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	Podcast:		Local Features by WXPR
	Episode:		Vigilante Committees Part Of Northwoods Lore
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:		00:03:20
	Publish Date:		2019-10-23 06:45:00
	Description:		Vigilantes are part of the lore of the Old West, but they were also in the Northwoods. During the worst years of the Great Depression many Northwoods residents started to take the law into their own hands. A vigilance committee is a group of private citizens who get together to enforce law and order in regions where they believe governmental structures have become undermanned or corrupt. Either way the belief is that such committees become necessary when elected authorities become unable or unwilling to enforce the law and keep the community safe. Most often we associate vigilance committees with the formation of a posse and frontier justice in the American West, but vigilantes who take the law into their own hands can become manifest at different times and different places, including in the Northwoods. During the darkest days of the Great Depression, state and local governments were forced to make financial cuts in many areas. In the Northwoods of Wisconsin, this meant funding
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