The I. W. W. and the W. F. of M. were on strike for a considerable time in Goldfield and had the town thoroughly unionized. The bosses, realizing that they were up against a rebel class of workers, conferred with their good friends and tools, the A. F. of L., and the result was that _the A. F. of L. sent their own members into Goldfield to scab on the strikers_. This did not happen once, but continuously, and the strikers ... did use a little direct action by giving the "union" scabs orders to the effect that their room was preferable to their company.[356] In April it was reported that "seventy-five per cent of the business men of Goldfield have locked out the members of No. 220. They shut down their places of business and told their help they had to join the A. F. of L. or there would be no work...."[357] The situation steadily grew worse, and finally, in December, Governor Sparks telegraphed to Washington for Federal troops and they were finally sent.[358] The Governor's second telegram to the President (dated Dec. 5. 1907) read in part: At Goldfield ... there does now exist domestic violence and unlawful combinations and conspiracies, ... unlawful dynamiting of property, commission of felonies, threats against the lives of law-abiding citizens, the unlawful possession of arms and ammunition, and the confiscation of dynamite with threats of the unlawful use of the same by preconcerted action.[359] Soon after the troops were sent President Roosevelt dispatched a special commission[360] to investigate the trouble at Goldfield. The salient facts of the situation are set forth by this commission as follows: