b'THE ARIZONA DUUUDEInfluenza FearPhoenix 1918By Bob Roloff, The Arizona DuuudeYou can follow Bob Roloff on Facebook.I n this time of Covid19informative book called, The Great Influenza that was 2020, I would like to offerpublished in 2004. Its a great read for this time we are some history of a previousliving through. Heres an excerpt:time of personal fear and stress in our West. We think that nothing like thisPhoenix, Arizona, at the beginning of the epidemic, has ever happened before but it did almost a hundredits newspapers had behaved as did those everywhere years ago between 1918 and 1920, and it was calledelse, saying little, reassuring, insisting that fear was the Great Influenza. more dangerous than the disease. But the virus took its time there, lingered longer than elsewhere, The Spanish Flu (Spanish: La Gripe), also known aslingered until finally, even the press expressed fear. the 1918 flu pandemic or La Pesadilla (Spanish forOn November 8 the Arizona Republican printed, The The Nightmare") was an unusually deadly influenzapeople of Phoenix are facing a crisis. The (epidemic) pandemic. From January 1918 to December 1920, ithas reached such serious proportions that it is the infected nearly 500 million people, about a quarter offirst problem before the peopleAlmost every the worlds population at the time. The death toll ishome in the city has been stricken with the plagueestimated to have been anywhere from 17 million toFearless men and women (must) serve in the cause50 million, and possibly could have been as high asof humanity. 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, behind the Black Death. Finally, the city formed a citizens committee" to take charge. In Arizona, citizen\'s committees were Arizona was also a very poor state at the time.taken seriously. A year earlier fifteen hundred armed Phoenix had some of the worst slums in the countrymembers of a Citizens Protective League" haddictating that businesses (those that remained open) and Arizona had an unusually high infant mortalityput 1,221 striking miners on trains in cattle andgive twelve hundred cubic feet of air space to each rate before the pandemicboxcars and thencustomer, halting all traffic into the city and allowing even hit. Not evenabandoned themonly those with actual business here to enter. Soon epidemiologists know forwithout foodthe Arizona Republican described a city of masked sure how many Arizonans,or water on afaces, a city as grotesque as a masked carnival.or how many Phoenixrailroad siding in residents, perished in thethe desert, acrossIronically, influenza only touched Phoenix lightly 1918 pandemic. Therethe New Mexicocompared to elsewhere. The panic came anyway. wasnt a uniform reportingline. In Phoenix,Dogs told the story of terror, but not with their system. Maricopaanother citizenbarking. Rumors spread that dogs carried influenza. County hospitals andcommittee hadThe police began killing all dogs on the street. People medical personnel werebeen going afterbegan killing their dogs, dogs they loved, and if they overtaxed. Emergencybond slackers"didnt have the heart to kill them themselves, they hospitals were set up toand hanging themgave them to the police to be killed. At this death rate accommodate the overflowin effigy on mainfrom causes other than natural, reported the Gazette, of sick and dying, whichstreets. One manPhoenix will soon be dogless.included jail inmates.refused to buy a Hospital volunteers beggedbond because ofAfter the first case appeared in Phoenix itself, the the public to donatereligious reasons.Republican fell silent, utterly silent, saying nothing old linens,Nonetheless, heabout influenza anyplace in the country until the nightgowns,was hung in effigynews was such that it could no longer keep silent. Its nightshirts,with a placardcompetitor the Gazette competed in reassurances, robes, and reading, H.G.quoting local physician Herman Randall saying, baby clothes. Saylor, yellow slackercan, but won\'tTen people sit in the same draught, are exposed to buy a liberty bond! Saylor was lucky. Thethe same microbes. Some will suffer and perhaps Businessescommittee also seized Charles Reas, adie, while others go Scot free.The people during were closed,carpenter, tied his hands behind his back,an epidemic who are most fearful are usually, on the not because thepainted his face yellow, put a noose aroundtestimony of physicians, the first ones to succumb to governor orderedhis neck, and dragged him through thethe disease. them closed, butdowntown Phoenix streets wearing a sign because manythat read with this exception we are 100%. The Citizens Committee" that had taken over the people runningcity during the emergency continued to impose the businessesThe influenza citizens committee tooksilence in Phoenix and ordered that merchants of the feared they wouldsimilar initiatives. It deputized a specialcity refrain from mentioning the influenza epidemic catch the flu frompolice force and also called upon alldirectly or indirectly in their advertising. Generally, their customerspatriotic citizens to enforce anti- they exercised their power to protect the entire and die becauseinfluenza ordinances, including requiring everycommunity rather than to split it and to distribute of it. People stayed home on their own, afraid toperson in public to wear a mask, arresting anyoneresources widely rather than to guarantee resources go out in public places. John M. Barry wrote a verywho spit or coughed without covering his mouth,for themselves. ArizonaRealCountry.com June 2020 31'