the first step toward federal intervention to protect West Virginia from domestic violence. The proclamation called for both the miners and the Logan County force to disperse by noon on September 1, 1921. It was the first such presidential proclamation regarding a civil disorder issued since the American entry into World War I four and one-half years before. The proclamation finally and formally put to rest the wartime policy of direct access in action as well as thought.35

Accompanied by Chief of Staff Colonel Stanley H. Ford and Judge Advocate Colonel Walter A. Bethel, General Bandholtz returned to Charleston on August 30. Secretary of War Weeks had ordered Bandholtz to investigate compliance with the proclamation and provide guidance for the army in the event neither side dispersed. Neither sideupon the ability of local and state forces to suppress violence and restore order efficaciously. If Bandholtz determined that civil officials were ineffective, or even negligent by releasing prisoners whom they knew would contribute to new disorder, the general was to detain the prisoners in his custody "as long as necessity exists." In cases where the military refused to turn prisoners over to civil officials, Bandholtz was to detain those prisoners as ordinary military prisoners under the provisions of the Court Martial Manual. In each case, however, Weeks required the general to forward a full report of the circumstances.37

By September 1, private airplanes had dropped copies of Harding's proclamation on the belligerents. Each side, now totaling an estimated ten to twenty thousand men, refused to comply: the Logan