Hanna didn't think it was funny. At the same time he noticed that his son, Pete, was not in the car where  he had been ordered to remain, but glancing quickly around Hanna spotted the boy directly behind him with his hand on his .45 automatic.

"He," Hanna said proudly later, "was going to kill those sonuvabitches."

Carrying out the general's orders the following day, Warren called at the Bama Club with troops to pick up the gambling machines. With him was Spencer Awbrey, a small man, photographer for The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. J. D. (Frog) Jones, an associate of McCollister and Abney, saw Awbrey and wagged his finger in the photographer's face.

''You ain't going to come in here and take no pictures," he shouted. "I' ll shove that camera up your ass."

Warren shifted his tobacco. "Shut up," he said quietly to Jones. "You won't do no such a damned thing.*'

Jones glared at Warren and dashed off to a telephone booth. "I'm going to get this stopped," he shouted.

"Go ahead and call and see what the hell happens," Warren replied.

Jones hesitated, then replaced the receiver on the hook.

His reaction was typical. Another man loud-mouthed threats at the Guard and ended up in jail. A third one tried to attack Photographer Awbrey but was forcibly restrained and later apologized to Awbrey for the attack. The Guard took the stinger out of the tough guys individually and in groups.

For the following three weeks, Guardsmen pulled around-the-clock duty, walking guard, participating in raids with civilian law enforcement officers, and helping to maintain order.

Guardsmen had no authority to conduct raids. All they could do was accompany deputy sheriffs and the highway patrolmen. Deputies usually led the forays because they knew the county, but it took only a few raids for the Guard to become convinced the deputies were doing less than their best. It was obvious that, in some of the night spots visited, the deputies knew ahead of time that gambling was permissible there, but had not done anything about it in the past. The Guardsmen also realized that often, while the deputies would be leading them to some little shanty on the outskirts, a truckload of illegal paraphernalia would be rolling out of town in a different direction. Probably half the houses in Phenix City were checked during the three weeks this search and seizure continued. Wherever gambling implements were found, a National Guard truck would come to pick up the stuff and dump it in the County jail yard, to await condemnation proceedings by the courts.

Everything the Guard did was not in conjunction with civilian police. They had their own men patrolling in National Guard cars, but soon they learned that the Sheriff's office had a spy system at work to keep posted on Guard activity.

Guardsmen were followed; their actions reported to the gambling-political kingpins. City police tuned their radios to the highway patrol frequency which the Guard was using and monitored the calls.

It was important to the underworld to know what plans occupied the Guard, for while Guard activities were extremely limited in the five weeks immediately after Patterson's death, the Guard was preparing for bigger things.

Hanna organized his own Counter Intelligence Corps under Captain Peacock, of Birmingham, and it was he who first learned that he was being trailed by city and county police.

Peacock's duty was to learn exactly what had gone on in Russell County and in the night clubs before June 18. He worked with the Commanding Officer of Fort Benning, the Criminal Investigative Division, and other units at the fort to gather background. He reported his findings in writing and verbally to Hanna.

Meanwhile, the General was hopping back and forth between Phenix City, his Summer Guard encampments, and the Governor's office in Montgomery, posting the chief executive on all developments.

While the Guard was conducting its own undercover research, it learned the machine was holding daily meetings in a tourist court behind the Steak House Cafe. Both the Cafe building and tourist court were owned by Kingbee Shepherd and one of his puppets, City Clerk Putnam. Mayor Elmer Reese had living quarters in one of the rat-dirty cabins. All but one other shack was in disuse and not open to the public but chiefs in the gambling and political circle would gather amid the debris for their strategy conferences.

Warren wanted to case the stronghold of the enemy and with Master Sergeant James Kennedy, of Lanett, he drove to the Steak House, into the tourist courtyard, and turned the car around. They saw nothing suspicious.

"Let's get a cup of coffee," Warren said to Kennedy.

As they drove out, they were approached by the brother of City Clerk Putnam who asked what they were doing in the lot.

"Just lookin' around," Warren said.

"I'll tell you now to do your lookin' somewhere else. You got no business in here," Putnam said.

"Look," said Warren, "we can and will go to any place at any time and look at anything in this town."

"If you come in here again I'm going to call the police."

"Be callin' the police because I'm going back in," the Colonel declared.

Warren and Kennedy drove back into the tourist courtyard and just sat, but they switched on the radio and summoned armed reinforcements in event of trouble. Several jeep loads of Guardsmen arrived but the police never did.

About ninety minutes later, after Warren had departed, two Guardsmen were arrested at the tourist court by city police and charged with reckless driving. Warren obtained their release after consulting with Mayor Reese.

Both the Guard and the highway patrol originally used the Sheriff's office for a base of operations. Soon they learned that this was a mistake. No one would come there to talk with them, so the two groups set up a joint headquarters a block and a half away. Lieutenant Colonel Burnell Abel, Signal Corps officer, brought in mobile radio equipment from Birmingham and Montgomery.

Hanna became convinced, after three weeks in Phenix City, that under existing arrangements the core of evil never would be uprooted. He became certain, too, that every law enforcement agency which had anything to do with the county eventually became corrupted either by being paid off, by joining the crooks as partners, or simply by looking the other way.

He received data showing that persons connected with the state parole system, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the highway patrol and others were ignoring their duties in Phenix City which he discovered served as a narcotics brokerage headquarters for rings operating in the vicinity. It was so wide open that one or two doctors would give a man a shot right on the street, if the addict could pay the tariff.

The General learned that even the federal government was not immune to the Phenix City influence.

Income tax men from Birmingham had been sent to the city several years earlier. Gambler Shepherd made an instant trip to federal field headquarters in Atlanta and within a few days thereafter the feds were given other assignments, not in Phenix City.

All this information Hanna relayed to the Governor and continued to needle him to declare martial rule as providing the only way in which a proper job could be done.

Surface results, despite the handicaps, could be noted from Guard efforts in the few weeks after the June 18 slaying. Twenty-five percent of the honky-tonks were closed tight. Ninety percent of the prostitutes had skedaddled to more lush territory, many setting up shop in Aiken, South Carolina, an atomic-boom town.

On July 20, two days before the Governor's announcement of qualified martial law, Hanna told Colonel Brown to meet him at the Birmingham Armory, prepared to leave town and stay gone.

The General didn't know whether the Governor would relieve the civilian police of Phenix City but he was preparing for that eventuality.

Brown, Commanding Officer of the 152nd Transportation Group, was known as "Boxjar." In his old days as top kick of 'L' Company, 167th Infantry Regiment, he had been as rough and ready as they come. Even today his men know him as a CO. who can make an unlit cigar burn in the culprit's pocket when Brown chews out a man. Hanna was Brown's company commander in those days, back in 1934. The general knew the Colonel as a firm yet fair man who could control troops and who had the ability to deal with the kind of people he would face in Phenix City.

At the Armory, Hanna handed Brown a National Guard roster with instructions to choose the men he would need to run Phenix City. No limit was placed on the number, although five days earlier Brown had sent fifteen men and three officers to the sin town.

This time, with Lieutenant Roberts, Brown studied the rolls. He desired select men, trained as jailers, wardens, policemen, lawyers. On July 21, Brown went to Fort McClellan to consult records and ordered two dozen men out of Summer Camp to go with him.

Brown picked as his legal adviser and chief assistant Major E. Ray Acton. A thirty-three-year-old lawyer, Acton was an ideal selection because he knew both law and politics, as mayor of Homewood. In waging his own one-man battle for the office in 1952, Acton had taken on old-line office holders and had beaten them.

Blissfully unaware of what was pending, Warren was in the process of cutting his staff and had only forty men on hand when July 22 dawned. The raids had trickled down to nothing, the initial excitement and tensions were gone. Guardsmen had fallen into a routine operation, and Warren had found time finally to stretch out in the noonday sun for an hour or so.

On QML Day (Qualified Martial Law Day), the troops rolled in from McClellan and other points. At Zero Hour, the Alabama National Guard performed its assigned task without a hitch.

Citizens of Phenix City and adjoining Columbus, Georgia, were open-mouthed with surprise. A new feeling of excitement and anxiety gripped the community. No one knew what to expect next, exactly what the move meant, or how far the Guard would go.

They had not long to wait for these answers. The Guard was going as far as it could, legally, as fast as it could. The civil rights of the innocent were never threatened but anyone who had broken the law in the past could expect the Guard to swoop down at any moment.

A new series of raids began thirty-one hours after the Guard assumed police functions. Honky-tonks, visited in the first phase of the clean-up, were revisited and this time the Guard, which had not been so empowered before, searched the premises from top to bottom. They broke down doors, found secret rooms and one-way mirrors; gambling equipment was discovered, hidden in attics, basements, and between the walls.

Lieutenant George J. Stacey, a Birmingham firefighter, best described an early raid and the reception Guardsmen received from the owners. Stacey was assigned with others to enter the Manhattan Cafe and search for a hidden room and a door leading to it.

* 'I contacted the owner, 'Sonny' Davis, and asked him to let me in," Stacey said, "I told him we were about to use an axe on the door. We waited one hour, made two or three more calls, when I happened to pass the bar next door which was open serving drinks. I saw Davis on a stool, having a cool Tom Collins, and wearing a smug expression. This expression was soon erased.

"We finally were admitted and proceeded to search for the hidden room and door. We found slot machine parts, numerous guns and clubs, also beer and whisky. Sandwiches were sold for five cents and beer for fifteen cents. Davis did not have a kitchen of any description.

"We found a trap door leading into a loan office upstairs. It was smashed. There we found a room with a one-way mirror where a person could sit and watch whatever went on downstairs.

"There was another door leading to the rear of an adjoining cafe, and to a cellar. These doors were heavy steel with jailhouse-type locks. Davis was very belligerent at all times. After several raids, and numerous inquiries, he became sociable."

Stacey said many records were found pertaining to the Metropolitan Lottery. These were turned over to Treasury men.

The gamblers now became frantic. They began loading equipment on to trucks, dumping it in the woods and in the river. Some of it they burned. Many hoods left town to avoid prosecution.

But not all of them panicked. There had been raids and cleanups before. This one, like the others, might hit a high point and fizzle, so the stronger sweated it out thinking their equipment secure where it had been hidden. They did not count on tips which began to pour into Guard headquarters from citizens who had been afraid to talk in the past. A new series of sorties resulted, on houses and bars which so far had been untouched.

Guardsmen even found loot stored in a secret basement of Tommy (Dynamite) Capps' home, behind that of Godwin Davis Sr. A trap door to the basement was covered by a large portable closet.

Capps was arrested later on another charge when he picked the wrong time to haul burned slot machine parts away in a truck.

Guardsmen were working an alley in which they had been advised gambling paraphernalia could be found. They were trying to locate a house number when a truck rumbled into view. Hailing the driver, they asked if he could direct them to the proper address. The man behind the wheel turned out to be Capps, carting away the burned slot machine pieces.

The Guard was successful in tracking down lawbreakers because it had five weeks to reconnoiter the area before assuming command, and because of a topflight crew of men and officers.

Colonel Brown set up a detective bureau composed of such men as Captain E. W. Millar, Lieutenant Stacey, Captain Charles E. Cook, Lieutenant James Hartline, Warrant Officer Forney G. Hughes, and Warrant Officer Ray McFall, all of Birmingham. Their investigative work would rank with the best of that in any metropolitan area in the United States.

Lieutenant Colonel Warren had set up his organization, also. He even went to the Armory and appropriated several of Brown's picked men. First Lieutenant James M. Fullan, a Birmingham attorney, was installed as chief deputy and legal adviser to Warren. For three days, Fullan worked night and day sorting paper work until other attorneys were brought in to help him. Among these were Captain Lewey Stephens of Elba, Captain Elwood Rutledge of Haleyville, Captain Alton Turner of Luverne, Captain W. G. (Domic) Hawkins of Fort Payne and Captain Joe Cassady of Enterprise.

Guard activity was not limited to officers alone. Enlisted men worked as long and as hard. First Sergeant Joe Clark of Elba and Corporal W. L. Smith of Mobile set some kind of record over the weeks as they served papers out of Warren's office. Those two would come into the office, pick up a handful of warrants, or subpoenas, or summonses, go out and serve them, then return to the office again. This process they repeated over and over, day after day, hour after hour.

Master Sergeant E. S. Ratigan, Birmingham, was made county jail warden, and Sergeant First Class John Black of Bessemer was brought in after Fullan left as chief deputy. Warren said he could have spared almost any man in the outfit better than Black, who, after the Guard left, became civilian chief deputy of the county.

Sergeants First Class Troy F. Pounder and William L. Simmons, both of Mobile, did investigative work alongside First Lieutenant Harley Barton, of Jasper, and Warrant Officer Coley, of Mobile. Sergeant John M. Patterson, of Oneonta, was appointed bodyguard to John Patterson, son of the murdered man (to whom he was not related), and was promoted to officer rank while in Phenix City. Master Sergeant James F. Waldrop, of Lineville, Sergeants First Class William T. Glover, of Ozark, and John L. Plummer, Oneonta, held down a desk sergeancy position along with Staff Sergeant James C. Key, of Ozark, and others. Private First Class Robert Cox, of Opelika, was radioman.

Among enlisted men working out of the Criminal Investigative Division under Captain Martin J. Wiman of Montgomery were Staff Sergeant James P. Nash and Sergeant George A. Parker.

But the most unusual soldier of the entire organization—and one of the best— was Sergeant First Class Percy Meriweather, a Mobile policeman.

Meriweather was a chubby man of about five feet, eight inches, whose cap rested down about his ears and whose uniforms all seemed too large for him. But Meriweather was a soldier and a good one, despite his unsoldierly appearance. Every morning he would trundle across the floor of the Armory to the latrine about the time Warren was heading for the officers' latrine. Carrying his shaving gear, his undershirt hanging midway to his thighs, Meriweather would stop short, snap to attention, and salute snappily. He knew an officer, in uniform or out.

Once, in a cafe, Meriweather spotted two officers entering just as his fork was almost to his mouth. He jumped to his feet, dropping the fork in a clatter of dishes, and threw a salute at the two astonished officers.

However Meriweather, working closely with Captain Wiman, who in civilian life was criminologist and chief classification officer for the state prison system, helped break a number of cases, carrying out his duties with a high degree of efficiency and a minimum of instruction.

Another enlisted man who distinguished himself was Sergeant First Class Fred E. Green of Oneonta. Appointed as Colonel Brown's driver and bodyguard. Green later aided in the apprehension of Phenix City mobsters picked up in Florida. Green was a husky two hundred pounds and liked to kid with newsmen, constantly suggesting that they put his picture in the newspaper until the day Earline Harper drove grandly up to City Hall in a taxicab.

Earline tossed her head and swayed to the outside telephone booth. Identified with the prostitution rackets, Earline paid the gawking men little attention.

Then Clarke Stallworth, a reporter-photographer for the Birmingham Post-Herald handed Sergeant Green a camera and told him to take a picture of Earline and Warrant Officer McFall together.

Green aimed Stallworth's camera at Earline as she emerged from the booth. Seeing it, she jumped behind McFall and started to giggle. But when she peeped around McFall's arm, Green snapped her picture.

* 'You sonuvabitch," she shouted, shoving McFall aside.

Catching the startled Green by surprise, Earline pounded him with her fists while Stallworth rushed in to save his camera, Earllne spotted Stallworth and changed her direction of fire, but Stallworth, a giant of a man, dodged her blows and ducked inside City Hall,

When Earline became quiet, Stallworth ventured outside.

* 'There," said Earline, "is that sonuvabitch."

She took out after Stallworth again and landed a few blows before he shouted, "I didn't take your picture!"

For some reason, that calmed her, though not for long. She spied Harry Cook, a reporter-photographer for The Birmingham News, who, along with some twenty-five other persons, was watching the world series on television in front of the fire station. Cook playfully aimed his camera at Earline.

The female fireball took off after him and Cook turned to flee through the crowd, but they wouldn't let him pass, thinking he was trying to squeeze up close to the TV set, where he could better watch the game. That's where Earline caught him. With her mightiest blow of the day, she whopped Cook, who weighs about a hundred and thirty-five pounds, across the back. The wind whooshed out of his lungs, but he couldn't fall; there were too many people standing in the way,

Alabama National Guardsmen rescued Cook and jailed Earline for public drunkenness. Colonel Brown heard of the incident and considered it unfunny. He so informed Green.

From that date onward, Sergeant Green never again asked to have his picture taken or his name put in the paper.

Guardsmen were faced with two distinct difficulties, both of which they handled quickly, quietly, and effectively.

They ran head on into the first when they began questioning prostitutes and B-girls. Any time one of the Guardsmen, in pursuit of his duty, entered the house of one of these ladies of the night, the telephone would ring at Guard headquarters with the information that Guardsmen were out entertaining themselves. This was only one of the ways the underworld attempted to hit back. One Guardsman was framed, to be caught in bed with a woman, but the plot didn't work. Mobsters used their familial rumor system to circulate reports that Guardsmen had taken $2,500 in watch from a joint they were protecting. Besides being slanderous, this was ridiculous. No store in Phenix City had $2,500 worth of watches.

The other headache was in making arrests without due process of law. It was sometimes necessary to toss someone into the clink before a warrant for his arrest was prepared. The Guard felt it was in a unique position and had to meet conditions with unique action. The arrests were made and then needed paper work drawn up.

In all instances, the Governor backed Guardsmen to the hilt.

The Guard pulled a coup the morning it arrested Mayor Elmer Reese. Reese had journeyed to Birmingham to be present at the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting, at which nominations of all Russell County officials were going to be voided.

Special Solicitor George C. Johnson, afraid that some of the big fish might not return if once they left town, issued warrants for Reese's arrest and asked that he be returned to Phenix City. Warren departed from Phenix City about midnight. At 2:00 A.M., he knocked on Reese's door, at the Redmont Hotel in Birmingham, where he served the Mayor with a writ of arrest for neglect of duty.

Reese was stunned.

All the way back to Phenix City, he pondered the fate that had caused him to be arrested in Birmingham.

"I would've returned," he kept mumbling.

Reese was placed in the county jail. The shock of it threw him into a panic. He hadn't seen any of his friends since the arrest and he didn't know what he should do.

Warren, aware that the cleanup could operate more smoothly if Reese was out of office, asked him if he was ready to resign. Reese instantly agreed, on condition the charges against him be dropped. He did not request immunity from future arrest; all he desired was to get out of jail and have the present accusations cancelled. Warren said he would see what could be done.

He called on Solicitor Johnson, but the solicitor refused the offer. He said the State of Alabama could not make deals.

Later, after Reese had conferred with his cronies Mid they told him what to do and put some meat in his backbone, he denied ever having offered to resign.

The Grand Jury later recommended Reese's impeachment and he resigned before being brought to trial on the accusations.

A stumbling block in the way of adequate administration of justice was the lack of criminal records in either the city or the county. To rectify this, Captain Wiman set up a filing system on individuals and organizations.

The sheriff's office had maintained no background on anyone. Sheriff Matthews and Chief Deputy Albert Fuller had carried correspondence in their pockets or tossed letters into odd drawers of the lone filing cabinet in the office. Technical reports from the state toxicologists were scattered or lost.

City records were just as bad, if not worse. Wiman said it was likely the city files were rifled before the Guard assumed command and those pertaining to more prominent personages removed. The only records found were those listing offenses of the small fry. During his stay in Phenix, Wiman and his staff compiled an index of more than seven hundred and fifty persons and places,

The Alabama National Guard, both ground and air, distinguished itself in Phenix City in a situation without parallel in American history.

Guardsmen, without interrupting the civil administration, took possession of the city and county's law enforcement agency; confiscated an estimated five hundred and fifty gambling devices; padlocked dozens of illegal joints; jailed more dozens of individuals; protected citizens fearful of a vengeful mob; foiled opposition spies with counter-spies; solved old crimes, and brought out for public view a vision of Phenix City the state and country had never witnessed or even suspected. The only crime the Guard did not handle was the Patterson murder; it being under the Attorney General's office.

For Guardsman who served in Phenix City for at least thirty days, there was a "Civil Disturbance Medal," designed by Colonel Jack Parsons of Montgomery. On the face of the medal was emblazoned a lighted torch from which were suspended the scales of justice. The white and green ribbon accompanying the medal signified purity and police action. Guardsmen who served in Phenix City are not likely to forget their experiences, and their medals will forever remand them that conspiracy and corruption are around the next corner, and of their victory against these forces.

From original rosters of July 22, 1954, and other sources, the names of many of the men called to active duty in Phenix—other than those already identified— are listed below as a permanent tribute to what the Guard can do;

From Birmingham— Major William M. Harvill; Captains Willis T. Miree, DeVane Williams, and John Malloch; First Lieutenants Rosamond H, McDuff and Sam R. Steel, Jr., and Second Lieutenant Preston A. Bristow.

Master Sergeants James H. Acton, Robert E. Battles, Alfred K. Hall, William H. Hall, Lee M. Neaves, John O. Spinks, Adolph L. Turk, and Benesdene L. Strawn; Sergeants First Class Joseph D. Dean, Virgil O. Dennis, Joseph T. Davis, Charles T. Doran, and Newton D. Chandler; Technical Sergeant Walter Nicholson, Jr., and Sergeants Noah Mensi and Jeroyl D. South.

From Jasper— Sergeants First Class Harvel Herald and J. T Sparks,

From Bessemer-Staff Sergeant Fred Ross, who served as a jailer.

From Calera— Master Sergeant Hobson G. Searcy; Sergeants First Class Barney L. Henderson and James E. Reach, and Sergeant Reese C. Blewster.

From Union Springs— Master Sergeant Reynolds G. Cook and Sergeant James M. Driggers.

From Montgomery— Colonel Judson I. Snead; Captain Emmett S. Davis; Chief Warrant Officer Worthy J. Scale, and Warrant Officers James M. Barnes and Curtis H. Jackson; Master Sergeants Clifton C. Hobbs, R. C. Houlton, Jack Clifford, Irby Gamer, and Lowery P. James.

Sergeants First Class Coburn W. Bence, Brantley Godwin, Roy H, Houlton, Henry O. Rushing, Horace S. Walker, James S. Yarbrough, and William L. King; Sergeants Biffle L. Adams, John C. Bruner, Aaron T. Bryant, D, W. Kennedy, Elisha R. Crew, and James L. Lowery; Corporals Davis W. Dean, Oilie M. Killough, and Ralph H, J. Lurie; Private First Class Thurston D. Doran, and Private Tommy E. McGehee.

From Phenix City— Major Edward E, Mullis; Captain Lucius S. Wood, Jr.; Chief Warrant Officer Harold A. Dudley; Warrant Officer Robert R. Hagen; Master Sergeants George P, Aster, Charles H, Garden, Wayne S. Gilliland, and L. T, Ray; Sergeants First Class Emory P. Bailey, Billy D. Harris, George W. Nason, and Richard M. Nason; Corporals Marshall D. Ginnon, James E. Davis, and Samuel L. Mullin; and Privares Bobby F, Coker, William L. Darnell, Charles D. Caldwell, Lonnie G, Hamilton, Billy E, Harrell, Enoch D. Burkett, Milton R. Holman, John G. Lane, James D. Maloy, H, T. Oliver, and Cary F, Rumph.

From Lineville— Sergeant Ellis B. Daugherty; and Corporals Leonard W. Brand and Huey D. Watts.

From Ashland— Master Sergeant Malcolm F. Beverly.

From Enterprise— Sergeant Willis R. Reeves.

From Jacksonville— Sergeant Ray Wheeler.

From Gadsden— Staff Sergeant Jerry F. Reeves.

From Boaz— Master Sergeant Billy R. Coby.

From Talladega— Sergeant Billy Ray Morris.

From Center— Sergeant First Class H. R. Bradley.

From Lanett— Second Lieutenants Harvey R. Gray, Roy L. Hill, Jr., and Roland Sevigny; Warrant Officer John M, Dunn, Sr.; Master Sergeants William M. Cole, Elmer R. Hanners, Jack Kennedy, Junior L. Lashley, and Clyde W. Osborne; Sergeants First Class Edward F. Colley, Harry L. Colley, William T. Lauderdale, William E. Mathis, and James G. Yates, Jr.; Sergeants Edward C. Britt, William F. Cawley, James T. Hendry, John W. Hudmon, Charles W. Jennings, Carl R. Smallwood, Charles H. Stems, and Maurice G. Wright; Corporals Royce H. Hendrk, Gerald W, Pitts, Ralph H. Powell, Wesley D. Smith, Jesse V. Williams, George E. Wilson, and Thomas D. Yates; Privates Howard D. Cole, Bernard Carter, Marion W. Duffey, Jerry M. Hubbard, Curtis A. Mayo, Gerald L, Brown, Jimmy E. Holmes, Ciark M. Hill, Billy Lackey, Bruce S. McCarthy, and W. T. Robertson.

Guardsmen remained in Phenix City until Governor Persons' term expired on January 17, 1955, at midnight. The last contingents began leaving slowly a few days prior to that hour but a handful of men stayed until the end.

And the last man out was one of the first two officers to enter: Lieutenant Jack Warren of Birmingham.