system of paying wages half in gold, and half in cashier's checks drawn on the John T. Cook Bank in Goldfield. The miners insisted on being paid in legal tender or guaranteed checks. After several weeks of futile negotiations, the Goldfield Miners Union went out on strike on 27 November 1907.p.198 Sending in federal troops The mine owners did not want a repeat of their unsuccessful lockout of the previous March. The mine owners convinced Governor John Sparks that troops were needed to prevent violence. But the governor could not send in the state militia, because there was no state militia. Governor Sparks asked President Theodore Roosevelt to send federal troops into Goldfield, writing that violence at Goldfield included "unlawful dynamiting of property, commission of felonies, threats against the lives of law-abiding citizens, ..."p.196 But Roosevelt hesitated. Federal troops were by law a last resort, and there did not seem to be widespread disorder in the town. Also, he saw no political advantage in being embroiled in a labor dispute. Roosevelt was skeptical, but after several Nevada officials assured him that uncontrolled violence existed in Goldfield, Roosevelt sent Brigadier General Frederick Funston, commander of the Division of California, at San Francisco, to investigate. Funston told Roosevelt that although violence was not prevalent at the time, that at least 300 of the 1,000 striking miners were radicals prone to violence. Funston recommended that Army troops be sent to Goldfield to maintain order.p.195–196 Roosevelt followed Funston's advice, and US Army troops arrived from San Francisco on 7 December 1907. The mine owners immediately requested that the troops be assigned to guard the mines, but Colonel Reynolds, the commander of the Army troops, refused. He had been directed by his superiors to take orders only from Washington, not those of state or local officials, or mine owners. Reynolds been sent to put down an insurrection, and had arrived to find a peaceful situation. As far as he was concerned, he and his men had no reason to be there, although this was not the opinion of his superior, General Funston.p.196–197 Mindful of the controversial actions of federal troops in the mining labor disputes at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 1892 and 1899, Roosevelt repeatedly urged the Army to act with restraint. The president admonished Funston by telegram: "The troops are not sent to take either side in a purely industrial dispute, as long as