Politics, Labor, and the War on Big Business

The Path of Reform in Arizona, 1890-1920

David R. Berman

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781607321811
• eBook ISBN: 9781607321828
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Politics, Labor, and the War on Big Business details the rise, fall, and impact of the anticorporate reform effort in Arizona during the Progressive reform era, roughly 1890-1920. Drawing on previously unexamined archival files and building on research presented in his previous books, author David R. Berman offers a fresh look at Progressive heritage and the history of industrial relations during Arizona's formative period.

In the 1890s, once-heavily courted corporations had become, in the eyes of many, outside "money interests" or "beasts" that exploited the wealth of the sparsely settled area. Arizona's anticorporate reformers condemned the giant corporations for mistreating workers, farmers, ranchers, and small-business people and for corrupting the political system. During a thirty-year struggle, Arizona reformers called for changes to ward off corporate control of the political system, increase corporate taxation and regulation, and protect and promote the interests of working people.

Led by George W.P. Hunt and progressive Democrats, Arizona's brand of Progressivism was heavily influenced by organized labor, third parties, and Socialist activists. As highly powerful railroad and mining corporations retaliated, conflict took place on both political levels and industrial backgrounds, sometimes in violent form.

Politics, Labor and the War on Big Business places Arizona's experience in the larger historical discussion of reform activity of the period, considering issues involving the role of government in the economy and the possibility of reform, topics highly relevant to current debates.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

AHS	Arizona Historical Society, Tucson
ASL	Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records, Phoenix
ASU	Arizona Collection, Arizona State University Libraries, Tempe
NAU	Northern Arizona University, Cline Library, Special Collections, Flagstaff
SHM	Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott, Arizona
SPP	Socialist Party of America Papers, Duke University, Durham, NC
UOA	Special Collections, University of Arizona, Tucson
WFM	Western Federation of Miners Papers, Western History Collection, University of Colorado, Boulder

INTRODUCTION

1. “Better Days Coming,” Verde [Arizona] Daily Copper News (August 3, 1918): 2.

2. On the decline of Progressivism nationally in this period see, for example, John A. Thompson, Reformers and War: American Progressive Publicists and the First World War (Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1987). On repression during the war, see H. C. Peterson and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War 1917–1918 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957).

3. A useful survey of the vast amount of literature on the Progressive movement is found in Richard L. McCormick and Arthur S. Link, Progressivism (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1983) and Daniel T. Rodgers, “In Search of Progressivism,” Reviews in American History 10 (December 1982): 113–132. More recent works that also provide literature reviews are Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920 (New York: Free Press, 2003), and Shelton Stromquist, Reinventing “the People”: The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006). Both of the latter studies argue that, contrary to some previous research, it makes sense to talk about a single “Progressive movement,” though it had many specific twists and turns. The opposing argument was advanced by Peter G. Filene, “An Obituary for ‘the Progressive Movement,’” American Quarterly 22 (1970): 20–34.

4. See regional overviews in McCormick and Link, Progressivism. Among the state studies I found particularly useful for this study are Danney Goble, Progressive Oklahoma: The Making of a New Kind of State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980); Herbert F. Margulies, The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1870–1920 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1968); Thomas R. Pegram, Partisans and Progressives: Private Interests and Public Policy in Illinois, 1870–1922 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). For an understanding of the Oregon experience, which was particularly relevant in Arizona, see Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) and sources cited therein. On California, see William Deverell and Tom Sitton eds., California Progressivism Revisited (Berkeley.: University of California Press, 1994); George E. Mowry, The California Progressives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951); Spencer C. Olin Jr., California’s Prodigal Sons: Hiram Johnson and the Progressives, 1911–1917 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). For business behavior, see also Mansel G. Blackford, The Politics of Business in California, 1890–1920 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977).

5. Works to which the current study is related, though with a different time period, emphasis, or both, include James W. Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982); Phillip J. Mellinger, Race and Labor in Western Copper: The Fight for Equality, 1896–1918 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995); and Katherine Benton-Cohen, Borderline Americans: Racial Divisions and Labor Wars in the Arizona Borderlands (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). The author’s major work in this area, upon which this volume builds, consists of two books: Reformers, Corporations, and the Electorate (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1992) and Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890–1920 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2007).

6. Two works on O’Neill that cover his Populist activities, though in a limited fashion, are Ralph Keithley, Buckey O’Neill, He Stayed with ’em While He Lasted (Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1949), and Dale L. Walker, Death Was the Black Horse (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1983, © 1975).

7. This book covers Hunt’s career up to World War I as part of a political history of that period. General overviews of his longer career are found in John S. Goff, George W.P. Hunt and His Arizona (Pasadena, CA: Socio-Technical Publications, 1973), and Marjorie Haines Wilson, “The Gubernatorial Career of George W.P. Hunt of Arizona,” PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe, 1973. Also helpful in understanding Hunt is a chapter on him by Frank Lockwood, a contemporary, in Lockwood, Pioneer Portraits (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1968), 207–236.

8. Arizona reformers followed the lead of reformers in several western states, among which Oregon, California, Washington, and Oklahoma were particularly important. Activity in Arizona in regard to mining health and safety is an example of the influence of a national movement on reform efforts in the territory and the state. See Eric L. Clements, “Mining Health and Safety Reform in Arizona, 1901–1921,” Mining History Association 1994 Annual: 63–72.

9. See, for example, Gerald D. Nash, The American West in the Twentieth Century (Eng...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Preface
• Introduction
• ONE “The Beasts”
• TWO Stirring the Political Pot
• THREE Populists Make Their Case and Their Mark
• FOUR Statehood and the Path of Reform
• FIVE Worker Unrest, Organization, and Confrontations
• SIX Rising Tide
• SEVEN Finishing Up, Looking Ahead
• EIGHT Reformers Take Charge
• NINE Making and Selling a Constitution
• TEN New Regime
• ELEVEN Bringing in the Voters
• TWELVE Radicals at Work
• THIRTEEN Drawing the Battle Lines
• FOURTEEN Going after Hunt
• FIFTEEN Hunt, War, and Wobblies
• SIXTEEN Aftermath
• Concluding Observations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index