A prolific writer, Lynn R. Bailey has authored more than twenty books on Western history. He directs the Westernlore Press in Tuscon, Arizona.

You have said that copper was the very underpinning of Arizona back at the turn of the last century. Can you offer perspective on that?

Very big. It was the economy of Arizona territory at 1900. You know you had Jerome, Bisbee was the premier mining camp producing seven thousand tons of copper a day--a fantastic amount. Bisbee was the financial center of Arizona territory. Mining provided the, the income to support the territory.

Was it a magnet for people coming to the territory?

Yes.

Who did it draw to the territory?

It drew immigrants. It drew American professional people. It drew a wide spectrum of people. If you couldn't make money in the West something was wrong with you. You know many, many men came and found work as miners, they didn't like mining so they went into business, they started as a, they started little grocery stores, some went into the saloon business, others went into, became freighters and teamsters. It also drew professional people--lawyers, doctors, who had services to offer the population that was developing in Arizona territory.

So, I would imagine that the success of copper mining, the rather extraordinary success of Arizona copper mining, created a great deal of wealth in this territory?

Yes. Not in so far as merchants. It created a great deal of wealth for the copper companies and that wealth funneled down to the others, the lower strata in the community of merchants and professional people.

We started talking about Bisbee as a financial center. Can you describe the life of Bisbee, the society of Bisbee back in those years just before World War I? What kind of a town was Bisbee?

It was a white man's mining camp. Queen of the copper camps. At the top were three mining companies. If we're talking about the turn of the century it would be The Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company was at the top, then below that were, were merchants and professional people who really owed their very existence to the copper company. The copper company employees bought their supplies, their daily goods, at the local stores, drank at the saloons, spent their money in the various centers of entertainment up Brewery Gulch. But at the top was this great paternal organization, Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company.

How we can characterizes the leadership of the copper mines in terms of the community?

I think it was benevolent. At a very early date they built a library. They built hospitals, they brought in the YMCA, and they funded church organizations, a general store, and mercantile company. I think the mining companies wanted to promote a stabilizing influence in the community, they wanted to bring in miners with families, and that's why they spearheaded this campaign of moral uplift in the community. Which kind of progressed in stages. You know they began by restricting the tenderloin section to upper brewery gulch and then slowly abolished prostitution all together. In 1914 liquor was abolished and somewhere in between gambling was abolished. But the reasons for doing this were to eliminate absenteeism in the mines, to cut down on accidents, you know nothing was more dangerous than a drunk miner on the job.

How did mine ownership view emerging Union movements?

With a jaundiced eye. They were dead set against unionism. The miners in Bisbee were paid above average wages for the region. The mining companies were relatively generous. Of course the wage was pegged to the price of copper. If the price of copper declined then, the miner's wages declined but generally I believe miners got wages above average for anywhere in America. They made good money.

Was there an era of good will before World War I?

Oh yes. I would say between 1882 to 1900 Bisbee was one big family. An example, a good example of this is when a gang robbed the Goldwater Store in Bisbee in December of 1883. A number of people were, including a Mrs. Roberts who was pregnant. The Copper Queen Company posted a sizeable reward for the apprehension of the outlaws. When they did apprehend them, they were convicted. However one got off, didn't get the death sentence. A large crowd from Bisbee. . .miners, storeowners, a real cross section. . . went over the mountain and captured this guy and hung him. And all with the good wishes of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company.

A western manifestation of community spirit?

Yes. Ben and Louis Williams posted the reward, I think it was several thousand dollars, fifteen hundred, two thousand dollars. The governor of the territory offered an additional amount.

The outbreak of World War I changes a number of things, but how did it impact the community of Bisbee and specifically the copper mining interests?

Put the fear of God in it. First you had this fervor, this patriotic fervor that swept the camp. The outbreak of World War I in 1914, actually had the effect of creating a slump in copper prices. Due to the unrestrained submarine warfare and an embargo on copper. Then with our entrance in 1917 copper rose in value, it went up from fourteen cents to twenty-seven cents and then ultimately in 1917 up to around thirty-five cents a pound I believe. So that stimulated mining. . . because copper is a vital component of munitions.

And yet, with the national security imperative and the rising prices. . .there is still a clear indication that all is not well in Bisbee.

Well, you also had inflation. The miners at 1917 were probably not any better off than they were in 1903 or 1906 as far as actual earning power. That added to the discontent. You had a polarization of political ideas. You had the influx of labor agitators. You had the fear of war, a fear of invasion from Mexico by military forces. You know there's a lot of factors that created this war time hysteria at Bisbee in 1917. You had the fear of sabotage when the wobbly, the IWW entered the district and started advocating slow down and sabotage and threatening miners and business people.

It was a time of great uncertainty and fear.

Well that's a double edged question, you have uncertainty and fear from the stand point of management who wanted to keep their mines producing at, at high rate fulfill the war effort. They felt threatened by the IWW and labor agitation. The business people felt threatened because they were being coerced and antagonized by the IWW and they didn't want their profits waning.

And what about the miners. Did they have their own fear and uncertainty?

I think they probably felt they were not sharing in the skyrocketing profits of copper.

You have mentioned the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. If you were a manager of a copper mine in Bisbee in 1917 how would you view the IWW and its rhetoric?

Well, I would view them with a very jaundiced eye. I would feel very threatened. Here's a bunch of fellows advocating sabotage, which was a very real possibility. They felt they were prone to violence, and history bears that out. For instance, if they sabotaged the Junction Mine, the Junction mine being the deepest workings in the district. Drain the district. They could shut down the entire district if they sabotaged the Junction Mine. They could shut down the Shattuck Mine if they sabotaged the tramway. And they were threatening to do those things. They put up picket lines around mine collars and kept loyal employees from going to work, threatened them. If I was a mine owner I would want to deal very harshly with them. I would want to take steps to protect my interest and the governor of the territory advised mine owners to do that and so did John Persing the commander of the of the military district advised protecting the property at all costs.

There is also a sense that IWW are outsiders, isn't there also a sense that they might even be foreign agents at work within the IWW, isn't that part of the sense that's going on at the same time?

There was fear that they were German agents, Russian agents. . . men bent on sabotage. Yun-American. Yeah, and the fact that the IWW focused on immigrant labor, the lowest rung on the ladder of labor, the Southern Europeans, the Serbs, Croatian, and Montanegrans, who were not always welcomed in Bisbee.

Where do they sit? Where do those groups sit in the social order?

Low. They had the lowest paying jobs in the mines. But they were also very vocal. You can see this in Kosovo today. They carry that conflict that they've bee fighting for six hundred years in Kosovo, in Serbia to the American mining camps. And they squabbled and fought and feuded among themselves just as much in America as they did in Serbia, which was not Serbia than it was the Austrian Hungarian Empire.

So, they we're viewed as a very volatile group?

Yes.

The IWW begins organizing efforts in the Bisbee Mines in 1917. How are they perceived by the mine companies? Are they considered a dangerous addition?

Well, I think they were there's no doubt about that. And they did find some stashes of dynamite, they really threatened business people.

And this is why you have the rise of the Bisbee Citizens Protective League and the Workmen's Vigilance Committee? Tell me about those groups. What's the purpose of those?

To maintain law and order. You have one group that's formed by the mining company, loyal employees and you have another group that represented the business people of the community. And then you have the sheriff that's coordinating their activities. And who at an instant's notice could summon aid by, by a call from the switchboard at the Copper Queen Hotel, which was the command center.

And who was in command?

Harry Wheeler, Sheriff of Cochise County and an ex-Arizona Ranger and Roughrider with Teddy Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War. At least, that is how he is identified in the era, but his service record prior to World War One is a little difficult to confirm. But he was a pugnacious no-nonsense Texan.

And whose interest had to be served?

Industry, copper companies. Keep the mine's safe. It's been asked why didn't the community, why didn't the mining companies call on the military, call out the militia to maintain order.

The military thought there was military assistance close enough at Fort Huachuka, and the copper companies thought they could handle the situation themselves through either their own efforts or through the efforts of the Sheriff's department of Cochise County. Which they did.

When does it start turning? When did it start moving into the direction of saying we've got to take direct actions against these people, meaning we may have to kick them out of here?

Within a day or so of the roundup--July 8 through the 11th. There were a series of meetings of copper company executives. And they planned and formulated the, the deportation. First Walter Douglas [President, Phelps-Dodge Corporation, owner of the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee] says you can't negotiate with a rattlesnake, and then John Greenway [Bisbee mine executive] says dump them into boxcars and ship >em to Columbus, New Mexico. Dr. Bledsoe [a town doctor] talks about a surgical removal of a cancer.

Who were these people that were ultimately rounded up in Bisbee?

They were people who were viewed as threats, they were the perceived threats to the mining company. They had walked off the job. . . in the middle of a war effort to produce copper. . . and were portrayed as un-American and dangerous. They tossed in a few general "undesirables" also. If you're going to ship people out, you know your going ship out any local troublemakers. But generally they were the men who went out on strike. I don't know how many went out, the estimate range from one-third to two-thirds of the mining force.

We have a number of twelve hundred-plus.

Yes.

Were they all card-carrying members of the IWW?

No. Very few actually.

But they were the strikers, and if they could round up the agitators the companies felt they could crush the disturbance and continue to pull in their profits. But they reached pretty far. Maurice Den, one of the stockholders of the Shattuck-Den Mining Company was detained. He only escaped the deportation when he was recognized by people who actually worked for him. But he may have been detained solely because he was married to a Serbian woman.

Was ethnicity an issue in the Bisbee deportation? Were Mexican nationals who worked in the mines rounded-up?

A few hundred of those went. A lot of Southern Europeans.

Not all of the mine owners were adamantly for deportation of the striking workers. You have written about one owner, Lemuel Shattuck.

I believe Lemuel Shattuck was against deportation. If negotiations could have ironed out the problem he would have negotiated. He had a closer affinity to the miners, to the working class than did John Greenway, or Walter Douglas. Although he could be hard as nails. I think he felt an affinity to the miners, he may have felt torn. He was getting instruction from the President of the Corporation to protect his mine at all cost. His feeling was that he would shut the mine down rather than capitulate to the demands of the IWW. Which he did.

Another person who expressed that same sentiment was Walter Douglas. That rather than give into the IWW he would shut the mine down.

Yeah, it was their patriotic duty to keep those mines running. "You can't negotiate with a rattlesnake." Those were his words. He viewed the IWW as having absolutely no merit. That the grievances that were being presented were unfounded. . . without merit. His superintendent tore up the grievances. But his father, Dr. James Douglas, who was more of a beloved figure and the man who built the Copper Queen Company, probably would have reacted in the same way to the IWW presence and the strike.

In your book [Bisbee: Queen of the Copper Camps] you offer that Douglas' approach is really consistent with an era. We can call it Social Darwinism in some sense, where the best men believe through their own efforts they have raised themselves up and they know what the right course is. And any force that seeks to interrupt the march of business is an evil force.

Well, I think anything that was disruptive of the mining community could be dealt with very harshly. And was in many, many cases. Clear back to the gold rush in California. In Tombstone in 1888 when people were jumping lots. . . That stems from the Tombstone Townsite Company, and an urge to sell town lots. Anyway, everyone was jumping lots. The community got together and formed the vigilante committee that could be called out at an instant notice in the event that there was trouble. They had a secret password and every mining community had organizations like this to maintain law and order. Their view of law and order.

Their definition of law and order.

Yeah, it's common law it goes way back.

And so, as we look at what Bisbee undertakes in July of 1917, it's not new in the West in terms of deportations, it's not new in terms of mine companies seeking to protect their interest by driving out troublemakers.

It's as American as apple pie. There is another important point for the deportation. This is what World War I brought to America. The sense of good versus evil. The sense of right versus wrong. This crusade, this frenzy, this war hysteria to join the war effort. And there was also the profit motive was the thing that was really driving Walter Douglas and John Greenway. And Gerald Sherman. The superintendents of the big companies' seemed to have been the ones who said okay we're going to unplug the Wobblies and ship them out.

And it's easier to do that under the banner of a patriotic act or national security than it is to say these people might cut into our profits.

Yes.

Once 1,200 men were rounded up and taken to the desert and dumped. Did Bisbee return to the business of business and producing copper for the war effort?

It returned to producing copper, but it was a closed community. You couldn't enter Bisbee, they had the road blocked. It was closed for a longtime. Probably they were fearful of return of agitators. Maybe they were fearful of news coverage. Everybody was questioned, stopped and questioned and they were very careful of who they let into the community for a long time afterwards.

There was national criticism voiced over the deportation. The pressure builds so that ultimately they do try an individual as a test case on the charge of kidnapping as part of the deportation. The jury comes back with a quick "not guilty" verdict, saying the actions were well justified.

Well, there were some civil suits brought too in which I believe the copper companies paid so much to the who were wronged. But ultimately everybody got off because of the law of necessity. That the companies were reacting to a perceived threat and the community was reacting to a perceived threat. And that perception justified deporting the men.

Is there a legacy of the Bisbee deportation?

Well, there's still a lot of hard feelings about it. There's still people in Bisbee who had relatives who were shipped off, who feel very hard about that, that human rights were violated, families were broken up. Families were embarrassed.

And there are those in Bisbee who feel quietly that the right thing was done?

Maybe in the context of the times. Yes. Although nowadays that is a difficult opinion to get expressed in Bisbee. The stronger belief is that there's no question that human rights were violated.

What does a person need to understand of that era?

Well, I think you have to understand the deportation in the context of the times. You have to understand that there was wartime hysteria,and that the copper companies were turning record profits. Many of the local business people were making money hand over fist. The miners felt they were getting screwed, their wages were not staying staying abreast of inflation. It was a complex event. But at its core is a simple issue: "Who had the power?"