Hellraisers Journal: Mine Owners Seek to Oust Governor Hunt of Arizona Who Stands with the Miners

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Saturday January 8, 1916
From The Day Book: "Bosses Seek to Oust Governor Who Backed Miners"

Arizona Governor WP Hunt, 1912-1917.png

Friday's Day Book reported that the Copper Bosses are out to have Governor Hunt of Arizona recalled. The governor has consistently refused to allow the mine operators to import gunmen and scabs in order to break the strike, now ongoing, against the Clifton-Morenci Co., owned by Phillips-Dodge & Co. The Copper Bosses refuse to meet with the miners, and, instead prefer to initiate a recall campaign against the Governor. The article states:

The companies refuse arbitration or any consideration of the men's demands.

From the Chicago Day Book of January 7, 1916:

Day Book, AZ Gov Hunt, Jan 7, 1916.png
BY GILSON GARDNER
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Clifton Morenci Strike of 1915, WFM local & national leaders, .png
National & local leaders of the Western Federation of Miners.
Back row, 2nd & 3rd from left: Charles Moyer-WFM President,
& Henry McCluskey-Organizer for Miami Local 70.
Front row from left, John Murray, Canuto Vargas, Pascual Vargas, Luis Soto.
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Washington, Jan. 7.-Because Gov. George B. Hunt of Arizona has not permitted the importation of strikebreakers and gunmen in the copper mining region where 5,000 miners are on strike, petitions are being circulated by the mine owners seeking his recall. The chief owners are Cleveland H. Dodge, William Church Osborn and some other New York Multimillionaires.

The situation has been investigated by the industrial relations committee of this city, which is authority for the statement that whereas in Colorado disorder and slaughter unparalleled followed the importation of strikebreakers and gunmen by permission of Gov. Ammons, in Arizona there has been profound peace.

The miners are preserving order and the sheriff is actually assisting in the distribution of supplies to the miners' families.

The European war resulted in a vastly increased demand for copper and a big jump in price. The principal corporation involved in this strike, the Clifton-Morenci Co., owned by Phillips-Dodge & Co., with James Douglas as president and Cleveland H. Dodge as vice president, earned in 1912 23 per cent on its capital of $45,000,000 and paid a 15 per cent dividend.

The principal property of the company at Clifton paid in 1912 a dividend of 146 per cent on a capitalization of $1,000,000. In explaining the situation to the Walsh industrial relations committee, Gov. Hunt has written:

In discouraging the importation of strike breakers I have been actuated by the desire to avert bloodshed, to safeguard life and property and to keep in view the possibility of amicable arbitration of differences between employers and employes. It is, in my opinion, hardly reasonable to suppose that any considerable body of workingmen will voluntarily initiate and endure the hardships that inevitably attend a large strike without being firmly convinced that they have grievances which need adjustment and that their case is one entitled to the painstaking consideration of the companies or individuals by whom they are employed.

The companies refuse arbitration or any consideration of the men's demands.

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[Photograph added.]

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SOURCE
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Jan 7, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/73772232

IMAGES
Clifton Morenci Strike of 1915, WFM local & national leaders
https://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/website/mining.htm
pdf! http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/Radhistory/radical%20history%20articles/L...
Day Book Headline, AZ Gov Hunt, Jan 7, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/73772232
Arizona Gov WP Hunt, 1912-1917
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._P._Hunt

See also:

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Arizona Governor Hunt, "a most human and just man."
By JayRaye
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-ariz...

Governor Hunt, the "Beast" and the Miners
By Marjorie Haynes Wilson
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/docs/jahwils.html

The Clifton-Morenci strike: labor difficulty in Arizona, 1915-1916
-by James R. Kluger
University of Arizona Press, 1970
(Note: I don't yet own this book and haven't read it, but it looks pretty good.)
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Clifton_Morenci_strike.html?id=...

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Which Side Are You On? - Rebel Diaz

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