May 12, 1946
William Henry Burges, 78, El Paso attorney who attracted national attention in 1920 during the famed Bisbee, Ariz., copper mine strike trial, died in a local hospital at 10:40 a.m. Saturday. Mr. Burges had been ill for about two weeks.
A member of the law firm of Burges, Scott, Raspberry and Hulse, he is survived by his wife, Mrs. Anna Burges; and a niece, Mrs. Jane Burges Perrenot both of El Paso.
Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Monday from the Hagedon-Harding Chapel with the Rev. Paul N, Poling, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, officiating. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be L.A. Scott, Judge P. R. Price, Judge Ballard Coldwell, W. H. Fryer, James Hulse, and Jack Raspberry.
Mrs. Burges said that during her husband’s lifetime, he often has said he wanted flowers omitted on his death. The money, he said, that would be spent for flowers should be used toward a memorial fund to the public library to use as the library sees fit. Mrs. Burges said she desired that his wishes be followed.
Born in Seguin, Texas, Nov. 12, 1867, the son of William Henry and Bettie Rust Burges, he was a member of the first University of Texas law school graduating class in 1889. He was admitted to the bar and began practice of law in El Paso the same year, marring Anna Pollard Sept. 23, 1896.
City attorney of El Paso from 1893 until 1895, he never ran for public office, but he was very active in civic affairs. He was a member and former president of El Paso Bar Association, president of the Texas Bar Association from 1909 to 1910 and a member of the American Bar Association.
Two brothers, Major Richard F. and A. Rust, also lawyers preceded him in death. The three were law partners from 1894 until 1897. After a 41 year interval, W. H. and Richard Burges again formed a law partnership in 1938. Rust Burges died in 1924, Richard Burges died 1945.
Owned large law library
Mr. Burges possessed a library of 15,000 volumes one of the largest ever assembled.
In June 1917, members of the Industrial Workers of the World called a strike at Bisbee, Ariz., mines. The Bisbee sheriff, after a picket line incident, formed a posse of 1800 persons, rounded up 1188 of the strike workers, loaded them into cattle cars, and dumped them into New Mexico.
Kidnapping charges were filed against 387 Bisbee residents by the miners. Phelps Dodge and other major copper company officials were charged with kidnapping and ere sued in civil damage suits for $14,000,000.
At that time, Mr. Burges was practicing law in Chicago. He gave up his practice to return to the Southwest in 1920 as lending counsel for the defending companies.
Burges wins acquittal
The strike friction and the trial aroused the interest of liberal and labor circles over the nation. Two men had been killed during the Bisbee mass deportation and fights between strikers and non-strikers were rife during the trial.
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