Arizona has mobilized and used its total police power to
protect the lives and future of 263 children. They are the
product and the victims of the foulest conspiracy you could
possibly imagine.
More than 120 peace officers moved into Short Creek, in
Mohave County, at 4 o'clock this morning. They have arrested
almost the entire population of a community dedicated to
the production of white slaves who are without hope of escaping
this degrading slavery from the moment of their birth.
Highly competent investigators have been unable to find
a single instance in the last decade of a girl child reaching
the age of 15 without having been forced into a shameful
mockery of marriage.
THE STATE OF ARIZONA IS FULFILLING TODAY ONE OF EVERY STATE'S
DEEPEST OBLIGATIONS. . .TO PROTECT AND DEFEND THE HELPLESS.
The State is moving at once to seek through the courts the
custody of these 263 children, all under the age of 18. They
are the innocent chattels of a lawless commercial undertaking
of wicked design and ruthlessly exercised power. This in
turn is the co-operative enterprise of five or six coldly
calculating men who direct all of the operations and reap
all of the profits, and are the evil heart of the insurrection
itself.
It is no surprise that some of these vicious conspirators
are former convicts.
Warrants were carried into Short Creek this morning for
35 men, many of them related, who include not only a hard
core of plotters but a wider circle of fawning beneficiaries
of this conspiracy that the State of Arizona is determined
to end right now and completely.
As the highest authority in Arizona, on whom is laid the
Constitutional injunction to "take care that the laws
be faithfully executed," I have taken the ultimate responsibility
for setting into motion the actions that will end this insurrection.
It should be clearly understood at the same time that so
complicated an operation has required and has received the
co-operation of many elements of our government . . . and
has been undertaken only as a last desperate resort.
In many situations of the last few years I have reminded
the people of Arizona thar law enforcement is primarily a
country problem--UNTIL SUCH TIME AS COUNTIES THEMSELVES DECLARE
OR BY THEIR ACTIONS PROVE THAT THEY ARE ABLE NO LONGER TO
FULFILL THEIR FUNCTIONS.
MOHAVE COUNTY APPEALED FOR STATE INTERVENTION TO END THIS
INSURRECTION. The county's plea came to your governor from
the Honorable J.W. Faulkner, Mohave County's highest legal
authority as judge of the superior court there, in March
of 1951, when I had been on duty only two months.
Judge Faulkner recited the almost incredible details of
this conspiracy . . . details almost revoltingly incomprehensible
at this mid-point of the 20th century. The sheer magnitude
of the situation demanded immediate action, but even more
urgently required proof beyond any possible doubt.
Hence it is that 26 months have passed since Judge Faulkner's
first letter came to me. The investigation has been most
thorough. Two attorneys general have participated. Appalled
successive Legislatures have approved funds for every phase
of the investigation . . . and it has been from the very
beginning a disturbing undertaking.
It has been, frankly, the one and only real sorrow of my
administration, intruding as it has on a hundred other problems
of state, and occupying the time and energy of scores of
men and women. There had to be absolute certainty that in
the end the innocent should be as securely protected as the
guilty were severely punished.
Before a single complaint was drawn, or a single warrant
prepared, or the first preliminary order for today's action
issued, we had to be certain beyond the last shadow of doubt.
All doubt is erased when it is realized that in the evidence
the State has accumulated there are multiple instances of
statutory rape, adultery, bigamy, open and notorious cohabitation,
contributing to the delinquency of minors, marrying the spouse
of another, and an all-embracing conspiracy to commit all
of these crimes, along with various instances of income tax
evasion, failure to comply with Arizona's corporation laws,
misappropriation of school funds, improper use of school
facilities and falsification of public records.
The leaders of this mass violation of so many of our laws
have boasted directly to Mohave County officers that their
operations have grown so great that the State of Arizona
was powerless to interfere.
They have been shielded, as you know, by the geographic
circumstances of Arizona's northernmost territory . . . the
region beyond the Grand Canyon that is best known as "The
Strip."
This is a land of high plateaus, dense forests, great breaks
and gorges, rolling arid lands, and intense color . . . a
land squeezed between the even higher plateaus of Utah and
the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
The community of Short Creek is 400 miles by the shortest
road from the Mohave County seat of Kingman. Short Creek
is unique among Arizona communities in that some of its dwellings
actually are in another state.
ALL OF THE RESIDENTS OF SHORT CREEK WHO LIVE IN UTAH HAVE
BEEN CHARGED WITH THE CRIMES THEY HAVE COMMITTED IN ARIZONA.
We have neither enlisted nor encouraged the State of Utah
to take action simultaneously with or parallel to our own,
for it is a mass insurrection against the State of Arizona
that we seek to suppress.
To the best of our knowledge and information, there are
only five residents of Short Creek who are in NO way involved
in this situation. They are Mr. and Mrs. Jonreed Lauritzen,
Mr. and Mrs. Alfonso Nyborg, and Don Covington. They are
old residents of a colorful part of Arizona who have found
themselves surrounded by this conspiracy, and have given
invaluable help in the elimination we have now undertaken.
Massive cliffs rearing north of Short Creek's little central
street provide a natural rock barrier to the north. To the
east and west are the sweeping expanses of dry and almost
barren plateaus before the forests begin. To the south there
is the Grand Canyon.
It is in this most isolated of all Arizona communities that
the foulest of conspiracies has flourished and expanded in
a terrifying geometric progression. HERE HAS BEEN A COMMUNITY
ENTIRELY DEDICATED TO THE WARPED PHILOSOPHY THAT A SMALL
HANDFUL OF GREEDY AND LICENTIOUS MEN AND SHOULD HAVE THE
RIGHT AND THE POWER TO CONTROL THE DESTINY OF EVERY HUMAN
SOUL IN THE COMMUNITY.
HERE IS A COMMUNITY--MANY OF THE WOMEN, SADLY, RIGHT ALONG
WITH THE MEN--UNALTERABLY DEDICATED TO THE WICKED THEORY
THAT EVERY MATURING GIRL CHILD SHOULD BE FORCED INTO THE
BONDAGE OF MULTIPLE WIFEHOOD WITH MEN OF ALL AGES FOR THE
SOLE PURPOSE OF PRODUCING MORE CHILDREN TO BE REARED TO BECOME
MORE CHATTELS OF THIS TOTALLY LAWLESS ENTERPRISE.
Some of the boys have escaped this dreadful and dreary life.
But the girls . . . no.
The very institutions such as the schools, upon which we
all depend for the cultivation of the ideals that have made
the nation great and Arizona great, have been perverted to
the inculcation in our young of a devotion to this RANK AND
FETID DISTORTION OF ALL OF OUR BASIC RIGHTS AND IDEALS.
The very operation of this insurrectional conspiracy, with
its complete disregard of all decency and of all law, have
served to expand the population of Short Creek until it is
probably the second largest community in Mohave County.
Sixteen years ago it was nothing. You may recall at that
time two individuals, who were almost all of the male population
of Short Creek, were sent to the Arizona State Prison to
serve terms for flagrant violations of the state's moral
laws.
They had half a dozen wives.
But their prison terms ended . . . they returned to Short Creek . . . and
now the two have expanded to the 35 men named in warrants today . . . and
their wives have increased from half a dozen to 85.
The criminally deadly part is that their children under
legal age now number the 263 we mentioned earlier.
It is easy to see from this rapid expansion that in another
10 years the population of Short Creek would be in the thousands,
and an army would not be sufficient to end the greatest insurrection
and defiance of all that is right.
Of the 120 persons named in warrants as being involved in
this ever growing conspiracy, 83 have their principal homes
in Arizona. The rest base their operations in Utah, although
a number of these have additional homes in Arizona.
Not all of the men for whom warrants have been issued have
been arrested, but it is fully anticipated that they will
be. Those who have crossed or subsequently cross the state
line into Arizona during the course of the police operations
will be jailed on the Arizona warrants. THOSE WHO ELECT TO
REMAIN IN UTAH WILL BE SOUGHT ON WARRANTS OF EXTRADITION.
This may take days or weeks, but it WILL be done. It is
regrettable that this action had to be undertaken on a Sunday,
but there were a number of vital considerations. There has
been a community entertainment the last day or two in Short
Creek that has attracted the maximum number of those named
in warrants. Today the maximum number of police officers
have been free from other duties. And the situation they
have moved against has been as godless as anything we have
ever known.
It should be emphasized here that we have gone to almost
unbelievable lengths to insure that the rights of no one
are violated or even jeopardized in this action.
Moving into Short Creek right behind the officers with their
warrants have been the courts. Superior Judge J. Smith Gibbons
of Apache County has been acting as committing magistrate
and has observed every legal propriety in holding the principal
defendants to answer for trial in superior court as he also
ordered these principal defendants to jail in Kingman, the
county seat.
The defendants are being transported right now to Kingman
to await release on bail for those who are able to provide
it or who have it provided for them. These are the men and
some of the more ardently involved women.
In the case of the unwilling wives and the children, the
action has been parallel but entirely different. Juvenile
judges have gone along with the other superior court judges.
Judge Lorna Lockwood of Maricopa County, whose understanding
in juvenile matters is widely recognized, and Judge Faulkner
himself, have started and for some time will continue a series
of juvenile court actions through which the State of Arizona
expects to be able to provide protection for the 263 children.
This protection is very inclusive. It is calculated, under
Arizona's laws, to give these children every possible garment
of secrecy so that in years to come, the action in which
they are now involved cannot appear anywhere as a matter
of public record.
Right along with the courts have gone trained social workers.
A full staff from the state department of public welfare
has gone along with the officers and the courts to take immediate
custody of those children the courts decide should be brought
under the protection of the State of Arizona.
There hasn't been and there won't be any hardship in all
of this. Facilities, equipment, and supplies have been sent
into the area to be prepared to feed every defendant and
every innocent victim, and every officer and participating
state official, as long as may be necessary.
There is a medical staff to guard against any health contingency,
and facilities are provided to care for everyone. There has
been and there will be NO invasion of homes or quarters,
for our people have with them a complete miniature tent city
which by now has been erected in unused community space,
and will house the state's personnel for as long as such
housing is necessary.
Representing the state department of law in the filing of
complaints, the issuance of warrants, and the general direction
of all legal phases of this operation, is the attorney general
himself, Ross Jones.
He has with him two of his assistants, Paul LaPrade and
Kent Blake. LaPrade and Blake are the men who have conducted
the preparation of all the cases designed to shatter for
all time this insurrection and the conspiracy that supports
it.
To climax their work and beginning the conclusive phase
of this operation, I signed an official proclamation on July
first, declaring a state of insurrection to exist in Mohave
County and in the community of Short Creek.
Secretary of State Wesley Bolin and State Auditor Jewell
Jordan have co-operated fully in handling the transfer of
funds, especially appropriated to the Governor's office for
this purpose, to the office of the attorney general . . .
and in the proper and orderly expenditures of sums from that
appropriation.
As your governor, I have been at my desk since early this
morning, ready to issue any order or authorization to meet
changing plans or unforeseen circumstances. I have been in
complete and almost instantaneous contact with the operation
from its beginning, through my administrative assistant who
is at the scene.
To the eternal credit of the press and radio of Arizona,
none of this complex operation has been publicized in advance
in any way, ALTHOUGH REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL MEDIA HAVE BEEN
FULLY APPRISED OF EVERY DEVELOPMENT DURING THE ENTIRE 26
MONTHS OF PREPARATION. The whole purpose of this operation
would have been destroyed had any part of it been known generally
in advance.
Now this most necessary cloak of secrecy is removed.
From here on out and no doubt for some time to come you
will be hearing directly from press and radio correspondents
whose names you know well and in whom you have implicit faith.
They have gone right along with the officers and the courts,
to observe and report everything.
While we leave the rest of the details of this fantastic
insurrection and its ending in their hands, it must be reiterated
that THE STATE OF ARIZONA IS UNALTERABLY PLEDGED AND DETERMINED
TO STOP THIS MONSTROUS AND EVIL GROWTH BEFORE IT BECOMES
A CANCER OF A SORT THAT IS BEYOND HOPE OF HUMAN REPAIR.
EVEN IF THE LETTER OF THE LAW DIDN'T EXIST AS IT DOES. .
.COMMON DECENCY DEMANDS THIS.
THESE CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHTS OF ALL NATIVE-BORN AMERICANS--THE
RIGHTS THAT WERE WRITTEN INTO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
. . .
THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
. .AND AS HAS SO OFTEN BEEN EMPHASIZED SINCE, HAPPINESS OF
THEIR OWN CHOOSING. . . .
THE STATE OF ARIZONA IS DETERMINED TO INSURE THAT THEY HAVE
THOSE RIGHTS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THEIR LIVES.
WE COULD DO NO LESS THAN THIS.
Sunday, July 26, 1953
