Short Creek raid

The Short Creek raid is the name given to Arizona state police and U.S. National Guard action against Mormon fundamentalists that took place on the morning of July 26, 1953 at Short Creek, Arizona. The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. At the time, it was described as "the largest mass arrest of men and women in modern American history". [C.R. Waters, "Mohave Miner", 1953-08-30.]

Events

Just before dawn on July 26, 1953, 102 Arizona state police officers and soldiers from the National Guard entered Short Creek. The community—which was composed of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists—had been tipped off about the planned raid and were found singing hymns in the schoolhouse while the children played outside. The entire community was taken into custody, with the exception of six individuals who were found not to be fundamentalist Mormons.Ken Driggs, "After the Manifesto: Modern Polygamy and Fundamentalist Mormons", "Journal of Church and State" 32:367 (1990).] Among those taken into custody were 236 children. One hundred and fifty of the children who were taken into custody were not permitted to return to their parents for over two years, and some parents never did regain custody of their children. [Ken Driggs, "Who Shall Raise the Children? Vera Black and the Rights of Polygamous Utah Parents", "Utah Historical Quarterly" 60:27 (1992).]

Public and media reaction

Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initially called the raid "a momentous police action against insurrection"Martha Sonntag Bradley (1993). "Kidnapped from That Land : The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists" (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press).] and described the Mormon fundamentalists as participating in "the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine" that was designed to produce "white slaves." Over 100 reporters had been invited by Pyle to accompany the police to observe the raid. However, the raid and its tactics attracted mostly negative media reaction; one newspaper editorialized:

By what stretch of the imagination could the actions of the Short Creek children be classified as insurrection? Were those teenagers playing volleyball in a school yard inspiring a rebellion? Insurrection? Well, if so, an insurrection with diapers and volleyballs! ["Arizona Republic", 1953-07-28.]

In the same week that the Korean War ceasefire was achieved, the raid achieved notoriety in media across the United States, including articles in "Time" ["Arizona: The Great-Love-Nest Raid", 1953-08-03, p. 16.] and "Newsweek", ["People: The Big Raid", "Newsweek", 1953-08-03, p. 26.] with many media outlets describing the raid as "odious" or "un-American".Richard S. Van Wagoner (1989). "Mormon Polygamy : A History" (2d ed) (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books).] One commentator has suggested that commentary of the raid was "probably the first time in history that American polygamists had received media coverage that was largely sympathetic." [Stephen Eliot Smith, The "Mormon Question Revisited : Anti-polygamy Laws and the Free Exercise Clause (LL.M. thesis, Harvard Law School, 2005).] Another has suggested that the raid's "only American parallel is the federal actions against Native Americans in the nineteenth century." [D. Michael Quinn, "Plural Marriage and Mormon Fundamentalism", "", Summer 1998, p. 1.]

When Pyle lost his bid for re-election in 1954 to Democratic candidate Ernest McFarland, Pyle blamed the fallout from the raid as having destroyed his political career. [Abbie Gripman, [http://www.childpro.org/2001-2002%20media/2001-02%20media%2001.htm "Short Creek Raid Remembered"] , "The Miner", 2002-08-02.]

upport from LDS Church

One of the few media outlets to applaud the raid was the Salt Lake City-based "Deseret News", which was owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). [By the 1950s, the LDS Church was opposed to the traditional Mormon practice of plural marriage and excommunicated any of its members that practiced it.] The "News" applauded the action as a needed response to prevent the fundamentalists from becoming "a cancer of a sort that is beyond hope of human repair." ["Deseret News", 1953-07-27.] When the paper later editorialized its support for separating children from their polygamist parents, there was a backlash against the paper and the church by a number of Latter-day Saints, including Juanita Brooks, who complained that the church organ was approving of "such a basically cruel and wicked thing as the taking of little children from their mother." The Short Creek raid was the last action against polygamous Mormon fundamentalists that has been actively supported by the LDS Church. [Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the LDS Church, has stated that the decision whether or not to prosecute a Mormon polygamist is "entirely in the hands of the civil officers. It's a civil offence. It's in violation of the law. We have nothing to do with it. We're totally distanced from it. And if the state chooses to move on it, that's a responsibility of civil officers." : Gordon B. Hinckley on "Larry King Live", CNN tevevision broadcast, 1998-09-08.]

Aftermath

After the Short Creek raid, the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist colony at Short Creek eventually rejuvenated. Short Creek was renamed Colorado City in 1960. In 1991, the Mormon fundamentalists at Colorado City formally established the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church). The members of the sect did not face any prosecutions for its polygamous behavior until the late 1990s, when isolated individuals began to be prosecuted. [ [http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/polygamy/The_Primer.pdf "The Primer"] - Helping Victims of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities. A joint report from the offices of the Attorney Generals of Arizona and Utah.] In 2006, FLDS Church leader Warren Jeffs was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List; he was arrested and convicted in 2007 of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and his 14-year-old cousin.

On 3 April 2008, following allegations of physical and sexual abuse by an unidentified caller who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl, law enforcement officers raided a FLDS compound Jeffs had founded in Texas called the YFZ Ranch. [cite news | url= http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080405/NEWS01/804050310 | title=52 children taken during raid |publisher=The Eldorado Success | date=April 4, 2008 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2008-04-06] As of 8 April, a total of 416 children had been removed from the compound by authorities.cite news | url= http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/07/texas.ranch/ | title= Texas takes legal custody of 401 sect children |publisher= CNN | date=April 7, 2008 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2008-04-07] A former member of the FLDS Church, Carolyn Jessop, arrived on-site 6 April and stated her opinion that the action in Texas was unlike the Short Creek raid. [cite news | url= http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8835442 | title= People who have left sect go to Texas to help | publisher= The Salt Lake Tribune | date= April 7, 2008 | first= Brooke | last= Adams | accessdate = 2008-04-07] Others, however, have drawn direct connections between the two events. [cite news | last= Adams | first= Brooke | url= http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_8887264 | title= Polygamous crackdown echoes 1953 Short Creek arrests | publisher= The Salt Lake Tribune | date= 11 April 2008 | accessdate= 2008-04-18 ] [cite news | url= http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_8908639 | title= Polygamy: Where religious liberty ends | publisher= The Salt Lake Tribune | date= 13 April 2008 | accessdate= 2008-04-18 ]

ee also

*Joseph White Musser : leader of the Mormon fundamentalist Short Creek community during the raid

Notes

External links

* [http://extras.sltrib.com/specials/polygamy/raidaccount.asp Police raid Arizona polygamist enclave] , a special report by the "The Salt Lake Tribune" -- " [a] n historical account of a radio address given by Arizona Governor Howard Pyle shortly after the Short Creek raid in 1953."