Re: HIT: AZ Copper Mine Strike

[BSAllen <BSAllen@AOL.COM>]

Here is some additional information giving another side to the issue.  I am
going to give you verbatim a fax I received from James D. Loghry, Consulting
Geologist.

For a short account of the IWW strike, Bisbee 1917, I refer you to:
Graeme, R. W., 1987, "Bisbee, Arizona's Dowager Queen" in Canty, J. Michael,
and Greeley, Michael N., eds., "History of Mining in Arizona", Mining Club of
the Southwest Foundation, Tucson, AZ, p. 57.  LC# 87-063028

A resume of Graeme's article follows - the other side of the story.  Violent
violations of persons and civil liberties were perpetrated by both sides in
this conflict.  I suggest that Graeme's account may be less biased that the
IWW website version.  Pro-IWW versions of the conflict include the emotional
fictional novel, "Bisbee 1917" and J. W. Byrkit (1983, "Forging the copper
collar", University of Arizona Press, Tucson.)

In early 1917, 2 1/2 months after America's entry into World War I, the
Industrial Workers of the World, the "Wobblies", forced a stricke in Bisbee's
copper mines without the vote of the miners, forcing a walkout of about 3600
of the 4500 workers employed in the mines by threat and intimidation.  The IWW
also closed most of the other Arizona mines and the Butte, Montana mines.  The
Bisbee strike petered out in a few weeks, but the IWW persisted in harassing
the other miners.  There were threats of sabotage.  Certain that the IWW
efforts were acts of treason in time of war, 2000 citizens from all
professions banded together, forming the "Loyalty League" to roundup and
deport all strikers and IWW "agitators."  Only men, no "families," were taken
to the ball park and questioned.  Many were released after stating that they
were employed or desired to work.  However, 1186 men were loaded into cattle
cars and transported by train to Columbus, NM, where they were released and
ordered not to return to Bisbee.

Many filed by IWW supporters were lost in the courts.  President Wilson
ordered an investigation conducted by Felix Frankfurter; no federal offense
was found.  The Supreme Court ruled that the participants in the deportation
had acted to enforce the "law of necessity".

(Thanks, Jim, for giving me the print references.  I love LM_NET!)

Barbara Allen
Program Analyst / Library Services
Tucson Unified School District
Tucson, AZ
bsallen@aol.com

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