millworkers. Both Virginia and Rainy Lake and International Lumber were forced to cease logging operations during the early days of the strike, and while the overall lumber industry in northern Minnesota was hard-hit, the industry in central Minnesota was relatively unfazed by the strike. Local newspapers were highly critical of the strike and the IWW in particular, with the Daily Virginian calling the Wobblies' actions a "reign of terrorism" and the Minneapolis Tribune reporting on alleged criminal acts committed by the Wobblies, such as well poisoning and crippling horses. Law enforcement response to strike During the early part of the strike, Rogers contacted other mills in the area and was able to gather enough replacement workers to keep one of his sawmills in operation for the duration of the strike. While the Virginia and Rainy Lake plant was located within Virginia city limits and therefore outside the jurisdiction of Rogers's deputies, the Virginia police department cooperated with Rogers and helped disperse large crowds of protesters away from the plant's gates. On the first day of the strike, picketing was pushed back to an area three city blocks away from the plant, and police arrested six picketers for distributing flyers. The next day, after police were notified by a court that there was no law against the distribution of flyers, the Virginia city council passed an ordinance banning the distribution of any flyer that had an "unsightly appearance". Over the next several days, police made many more arrests, including of six IWW leaders for disturbing the peace, intimidating strikebreakers, and distributing IWW literature. In one case, two of the men was given a $100 fine or 60 days of hard labor for calling strikebreakers "scabs". On January 1, 53 men were arrested at a camp near Cusson, Minnesota, for allegedly taking over a bunkhouse there, while a group of 40 picketers were arrested in mid-January for distributing flyers outside of the Virginia and Rainy Lake company's employment office in Duluth. Over the course of the strike, hundreds of people were deputized by the sheriffs of St. Louis, Koochiching, Beltrami, Carlton, and Itasca counties to prevent the strike from spreading. In many cases, these deputies were paid $2 per day by the sheriff's departments and another $3 per day by the lumber companies they were assisting, in addition to receiving room and board. In Koochiching County, public opinion against the lumber companies