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Attorney that he would arrive at noon the next day, and asked him to arrange a conference to be attended by himself, Sheriff Thaxton, and representatives of the Southern Illinois Coal Company and the striking miners. Then he telegraphed Major Robert W. Davis, a capable National Guard officer who lived in Carbondale, to join him on the train to Marion.
    Hunter and Davis arrived at the county seat shortly after noon on Sunday, June 18. They called on the sheriff, who outlined the situation for them, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the streets forming their own estimate of public sentiment. That evening, with a Marion police officer, they went out to the mine. Guards stopped their car but recognized their uniforms and took them to McDowell. The superintendent told Hunter that no one had threatened him in the operation of the mine, but he asked the Guard officer for a company of troops. Then he could discharge his private guards and save money. If Hunter would agree, he would make him an “interesting proposition.” Hunter advised him to close down the mine: he was courting serious danger by using strikebreakers in a union stronghold. McDowellreplied that he knew his rights and intended to mine coal.
    On Monday morning, June 19, Hunter and Davis met with Duty and the men he had called together—Lester, A. B. McLaren, a local mine-operator, and the sheriff. No one represented the striking miners. Both Duty and Hunter pleaded with Lester to shut down the mine, Duty warning him that he would lose his investment and perhaps his life if he persisted. Lester was obdurate. In the course of the conference he asked the sheriff to deputize the guards at the mine. Thaxton refused, but promised ample protection. After the meeting Hunter took Lester aside, told him that he did not believe the sheriff would make any effort to prevent trouble, and again urged him to close the mine.
    “I’ll be damned if I will,” Lester answered.
    As soon as the conference ended, Hunter reported by telephone to Adjutant General Black, now in Springfield. He informed his superior that the feeling among the miners in Marion and near-by towns was intense, and that the local officials sympathized with the union men. The fact that Sheriff Thaxton was a candidate for the office of county treasurer did not help the situation. With the labor vote amounting to seventy-five or eighty per cent of the total, Hunter doubted that the sheriff would exert himself to protect the property of a mine being worked by strikebreakers. In Hunter’s opinion, troops would be needed, and he recommended that two companies be held in readiness.
    This estimate of conditions was decidedly at variance with the public statement that Hunter gave to Oldham Paisley, editor of the
Marion Republican
, immediately after his report to Black. He was certain, he said, that in the morning’s conference the officials of the coal company and local authorities had reached an understanding that would preclude trouble.
    “It is not General Black’s policy,” he asserted, “to use troops until such time as the emergency gets beyond the control of the civil law officers, and we feel confident that the civil authoritiesof Williamson County are entirely competent to handle any emergency. We have every confidence in their performing every official duty.”
    Paisley also interviewed Lester. The operator assured him that he did not expect trouble from the striking mine-workers. His steamshovel men, he said, all belonged to the Steam Shovelers Union. He admitted that this union had withdrawn from the American Federation of Labor some years previously, but he claimed that it had recently been invited to reaffiliate. His railroad men, he said, were union members in good standing. He was required to have guards to comply with insurance regulations, but he promised to keep them off the public highway. As soon as practical he would reopen the closed road by bridging the shovel cuts that had been made