still in effect, Governor John J. Cornwell asked the Commander of the Central Department, Major General Leonard Wood, for a force to intercept and disperse the marching miners. Wood consented and gathered a federal force of sixteen hundred troops for deployment in Logan County. The general's actions were consistent with the direct access policy permitting intervention without prior civil or military approval in situations of extraordinary or imminent danger. Confronted by an overwhelming combination of state-recruited sheriffs' posses and soon to be dispatched federal military forces, whom the miners surmised sided with the operators, the march was quickly terminated. Although the federal force was not needed to deal with the miners' march, regulars were sent to Kanawha City, Clothier, and Beckley in connection with the nationwide coal strikeof duty has heretofore always been the last resort. . . . Our Constitution contemplates such force only when all other forces of a locality or state have been exhausted . . . or insufficient to meet the emergency."7

In a complete reversal of the policy followed on every occasion that federal troops were called to aid civil officials since spring 1917, Secretary Baker now severely limited the possible number of situations in which states could obtain rapid and direct federal military aid. Baker did, however, reiterate his willingness to aid the governors of each state to reorganize, reoutfit, and retrain a National Guard force as provided for by the National Defense Acts of June 3, 1916, and June 14, 1917. At this time the change in policy only