Jewish stores were closing everywhere. Jeering mobs gathered outside stores in Saarbruecken and several towns in the provinces.
Leaders of the opposition reported that individual Nazis had warned members of the United Front - which favored continuance of League rule - not to sleep in their homes tonight.
Socialists and Communists who had been sleeping in their party clubhouses seeking safety in numbers were warned to spend the night elsewhere.
At Fenne fifteen anti-Nazis fled from their homes and took refuge in a school building, which was threatened with attack by Nazis.
Throngs milled through the flag-covered streets, singing Nazi songs and shouting slogans and threats. Police hesitated to intervene unless general violence started.
Socialists vacated and locked their Saarbruecken headquarters as a precaution against the mobs. At Neunkirchen Socialist quarters were surrounded by a mob and those inside were afraid to leave.
One person was shot and wounded at Karisbrunn, where several Frenchmen reported they had been threatened.
The exodus to the border was slowed up by reluctance of the authorities to grant visas until it was plain the applicants were in imminent danger.
Thirty Jews, representing eleven families, entrained for France after receiving French visas. More than 400 other applicants appeared, and 200 had crossed the border late yesterday and today.
Geoffrey G. Knox, British head of the League Governing Commission, assured Max Braun, head of the United Front, that the safety of anti-Nazis would be guaranteed. Colonel Knox has an international army of 3,300 foreign troops to back him.
The Plebiscite Commission will leave for Geneva tonight, taking the 400 ballot boxes showing the vote, on the basis of which the League Council will turn the entire district over to Germany. International troops will escort the commissioners to the French border. French gendarmes will escort them to Switzerland, where Swiss federal troops will meet them.
Herr Braun also will leave for Geneva to give the Socialist version of the plebiscite. International police headquarters denied reports that any Communists had been arrested.
Braun and Fritz Pfordt, the Communists leader, said they would remain in the Saar.
"The significant fact is not that Hitler has won," Herr Braun said to the United Press. "The important fact is that there are 46,000 poor workers in the Saar who cannot be bribed or terrorized. Fascism can never defeat men like these. We will fight."
The totals for the Saar vote were announced by the League Plebiscite Commission as:
Registered voters______________________539,541
Total vote____________________________528,005
For German rule_______________________477,119
For League rule________________________46,513
For French rule________________________2,124
Invalid_______________________________2,249
The exodus is expected eventually to reach 25,000 to 50,000. It includes Jews, Communists, Socialists and, above all, outspoken Nazi opponents, and those Germans who fled into the Saar for safety when Nazis assumed power.
Reichsfuehrer Hitler's radio appeal for sanity and dignity also was expected to exercise a restraining influence.
Meanwhile, frontier control on the French border tightened rigidly.
France has announced her intention of sheltering and aiding all worthy refugees, but all applicants for admission are rigidly examined to keep out undesirables. Mobile guards, troops, special police and detectives formed almost a solid line along the seventy miles of the eastern border and all civil papers and medical records will be closely scrutinized.
Fleeing Saarlanders will be directed to concentration points at border towns, where great halls have been prepared to receive them.
Rolling kitchens of the French army will provide food for those who are destitute and they will be provided with transportation to various parts of France where they can be assimilated. Others have funds or already have transferred their money to France and can take care of themselves.
The Saarlanders will be assigned to departments able to receive them - there are many depopulated areas in France where authorities are anxious to see new and vigorous inhabitants.
Thousands will go to Haute Garonne to farms or to the capital, Toulouse. Others will be directed to the neighboring departments of Tarne, Aude, etc. Some Saarlanders will go to the Nantes district and become Bretons. Others will make new homes in the hinterland of Bordeaux.
Those found penniless will be given free transportation and maintenance for possibily two weeks after which they will be expected to care for themselves.
The Jewish problem is slightly different. Some Jews will settle in France with other Saarlanders, but many are expected to want to go to Palestine. If they do, the French will direct them toward Marseilles, and, if they lack funds, pay for their transportation through France and for the ocean voyage.
Special arrangements are being made for refugees who want to go to French colonies, where authorities in many cases will welcome the chance to build up the European population.
Refugees from the Saar will include about 3,000 naturalized Frenchmen and an equal number of Alsatians, who are the only refugees who will be allowed to stay near the frontier and in Alsace-Lorraine. The border population has long feared a deluge of refugees who could not be assimilated, and for that reason the bulk of the Saarlanders will be sent far into the interior, to the east and south.
Besides those of French descent or sympathies, the exodus probably will include about 15,000 Saarlanders who have been militant Socialists or Communists, and nearly 5,000 Jews.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Socialists had planned to seize the Schloss Palace, residence of Mr. Knox at Saarbruecken and take control of the government. Mr. Knox, learning of the plan, sent Major Hennessy, chief of the international police, to disarm sixty policeman stationed at Saarbruecken who were to have participated. One of the sixty was handcuffed and arrested when he tried to use a revolver.
From Saarbruecken Major Hennessy sped to Saariouis and broke up revolt preparations which had been made there.
As for Saarlanders generally, their joy knew almost no limit. Each of the eight main electoral divisions, every one of the eighty-three burgo-masters' districts, went for Germany and Nazism - even Saarlouis, long a part of France and founded by King Louis XIV of France.
