Public and Media Reaction
Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initially called the raid "a momentous police action against insurrection" and described the Mormon fundamentalists as participating in "the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine" that was designed to produce "white slaves." More than 100 reporters had been invited by Pyle to accompany the police to observe the raid. However, the raid and its tactics attracted mostly negative media attention; one newspaper editorialized:
By what stretch of the imagination could the actions of the Short Creek children be classified as insurrection? Were those teenagers playing volleyball in a school yard inspiring a rebellion? Insurrection? Well, if so, an insurrection with diapers and volleyballs!
In the same week that the Korean War Armistice Agreement was signed, the raid achieved notoriety in media across the United States, including articles in Time and Newsweek, with many media outlets describing the raid as "odious" or "un-American." One commentator has suggested that commentary on the raid was "probably the first time in history that American polygamists had received media coverage that was largely sympathetic." Another has suggested that the raid's "only American parallel is the federal actions against Native Americans in the nineteenth century."
When Pyle lost his bid for re-election in 1954 to Democratic candidate Ernest McFarland, Pyle blamed the fallout from the raid as having destroyed his political career.
Read more about this topic: Short Creek Raid
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