<P> The local newspapers, the Winnipeg Free Press and Winnipeg Tribune, had lost the majority of their employees due to the strike and took a decidedly anti-strike stance . The New York Times front page proclaimed "Bolshevism Invades Canada ." The Winnipeg Free Press called the strikers "bohunks," "aliens," and "anarchists" and ran cartoons depicting radicals throwing bombs . These anti-strike views greatly influenced the opinions of Winnipeg residents . However, the majority of the strikers were reformist, not revolutionary . They wanted to amend the system, not destroy it and build a new one . </P> <P> When certain unions refused to comply with various demands they were dismissed and replaced without any second chances . In regards to this, the Federal government opposed the dismissal of the Winnipeg police force and afterwards refused to step in when the police force was dismissed by the city thus creating the workforce called the "specials". </P> <P> Through a greater perspective, the most opposed to the strike was the state including three levels of government: federal, provincial and municipal . The opposition could have been more efficient if they coordinated their policies and deals with each other rather than gradually working into the agreement and not being the total opposition that they were labelled in the first place . At a local level, politicians showed sympathy for the strikers making them neither a monolith nor unalterably an enemy . The federal government's only direct interest in the general strike other than calls from the local authorities was keeping the railroads and post office running . </P> <P> A counter-strike committee, the "Citizens' Committee of One Thousand", was created by Winnipeg's elite, among whom were A.J. Andrews, James Coyne, Isaac Pitblado, and Travers Sweatman, all four of whom would later co-prosecute the sedition . The Committee declared the strike to be a violent, revolutionary conspiracy by a small group of foreigners also known as "alien scum". On June 9, at the behest of the Committee, the City of Winnipeg Police Commission dismissed almost the entire city police force for refusing to sign a pledge promising to neither belong to a union nor participate in a sympathetic strike . The City replaced them with a large body of untrained but better paid special constables who sided with the employers . Within hours, one of the special constables, a much - bemedalled World War I veteran Frederick Coppins, charged his horse into a gathering of strikers and was dragged off his horse and severely pummelled . </P>

Where did the winnipeg general strike take place