OCR Text |
Show Isolate scene in goalstrike WJLEIAMSON. W Vu.. Dec 18. The thriving little city of some 7,001 persons, the political oJid business center cen-ter of the great Mingo county coal ' Held, where a strike of miners haa b n in progress since last July, presents, pre-sents, under military occupation, an appearance similar to that of many another town during tho war. Khaki fast becoming a novelty in most places, is so common in tho Williamson Will-iamson district that miners and inuun-talners inuun-talners no longer turn to look at the passing soldier, or stand to guze .in the sontrx before Colonel Herman IlnlTs headquarters in the county courthouse Here In Williamson, whore i there has been no violence, the soldier carries his bnyonet at his hip, but in the region around Chatteroy and Mai- swan, mining towns nearby, every sen- 1 try paces his beat with bayonet fixed. ! .Military occupation and modified martial law made necessary by the disorders dis-orders of the past few months, have little effect ,,n Williamson. Tho poo-ple poo-ple go about their ordinary tasks as usual, viewing the soldiers with lndit- i ference, except at guard mount, which never fulls to attract an appreciative audience, willing and anxious to express ex-press its approval of the nation's fighting fight-ing men. Mercantile nnd banking interests ! unite in tho expression that tho use j of federal troops at this time is u mighty good thin;,'. If for no other reason rea-son than thai they give a sense of se- controversy. Immediately upon their arrival, the provisional battalion from Camp Sherman Sher-man took up ihr tusk of cleaning tho City of its physical and moral defect First they gave the court house a thorough over hauling and then turned their attention to the buildings taken over for quarters. 'Then they went after the streets and about the same time took up the moral mo-ral question. I'nde3lrables were notified noti-fied that they could no longOl remain in the city, both tu-sks being done directly di-rectly by the civil authorities, but under un-der the directing eye of the soldiers In the outlying mining districts, win rs there has been more or less dls-ord( dls-ord( t -lnce the- strike was called, conditions con-ditions are also reported as much improved. im-proved. Stronir detachments of soldiers sol-diers have been Sent to ,'l nilinlier of points and their presence has been marked by almost perfect order. An interesting feature of the situation situ-ation which the military was compelled com-pelled to face was the disarming of these residents who Insisted on currying curry-ing pistols In violation of tho West Virginia Vir-ginia pictoi totln' " law. This was tiulvcd l.y .-ending deputy sheriffs Into the districts where it was known large numl.eis ,,f men were armed. Each deputy being accompanied by a tx)I-dier. tx)I-dier. The deputy confiscated tho weapons, wea-pons, but tho soldier was right with hltn to see ihr- .surrender was peace. fully made. Hundreds of pistols, rifles and shotguns were obtained. oo |