Open/Tease -- Music

Chris Driggs: I think he was very touched by the Nevada boys. There were so few of them.

Philip Earl: I think at that time people woke up to the fact that look this is something different. This is actually killing people

Elizabeth Raymond: Looking back on it, something had changed. A moment had been lost.

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Nevada Experience Open Music
Series Title: Nevada Experience
Program Title: The Great War

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Travis Linn on camera:
The year was 1914. In Europe that August, war began rumbling across the continent. Over the course of the next four years, the human carnage would be unfathomable. Most called it the War to end all wars because few ever wanted to experience another.

Six thousand miles away in Nevada, the echo of those initial battles went unnoticed. Nevada faced its own turmoil in August of 1914. By some accounts Nevada was experiencing the downside of the last boom cycle. The economy was lethargic, mining was unprofitable, and viable alternatives were few.

Yet, the last half of 1914 proved to be a pivotal time. Nevada's future would be born in the election of 1914. As America and Nevada joined the conflict in Europe, the progressive vision for its future would be tested. And with the end of the Great War, Nevada's future teetered on collapse.

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The Progressive Years
1914-1917

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Narrator: In the sweltering heat of August 1914, Anne Martin and her small army of suffragists launched their final push in a four-year effort to secure women the right to vote. This was the make or break year. After successfully passing a suffrage amendment in two previous legislative sessions, it was finally up to the voters. And Nevada's voters were exclusively men.

Raymond: Women who campaigned for suffrage were widely thought to be the engine for a number of moral reforms.

Narrator: Knowing that communities like Reno, Carson City, and Virginia City would defeat the suffrage amendment, Martin focused her campaign in the "rurals" - the small towns and mining camps scattered throughout Nevada.

Howard: Now Anne Martin was good at organization. She loved putting things together. And she managed to be the leader of a pile of wonderfully organized women all over this scattered state. Think of what it was like to get around Nevada in those days. It was really quite difficult. She rode in a car. She rode on trains. They went everywhere they possibly could go in town persuading men to vote for them.

Narrator: In contrast to the seemingly tireless women, the two men running for governor in 1914 - Tasker Oddie, the Republican incumbent, and Emmet Boyle, the Democratic challenger - launched somewhat lackluster campaigns. Both men ran as Progressives.

Driggs: Boyle would have been the underdog to begin with. However, nationally Wilson was very popular, and the Democrats themselves were popular in the country in 1914.

I think that he was a very popular candidate in that he was popular among Nevadans because he was a native Nevadan. 09:44:27:25 Oddie ran on an anti-gaming, anti-gambling, he wanted gambling out of Nevada and he also wanted the divorce laws stricter in Nevada. Boyle and he accused Boyle of wanting the opposite.

Narrator: Oddie, who had supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party during the 1912 presidential election, was seen by many as unduly influenced by the state's economic powers - the railroad companies and wealthy mine owners like George Wingfield.

By contrast, Boyle was a relatively unseasoned politician. The son of a mining engineer, Boyle was born, raised and educated in Nevada.

Rocha: Emmet Boyle was probably the flagship Progressive. He represented the leadership of progressives, which did not have a strong base in the state. A betting man would not have felt that Emmet Boyle would have won that election.

Narrator: To the surprise of many betting men, the election of 1914 was an upset. Boyle defeated Oddie by a 5% margin in a three-way race that included a Socialist Party candidate.

Nevada's male voters - to the delight of Martin and friends - approved the women's suffrage amendment.

Howard: Nobody seemed to know what was going to happen so they were really quite thrilled. It was not a huge margin but it was enough to do it. (08;08;10;15) But it was the miners, the socialists miners most people said, out in the state at large who gave the votes that gave women the right to vote.

Narrator: Anne Martin, buoyed by a successful campaign, hurried to Washington to join Alice Paul and the Women's Suffrage Association.

With the election of Emmet Boyle, Nevada appeared poised on the threshold of a new progressive era. Boyle believed in more efficient government. He also wanted to reform what he saw as a woefully inadequate tax structure. And he wanted to encourage alternatives to mining.

Driggs: Boyle always had at every single one of his legislative sessions, he had a hard time working with the legislature and not much of what he wanted ever got passed. He tried to tell them what he wanted in his governor's message and I don't think he worked very well with the legislature. At almost every session he had to sign bills that he didn't want to sign. I think that that was one of his fame's as governor was that he was not effective at working with the legislature.

Narrator: In the early months of 1917, the war in Europe finally engulfed America and Nevada. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson declared war on Germany. The war, Wilson announced, would involve the mobilization of all the material resources of the country.

For Nevada, this war would affect individual lives as well as its entire social fabric.

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The Years of War
1917-1918

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Battle scenes in WWI

Ira Kent VO: Somewhere in France. October 10th, 1918. Dear Mother and Father; I have been over the top of tops. I claim it is some thrilling adventure to experience and if I was ever scared in my life, it was during this time. The high explosive shells including shrapnel are the beasts that shake the earth and compel the infantry boys to dig in to secure cover.

Now dear folks, I pulled through one severe battle without a scratch and have two notches on my gun. I will come home much the wiser and get on the job. Ira Kent.

Narrator: Nevada's entry into World War I was swift. Within 22 days of President Wilson's declaration, Nevada became the first state to fill its quota of troops required by the War Department.

Narrator: Though he had originally opposed US entry into the war, Boyle quickly assumed the role of chief promoter. On May 15, 1917, Boyle stressed to a Carson City audience the need to prevent internal disorder. On the 16th he was in Reno promoting Liberty Bonds. He was in Goldfield on the 17th, Las Vegas on the 19th, and Tonopah on the 21st. On June 14th, he was in Ely for Flag Day.

When he wasn't campaigning for the war in those early days, Boyle was busy travelling to Washington and establishing the Nevada Council on Defense, a Liberty Loan Committee and a public speaking bureau to promote the war effort.

Driggs: During the war, the Four Minute Men would go around the state to try to sell war bonds and get people excited about the war effort. And there were three guys who went around together: Governor Boyle, who had been the Democratic candidate in 1914, ex-governor Oddie, who had been his Republican opponent, and Grant Miller, who has been the Socialist candidate in 1914. The three of them would speak together and try to sell war bonds. And the most dramatic point of the whole speech was when Grant Miller … would walk across the stage and shake hands with Governor Boyle and say, "He was, I may have been his opponent in the last election but he's my governor and your governor as well." And great applause would come out and they would sell more war bonds."

Narrator: The fervor of patriotism masked a dark side as well. In Tonopah, for example, locals organized a Volunteer Secret Service of America branch under the American Defense society. Its leader charged that Tonopah was the most pro-German city in the United States and that the branch would gather evidence of suspicious talk and conduct. Days earlier, an accused pro-German supporter was arrested after allegedly insulting supporters of the US government.

Rocha: There were many extreme people in terms of their patriotism who used the council of defense to not only suppress what they considered radical ideas but people who they thought would be subversive.

So much of what I saw in my research regarding WORLD WAR I and the way the Council of Defense handled their business relied on fear, OK? That people were watching, O.K.? People were constantly watching your behavior, the things you said, your associations and all the rest of that. It had to be very scary for people who had independent positions much less people who had adverse positions to the war. And there were people who did not want to support WORLD WAR I and who were not un-American but fundamentally they had problems with our role in that war. And there was no room for dissent. Dissent was not enjoyed at that time.

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Photo of Camp Lewis
Men in Basic Training

Ira Kent VO: Camp Lewis .May 18, 1918. Dear Folks. About 4% of the fellows in my company have been rejected for various reasons - TB is one thing that they absolutely kick them out for. These boys that were rejected were dam glad to get out, believe me. I often read in the papers where the boys were anxious to get into action in France. I haven't heard much of that noise here in camp since I have been here. Of course, there are a few who claim so, but the majority are wishing they would get kicked out. Ira Kent.

Bob Kent: The war started with the United States declaring war in April in 1917 and they immediately started the draft and 400 people in Churchill county were eligible to go over sea’s you know that was the age from 18-30. He didn’t try to get an exemption, he just let things naturally take place and what happened was they had drawings from the 400 people that were registered and he was unfortunate enough to be the 22 person to be drawn from the hat. So he had to make up his mind really fast. So he went ahead and volunteered for the army and went down to Los Angeles in August of 1917 and then he went up to Fort Lewis right after that for basic training.

Narrator: During the course of the war, 30,000 Nevada men registered for the draft. 3,384 were inducted into the military, 1,400 more volunteered or enlisted for service. Most went to Camp Lewis in Washington and became part of the 91st Division. The division was constituted on August 5, 1917 and remained stateside until the summer of 1918.

Bob Kent: Whenever a group of these draftees were sent off to boot camp they’d have a big parade. They’d start at the high school and they’d have the high school band, city band, which they had in those days. They’d decorate cars and things like that and they’d have a big parade from the high school down to the railroad depot where everyone traveled by train in those days and they would leave by train. People were trying to give them as big a send off as they could.

Narrator: Across Nevada an economic boom was being enjoyed. The wartime demand for metals drove prices higher. Yerington saw new copper production. Eureka's lead mines boomed. The Tonopah/Goldfield gold and silver mines were striking it rich. In southern Nevada, new zinc production was underway at Goodsprings.

Narrator: In Washington in late 1917, Anne Martin and her fellow suffrage activists were growing impatient with President Wilson. Their campaign for a national suffrage bill was stalled, and drawing upon tactics honed by British suffragists, they decided to picket the White House.

Howard: They wanted Wilson to respond to their requests. They wanted Wilson to back them up and give them the help through congress. It was a show of publicity and it met with very poor response because in 1917 when this began the nation was in war and it wasn't seen as very patriotic to picket the White House? Not by ladies.

Narrator: Wilson endorsed the suffrage efforts in January 1918, but the bill died in the U.S. Senate. The publicity from the picketing stunt would eventually haunt Martin's political ambitions.

Ira Kent VO: September 1918. When the French and Yank artillery opened up with the barrage at two in the morning, they simply ruined Jerry's stronghold. It was a wonderful barrage, most all big guns. It was very easy for us when we went over at daybreak.

Narrator: In September 1918, the Division's first operation was in the St. Mihiel Offensive in France. Serving under the U.S. Army's V Corps, the Division fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and successfully helped to destroy the German First Guard Division and continued to smash through three successive enemy lines.

Ira Kent VO: The bullets were thicker than bees. Three or four hit in the ground along side of me. One hit right in front of my face. One scrapped my helmet. A fellow just on my left was shot thru the head and another just in the rear was dying from a piece of shrapnel that hit him in the head. Well, it got so hot and we were losing so many men we had to do something. About that time the order came to retreat and say, you never saw me for dust. Then when Jerry got us back in the ravine, he shot gas shells at us and we had to put on our gas masks and dig in. That was sure some day.

Narrator: As the battle raged in the Muese-Argonne Forest, back home another battle played out - the 1918-election season. Governor Boyle was once again matched up against Tasker Oddie. Both men supported national and state prohibition. Boyle promised continued support for the wartime effort, suppression of the WWI, and independence from any political machine.

Driggs: Because of the war Boyle refused to campaign at all. He did not go around the state until the very, very end. He believed in using the Rose Garden approach. He believed the governor should be in his office in Carson City during the war and it was unpatriotic to be partisan. We're all in this together. So the campaign was very short and they say, long-term observers at that time it was the quietest one that they can remember. There were no controversies. There was not much to say in 1918.

Narrator: Boyle was reelected but his margin of victory over Tasker Oddie was less than the 1914 race. Another candidate didn't fare as well - Anne Martin. She had returned to Nevada to run for the U.S. Senate.

Earl: In 1918 when she was campaigning for the senate you know she was campaigning for public ownership of utilities. She was campaigning for prohibition. She was campaigning against England's policy of imperialism in India. Lot's of things like this. And she was talking about freedom for the Irish and, of course this was before, before the Irish Free State was set up. Things like, things like this.

Narrator: Unlike the 1914 campaign, Martin was fighting an uphill battle. She lacked an organization and a party. Her campaign appearances attracted small but enthusiastic crowds. In the end, she came in third, trailing far behind the major party candidates.

Howard: I don't think she understood that just because women had the right to vote didn't mean they were going to vote for her. Women continued to vote the way their husbands did and were told not to take her campaign seriously.

Ira Kent VO: At last the war is over. You never saw such a happy bunch of Yanks in your life. We were on the front when the good news reached us, starting another drive. Ira Kent.
Narrator: The war ended on November 11, 1918, bringing both happiness and sorrow to Nevada families. Ira Kent from Fallon, survived the battle at Argonne. He later came down with pleurisy and nearly died. But in April 1919, he finally returned home.

Narrator: Of 4,700 men who went to war, 199 didn't return. 96 died from influenza and other diseases, 20 died in accidents, and 86 died in battle.

The war's end brought neither peace nor a sense of well being to Nevada. Instead, new grief and a sense of fear engulfed the state.

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The Year of Fear
1918-1919

Raymond: In American cultural history, generally of course, the 1920s are stereotypically the jazz age, the time of wild abandon and self indulgence after the Progressive Era of the 19-teens. So there's something clearly that happens, something changes for people around the time of World War I. And partly it's the impact, the horror of the huge sacrifice and the terrible casualty rates of that war. But it's also the aftermath of the war and the fact that influenza sweeps down and it can't be controlled and it kills an inordinate number of people, and kills them very quickly. No one knows how it's spread, people are fearful. And there seems to be just a terrible response as you might expect to this general loss of, a sense of a world that one knew and could function in, a world that one could controlled to some degree. Everything seemed out of control after the war.

Narrator: In the first week of October 1918, influenza took its initial Nevada victims. During the next seven months more than 3,000 would fall ill; 754 would die.

Earl: I think at that time people woke up to the fact that look this is something different. This is actually killing people, it's not simply you know putting people down or putting them to bed but this is something more. And I think as people saw deaths in their own hometown and their own, their own, their own neighborhood chances are they didn't know what was going on else where. But they knew that you know, that there's a real killer here and I think that's when the real flu, and the real terror really took over at that point.

Narrator: With the realization that the influenza was spreading along the railroad lines, officials called for desperate measures - from closing Nevada's borders to turning back trains. Others wanted to establish quarantine stations at the entrances to Nevada.

Earl: They wanted to keep congregations down, you know people from getting together, so they close schools, they closed churches. They had ordinances against dances. This was in the middle of the 1918 political campaign of course and you know campaigns were conducted outdoors, outdoors. So a lot of people running for public office didn't hold meetings.

Narrator: Just as the state was pulling out of the flu's grip, labor strife hit Nevada's mines. During the war, wages were held down and in the post-war boom, miners wanted a fair share of the profits.

Driggs: Now there were three labor problems at the same time in Nevada. They went on strike in Virginia City, they went on strike in Ely, and they went on strike in Tonopah. In Ely and Virginia City, um, it was the long time labor union people that went on strike. And Boyle was able to mediate those strikes. He always felt he was a very good mediator. He always said he worked in mines. He had been a mine superintendent. He understood both labor and management. Could talk to both sides.

Narrator: But the strike in Tonopah involved the radical Wobblies. It began on August 17, 1919and ran through November.

Rocha: So you have that period of time with a lot of extended dynamics and ongoing negotiations and then periods of lulls, new players coming in other players leaving. So it's, it's a complex period and it's a protracted strike. You have a federal mediator there for a period of time; you have them with Boyle there with the state labor commission for a period of time. You have George Wingfield himself showing up on the scene after other efforts have failed. So clearly it's one of ongoing negotiations and different parties, different camps not in agreement as to what the final outcome might be of the strike action. 08:53:40:08

Narrator: Boyle's efforts to mediate the Tonopah strike with the IWW failed. Frustrated, he chose to mediate with just the local unions. Although he succeeded with them, the final settlement needed the strong hand of George Wingfield. For Boyle, the Tonopah strike affected him deeply.

Driggs: Governor Boyle certainly was a different man 1914 and 1919. In 1914 he would have seen himself as much as a pro-labor governor. He would have certainly found it would be right for a working man to go out on strike. I think he would have been seen that they would have had certain grievances that should be taken care of. By 1919, he viewed the IWW as taking over labor unions in the state of Nevada and maybe over the country. And his views changed on the working man. He no longer believed that the working man had a right to strike. And almost any strike from 1919 forward as governor he tried to crush. He did not believe that the labor union, that labor unions in Nevada were the same labor unions he knew in 1914. He became much more conservative.

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Narrator: As Nevada approached the 1920s, it was a State and a society in transition. The chaos of the war and the post-war troubles blurred the vision that seemed so clear in 1914.

Raymond: Anne Martin wrote an article in 1922 called Nevada, Beautiful Desert of Buried Hope. And I think she's right. That in 1922 looking back on it, something had changed. A moment had been lost. And the possibility for the vision that she was promoting of agricultural families, ranching families, or farming families, settled across the landscape, in a kind of economic and social structure that more resembled eastern states, that was over.

Rocha: Nevada becomes a conservative state beginning in the 1920’s. The radical voice, the voice of change, the voice of the people the socialist party who had people in the legislature, who had people as justice of the peace’s, people on school boards, all of it, it’s all gone. Nevada becomes increasingly more conservative, in the 20’s. It is a time when Nevada looks to vice and legislating and looks towards capital and millionaires the powerful people to come to Nevada and help this state move into the future. Working people, labor unions, progressive issues. With Emmet Boyle and possibly James Scrugham, it died. It was over. Nevada became the state it is today.