Post by Tamrin on Jul 12, 2010 19:11:08 GMT 10
The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and innocent citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona and held at a local baseball park. They were then loaded onto cattle cars and transported 200 miles (320 km) for 16 hours through the desert without food or water. The deportees were unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico, without money or transportation, and threatened not to return to Bisbee.
From the day of the deportations until November 1917, the Citizens' Protective League ruled Bisbee. Operating from a building owned by the copper companies, its representatives interrogated residents about their political beliefs with respect to unions and the war and determined who could work or obtain a draft deferment. Sheriff Wheeler established guards at all entrances to Bisbee and Douglas. Anyone seeking to exit or enter the town over the next several months had to have a "passport" issued by Wheeler. Any adult male in town who was not known to the sheriff's men was brought before a secret sheriff's kangaroo court. Hundreds of citizens were tried and most of them were deported and threatened with lynching if they returned. Even long-time citizens of Bisbee were deported by this "court". Only a handful of deportees ever returned to Bisbee.
When ordered to cease these activities by the Arizona Attorney General, Wheeler fumbled to explain his actions. Asked what law supported his actions he answered: "I have no statute that I had in mind. Perhaps everything that I did wasn't legal....It became a question of 'Are you American, or are you not?'" He told the Attorney General: "I would repeat the operation any time I find my own people endangered by a mob composed of eighty percent aliens and enemies of my Government."
When ordered to cease these activities by the Arizona Attorney General, Wheeler fumbled to explain his actions. Asked what law supported his actions he answered: "I have no statute that I had in mind. Perhaps everything that I did wasn't legal....It became a question of 'Are you American, or are you not?'" He told the Attorney General: "I would repeat the operation any time I find my own people endangered by a mob composed of eighty percent aliens and enemies of my Government."
