The Bisbee Deportation, finale

Meanwhile, the mine companies set up armed guards on all roads leading into Bisbee, Warren and the other towns in the area to make sure that none of the "troublemakers" returned.
Also, in the next few weeks, the mine companies, along with the various town governments, set up "kangaroo" courts to try anyone that was accused of supporting the IWW or any other union and thereby threatened the interest of the mine companies. Many of these people were also shipped out of town.
Several months after the initial deportation on July 12, United States President Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Mediation Commission to investigate the deportation and all of the related events. The commission ruled against the mine companies and in favor of the IWW and all of the workers and innocent bystanders. They then handed the case over to the state of Arizona for prosecution and the state did absolutely nothing! They took no action whatsoever against the mine company managers!
In the next few months, approximately 300 lawsiuts were filed by the deportees, but only one ever went to trial. The mine companies were found "not guilty!" Many other cases were settled out of court and the rest of them were dismissed! The mine company managers were found to be at fault by the federal government, but no action was ever taken. They got away with it!
There is a quote by IWW member Fred Watson that sums up everything perfectly. He said "How it could have happened in a civilized country I'll never know. This is the only country it could have happened in. As far as we're concerned, we're still on strike."
224 of the vigilante members were prosecuted for their crimes, however.
These seminal events are rarely talked about in the Bisbee area today because there are still alot of bad feelings involved. Even today, 92 years later, it is still a volatile situation mainly because the mine company managers were never punished for their crimes. As far as I can tell, none of the members of the various town governments were ever prosecuted for setting up the "kangaroo" courts to weed out other people who disagreed with the mine company manager's tactics.

The Bisbee Deportation, part 2

On July 12, 1917; at 6:30 a.m., approximately 2,000 vigilantes, who had been assembled by the mining companies and organized by the Cochise County Sheriff, Harry Wheeler, began rounding up union workers that had waged a labor strike against the mines in the area. Men were rousted out of bed, taken from their houses and kidnapped off the streets. Most of these men were beaten and robbed. Later, it has been confirmed, the wives and daughters of many of these men were raped by vigilante members. Many of the men that were rounded up were not strikers or even union members! Two men were killed during this roundup. The men that were kidnapped by the vigilantes were marched, at gunpoint, for distances up to 4 miles. They were held at Warren Ballpark, the local baseball stadium that is now used by both the Bisbee High School football and baseball teams. The high, stockade-like, wooden fence that surrounds the stadium served as an effective barrier against escape. At 11:00 a.m.
1,186 men were loaded onto railroad boxcars that were filled with deep manure, and shipped out of Warren. They did not have any food or water, nor were they given any.
The train was sent to Columbus, New Mexico, approximately 220 miles away. However, when the train arrived in Columbus, it was turned away because the town did not have the accommodations for that many people. As the train headed back west, it stopped 20 miles west of Columbus in the tiny town of Hermanas, which is now a ghost town. Once the train stopped in Hermanas, everyone was ordered off the train by the armed guards. After they all got off the train, everyone was told that if they ever returned to the Bisbee area they would be killed. Then the train left them behind and headed back to Warren. The next day, a train arrived with food rations and water, but everyone was left without shelter for 3 days until U.S. Army troops arrived from Camp Furlong in Columbus(the site of the famous raid by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa one year earlier. The troops took everyone to Camp Furlong where some of them were detained without being charged with a crime for several months.

Bisbee, part 8/ The Bisbee Deportation

The summer of 1917 was a tense one in the Bisbee area, particularly in Warren. The tension started as a labor dispute between the various mining companies and their employees. These events led to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) becoming a powerful organization. The labor dispute escalated into armed vigilante action. The culmination of these events is one of the darkest episodes in American and Arizona history.
On June 24, 1917, the IWW sent a list of demands to the various mining companies on behalf of the employees of the mines. These demands included the following:
1) improved working conditions with increased safety, 2) An end to discrimination against foreign workers, 3) an end to discrimination against union laborers and 4) a flat wage instead of the sliding pay scale that was tied to market prices in which workers were paid more when prices were high and paid less when prices were low. As far as improved safety conditions went, the IWW wanted 2 men on each machine and a cassation of blasting while men were working in the area.
The managers of all of the mining companies in the Bisbee area rejected all of these demands, setting the stage for the Bisbee Deportation that began on July 12, 1917.