RECORDS OF CRIME 99 



in the summer-time. When the harvest and threshing season is 

 over these men drift back along the main routes of travel into the 

 woods and into the cities to the east of them. This makes an army 

 of laborers numbering many thousands of men. They congregate 

 in the villages and small cities. With this army of laborers goes a 

 smaller army of criminals preying on the larger group. In the 

 northwest in October and November police officials always expect 

 and prepare for a wave of crime. Desperadoes who follow the 

 army of workers returning with wages on their person do not stop 

 at violence and even murder. 



Records of Crime. The daily press of this section at this season 

 is full of accounts of the misdeeds which are a by-product of this 

 floating labor population. As a sample let us take one issue of a 

 northwestern paper published at a point on one of the main routes 

 of travel between the farms and the woods where the wagon roads 

 and railroads cross the Red River of the North. Taking the issue 

 of the Grand Forks Herald for October 12, 1915, which may be 

 considered typical, we find accounts like the following. The first 

 news item on the first page is dated Carrington, North Dakota, 

 a railroad junction: 



"With armed posses still scouring the country-side for the two bandits 

 who escaped after one of their comrades had been killed in a desperate gun 

 fight, and another captured, the fugitives were still at large at a late hour 

 tonight. The condition of Carl Nelson, chief of police, who was shot in the 

 stomach during the battle, which took place in the Gilby rooming house shortly 

 after 2 o'clock Sunday morning, was reported no worse to-night at the St. 

 Paul hospital, where he was rushed on a special train following the shooting, 

 and it is believed that he has a chance for recovery. The battle was the cul- 

 mination of a bold holdup Saturday night when the four outlaws lined up 

 seven men in the J. Hopkins pool hall here and relieved them of approxi- 

 mately $250." 



Another headline reads as follows: 

 "Man is held up at the point of a gun." 

 This dispatch is sent from the village of Hamilton, N. D. 



Another dispatch bears the headline: 



"Wanted to carve up a threshing crew. On rainy days men receive a 

 shipment of booze with bad results." 



This dispatch is dated Velva, N. D. 



Another dispatch from Velva reads as follows: 



"County jail is filled to limit. Officers have been very busy in Towner." 



Another dispatch illustrates how the transportation difficulties 

 are sometimes involved. The headline reads as follows: 



" Conductor and men have a long fight with hoboes. Shoot at brakeman." 



