Investigation proves that the latter alternative is the correct one. The men, despite what comes from the press or by other sources, were not demoralized or untrustworthy. Being demoralized is meant, we should judge, that the troops were not under the strict control of their officers, and that confusion and lack of discipline reigned in ranks. At no time in the day did such a state of affairs prevail. It is true that a number of the men were prostrated by the heat, but the prostration extended only to a comparative few and not to the entire body of men as given out in the reports of certain officers. Besides this, the prostration came after the troops had stood in line under the hot sun for something like three hours. The men were willing and ready at any time that afternoon to attempt to force the strikers from the depot. Never were they called upon to do a harder thing, or one in which they felt more disposed to rebel against their officers, than when they were ordered to withdraw from the scene and leave the depot in charge of the strikers. There was not a squad of men in Company B, and when I mention Company B, I mean also every company with one possible exception, who would not willingly, even gladly have charged the mob of strikers. Curses, not loud but deep, were uttered in each company as they withdrew. In one of the companies under the command of Colonel Nunan the men cried out to advance, but no order came. Tears of vexation rolled down the cheeks of some of the men. To travel over a hundred miles and then suffer defeat--oh! how humiliating--not at the hands of the strikers, but from their own officers. And yet, in the face of all this, the failure to take the depot was laid at their doors. Who was to blame for the failure of the operations on the Fourth? It remained for a court of inquiry to finally fix the blame upon the shoulders it belonged. This court was appointed by Governor Markham, September 8, 1894, to inquire into the conduct of those troops of the National Guard participating in the strike campaign, from its commencement to its close. The work of the court was to be performed without regard to rank prejudices or preconceived ideas. The court sat in session for a period of twenty days, and made a minute examination into the operations on the Fourth. Its work was well done. In the columns of one of our large dailies the following appeared: “The court of inquiry has done its duty well--truthful, fearless, unmoved by considerations of friendships. Our Californian experience with investigating bodies had given us no right to expect this high and honorable result, and it is entitled to a swift, signal, and memorable approval by executive action.”