The Great Depression and the World Wars in Arizona
Encyclopedia
In 1912, women in Arizona
gained the right to vote, and in 1917, World War I
brought an economic boom to Arizona. It recovered from The Great Depression with the New Deal
and another economic boom after World War II
, leading the cotton, copper, farming, and mining industries to flourish. In 1946, Arizona's right to work
became effective, allowing workers to decide whether or not to join or financially support a union. In 1948, Motorola
built the first plant in Phoenix that marked the beginning of high tech
industry in Arizona, and American Indians gained the right to vote.
brought an economic boom to Arizona.
.
in World War II and the West changed Arizona as much in four years of war as would have happened in forty years of peace. By 1945, Arizona and the other Western states were bristled with defense plants, military base
s, and research laboratories. In addition to the extractive industries, manufacturing fueled their economies, causing their cities to expand at
The partnership between the federal government and business set the change in motion. By 1939, Franklin Roosevelt was admitting that "Dr. New Deal" was losing ground to "Dr. Win-the-War." As the president
and his advisors monitored developments in Europe
and the Pacific, they realized the United States was going to confront Germany
and Japan
, generating a demand for tanks, planes, and soldiers. Although many New Dealers such as Harold Ickes
wanted to make sure that small businesses received attention, the generals in The Pentagon
found it easier to deal with a few large enterprises than many small ones. The New Deal subsidized agricultural business in the West, and World War II did the same for the aircraft, shipbuilding, steel, mining, and oil industries.
Theses factors revitalized the economy. Metal prices started to climb in 1939, enabling Arizona mines to recover from their second major collapse of the decade. By 1942 the state was producing more minerals than it had since its peak in 1929. While copper
remained the most important metal, zinc
and lead
production soared as well, breaking records year after year.
The only limiting factor of production was labor, which was in short supply because of the draft. Mining companies therefore made hiring practices less restrictive and brought more Mexicans
into the workforce. Soon even women were toiling in the copper mines. Trade union
activity also intensified. The mining companies responded with red baiting and the arrests of union organizers, but they were never able to engender the level of hysteria achieved during World War I. The International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) even won a series of grievances against Phelps Dodge
and other corporations before the National Labor Relations Board
and the War Man Power Board. In 1944 injunctions filed against the Miami Copper Company, the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company, and the International Smelting and Refining Company ended the dual wage system in Miami, Arizona
, where Mexican miners made $1.15 less per shift.
There was also a short-lived boom in long-staple cotton
, but the real growth occurred in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economy. The biggest market for services, at least at first, was the U.S. military. In January 1941 the city of Phoenix
bought 1440 acres (5.8 km²) west of Glendale
and leased it to the War Department
for a dollar a year to build an advanced aviation training field. Named after Arizona World War I ace Frank Luke
, the base churned out more than 13,500 pilots during the war, making it the largest advanced flying school in the world. Luke Air Field also generated an estimated $3.5 million a year for local businesses.
Promoted by Senator Carl Hayden, Arizona's clear skies and year-round flying weather soon attracted other installations. In the Salt River Valley
, Williams Field
east of Chandler
was a basic and immediate school, Thunderbird II north of Scottsdale
trained cadets, Falcon Field in Mesa
trained RAF pilots, and Litchfield Naval Air Facility tested planes and flew them to their destinations. Meanwhile, Tucson supplied Davis-Monthan, the municipal airport commandeered by the army, Ryan Field to the west, and Marana Air Base the northwest, which trained 10,000 pilots before it was deactivated in 1945. The army also established three bases in western Arizona, Camps Bouse, Horn, and Hyder, to prepare soldiers for desert warfare. When they went off-duty, those soldiers headed for Phoenix, where, marveled one former mayor, "They'd just walk through town and buy everything there was, meat cigarettes, and liquor."
Civilians flocked to the state as well. To minimize the danger of attack, the government decided to disperse strategic defense points across the country. Paul Litchfield, President of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
, which had stimulated a cotton boom during World War I, recommended the Salt River Valley to his friends in Washington
. "It is well inland and thus protected from any possible air attacks," Litchfield noted. It was also well-connected by air, rail, and highway to the rest of the nation, especially southern California
, where many of the aircraft plants were being built. In July 1941 the federal Defense Plant Corporation (DPC) leased land from the Southwest Cotton Company, a Goodyear subsidiary. The DPC then erected a government-owned plant operated by the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation.
At its peak, the Goodyear plant employed 7,500 people, making it the largest employer in the Salt River Valley. The Alcoa
plant in southwest Phoenix, with 3,500 employees, and AiResearch at Sky Harbor Apartment, with 2,700, followed in 1942. Since the labor pool was limited, the plants recruited people across the country. Tucson, with its huge Consolidated Vultee Aircraft plant employing thousands of workers, soon followed Phoenix in Arizona's economic boom.
Transportation was the next major challenge. Because of wartime shortages, new automobiles and buses could not be purchased, so city employees scoured the country for secondhand buses "in any condition as long as they ran," according to Mayor Newell Stewart. Because the plants never closed, the city did not sleep, either. Restaurants, movie houses, and swimming pools stayed open all night. Other forms of entertainment flourished as well. At the beginning of the war, Phoenix was a corrupt, wide-open town. Police and city officials had long tolerated gambling and prostitution because "fines" from those businesses provided city revenue and bribes. This brought conflict with new military commanders who wanted their troops free of venereal disease and out of jail until they were ready for war.
The conflict came to a head on November 26, 1942, when a black soldier from the 364th Infantry Regiment at Papago Park
was shot while resisting arrest after a brawl. Other African Americans objected, so the military police rounded up about 150 black soldiers. The soldiers panicked and ran, the police cordoned off twenty-eight blocks on the city's southeast side, and armored personnel carriers rolled down the streets, spraying houses with 50-caliber machine guns whenever the soldiers refused to surrender. By the time the violence was over, 180 soldiers had been arrested and three men had died.
Four days later, Colonel Ross Hoyt of Luke Air Field declared Phoenix off-limits to army personnel. He claimed that his order had nothing to do with the "Thanksgiving night riot" and everything to do with the "venereal disease situation." Rioting blacks confirmed Anglo stereotypes and reinforced the army's policy of segregation. Machine-gun fire in African American neighborhoods was easily justified in a community with an essentially Southern mentality. Still, Hoyt and other base commanders announced, "The city will stay out-of-bounds until it has become untenable for prostitutes." The verereal disease rate at his base had tripled in four months and he demanded "an immediate drive on all loose women... no matter who it hurts."
Recognizing that the army was one of the community's largest sources of revenue, more than seventy-five business leaders grilled Mayor Newell Stewart and his city commissioners in the card room of the Adams Hotel. After hours of such pressure, the commissioners agreed to fire the city manager, clerk, magistrate, and chief of police. Payoffs from pimps, madams, gamblers, and drug dealers were no longer acceptable. Three days later, Colonel Hoyt lifted his ban.
It was the beginning of a revolution in Arizona politics. In 1947 many of the same leaders who had met in the Adams Hotel spearheaded the bipartisan Charter Revision Committee, which sponsored the successful drive to revise the city charter and allow a professional city manager to run the government. Two years later the same group formed the Charter Government Committee (CGC) and elected its own slate of candidates to the city council. Established civic leaders like Snell, Walter Bimson, banker Sherman Hazeltine, and Eugene Pulliam, the conservative newspaper publisher who bought both the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette
in 1946, were powerful forces on the committee. One of the first CGC council members was a department store owner named Barry Goldwater
.
The CGC set the tone for the image postwar Phoenix wanted to convey. Most members were white, male upper-middle-class businessmen and lawyers, and even though Arizona was a predominantly Democratic
state, most CGC members were conservative Republican
s. They lived in North Phoenix or Paradise Valley
and belonged to the Phoenix Country Club. Their wives ran the Junior League
. A number of women, like Sandra Day O'Connor
and Margaret Hance
, went on to have successful judicial or political careers of their own several decades later.
The CGC's model of government was influenced by the corporate approach to military buildup during World War II. Members of the CGC wanted a clean, efficient city run by a clean, efficient government, and they wanted that government to attract new businesses, particularly aeronautics and electronics firms with strong ties to the Pentagon. To do so, they had to eliminate old-style graft and nepotism because military contractors and corporate site-selection teams frowned upon the image of a corrupt, sluggish past they conveyed.
established the Industrial Development Committee to recommend changes in the state tax code. During the early 1950s, the state legislature adopted all of the committee's recommendations, culminating in the repeal in 1955 of the Arizona sales tax on products manufactured for sale to the federal government.
In 1939, Arizona representatives of the railroad brotherhoods, the American Federation of Labor
, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations
set aside their differences and formed the Arizona League for Better Government. By the mid-1940s the creation of another prolabor progressive coalition looked possible. The IUMMSW was organizing successful strikes in the copper mines. Sidney Osborn was the wildly popular governor. Democrats remained in control of the legislature, and even though most of the legislators were conservative, their ties to the national party forced them to pay lip service
to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Business leaders believed that labor had to be curbed if Arizona was ever going to realize its destiny as a mecca of light industry and high finance.
The assault began in 1945 when a group of Arizona servicemen formed the Veterans' Right to Work Committee. Their leader, Herbet Williams, had started a welding business and had lost a contract because he ran a nonunion shop. Other veterans found themselves out of work because of union seniority rules. Their resentment drove them into the right-to-work camp just as resentment against the dual wage system caused Mexican veterans in Clifton-Morenci to join the IUMMSW and take on Phelps Dodge during the same period.
After the legislature defeated several right-to-work
bills, the Veterans' Committee took the battle to the Arizona public. In November 1946 an Arizona constitutional amendment guaranteeing open shops appeared on the ballot. That fall, both sides hurled slurs at each other, using Adolf Hitler
and the Communists as tools. Eugene Pulliam detested unions and did everything he could to support the amendment. Since he owned two of the biggest newspapers in the state, his support carried great weight, especially given the mood of the electorate. More strikes broke out in 1946 than in any other year in U.S. history, and by the time November came, voters were tired of the disruptions. The populist Sidney Osborn won against his Republican opponent by 73,595 to 48,867. Despite Osborn's opposition to right-to-work, the amendment still passed by the margin of 61,875 to 49,557. Arizonans effectively gutted the unions except in the copper towns.
The controversy also provided a statewide organization that allowed conservative young Republicans in Phoenix to expand their base of power. One member of the Veterans' Committee was a Harvard-trained lawyer named John Rhodes
. He won election as Arizona's first Republican congressman in 1952. Another was Barry Goldwater
, who became a Republican U.S. senator the same year. Once in Washington, Goldwater's appointment to the Labor and Welfare Committee gave him the national antilabor exposure he needed to turn himself into "Mr. Conservative" and to lead the first change against the New Deal and later the Great Society
.
As Republican power grew, unionism as a statewide political force withered and died. By 1958, at the height of the boom, fewer than 33,000 workers belonged to unions even though Arizona's workforce numbered more than 450,000. The movement died, perhaps, in 1965 when the national labor movement tried to repeal Section 14-B of the Taft-Hartley Act
, which allowed open shops in businesses across state lines. By then, Morris Udall was a state congressman, the most liberal member of Arizona's congressional delegation. In 1946, Morris and his brother Stewart had ardently opposed the right-to-work crusade. Twenty years later Udall felt compelled to support it. The result was an Arizona wage structure that was 10 to 25 percent lower than in the major industrial centers of the country.
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
gained the right to vote, and in 1917, World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
brought an economic boom to Arizona. It recovered from The Great Depression with the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and another economic boom after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, leading the cotton, copper, farming, and mining industries to flourish. In 1946, Arizona's right to work
Right to work
The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and may not be prevented from doing so...
became effective, allowing workers to decide whether or not to join or financially support a union. In 1948, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
built the first plant in Phoenix that marked the beginning of high tech
High tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
industry in Arizona, and American Indians gained the right to vote.
World War I
In 1912, women in Arizona gained the right to vote, and in 1917, World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
brought an economic boom to Arizona.
The Great Depression
Arizona recovered from The Great Depression with the New DealNew Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
.
Economic impact
The economic boom following World War II, argues historian Gerald NashGerald Nash
Gerald Nash is an Irish Labour Party politician. He was elected as a Teachta Dála for the Louth constituency at the 2011 general election. He was a member of Louth County Council for the Drogheda area from 2000–11, and a member of Drogheda Town Council from 1999-2011.-External links:*...
in World War II and the West changed Arizona as much in four years of war as would have happened in forty years of peace. By 1945, Arizona and the other Western states were bristled with defense plants, military base
Military base
A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. In general, a military base provides accommodations for one or more units, but it may also be used as a...
s, and research laboratories. In addition to the extractive industries, manufacturing fueled their economies, causing their cities to expand at
The partnership between the federal government and business set the change in motion. By 1939, Franklin Roosevelt was admitting that "Dr. New Deal" was losing ground to "Dr. Win-the-War." As the president
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
and his advisors monitored developments in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Pacific, they realized the United States was going to confront Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, generating a demand for tanks, planes, and soldiers. Although many New Dealers such as Harold Ickes
Harold L. Ickes
Harold LeClair Ickes was a United States administrator and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for 13 years, from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest serving Cabinet member in U.S. history next to James Wilson. Ickes...
wanted to make sure that small businesses received attention, the generals in The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
found it easier to deal with a few large enterprises than many small ones. The New Deal subsidized agricultural business in the West, and World War II did the same for the aircraft, shipbuilding, steel, mining, and oil industries.
Theses factors revitalized the economy. Metal prices started to climb in 1939, enabling Arizona mines to recover from their second major collapse of the decade. By 1942 the state was producing more minerals than it had since its peak in 1929. While copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
remained the most important metal, zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
and lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
production soared as well, breaking records year after year.
The only limiting factor of production was labor, which was in short supply because of the draft. Mining companies therefore made hiring practices less restrictive and brought more Mexicans
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
into the workforce. Soon even women were toiling in the copper mines. Trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
activity also intensified. The mining companies responded with red baiting and the arrests of union organizers, but they were never able to engender the level of hysteria achieved during World War I. The International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) even won a series of grievances against Phelps Dodge
Phelps Dodge
Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 by Anson Greene Phelps and William Earle Dodge, Sr.. On March 19, 2007, it was acquired by Freeport-McMoRan and now operates under the name Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.-History:...
and other corporations before the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
and the War Man Power Board. In 1944 injunctions filed against the Miami Copper Company, the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company, and the International Smelting and Refining Company ended the dual wage system in Miami, Arizona
Miami, Arizona
Miami is a town in Gila County, Arizona, United States. Miami is a classic Western copper boomtown, though the copper mines are largely dormant now...
, where Mexican miners made $1.15 less per shift.
There was also a short-lived boom in long-staple cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, but the real growth occurred in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economy. The biggest market for services, at least at first, was the U.S. military. In January 1941 the city of Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
bought 1440 acres (5.8 km²) west of Glendale
Glendale, Arizona
Glendale is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, located about nine miles northwest from Downtown Phoenix. According to 2010 Census Bureau, the population of the city is 226,721....
and leased it to the War Department
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
for a dollar a year to build an advanced aviation training field. Named after Arizona World War I ace Frank Luke
Frank Luke
Frank Luke Jr. was an American fighter ace, ranking second among U.S. Army Air Service pilots after Captain Eddie Rickenbacker in number of aerial victories during World War I . Frank Luke was the first airman to receive the Medal of Honor...
, the base churned out more than 13,500 pilots during the war, making it the largest advanced flying school in the world. Luke Air Field also generated an estimated $3.5 million a year for local businesses.
Promoted by Senator Carl Hayden, Arizona's clear skies and year-round flying weather soon attracted other installations. In the Salt River Valley
Salt River Valley
The Salt River Valley defines an extensive valley on the Salt River in central Arizona, which contains the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.Although this geographic term still identifies the area, the name "Valley of the Sun" popularly replaced the usage starting in the early 1930s for purposes of...
, Williams Field
Williams Field
Williams Field or Willy Field is a United States Antarctic Program airfield in Antarctica. Williams Field consists of two snow runways located on approximately 8 meters of compacted snow, lying on top of 80 meters of ice, floating over 550 meters of water...
east of Chandler
Chandler, Arizona
-Demographics:As of the Census of 2010, there were 236,123 people, 86,924 households, and 60,212 families residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 73.3% White, 4.8% Black or African American, 1.5% Native American, 8.2% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 21.9% Hispanic or Latino, and 8.3%...
was a basic and immediate school, Thunderbird II north of Scottsdale
Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...
trained cadets, Falcon Field in Mesa
Mesa
A mesa or table mountain is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs. It takes its name from its characteristic table-top shape....
trained RAF pilots, and Litchfield Naval Air Facility tested planes and flew them to their destinations. Meanwhile, Tucson supplied Davis-Monthan, the municipal airport commandeered by the army, Ryan Field to the west, and Marana Air Base the northwest, which trained 10,000 pilots before it was deactivated in 1945. The army also established three bases in western Arizona, Camps Bouse, Horn, and Hyder, to prepare soldiers for desert warfare. When they went off-duty, those soldiers headed for Phoenix, where, marveled one former mayor, "They'd just walk through town and buy everything there was, meat cigarettes, and liquor."
Civilians flocked to the state as well. To minimize the danger of attack, the government decided to disperse strategic defense points across the country. Paul Litchfield, President of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....
, which had stimulated a cotton boom during World War I, recommended the Salt River Valley to his friends in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. "It is well inland and thus protected from any possible air attacks," Litchfield noted. It was also well-connected by air, rail, and highway to the rest of the nation, especially southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where many of the aircraft plants were being built. In July 1941 the federal Defense Plant Corporation (DPC) leased land from the Southwest Cotton Company, a Goodyear subsidiary. The DPC then erected a government-owned plant operated by the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation.
At its peak, the Goodyear plant employed 7,500 people, making it the largest employer in the Salt River Valley. The Alcoa
Alcoa
Alcoa Inc. is the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal. From its operational headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries...
plant in southwest Phoenix, with 3,500 employees, and AiResearch at Sky Harbor Apartment, with 2,700, followed in 1942. Since the labor pool was limited, the plants recruited people across the country. Tucson, with its huge Consolidated Vultee Aircraft plant employing thousands of workers, soon followed Phoenix in Arizona's economic boom.
Political impact
In 1940, about half of Arizona's population lived in Phoenix and Tucson. Ten years later, two-thirds did, a direct consequence of federal and military policy. In Maricopa County alone, the population rose from 186,000 to 332,000 during the decade. Not since the territorial period had the U.S. military played such a role in Arizona's history. The immediate problem was housing. The federal government spent millions of dollars to construct public housing projects like Alzona Park near Alcoa and Duppa Villa near AiResearch. Meanwhile, the town of Goodyear sprang up to accommodate newcomers west of the city.Transportation was the next major challenge. Because of wartime shortages, new automobiles and buses could not be purchased, so city employees scoured the country for secondhand buses "in any condition as long as they ran," according to Mayor Newell Stewart. Because the plants never closed, the city did not sleep, either. Restaurants, movie houses, and swimming pools stayed open all night. Other forms of entertainment flourished as well. At the beginning of the war, Phoenix was a corrupt, wide-open town. Police and city officials had long tolerated gambling and prostitution because "fines" from those businesses provided city revenue and bribes. This brought conflict with new military commanders who wanted their troops free of venereal disease and out of jail until they were ready for war.
The conflict came to a head on November 26, 1942, when a black soldier from the 364th Infantry Regiment at Papago Park
Papago Park
Papago Park is a municipal park of the cities of Phoenix and Tempe, Arizona, USA. It has been designated as a Phoenix Point of Pride.-Description:...
was shot while resisting arrest after a brawl. Other African Americans objected, so the military police rounded up about 150 black soldiers. The soldiers panicked and ran, the police cordoned off twenty-eight blocks on the city's southeast side, and armored personnel carriers rolled down the streets, spraying houses with 50-caliber machine guns whenever the soldiers refused to surrender. By the time the violence was over, 180 soldiers had been arrested and three men had died.
Four days later, Colonel Ross Hoyt of Luke Air Field declared Phoenix off-limits to army personnel. He claimed that his order had nothing to do with the "Thanksgiving night riot" and everything to do with the "venereal disease situation." Rioting blacks confirmed Anglo stereotypes and reinforced the army's policy of segregation. Machine-gun fire in African American neighborhoods was easily justified in a community with an essentially Southern mentality. Still, Hoyt and other base commanders announced, "The city will stay out-of-bounds until it has become untenable for prostitutes." The verereal disease rate at his base had tripled in four months and he demanded "an immediate drive on all loose women... no matter who it hurts."
Recognizing that the army was one of the community's largest sources of revenue, more than seventy-five business leaders grilled Mayor Newell Stewart and his city commissioners in the card room of the Adams Hotel. After hours of such pressure, the commissioners agreed to fire the city manager, clerk, magistrate, and chief of police. Payoffs from pimps, madams, gamblers, and drug dealers were no longer acceptable. Three days later, Colonel Hoyt lifted his ban.
It was the beginning of a revolution in Arizona politics. In 1947 many of the same leaders who had met in the Adams Hotel spearheaded the bipartisan Charter Revision Committee, which sponsored the successful drive to revise the city charter and allow a professional city manager to run the government. Two years later the same group formed the Charter Government Committee (CGC) and elected its own slate of candidates to the city council. Established civic leaders like Snell, Walter Bimson, banker Sherman Hazeltine, and Eugene Pulliam, the conservative newspaper publisher who bought both the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette
Phoenix Gazette
The Phoenix Gazette was a newspaper published in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. It was founded in 1881, and was known in its early years as the Phoenix Evening Gazette....
in 1946, were powerful forces on the committee. One of the first CGC council members was a department store owner named Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
.
The CGC set the tone for the image postwar Phoenix wanted to convey. Most members were white, male upper-middle-class businessmen and lawyers, and even though Arizona was a predominantly Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
state, most CGC members were conservative Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
s. They lived in North Phoenix or Paradise Valley
Paradise Valley
Paradise Valley may refer to:*Paradise Valley, Alberta*Paradise Valley in Banff National Park, Canada*Paradise Valley, Arizona*A neighborhood in northeastern Phoenix, Arizona located several miles north of the town of Paradise Valley proper...
and belonged to the Phoenix Country Club. Their wives ran the Junior League
Junior League
The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. is a non-profit organization of 292 Junior Leagues in Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and the United States. Junior Leagues are educational and charitable women's organizations aimed at improving their communities through volunteerism and...
. A number of women, like Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...
and Margaret Hance
Margaret Hance
Margaret Taylor Hance was the first female mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, taking office in 1976. She proved popular, winning four consecutive two-year terms, from 1976 to 1983.-Biography:...
, went on to have successful judicial or political careers of their own several decades later.
The CGC's model of government was influenced by the corporate approach to military buildup during World War II. Members of the CGC wanted a clean, efficient city run by a clean, efficient government, and they wanted that government to attract new businesses, particularly aeronautics and electronics firms with strong ties to the Pentagon. To do so, they had to eliminate old-style graft and nepotism because military contractors and corporate site-selection teams frowned upon the image of a corrupt, sluggish past they conveyed.
The right to work
Tucson and Phoenix decided that the best way to compete with other cities to attract industry was to offer low taxes and low wages. Arizona's climate was a considerable draw, but business executives demanded more than sunshine to move their companies to the desert Southwest. Lowering taxes was relatively noncontroversial. During its first campaign in 1949, the Charter Government Committee sponsored a series of measures to reduce or eliminate many taxes on businesses in Phoenix. Because CGC candidates swept the city elections, most of the proposals passed. That same year Governor Ernest McFarlandErnest McFarland
Ernest William McFarland was an American politician and, with Warren Atherton, is considered one of the "Fathers of the G.I. Bill". He is the only Arizonan to serve in the highest office in all three branches of Arizonan government—two at the state level, one at the federal level...
established the Industrial Development Committee to recommend changes in the state tax code. During the early 1950s, the state legislature adopted all of the committee's recommendations, culminating in the repeal in 1955 of the Arizona sales tax on products manufactured for sale to the federal government.
In 1939, Arizona representatives of the railroad brotherhoods, the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
set aside their differences and formed the Arizona League for Better Government. By the mid-1940s the creation of another prolabor progressive coalition looked possible. The IUMMSW was organizing successful strikes in the copper mines. Sidney Osborn was the wildly popular governor. Democrats remained in control of the legislature, and even though most of the legislators were conservative, their ties to the national party forced them to pay lip service
Lip Service
Lip service is an idiom meaning 'giving approval or support insincerely' .Lip service may also refer to:- Television :* Lip Service , a 2010 dramatic series broadcast on BBC Three...
to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Business leaders believed that labor had to be curbed if Arizona was ever going to realize its destiny as a mecca of light industry and high finance.
The assault began in 1945 when a group of Arizona servicemen formed the Veterans' Right to Work Committee. Their leader, Herbet Williams, had started a welding business and had lost a contract because he ran a nonunion shop. Other veterans found themselves out of work because of union seniority rules. Their resentment drove them into the right-to-work camp just as resentment against the dual wage system caused Mexican veterans in Clifton-Morenci to join the IUMMSW and take on Phelps Dodge during the same period.
After the legislature defeated several right-to-work
Right-to-work law
Right-to-work laws are statutes enforced in twenty-two U.S. states, mostly in the southern or western U.S., allowed under provisions of the federal Taft–Hartley Act, which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of...
bills, the Veterans' Committee took the battle to the Arizona public. In November 1946 an Arizona constitutional amendment guaranteeing open shops appeared on the ballot. That fall, both sides hurled slurs at each other, using Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the Communists as tools. Eugene Pulliam detested unions and did everything he could to support the amendment. Since he owned two of the biggest newspapers in the state, his support carried great weight, especially given the mood of the electorate. More strikes broke out in 1946 than in any other year in U.S. history, and by the time November came, voters were tired of the disruptions. The populist Sidney Osborn won against his Republican opponent by 73,595 to 48,867. Despite Osborn's opposition to right-to-work, the amendment still passed by the margin of 61,875 to 49,557. Arizonans effectively gutted the unions except in the copper towns.
The controversy also provided a statewide organization that allowed conservative young Republicans in Phoenix to expand their base of power. One member of the Veterans' Committee was a Harvard-trained lawyer named John Rhodes
John Jacob Rhodes
John Jacob Rhodes, Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Republican Party, Rhodes was elected as a U.S. Representative from the state of Arizona. He was preceded in office by Democrat John Murdock, and succeeded by fellow Republican John McCain...
. He won election as Arizona's first Republican congressman in 1952. Another was Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
, who became a Republican U.S. senator the same year. Once in Washington, Goldwater's appointment to the Labor and Welfare Committee gave him the national antilabor exposure he needed to turn himself into "Mr. Conservative" and to lead the first change against the New Deal and later the Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
.
As Republican power grew, unionism as a statewide political force withered and died. By 1958, at the height of the boom, fewer than 33,000 workers belonged to unions even though Arizona's workforce numbered more than 450,000. The movement died, perhaps, in 1965 when the national labor movement tried to repeal Section 14-B of the Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
, which allowed open shops in businesses across state lines. By then, Morris Udall was a state congressman, the most liberal member of Arizona's congressional delegation. In 1946, Morris and his brother Stewart had ardently opposed the right-to-work crusade. Twenty years later Udall felt compelled to support it. The result was an Arizona wage structure that was 10 to 25 percent lower than in the major industrial centers of the country.