1953 raid roused sympathy for town

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — Horrified by stories of rape, incest and men taking young girls as brides, the new governor of Arizona quietly made plans to invade this polygamist settlement in the summer of 1953.

Shortly before dawn on July 26, a raiding party of about 120 law-enforcement officers — state highway-patrol personnel, sheriff's deputies and liquor-control agents — descended on the community, then called Short Creek.

Somewhere in the desert, a lookout signaled the posse's approach with a blast of dynamite.

The rest of the town, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), gathered in the schoolyard, waving flags and singing "America."

By day's end, families and crying children were separated in a scene that would haunt political leaders for years. In all, 36 men were arrested. Authorities loaded 86 women and 263 children aboard buses to Phoenix.

Arizona Gov. J. Howard Pyle, a Republican, took to the radio, saying "the foulest conspiracy you could imagine" was under way in the community. He said there had been wholesale abuse and enslavement of children, especially girls who were forced into a "shameful mockery of marriage."

But the public was angrier at the state than at the polygamists.

Newspaper editorials denounced and ridiculed Pyle. The raid was called "Pyle's Folly."

Religious leaders and political rivals accused him of using excessive force.

Democrats decried the action as "odious and un-American." A prominent Mormon leader in Mesa denounced the "tyrannical methods" used.

The raid's results were meager in court, as well. Most charges were dropped, and those arrested received one-year suspended sentences.

The raid for years was memorialized each July with speeches and parades. Town officials erected a monument.

It was a political disaster for Pyle, who lost his re-election bid. And the episode was seen as ushering in a half-century of political timidity in the face of FLDS abuse.