A professional photographer based in Bisbee, Arizona, Boyd Nicholl also is the curator of photographic history for the Bisbee Mining Museum.







Let's begin with Bisbee in the years just prior to World War I. It's a time, it's a place really that are lost. Take a viewer back, take me back and help describe what this community was like in those years before World War I. What did it look like? What was the social life like?

Bisbee is in its heyday in 1916 or 1917, when the largest copper production was going on. The town was essentially as you see it now after the 1908 fire all the brick buildings that we have were in place, and the town was really booming with about four thousand men working in the mines. I don't know what the ratio would be on support services, but you could see it was a very successful town at the time. Social wise you have a town that's an enormous mix of people such as Slavic people, Mexican people, Finnish people, Cornish people, and Americans. The social mix was probably very complex. It still is in many ways. Each group had its own churches, and each community was sort of isolated to some extent from one and other, but obviously cooperating in the endeavor of generating massive amounts of copper. 1916 and 1917 are also the largest sales of copper for the three major copper companies in Bisbee at the time--somewhere around a hundred million dollars worth of sales, which is simply an enormously amount of money flowing through.

Let me ask you then, as we understand the community we think of … Let's start thinking of the role of copper in Bisbee, more specifically the copper companies, the type of influence they could exert on a community, how they shaped the life of the community.

The copper companies definitely shaped the city of Bisbee. Without the copper there's no reason for anybody to be here. The copper companies built the town, and the copper companies were the reason for the town. Copper's sway over the populous was in a certain sense absolute in that everybody depended on the mines. As I said before, there's no reason for a town like Bisbee without the mines. At that time you have Phelps Dodge Corporation and the Calat and Arizona Mining Corporation, which is big money out of Michigan. And you also have some local guys who've risen up through the ranks such as Shatic and Mulhiem. Shatic Arizona Mining Company was also involved in the deportation. So, copper was king; there's no doubt about it. We were talking earlier that, when copper rubbles even to this day, the town sits up and pays attention.

Boyd let's begin with this notion of the organization, how well Bisbee was organized and run under this paternalistic guidance if you will of the copper companies, explain how that played out.

Early on Phelps Dodge Company, when it's the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, always comes in with very highly skilled people. To this day, it's one of the things that amazes me about Phelps Dodge because they hire very intelligent, very capable people. It starts right in 1883 when James Douglas gets the first Atlantic claim that gets them started in mining. Right away the organization is tight, intelligent, and efficient. I'll give you an example of their efficiency. When they made the first big strike in 1885, and the price of copper plummets, Douglas, rather than worry about that, tightens up the program by building a new smelter and bringing in more converters. So a few years later, when the price of copper is pushed up by France trying to capture the world copper market futures, Douglas is ready to go and production goes immediately to fifteen, fourteen million pounds a month. This kind of tight organization is also represented in the Calut Arizona people under Colonel Greenway. He was the manager for the Calut Arizona Mining Company in Michigan. They came in and lucked out with a big strike on their first mine, the Irish Meg Mine. After expenditure of a certain amount of money, big money actually expanded on these projects.

How does this notion of efficiency, of east coast money requirements for efficiency how does that determine the type of relationship that mines management has with its workers? Does it?

Yes it does. Right away one of the things that you're leading up to in the strike of 1917, is the level of control over who worked, and who was not allowed to work. This kind of relationship is right there, probably from the get go. Less in the 1880's of course we were a considerably wilder west at that time. But by the turn of the century, social control is really being exerted by the corporations. And primarily the biggest one about who works and who does not work, which of course in this situation is a life decision making process.

How did the outbreak of World War I change things here in Bisbee, Arizona? And change things I say in a very broad sense.

I think, the first thing that comes to my mind is the level of paranoia increased. Of course I believe it was fanned by those who were interested in fanning it. But it was a feeling that ran broadly through the community. A fear of Mexico had been very active along this border, even though the Mexican Revolution was actually in its ending phrases. We're only six miles from Knocko, which had been the scene of battles in 1913 and 1915. As I say, I think that was fanned. It was used both by the people who were interested in garning their position in a stronger place, but it was real for the people, too. there, In Bisbee, we had this enormous immigration problem with Illegal immigrants taking to get into America. And people are worried along the border, so they want to arm themselves, enact new laws, and bring the army to the border.

As a matter of fact, in 1915 or 1916, the army was brought along the border. They were troops stationed all along the border down here. The other aspect is the patriotism that flared, which I don't have as clear of feeling how that happened because just in the few years before that you had a very different feel. Labor was on the rise, labor was thought of as a good thing, and a good partner in the equation between capitol and labor. Suddenly around the time of World War I, anybody whose willing to rock the boat in any way is seen as seditious, as treasonous. The words become very strong and very dramatic. We're not talking just anti-, like a protest; they're they're really vilified. Quickly the war leads to the connection that all unions are either Wobblies, and we also have the beginning of the socialist revolution in Russia. So, yes, the era of World War 1 brought a great shift in how we were viewing ourselves.

And economically, there are significant changes here in Bisbee because of the War effort and the production of copper.

Yes, as I said, the best years for copper production are 1916 and 1917. The obvious reason for this is the war itself. The price of copper almost doubled --going from thirteen cents to twenty-seven cents, and production was at full tilt for the war effort. Big money was being made by copper companies, not much of which was trickling down. One of the gripes on the strike of course, is how little money is coming down considering how much money the corporations are making. I just learned recently that in the early days in Bisbee, it was hard to unionize because the wages were relatively good, in fact they were very good compared to other places. A man could make three-fifty to four-fifty a day here, when other people were making fifty cents a day and considering that a relatively good wage. So, economically it always looked good for the miners here. They were always willing to protect that investment. But the wage didn't change until 1920. In 1919, they were still making four-fifty a day, what they'd been making in 1885. That is a long period of time, and there must have been a lot of inflation with the changing in needs in the country.

Workers eventually start going out on strike. How does the company respond? They didn't respond at first with deportation because they have a vested interest in keeping their mines open and producing. So, how does the company respond?

The company responds harshly right from the beginning. The Western Federation of Miners had a strike here in 1907, which was squashed immediately. Right away, the corporate entities are tremendously anti-labor organizing. Not anti-labor per say, but the organization of it. I think they viewed it as any leader does, assuming that they were going to loose their sway. In that sense they were probably right. They could see that the corporation that they had controlled for so many years was being threatened with a change that was coming up from underneath, and they didn't like it. They didn't like it a bit.

When the workers start going out on strike, what does the company do to keep the production up?

Keep production up? They hired scab labor. Yes, scab labor was brought in the 1907 strike, and also in the 1917 strike. Another way of controlling the workers was the administration of a health test to blackball workers. They would say, "No, you are too unhealthy to work in the mine." However, they were really saying that you had labor organization tendencies and you were not allowed to work in the mine. They tried to control it that way.

So, the big thing was bringing in strikebreakers?

Strikebreakers be your easiest one.

There must have been some pretty tense moments here in this town, where you've got a thousand men out, and a thousand new men coming in.

You would think so, but of course the papers in those days are controlled by the companies so it's a little hard to know exactly. But you don't hear much about them fighting with each other. It's not like it got in later years and more modern times, where you cross a picket line and you can really get yourself beat up over the head. I'm sure there was some violence but apparently not to the degree of modern times. I think they all shared that need to to make a living, and there was a certain sympathy amongst each other that doesn't exist now. When you were in Bisbee in 1900, you were still a long way from any major city, and your economic tie to that company was pretty vital in a way that we don't understand today. If you lost your job, you were in a tough place if you had kids, a family, and other responsibilities. So, I don't think they necessarily liked scabs, but it was a situation of mutual respect for one another.

Let me ask you about a couple of people, specifically one figure who is very very large at this time. The strike is in process, and agitators are believed to be afoot in Bisbee. One of the figures that towers over this situation, is a man by the name of Walter Douglas. Tell me about Douglas and the type of person he is and how it manifests itself in dealing with the Bisbee strike.

Walter Douglas right from the get-go is against organized labor. He is very strong in his opinions. In the 1907 strike, though, he was not the corporate head that he became by the 1917 strike. I don't know his personal reasons for it, but he really felt personally threatened by the unions.

Start out again with Walter Douglas and his need to defend, feeling like something was threatened.

Right . His voraciousness in defending his position and the company's position leads me to feel its more of a personal aspect to this that I really can't explore.

Like his authority is being personally challenged.

When you read his accounts that were published in his own newspaper there is nothing light hearted about it. This is very serious business, and he had a tradition of this. He starts even earlier in the 1907 strike.

'What's best for this business, is what's best for this state, what's best for this state is best for the nation, what's best for this nation is what's best for God. You screw with me, you're screwing with God, country, business.'

Exactly. This is the transition I was talking about just a few years before with the Progressive Movement in Arizona, where labor was going to be a partner with capitol. Then suddenly it shifts into men like Walter Douglas where the old order is being challenged and they deeply resent it. They act, they organize, and they are efficient on it. One of things you and I talked about the other day was the fact that they put together the deportation in a matter of a week or two. Of course, there were presuppressants that helped them along the way. But yes, this to me shows a very personal threat behind it all. This is not just the amount of money you might make off copper, but it's my whole position that is being threatened here. Something's being taking away or could be taken away from me.

Walter Douglas, General Greenway, maybe not so much Shag, but there's a sense of the companies pulling together and thinking what they've got to do to control this situation.

Definitely. They definitely pull together with a very clear cut plan. Greenway, Douglas, and the sheriff at that time, Harry Wheeler, put this whole plan into place very quickly But it was well thought out and ready to go.

It couldn't have been executed unless there were hundreds even thousands of people, willing to stand with the companies and prove their loyalty. That leads up to this notion of who were the people in the loyal team.

Yes, who were the people. We should go back a month or two and say that the Loyalty League, the Workmen's Loyalty League, was put together in April some months before the strike. So you get a sense that this is not exactly in the void beforehand. There were rumblings of labor discord before the strike actually was called. The Loyalty League is formed and by over half the town. I think this is the great catastrophe for Bisbee because half the town rounds up the other half of the town. They were miners. They were workers. They were business people both small and large. They were organized under this new patriotic fervor that was sweeping the country, and they were going to protect God and country and mining. They had parade and dances, and there was a certain social aspect of it, too. This was the Workmen's Loyalty League, and it was literally the workmen and businessmen of Bisbee.

The Loyalty League was in fact a private small army.

Yes, as it turned out. I don't think it was formed in that concept exactly. But when the deportation occurred, they decided to go forward with it. Yes, they armed them, and many of the weapons came from the PD dispensary, although there is some disparity depending on who you read or who you listen to where the arms came from. One of the things I've noticed is that they are infield rifles which at that time are military issued. There's always been a question of how much the government was actually involved in this. Obviously it was involved enough to turn a certain blind eye for a very long time. The government had been here in the form of the army to report whether or not there was violence in the streets. Both times the army reported back that no there was no violence. They did not feel that they should bring in troops because there was no riot condition.

How was the round up that morning in July when the deportation orders are actually put into effect. Douglas and Greenway give Wheeler the nod or the wink, whatever it was, and it's ready to spring into action. When it comes down to actually executing it, if we were sitting there looking out on Main Street, what would we have seen?

Actually before that you would have gotten a phone call if you were part of the Loyalty League. The general manager of the phone company was the man who sounded the bell. He was the Paul Revere for the deportation. He called all the Loyalty Leaguers on his list, some three hundred people, and they were to meet at four o'clock in the morning in the plaza which would now be by where our post office is today. By six thirty, almost two thousand men, including two hundred from Douglas, had volunteered. They separated themselves from the people they were rounding up by wearing a white armband. At six thirty in the morning they proceeded to go up and down the canyons of Bisbee. They apparently must have had certain lists of people they were looking for because they rounded up some two thousand people in about two hours. After they got them rounded up, they marched them down the street here to the Plaza in downtown Bisbee. They were held there for awhile. Then as the people from the Gulch were rounded up, they joined them and marched the two miles to Lowell and then on down to the Warren Ballpark. So, what you would have seen was a bunch of newspaper kids carrying their newspapers telling women and children to keep off the streets. They were the only kids allowed out. They were out selling their papers, and you would have seen no women and children. You would have seen an enormous body of men, armed in various means with their own twenty-two rifles or with grandpa's pistols. They were literally knocking on doors and dragging people out of bed six thirty in the morning to round them up.

Extraordinary efficiency.

Extraordinary efficiency, as if it had been rehearsed. I think that patriotic fervor that had been instilled, the paranoia of the Mexicans, the inclusion between Mexico and Germany, and the growing hatred and fear of the IWW influenced the situation. So you have two thousand men who are quite dedicated in their mission, and they do it with peak efficiency. But the only actual death occured when a man in James Brew Lowell reacted very negatively. He refused to be dragged away, and he shot through the door of his house and killed one of the deputies, Orson McCrae. He in turn is killed by the other deputies, but that was their only fatality in this situation. Of course, the men were heavily armed and there were a lot of them.

You made an interesting observation the other day, as we were looking at the photograph of the men lined up near Colbus, New Mexico, about the ethnicity and national origin of those deported.

Yes. Some of the things that I was struck by when I went through the deportation list that the army put together after they had been picked up, after the train had dropped them off in Colbus, New Mexico. Of the twelve hundred men who had been dropped off, eight hundred and thirty some are foreign born. When you read the list there's an awful lot of Mihalvichs, Gonzalez's. . . II can't think of a Finnish name right off the top of my head, but there was something else going on here. One of the things that they had been directed to do in the round up was to round up anybody who they called undesirable. Undesirables included anybody who was supporting the strike, somebody who was not working, somebody from out of town, or somebody who was new in town and not recognized. Around the turn of the century we get an enormous influx of Southern Slavs, Motonegians, Croats, Serbians, who came directly to Bisbee, which leads me to believe they were hired as contract laborers. Maybe somebody from the companies went to the Balkans and sought laborers. You know at the turn of the century there was a labor shortage. So, these people were hired as low level workers in the mines. They're muckers, they're trammers. They're not exactly miners in that sense that the Cornish call a miner. They're not hard rock miners by trade. They are called bohunks because they're not thought of highly. There's a great deal of suspicion in that they don't speak the language. When you read the deportation list, you see an awful lot of 'viches in the names, so yes I very much feel that there's an ethnic aspect going on here. I think part of that patriotic fervor is a fear of the immigrant, which is a strange twist in a country that is nothing but immigrants. But it certainly seems to have happened.

At the time, there seems to be very few voices of dissent to the deportation. Not much outrage being expressed in these days of July and August of 1917. Is that fairly accurate?

Yes, that does seem fairly accurate. They felt absolutely righteous about it, and we're not talking just the major companies, we're talking the man in the street who participated in the deportation. The companies did keep armed guards on both ends of the town for some months after this. The strikers were not allowed back into town, although some snuck in. But in general about eight hundred of them spent months out there in there desert in Colbus. Then they slowly disseminated off to wherever they went. I think the ones that snuck back here were probably ones who had property or family connections here. Many of them changed their names and actually ended up working for the mines again. It seems odd now to have a kidnapping of such enormous proportions and everybody's quite satisfied with it, except of course the people who have been kidnapped. As time went on, I think the enormity of it started to dawn on people. So that if you talked to old timers today, you can get a great argument going in just seconds on one side or the other. One now recognizes that this is probably not the right thing to do. But I don't think at that time they felt any guilt about it at all. The production went on, and it was actually the peak years for copper production here. Wages did not go up. They were still satisfied with that four-fifty a day I guess.