Whisky drinkers and saloon operators in Groveton for long had the upper hand, outnumbering their opponents and electing county officials “with a clear understanding that they should cater to the wishes of the law breakers who were their creators as officers.” Mill workers drew their daily wages “only to spend it in the saloon or gambling den,” and the families of these underpaid workmen suffered accordingly from poverty and inadequate diet. “Children were half clad and showed the pinch of poverty in their faces.”
Groveton merchants stocked few toys at Christmas time, since they knew that the hard-drinking mill hands would have little money to spend for them. Fights and killings became commonplace. Drunks rode their horses into places of business to make purchases from the convenience of their saddles or simply on a lark. “It was no uncommon thing on Saturday for a drunken crowd of gangsters to race their horses through the streets shooting into places of business.” Soon, wom