Deportation Notes

‘These morose days through which we are living’

garydillard — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:52:55 +0000

How often we learn about one thing when searching for something else. That’s one reason I encourage my 15-year-old son to read, read anything, read every chance he gets. It’s amazing what you might just learn, serendipitously, including smooth-feeling new words.

Such was the case this evening as I was perusing Western short stories by Owen Wister, a writer best known for creating The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains more than a century ago.

Beginning to read a book of his essays, with which I was not at all familiar (A Straight Deal; or, The Ancient Grudge), written in the mid- to late-teens, I came across this description of the times:

“Publish any sort of conviction related to these morose days through which we are living, and letters will shower upon you like leaves in October. No matter what your conviction be, it will shake both yeas and nays loose from various minds where they were hanging ready to fall. Never was a time when so many brains rustled with hates and panaceas that would sail wide into the air at the lightest jar.”

Such were the times in 1917, with America’s entry into the Great War, with the politics that swirled around everyone who spoke with conviction, with Wilson defeating Roosevelt, with the Socialists gaining ground and on and on.

These are the days, the beliefs, the feelings of the Bisbee Deportation. These are what we will be exploring herewith.

What did contemporaries say about labor issues?

garydillard — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:12:34 +0000

Just started to read a 1910 book titled “Strikes: When To Strike, How To Strike,” by Oscar T. Crosby. The joy in reading century-old writing is that it was expected to be colorful and personal and usually it doesn’t take a reader long to understand a writer’s take on the subject.

Here’s the opening:

“In the word ‘Strike’ there is something manly, inspiriting – violent.

“It suggests the blacksmith’s hammer, the woodsman’s axe, the patriot’s sword — a trinity of tools with which man has made for himself, poor savage that he was, a home and a country. He has struck against Nature who would starve and freeze him; he has struck against his fellows who would enslave him.”

Okay. That’s one side.

“But the blacksmith has forged manacles for the free; the edge of the axe has been laid against the sheltering roof-tree; the sword has been in the assassin’s hand. Men have struck for bad things as well as for good things. It is always so. Every force, every instrument that may be used to help, may also be used to hurt.”

So perhaps Mr. Crosby will attempt a balanced look at strikes as he perceived them in 1910. If so, it will be an unusual treatise from that age. Nevertheless, it will prove instructive.

Why read such an archaic work? Because to understand what people thought at the time of the Bisbee Deportation, it’s necessary to know what they were reading. No less than a complete understanding of the American Revolution requires reading what Jefferson read, as well as reading Jefferson, so too is the requirement of understanding issues of labor and patriotism a century ago. One must digest the left, the right and the center to understand the whole.

Fortunately, men were unabashed in stating their opinions and certainly they held them on all issues of the age, great and small. Fortunately, too, there was a weeding process that’s not as pronounced today — editing by the publishing house. No one could do easily what I’m doing now, and disseminate his opinion to one and all with little or no vetting against established thought. Which is many ways is good for historical research. Otherwise, who could possibly consume even a small percentage of what was written?

I will close now and begin to read chapter 2 — “Morality of the Strike.”

The time, it is a comin’

garydillard — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:00:32 +0000

I missed the exact day. That would have been Monday, the 12th. From there, it was 8 1/2 years ’til the actual anniversary of the Bisbee Deportation.

If you don’t know what the Deportation is, you’ll have to wait until I’ve completed a few more episodes of this blog to get the details. Or you can google it; there’s stuff already on the net.

It’s time to get serious about collecting and disseminating as much information as possible about the event, its origins and its aftermath. From the various points of view.

There’s no doubt it’s controversial, perhaps as much today as it was 91 1/2 years ago. And I know there’s no way my blog, my site will please everyone. Then go start your own.

But I’ve been studying the Deportation long enough to know that there are not just two sides, but many, that need to be considered, explored, presented. And I know that it needs to be studied in the tenor of its own time. Only the aftermath can fairly be approached by today’s standards of action.

There’s a lot of background, numerous personalities and innumerable stories that make up the Bisbee Deporation. We’ll try to explore as much of that as possible over the months, the years to come. This blog is only a part of the effort. A companion website, bisbeedeportation.com, also will be going up. Maybe a video as well.

But here’s the start, the first step on that thousand-mile trip. Drink it in, comment on it, use it as the basis of your own research, ignore it, whatever. It will be here waiting for you when you come back.