Labor Link of the Day

This day in labor history.

Phelps-Dodge and the smaller operations in Bisbee decided to use the war as a pretext to crack down on the Wobblies once and for all. Newspapers in Bisbee and around the nation accused the I.W.W. of pro-German sympathy...On July 11, 1917, the Citizens Protective League put out a call to the surrounding areas for deputies. 2000 men assembled by the next morning. They took over the Western Union office to prevent word getting out about their actions. They then went around to the miners’ cabins and rounded people suspected of radicalism or of being Mexican or eastern European. They collected 1186 men many of whom were not on strike or even miners. They marched them to waiting trains, where they were pushed into cattle cars knee deep in manure. The train took off, went to the New Mexico-Arizona border, and dropped them off in the desert.

Erik Loomis has been running a series on This Day in Labor History over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Worth checking out.