When during 1916 the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa raided across the U.S. border and killed forty people, General John J. Pershing led a column of cavalry to find and defeat him. Because Mexico had diplomatic relations favorable to Germany, there was concern about the many Mexicans living in the border area and the possibility that there might be sabotaging of mines and dams to disrupt the U.S. war effort.726 Out of concern for the possibility of such raids, the men in each Mormon ward near the border organized for defense, with plans to mobilize horses, cars, and guns.727
With the country at war Andrew participated in a variety of “war efforts,” such as mobilizing sentiment in support of the war, recruiting manpower for the army, increasing food production, and raising money through the sale of Liberty Bonds. After the declaration of war in 1917, Andrew headed the committee that arranged bond drives, and people in Gila Valley quickly oversubscribed the bond target.728
This war was popular, and many young men volunteered for military service. Andrew’s son Gordon did not because he was married and had a family. Andrew’s son Dell tried repeatedly to join the military but failed the physical examination because of a problem with his eyes; he finally managed to enlist and spent the war at Ft. Lewis, Washington, where he became known as the best drill sergeant in his outfit. He tried to get into officer training, but was rejected.
In a private letter Andrew urged his son Spencer to enlist. The letter came close to calling Spencer a coward: “If there are any cowards among the Kimballs, I do not know them and if there are any I have no use for them. I am sure there is none in our branch. . . . Now get ready, be ready and if you pass muster, go like a man and God will bless and protect you.”729 Andrew published a public letter in the newspaper: “I advise you, Spencer, [that it is] better to volunteer than to have to wait to be forced into action in the service of your country.” Despite this, Spencer chose to wait for the draft and went to BYU to continue his education. Shortly after he had arrived at BYU he received orders to report for a physical examination in Utah. He passed the exam and returned home while a contingent was being assembled in Gila Valley.730 He married while waiting and, though he expected to be called up, his group never mobilized.
“Slackers” stood in general contempt. In 1918, four lawmen went to the mountain home of John and Tom Power to arrest them and their friend Tom Sisson for failure to register for the military draft. In an exchange of gunfire three law officers and the Powers’ father were killed. The fourth man, a deputy U.S. Marshal, escaped to report the incident. The Power brothers and their friend Tom Sisson fled into the mountains.
Two of the lawmen, Sheriff Frank McBride and his deputy Martin Kempton, were Mormons. Andrew spoke at the funeral, attended by twenty-five hundred people, many standing. Three widows and nineteen children mourned their loss.
The fugitives eluded posses for twenty-six days. The hunt ultimately involved two thousand men, including federal troops, before the three men were captured by a cavalry patrol. While jailed in Safford, townspeople filed past, looking at the caged men as curiosities.731 Each of the Power brothers lost an eye, one in the gun battle and the other while fleeing. After a quick trial and conviction for murder, all three received life sentences. Tom Sisson died in prison in 1957; the Power brothers were finally both paroled in 1960, after a record forty-two years in prison.732
In 1917 a nationwide propaganda effort used teams of “Four Minutemen” to deliver brief patriotic messages in motion-picture theaters twice a week during the time the operator changed reels. In Graham County, Andrew had responsibility for manning the program. When he concluded that it was mostly children who heard the talks, he proposed to assign the speakers to make their presentations in church meetings.733
Mine Strikes
For years the copper companies in Arizona had fought the miners’ unions and in 1907 had outlasted a six-month strike in Bisbee and Warren. In the summer of 1917 the I. W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World) called a strike in Bisbee and Globe. Because the strike occurred right after the United States entered World War I in April, the copper companies labeled the strike unpatriotic and even subversive, while the unions asserted the companies had sought to shift attention away from dangerous working conditions and poor pay.734
In Bisbee the sheriff with two thousand armed “deputies” rounded up two thousand striking miners and herded them into a ballpark. Those who promised to go back to work were released, but twelve hundred men who refused were herded into boxcars and dumped in New Mexico with tents and some food. The deputies arrested men who tried to return to Bisbee. The copper companies had so much influence over the police and courts that prosecution of twenty-one “deputies” for the kidnapping failed.
In June the Globe mine owners tried to replace the strikers with farmers.735 Gila Valley men first went to the Globe-Miami mines as guards and were threatened by unionists. Andrew complained to the governor:
How in the name of Americanism can we allow such a band of enemies to the Government to go unimprisoned. It appears to me that they should be arrested every one of them and held as suspects at least. We are on the alert, our minute men are pretty well organized, but we are lacking in guns, and it appears from the press that we are not to have any from the Government.736
The governor replied by telegram: “If trouble comes, have Sheriff swear sufficient deputies subject to this order to protect peace and property.” If things got bad enough, federal troops would take action.
In August 1917, while the Bisbee deportees camped in the desert, George Hill of the Loyalty League asked Andrew for “assistance in replacing the I. W. W.’s with farmers.”737 Andrew undertook to recruit men from the Gila Valley by appeal to their patriotism and the opportunity for work that paid cash. (Miners earned about $5.15 a day.)
Andrew called a big outdoor meeting where he urged men to help break the strike, and he placed a recruiting ad in the newspaper headlined: “Men Wanted Good Wages Good Working Conditions.” At the end of the ad a note said: “Men making application for employment must secure references from Stake Presidents, Bishops of Wards, Ministers of Various Churches, . . . or some well known public officer to the effect that the applicant is a loyal American. . . . Federal troops and the Loyalty League will protect the workers.” The ad was signed “Andrew Kimball, Pres. St. Joseph Stake.”738 Hundreds volunteered, and the strike failed.
Later when Andrew’s son Dell applied at the Globe mines for a job as a timekeeper “Mr. Kimball’s son” got immediate hiring and red-carpet treatment.739
