Bisbee Deportation - Strike

Strike

The town of Bisbee had about 8,000 citizens in 1917. The city was dominated by Phelps Dodge (which owned the Copper Queen Mining Company) and two other mining firms—the Calumet and Arizona Co., and the Shattuck Arizona Co. Phelps Dodge was by far the largest company in the area, and not only owned one of the three largest employers in town but also the largest hotel, the hospital, the only department store, the town library, and the town newspaper, the Bisbee Daily Review.

In May 1917, IWW Local 800 presented a list of demands to Phelps Dodge. They asked for an end to physical examinations (used by the mine owners to counter theft), two workers on each drilling machine, two men working the ore elevators, an end to blasting while men were in the mine, an end to the bonus system, no more assignment of construction work to miners, replacement of the sliding scale of wages with a $6.00 per day shift rate, and no discrimination against union members. The company flatly refused all the demands.

IWW Local 800 called a strike to begin on June 26, 1917. When the strike occurred as scheduled, not only the miners at Phelps Dodge but those at other mines also walked out. More than 3,000 miners—about 85 percent of all mine workers in Bisbee—went on strike.

Although the strike was peaceful, local authorities immediately asked for federal troops to break the strike. Cochise County Sheriff Harry Wheeler set up his headquarters in Bisbee on the very first day of the strike. On July 2, Wheeler asked Republican Governor Thomas Edward Campbell to request federal troops, interpreting the situation against the background of World War I: "The whole thing appears to be pro-German and anti-American." Campbell quickly telegraphed the White House and made the request, but President Woodrow Wilson declined to send in the Army, and instead appointed former Arizona Governor George W. P. Hunt as a mediator.

The president of Phelps Dodge at the time was Walter S. Douglas. He was the son of Dr. James Douglas, developer of the Copper Queen mine and a member of the board of directors of the Phelps Dodge Corporation. Walter Douglas was a political opponent of Hunt and had virulently attacked him for refusing while he was governor to send the state militia to suppress strikes in the mining industry. Walter Douglas was also president of the American Mining Congress, an employer association, and had won office by vowing to break every union in every mine and restore the open shop. Determined to keep Bisbee free of IWW influence, in 1916 Douglas established a Citizens' Protective League composed of business leaders and middle-class local residents. He also organized a Workmens' Loyalty League, some of whose members were IUMMSW miners.