Then came denunciations of the international commission for
restricting the coinage. Dr. Syx was described as "a devil-fish
sucking the veins of the planet and holding it helpless in the grasp
of his tentacular billions." In the United States meetings of
agitators passed furious resolutions, denouncing the government,
assailing the rich, cursing Dr. Syx, and calling upon "the oppressed"
to rise and "take their own." The final outcome was, of course,
violence. Mobs had to be suppressed by military force. But the most
dramatic scene in the tragedy occurred at the Grand Teton. Excited by
inflammatory speeches and printed documents, several thousand armed
men assembled in the neighborhood of Jenny's Lake and prepared to
attack the Syx mine. For some reason the military guard had been
depleted, and the mob, under the leadership of a man named Bings, who
showed no little talent as a commander and strategist, surprised the
small force of soldiers and locked them up in their own guard-house.
Telegraphic communication having been cut off by the astute Bings, a
fierce attack was made on the mine.
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