The action was orchestrated by Phelps Dodge, the major mining company in the area, which provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the Cochise County sheriff, Harry C. Wheeler.

Those arrested were taken to a local baseball park before being loaded onto cattle cars and deported 200 miles (320 km) to Tres Hermanas in New Mexico.

The company presented their action as reducing threats to United States interests in World War I in Europe, largely because the wartime demand for copper was heavy.

A presidential mediation commission investigated the actions in November 1917, and in its final report, described the deportation as "wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal (Page 6).

During the winter of 1915–16, a successful if bitter four-month strike in the Clifton-Morenci district led to widespread discontent and unionization among miners in the state.

On July 2, Wheeler asked Republican Governor Thomas Edward Campbell to request federal troops, suggesting the strike threatened US war interests: "The whole thing appears to be pro-German and anti-American.

"[8] Campbell quickly telegraphed the White House and made the request, but President Woodrow Wilson declined to send in the Army.

He was the son of Dr. James Douglas, developer of the Copper Queen mine and a member of the board of directors of the Phelps Dodge Corporation.

Determined to keep Bisbee free of IWW influence, in 1916, Douglas established a Citizens' Protective League, composed of business leaders and middle-class local residents.

[4][page needed] The Jerome Deportation proved to be a test run for Phelps Dodge, which ordered the same plan, but larger in scale, in Bisbee.

Phelps Dodge officials also met with executives of the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, who agreed to provide rail transportation for any deportees.

[4][6][page needed] At 7:30 a.m., the 2,000 arrested men were assembled in front of the Bisbee Post Office and marched two miles (3 km) to Warren Ballpark.

[3][4][5][6][page needed] The train stopped 10 miles (16 km) east of Douglas to take on water, some of which was provided to the deportees in the packed cars.

Company executives refused to let Western Union send wires out of town, and stopped Associated Press reporters from filing stories.

[4][page needed] With 1,300 penniless men in Hermanas, the Luna County sheriff worriedly wired the Governor of New Mexico for instructions.

Republican Governor Washington Ellsworth Lindsey said the men should be treated humanely and fed; he urgently contacted President Wilson and asked for assistance.

Based in a building owned by the copper companies, its representatives interrogated residents about their political beliefs with respect to unions and the war, determining who could work or obtain a draft deferment.

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.

"[15]These actions took place during a period in the early 20th century when attacks by anarchists and labor unrest and violence erupted in numerous American cities and industries.

Many native-born Americans were worried about such actions, attributing the unrest to the high numbers of immigrants, rather than to the poor working conditions in many industries.

[3][4][5][6][page needed] The New York Times criticized the violence on the part of the mine owners and suggested that mass arrests "on vagrancy charges" would have been appropriate.

[1] On May 15, 1918, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered the arrest of 21 Phelps Dodge executives, including some from the Calumet and Arizona Co., and several elected leaders and law enforcement officers from Bisbee and Cochise Counties.

[17] Arizona officials never initiated criminal proceedings in state court against those responsible for the deportation of workers and their lost wages and other losses.

Some workers filed civil suits, but in the first case the jury determined that the deportations represented good public policy and refused to grant relief.

At the end of the conflict, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and others advocated for a peacetime equivalent of the Sedition Act, using the Bisbee events as a justification.

The initial number of defendants was approximately 300, and preliminary hearings began on July 11, 1919, headed by Cochise County prosecutor, Robert N. French, and continued though September.

[22] The later history of American deportations of alleged radicals and other undesirables from the country did not follow the precedent of Bisbee and Jerome, which were considered vigilante actions by private citizens.