Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico's Past, Volume 3: The Statehood Period, 1912-Present

By Richard Melzer

Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past has one main goal: to reveal the sharp contrasts in New Mexico history. As with all states, New Mexico has had its share of admirable as well as deplorable moments, neither of which should be ignored or exaggerated at the other’s expense. New Mexico’s true character can only be understood and appreciated by acknowledging its varied history, blemishes and all. The third of three volumes, Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past: The Statehood Period represents the New Mexico Historical Society’s humble gift to New Mexico as the state celebrates its centennial year of statehood in 2012.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936744985

Book preview

Mexico.

DEDICATION

To future generations of New Mexicans:

May you shape our future,

Mindful and respectful of our past.

Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Statehood

Chapter 1 The Consequences of Statehood in New Mexico History

Cultural Consequences

Religious Consequences

Political Consequences

Chapter 2: Safe and Sane for Statehood: Making the New Mexico State Constitution of 1910

Politics

Chapter 3 Albert Bacon Fall: An American Success Story With an Unhappy Ending

Chapter 4 Soledad Chávez de Chacón: The First Hispanic Woman Governor of New Mexico, 1924

Chapter 5 Three Governors and Their Ladies During the Great Depression

Chapter 6 Making New Mexico Modern: Political Reforms of the 1960s

War

Chapter 7 Potato Patriotism: Women and the Home Front in New Mexico During World War I

Chapter 8 The Ranger and the Saboteur

Chapter 9 They Moved In and Took Over: The Army Specialized Training Program Invades New Mexico State College

Chapter 10 Los Alamos to Trinity: New Mexico and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb

Chapter 11 Ironies of World War II: Hawai`i Japanese Internee Fathers and American Military Sons in Santa Fe

Chapter 12 Life with New Mexico’s Mule King: John Prather of the Tularosa Basin

Law, Order, and Mysteries

Chapter 13 From Six-Guns and Horses to Helicopters and Computers: New Mexico Law Enforcement, 1912-2012

Chapter 14 Sinking Hope: New Mexico’s Ties to the Titanic’s Disaster, 1912

Culture and Counterculture

Chapter 15 Chile, Frijoles, and Bizcochitos: Recording, Preserving, and Promoting New Mexico’s Culinary Heritage, 1890-1940

Chapter 16 Reviving the Santa Fe Fiesta: Edgar Lee Hewett and the Battle for Control

Chapter 17 A Gift to the Community: Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater

Chapter 18 The Counter-Culture in New Mexico

Minorities and Racism

Chapter 19 Senator Holm O. Bursum and the Bursum Bill

Chapter 20 The Trauma of History among Native Americans: A Modern Haunting

Chapter 21 The Ku Klux Klan in Roswell: Pioneer Klan No. 15, 1924-1934

Chapter 22 La Mano Negra: A Personal Search for the Black Hand in Tierra Amarilla

Chapter 23 Alianza Federal de Mercedes: Rousers of the Rabble in the New Mexico Land Grant War

Women and Children

Chapter 24 Women’s Clubs of the Mesilla Valley Since 1892

Chapter 25 Camp Capitan: A Depression Era Educational Camp for Unemployed Young Women

Chapter 26 Home on the Range: Growing Up on a Ranch in Union County, New Mexico, 1939-1950

Chapter 27 Dr. Bertha Dutton and Her Dirty Diggers

Health and Science

Chapter 28 Adrift at Fort Stanton: Treating Consumptive Sailors

Chapter 29 New Mexico’s Chile Kings: Fabián García and Roy Nakayama

Infrastructure

Chapter 30 The Ocean to Ocean Highway or New Mexico’s Other Historic Highway

Sports

Chapter 31 The National Pastime in the Land of Enchantment

Appendix: New Mexico History Timeline: 1912-2012

Suggested Readings

Contributors

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Historical Society of New Mexico (HSNM) wishes to acknowledge all those who contributed to the making of Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past: The Statehood Period, 1912-Present. Don Bullis first suggested the project, and President Michael Stevenson and the entire HSNM board of directors have supported the book in all its stages. Thirty-three outstanding authors contributed their scholarship and writing skills. Cheryl J. Foote did a much-appreciated job of proofreading. And Southwest artist Brent Jeffery Thomas contributed a superb painting to enhance the book’s cover, just as he had done with volumes one and two of the Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past series. His paintings reflect the beauty of New Mexico history, filled with sharp contrasts, abundant in sunshine and shadows.

INTRODUCTION

Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past is a trilogy of anthologies offered by the Historical Society of New Mexico as its humble gift to New Mexico as the state celebrates its centennial year of statehood in 2012. The first volume, published in 2010, focused on the Spanish colonial and Mexican periods, from 1540 to 1848. The second volume, published in 2011, focused on the U.S. territorial period, 1848 to 1912. This second volume received the New Mexico Book Award as the Centennial Book of the Year in 2011. Our final volume considers New Mexico’s statehood period since 1912.

Written by members of the Historical Society of New Mexico, Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past has had one main goal: to reveal the sharp contrasts in New Mexico history. As with all states, New Mexico has had its share of admirable as well as deplorable moments, neither of which should be exaggerated or ignored at the other’s expense. New Mexico’s true character can only be understood and appreciated by acknowledging its varied history, blemishes and all.

And now for what Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past is not. The trilogy makes no attempt to be a comprehensive history of each of New Mexico’s historical periods, no less New Mexico as a whole. The three volumes have no underlying theme, no historical ax to grind, and no single perspective. The books’ chapters are intentionally eclectic to reflect New Mexico’s celebrated diversity.

Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past’s final volume is much like its first two, with three main differences. First, it is longer, with twenty-two more essays than volume 1 and fifteen more essays than volume 2. Second, readers will also notice that volume 3 gives far more attention to the history of women and minorities in New Mexico. And, third, volume 3 includes more personal narratives, ranging from one historian’s memories of her childhood on a ranch in Union County to another author’s experience living and working at New Buffalo commune in Taos.

Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past reminds us that New Mexico is far older and, in many ways, wiser than its peer states in the Union. The latter states kept New Mexico at bay for sixty-two years, denying the territory’s frequent appeals for statehood from 1850 to 1912. But New Mexicans displayed their determined character, forged by centuries of hardships and perseverance, when they finally achieved their statehood goal on January 6, 1912. Recalling their resolute identity, perseverance, and final statehood victory, New Mexicans should celebrate their proud history in 2012, and always.

Statehood

Chapter 1 The Consequences of Statehood in New Mexico History

New Mexico State Historians Stanley M. Hordes, Robert J. Tórrez, and Rick Hendricks

As we celebrate New Mexico’s centennial, it is appropriate to reflect on the impact of statehood on the state and its citizens. We have challenged our State Historians to consider this question, and we are fortunate to have two former State Historians and our current State Historian respond in predictably insightful, helpful essays.

Cultural Consequences

Stanley M. Hordes

New Mexico State Historian, 1981-1985

Many New Mexicans look to the achievement of statehood as one of the watershed events in New Mexico’s history – we all know the familiar demarcation: the Spanish period, from 1540 to 1821; the Mexican period, from 1821 to 1846; the U.S. Territorial period, from 1846 to 1912; and the Statehood period, from 1912 to the present. In administrative and political terms this is certainly true. With statehood, New Mexico was no longer a dependent territory of the United States, where citizens were prohibited from voting for president, and governors were not elected, but rather appointed by the president. After 1912, the full franchise was vested in most New Mexicans (male, white, New Mexicans, that is – suffrage was not extended to women until 1920, and Indians were not permitted to vote in state and national elections until 1948).

But in a more subtle sense, the 1912 transition from territorial to statehood status represented a significant step toward the homogenization of New Mexico culture, resulting in a weakening of native identity, Hispano and Native American, alike. In a certain sense this cultural development was both a cause and effect of statehood. Proponents of statehood trumpeted how progressive New Mexico was – how the region was maturing to become so much like the other forty-six states in terms of cultural assimilation into mainstream American life. At the same time, the post-1912 period witnessed a marked increase in migration to New Mexico from the East and Midwest. The newcomers would come to have a profound impact on the shaping of societal norms over the course of the next several decades, serving to Americanize what had comprised for centuries an essentially Native American and Hispano world.

This process did not begin magically in 1912, but rather had its origins in developments over a half century earlier. The transfer of sovereignty from Mexico to the United States in 1846 had a profound impact on the cultural landscape of New Mexico. The early years of U.S. rule witnessed the superimposition of Anglo-American influence over the Territory. New Mexicans had to adjust themselves to a new political elite – governors, administrators, judges; a new religious elite – archbishops, priests, missionaries; and a new economic elite – merchants and lawyers, who spoke a different language and represented an alien culture. But, for the most part, internal affairs within Hispano and Indian rural communities throughout New Mexico remained much the same as they had prior to the U.S. invasion. Spanish remained the dominant language, facilitating the passing down of cultural traditions from one generation to another.

In the early and middle decades of the twentieth century this superimposition slowly and almost imperceptibly transformed itself into a true imposition of Anglo-American culture. The arrival of radio, movies, and later television, plus the participation of New Mexicans in World Wars I and II, all exposed the inhabitants of this remote frontier region to a far greater range of ideas and influences. Moreover, the development and expansion of public schools throughout the state resulted in an influx of teachers from the East, most of whom were neither familiar with Hispano or Native American culture, nor fluent in the Spanish or indigenous languages. Many of the newcomers were committed to the concept of Americanization, the doctrine that had worked successfully to break down ethnic cultures among Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the large cities of the eastern United States, and assimilate them into mainstream American society. In an effort to impose English as the dominant language, Hispano students in New Mexico were punished, both physically and psychologically, for speaking Spanish in class and on the playground.¹

The combination of positive and negative pressures proved effective. Beginning in the metropolitan areas, and spreading to the more rural communities, English began supplanting Spanish as the primary language spoken in the home, as well as in school. Traditional Spanish given names gave way to Anglicized forms. Francisco was replaced with Frank, María with Mary, Mercedes became Mercy, etc. Distance, too, became a factor in the breakdown of traditional culture. The decline of the rural economy precipitated a migration from small, rural villages to larger population centers, such as Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces. Many Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache children were removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools, in New Mexico and elsewhere. In this environment, the manner in which culture was transmitted changed radically. Grandchildren, separated by distance and language from their grandparents, were not able to learn the traditions and values that had been passed down from their ancestors in the same manner as had their immediate forbears. In just a couple of decades, many centuries-old traditions were lost.²

Linguist Eduardo Hernández-Chávez aptly observed this connection between the loss of language and the loss of culture:

A shared language embodies peoplehood – and in this we can agree with the proponents of official English. It encodes the customs and traditions of ethnicity; it is the means of social interaction in the family and community; it carries with it the emotional attachments of upbringing and the values that give meaning to a shared existence; in short, it is crucial to the notion of culture.

Language loss threatens to destroy these relationships. Communication between different-language community members is weakened; the sense of a shared destiny is lost; intra-ethnic conflicts arise; historical knowledge fails to be passed on; and individuals suffer feelings of alienation from their historical ethnicity. These are some of the consequences, at least in part, of language loss. There are possibly others. Cultural alienation can have as its products poor educational performance, socioeconomic marginalization, and a host of other ills.³

An example of these casualties in New Mexico was the experience of a small subgroup within the Hispano community: descendants of secretly-practicing Sephardic Jews. Having been forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism in the 1490s in Spain and Portugal, many of these secret Jews, or crypto-Jews, sought to escape persecution by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions by fleeing to the New World. Some of them eventually made their way to the far northern frontier of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, including New Mexico, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Here, far away from the center of inquisitorial authority, they were able to practice their ancestral faith, albeit secretly, passing on their traditions from generation to generation.⁴

On the basis of interviews conducted with descendants of these conversos in the late twentieth century, it appears that, in the case of many families, specific knowledge of the Jewish heritage ceased being transmitted at some point in the early-to-mid 1900s. While certain customs continued to be passed down, such as circumcision, dietary laws, and naming patterns, these practices became disconnected from a larger cultural context. Children growing up in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s witnessed their parents lighting candles on Friday night, refraining from eating pork, or slaughtering their meat with special care not to consume the blood, without being told the reason for these observances. It was only when their suspicions were aroused decades later, and they made inquiry with their elders, that the latter reluctantly would tell their children that "eramos judíos, we were Jews."

But while assimilatory pressures of the mid-twentieth century certainly played a role in this process, according to social psychologist Janet Liebman Jacobs these cultural losses suffered by the descendants of crypto-Jews represented a continuum of those produced by centuries of forced assimilation into mainstream Catholic society:

Throughout this study of hidden ancestry and the recovery of Sephardic roots, accounts of loss and deprivation characterize descendant narratives as the respondents speak with regret of an unknown family history, a forgotten cultural past, or the absence of an ancestral religious tradition. Their expressions of loss highlight the effects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation on ethnic and racial communities that, although learning to adapt, nonetheless bear the consequences of a cultural genocide that leaves its own deep and lasting impression on the collective psyche of the once-colonized group.⁵

But Jacobs observed another, more pernicious, twentieth-century influence that mitigated against the passing down of crypto-Jewish traditions:

As family narratives kept alive the memory of Jewish suffering and the need for secrecy, the advent of the Holocaust reinforced the fear that the dangers of Jewishness were neither imagined nor historical. According to a number of descendants, the genocide of World War II, coupled with the periodic resurgence of antisemitic attacks on Jews or suspected Jews living in Latin America and the Southwest of the United States, renewed the desire for secrecy and denial among surviving crypto-Jewish populations. . . .⁶

The questions posed by the descendants of crypto-Jews around the turn of the twenty-first century, and the answers that they have derived from their elders are not dissimilar from those asked by many Hispano and Native American families. Although they witnessed nothing on the scale of the European Holocaust during their lifetimes, the challenges to their traditional cultures were certainly present.

As New Mexico commemorates the centennial of its statehood, it should recognize the many accomplishments that the past one hundred years have brought. But it also needs to be aware of the extent to which so much has been lost over the years in terms of its precious cultural heritage. The generation of New Mexicans who were born immediately after World War II – the baby boomers – is the one that must confront this dilemma. They are the last generation to have had contact with those who maintained the ancestral traditions. They are the bridge that connects their grandparents with their grandchildren. If that bridge fails, the rich history and heritage of New Mexico will be relegated to the more sterile world of books and museum exhibits.

Endnotes

1 Eduardo Hernández-Chávez, Native Language Loss and its Implications for Revitalization of Spanish in Chicano Communities, in Barbara J. Merino, Henry T. Trueba and Fabian A. Samaniego, Language and Culture in Learning: Teaching Spanish to Native Speakers of Spanish (Washington, D.C.: The Falmer Press, 1993): 64-66; Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987): 63-86; Lynne Marie Getz, Schools of Their Own: The Education of Hispanos in New Mexico, 1850-1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997): 34-37; Thomas P. Carter, Mexican Americans in School: A History of Educational Neglect (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1970): 97-111.

2 For a general discussion of the impact of cultural assimilation on the Hispano community in New Mexico and the Southwest see Shelly Roberts, Remaining and Becoming: Cultural Crosscurrents in an Hispano School (Matwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001).

3 Hernández-Chávez, Native Language Loss, 66.

4 See Stanley M. Hordes, To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Seth D. Kunin, Juggling Identities: Identity and Authenticity Among the Crypto-Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

5 Janet Liebman Jacobs, Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002): 149.

6 Ibid., 28.

Religious Consequences

Robert J. Tórrez

New Mexico State Historian, 1987-2000

On January 6, 2012, New Mexico observed the centennial, or one-hundredth anniversary of that day in 1912 when President William H. Taft signed the proclamation admitting New Mexico into full union with the American Republic. President Taft’s words, addressed to the New Mexican delegation present at the signing, Well, it is all over. I am glad to give you life. I hope you will be healthy.¹ Those words marked the end of a long and frustrating struggle for statehood that began almost as soon as General Stephen Watts Kearny and his troops marched into Santa Fe in August of 1846.

In September 1849, little more than a year after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the war between Mexico and the United States, local officials convened New Mexico’s first state constitutional convention in Santa Fe. The constitution prepared at this convention was overwhelmingly approved by New Mexicans in 1850. However, the proposed constitution was nullified by the federal government when the U. S. Congress passed the September 9, 1850, Organic Act that granted statehood to California and made New Mexico a territory as part of the famous Compromise of 1850. New Mexico struggled for the next sixty-two years to overcome this status.

There are a number of economic, political, and social reasons why it took New Mexico more than six decades to obtain statehood. This chapter will suggest that one of the principal reasons for this delay was rooted in Protestant America’s suspicion of a population that was principally Mexican and Native American, Spanish speaking, and Roman Catholic. Debates over statehood constitutions often revolved around issues of religious freedom, separation of church and state, and language.

The long and often bitter struggles over how Catholics and Protestants could attain a semblance of religious tolerance began almost as soon as New Mexico was occupied by General Kearny on August 18, 1846. When Kearny addressed the crowd that assembled in the Santa Fe plaza the following day, he attempted to assuage the numerous fears of the populace by first assuring them of the peaceful intentions of the United States government. [W]e do not mean to take away from you your religion, he then noted. Religion and government have no connection in our country. There, all religions are equal; no one has preference over the other; the Catholic and Protestant are esteemed alike.²

It was clear from that beginning that New Mexico’s Catholics took little comfort in the protections offered by these philosophical precepts. It took the hard lessons learned in each of New Mexico’s subsequent failed attempts at a state constitution to develop the accommodations that finally enabled a Catholic majority and Protestant minority to participate fully in public life despite the differences in their religious beliefs. These accommodations culminated in the document that became our state constitution in 1910.

Following the nascent 1850 constitution, New Mexico’s next formal attempt to gain statehood came when the New Mexico territorial legislature called for a statehood convention that met in Santa Fe on May 1, 1866. However, the convention accomplished nothing and adjourned the same day. The next serious effort at statehood came in 1872. The progressive or liberal constitution developed by that convention included strongly worded sections that were perceived by Catholic leaders in the territory as threats to the Church’s role in public education. The document prohibited the use of public funds for sectarian purposes, a provision that threatened schools throughout the territory that were run by Catholic religious orders. These elements of the proposed constitution may have been inserted to appease Protestant church officials in other parts of the United States, but succeeded mainly in challenging the hegemony of the Catholic Church in New Mexico. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the document and ended any serious attempt at another statehood convention for nearly twenty years.

In 1889, another proposed state constitution included strongly worded elements that again threatened the role of the Catholic Church in public education. At the urging of Hispano political leaders who realized the Catholic Church would oppose the constitution on this issue alone, the document included an irrevocable article that provided for complete religious freedom. The proposed constitution, however, was decisively defeated at the polls in October 1889.

A study of our constitutional history provides a vivid portrait of the deep-seated suspicions and religious prejudices that stalled the statehood movement for more than half a century. The bitterness of these feelings is reflected in a letter dated February 18, 1889 to president-elect Benjamin Harrison regarding the appointment of a new territorial governor. The Reverend W. Bowser, president of Albuquerque College, and several individuals who identified themselves as teachers and school officials associated with Albuquerque College, Albuquerque Academy, and the Raton schools, signed the accompanying petition, which reads, in part:

It is no secret that the high per centage (sic) of illiteracy in New Mexico is traceable chiefly to the influence of Romanism. Moreover, the legislation of the territory on educational matters has always been harmfully conservative, largely on account of the power of Rome. Judging of the future by the past we cannot expect aggressiveness in popular education, if the chief power of the territory is vested in a romanist. We believe therefore, that the highest interests of our public schools, and the highest good of New Mexico, demand the appointment of an uncompromising, but judicious Protestant governor. To this end we solicit your favorable consideration.³

Later that year, President Harrison appointed L. Bradford Prince, a Protestant, as governor of New Mexico.

Defeat of the 1889 constitution that October did not stem the tone of letters that reflect the impact of religious intolerance on New Mexico politics. On January 11, 1890, Rev. W. H. Williams forwarded to Governor Prince a vituperative letter he had received from William P. McClure, the United States Agent for the Pueblos in New Mexico. In the letter, McClure complained that most of the problems Protestant Indian agents encountered with the Pueblos were caused by the Catholic Church. He blamed a mysterious rabble of Jesuit dirty Priests who owe their allegiance to a foreign priest ridden land for undermining his authority over the Indians. Do you not image, McClure continued, that you can hear the distinct grating of the rusty wheels of the Spanish Inquisition. He felt the influence of the Catholic Church was so complete that it was only as matter of time before the pope moved to this country, presumably at such time that New Mexico obtained statehood.⁴

An additional, almost desperate jointure movement that sought joint statehood for New Mexico and Arizona was attempted in 1906. New Mexicans voted in favor of the joint constitution, but Arizona voters overwhelmingly rejected it.

There was even sporadic opposition to the name of New Mexico. An example of this attitude is illustrated by a letter written to territorial Governor George Curry in 1909. As to admitting New Mexico under the name of New Mexico, wrote one agitated observer, "do we want a state with such a name as that in our American Union?

…why should we call a state after a foreign country? Why call it after a country from which we took the territory[?]…There are plenty of good, significant, musical American-Indian names…available. Like wise [sic] there are plenty of great names in American history which any state might be proud to wear: LINCOLN, for example.⁵

The suggestion to change New Mexico’s name to Lincoln did not go far, but it was indicative of the lengths that detractors as well as supporters of statehood would go to obtain their objective and make New Mexico more acceptable to a skeptical nation. The name Navajo, for example, was briefly considered in the public debate of the time, as were the names Montezuma and Acoma.⁶

New Mexico’s persistent struggle for statehood was finally rewarded in 1910 when Congress authorized the convening of another state constitution convention. In the fall of that year, one hundred elected delegates from the territory’s twenty-six counties met in Santa Fe to hammer out the document that was to become our new state constitution. Lawyers constituted a third of the delegates, but the remainder of the men selected for this august task came from almost every element of New Mexican society except women and Native Americans. The delegation consisted of seventy-one Republicans, twenty-eight Democrats, and one Socialist. Thirty-two, or nearly one third of the delegates, had Spanish surnames.

This eclectic mix of lawyers, merchants, farmers, cattlemen, sheepherders, miners, clergy, and saloonkeepers, debated and battled over many issues before they created the constitution that was passed by the delegation by a vote of 79 to 18. Every Spanish-surname delegate voted in favor of the proposed constitution. This 1910 constitution was decisively ratified by voters on January 21, 1911, and approved by Congress later that year.

The elements of religious freedom included in our 1910 constitution are especially remarkable when one considers that each of New Mexico’s historic epochs was characterized by religious intolerance. When Juan de Oñate set out to colonize la nueva mexico in 1598, his instructions specified that his principal responsibility was the conversion of the region’s aboriginal peoples to Christianity. Your main purpose, his 1595 instructions from the Viceroy read, shall be the service of God our Lord, [and] the spreading of his Holy Catholic Faith….⁷ The subsequent intolerance of the Franciscan friars and exploitation of the Spanish officials is well documented. The discontent caused by this official intolerance led to several insurrections by New Mexico’s native peoples, culminating in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and expulsion of the Spanish (and the Church) from New Mexico for more than a decade.

Among the lessons learned by the Spanish from the Pueblo Revolt was that the colony of New Mexico could not survive without the full and willing cooperation of the Pueblos. This required the subsequent toleration, if not the encouragement, of Pueblo religious practices after the Spanish colonists and missionaries returned to New Mexico. This toleration enabled the Pueblos to retain their native language and religion to the present day.

An interesting turn-about began in the mid nineteenth century when Protestant missionaries came to New Mexico following the American occupation in 1846. Protestants were a minority, albeit a politically and economically influential one, for the entirety of New Mexico’s territorial period. Despite their small numbers, various Protestant denominations fought a constant battle with the Catholic Church over matters of education and the perceived influence of the Church in political issues.

Protestant attempts to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church were met by equally vigorous efforts of the Hispano, Catholic, Spanish-speaking population to safeguard perceived threats to their religion and ability to speak Spanish in their private and public lives. The lessons learned over six decades of this debate resulted in the inclusion of strong protections for the religious rights of New Mexicans in the 1910 constitution. Article II, Section 5, addresses New Mexican’s traditional rights by incorporating the civil, political and religious rights guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This bill of rights includes a separate, more general guarantee of religious freedom that states, no person shall ever be molested or denied any civil or political right or privilege on account of his religious opinion or mode of worship. This was included not only to assuage Catholic fears of disenfranchisement by a potential Protestant majority, but also Protestant fears of dominance by a real papist majority.

Or at least it seems that way today. It is likely that when the 1910 constitution was being considered there were expectations that New Mexico’s Hispanic Catholics would soon be in the minority. B. S. Rodey, a New Mexican who served as a judge for the U. S. District Court in Puerto Rico, expressed such a view in a December 30, 1908 letter to New Mexico Governor George Curry. Rodey felt statehood was inevitable and suggested New Mexico’s non- Hispanic population needed to do some long-range planning. Let us look for the future, he wrote. But a few years and people with sentiment [for the name New Mexico] and with Spanish blood in their veins will be in a low minority in our territory, if we progress as I know we will.⁸

It took much longer than Judge Rodey expected, but Hispanics have in fact become a minority in New Mexico as we complete a century of statehood. We can be thankful that the hard compromises reached in the 1910 constitution resulted in a strong guarantee of religious freedom and assurances that language cannot be used to impair the rights of New Mexicans to obtain an education, vote, hold office, or serve on juries. These guarantees will undoubtedly serve to help New Mexico’s Hispanic and Native American peoples retain their cultural identities as we enter our second century of statehood.

Antonio Lucero, New Mexico’s first Secretary of State, may have expressed the exultation and even relief felt by the citizens of New Mexico when he wrote in the Introductory to the first state Blue Book, about the three generations of effort that had gone into achieving statehood:

The people of New Mexico have given a signal illustration of the American spirit in this behalf. While it is true that struggle has been the price of Statehood for all the territories in the past, it is notably true that an unparalleled struggle was the price of Statehood for New Mexico. No such disappointment and delay, no such sequence of untoward accidents, no such deferment of hope that maketh the heart sick, ever so tried the spirit of civil liberty and selfgovernment [sic] in a people. Unremittent [sic] agitation, unwearied struggle, vigorously sustained effort for more than sixty years was the price we willingly and ardently paid. If ever long sustained effort in the achievement of a patriotic purpose showed a people to be worthy of the exalted privileges and the blessings of liberty such as the full measure of Statehood brings under our Republican form, the people of New Mexico showed themselves to be worthy.⁹

Endnotes

1 Statehood Proclamation Signed, Inauguration January 15, Santa Fe New Mexican, January 6, 1912.

2 Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The History of Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico (Chicago: The Rio Grande Press Inc.,1963): 73.

3 United States Department of Interior Papers: Territory of New Mexico, 1850-1907. Roll 1, Governor, A-J, 1873-1907. National Archives Microfilm Microcopy No. 750.

4 W. H. Williams to Gov. L Bradford Prince, January 11, 1890. Gov. L. Bradford Prince Papers, Letters Received, 1890. Territorial Archives of New Mexico, Microfilm roll 105, Frame 99.

5 F. H. Langworthy to Gov. George Curry, 17 December 1909. Gov. George Curry Papers, Letters Received, 1909. Territorial Archives of New Mexico,. It should be noted that according to L. Bradford Prince, the renaming of New Mexico to Lincoln was earnestly advocated at the time, especially since Washington had already been honored with a state named after him. L Bradford Price, New Mexico’s Struggle for Statehood (Santa Fe: The New Mexican Printing Company, 1910): 61.

6 Ibid., 60; H. B. Hening, ed., George Curry, 1861-1947, An Autobiography (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995): 252.

7 Instructions to Don Juan de Oñate, October 21, 1595, George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, Don Juan de Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595-1628 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953) I: 65.

8 B. S. Rodey to Gov. George Curry, December 30, 1908. Gov. George Curry Papers, Letters Received, 1908. Territorial Archives of New Mexico, Microfilm Roll 167, Frame 811.

9 Antonio Lucero, Introductory, New Mexico Blue Book, 1913.

Political Consequences

Rick Hendricks

New Mexico State Historian, 2010-present

In this our centennial year, I am often asked what was the most important gain that New Mexico has made since becoming a state in 1912. In my view, the answer to that question is: the franchise. Franchise is defined as the right of privilege of voting or the exercise of such a right; it is synonymous with suffrage.

Let’s briefly review New Mexico’s history of suffrage, beginning with the centuries-long Spanish colonial period. As you might expect from a colony that was part of an absolute monarchy such as Spain, New Mexicans of the period had little opportunity to exercise voting rights, but they did have some. In the earliest days of the colony, a cabildo (town council) was elected by the citizens of the villa of Santa Fe. Such elections were subject to the governor’s veto. The cabildo as an institution in New Mexico disappeared by the second decade of the eighteenth century, although it reappeared in the nineteenth century. So it was that for almost a hundred years, New Mexicans had few – if any – opportunities to exercise an even extremely limited franchise. One notable exception took place in August 1810 when most of the alcaldes of New Mexico gathered to select a representative to the liberal Cortes (parliament) sitting in the city of Cádiz in southern Spain. This came about because the Spanish monarch at the time, Ferdinand VII, was Napoleon Bonaparte’s unwilling guest and not sitting on his throne governing his realm. The alcaldes selected Pedro Bautista Pino to represent New Mexico at the Spanish parliament.

As a result of the actions of the Cortes, which produced the liberal Constitution of 1812, larger towns were required to form ayuntamientos (municipal administrations). By 1814, Albuquerque, Belen, Bernalillo, El Paso, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, and Santa Fe had such municipal organizations. In December of each year, citizens voted for electors, who then voted for municipal magistrates, councilmen, and minor officials. Potential officials had to be 25 years old and a resident of the community they wished to represent for five years. When Ferdinand VII returned to the Spanish throne in July 1814 he ordered the municipal governments abolished. The liberal revolution of 1820 restored the Constitution of 1812. Pino was again selected as representative to the parliament, but on this occasion he did not make the trip.

Now let’s look at the Mexican period, from the formation of the Mexican nation until the arrival of invading forces from the United States twenty-five years later. Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Agustín de Iturbide declared imperial rule. When Antonio López de Santa Anna deposed Iturbide in 1823, he declared a republic. In some senses, he was responding to the demand for new rights by the large number of people who had mobilized in the fight for independence. In Mexico, of which New Mexico was a part, qualified voters exercised limited, indirect suffrage. Qualified voters were vecinos, that is law abiding, male heads of household who paid their taxes. In theory, Mexican vecinos elected electors who elected electors who elected other electors who appointed delegates to state and national congresses. The federalist, liberal Mexican constitution of 1824 did not permit territories, a category into which New Mexico fell, representation in the Mexican Senate. New Mexico was, however, allowed a single voting member of the lower house, or cámara de diputados, and the territory sent representatives at regular two-year intervals. It seems that this gave New Mexico some influence on the national level because two of the men who were sent to Mexico City as representatives, Santiago Abréu (1825-26) and José Antonio Chaves (1827-28), subsequently served terms as governor of New Mexico. When the liberal federalist system collapsed in the mid-1830s, a conservative centralist regime replaced it. This ushered in a period of political chaos that lasted until the arrival of the invaders from the United States in 1846.

As a United States territory from 1850 to 1912, qualified New Mexican voters exercised limited franchise in electing one delegate to serve two-year terms as a nonvoting member of the United States House of Representatives. The first New Mexican delegate was Richard Hanson Weightman, who served his term between 1851 and 1853 in the 32nd Congress. The last delegate was William Henry Bull Andrews, who served multiple terms from 1905 to 1912. In all, twenty delegates represented New Mexico in the House in the territorial period.

Qualified New Mexico voters in this period meant white males – including Mexican-Americans – who had attained the age of 21. New Mexico was not permitted any representation in the United States Senate, nor could residents of the territory vote for the candidate of their choice for the office of President of the United States. To be sure, New Mexicans elected local officials and the members of the territorial legislature, but they had no voice when it came to selecting individuals to the highest offices in the land. Moreover, New Mexico’s territorial governors were all presidential appointees. It would be fair to say that some were more suited to the job than others.

It is important to remember that as significant as was the right to participate in the election of senators, representatives, and presidents after attaining statehood in 1912, this right did not extend to all members of New Mexican society. The 1910 New Mexico constitution is a conservative document in many respects. In fact, it has been called an excellent document for 1810! It missed the opportunity to made women’s right to vote a constitutional guarantee. Colorado had amended its state constitution in 1893 to allow women to vote. By 1912 six other states had provided for women’s suffrage. New Mexico was one of the last states to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave most women the right to vote in 1920.

The state constitution also excluded many Native Americans from voting. It provided that Indians who were not taxed could not vote. In practice, this meant that Indians living on reservations were not eligible to vote. This included the majority of New Mexican native people. This sad state of affairs was not resolved until an Isleta Pueblo man named Miguel Trujillo, who was also a Marine Corp veteran of the Second World War, attempted to register to vote in Valencia County. When he was denied, Trujillo brought suit against Eloy Garley, County Clerk and ex-officio Recorder of Valencia County, in a case known as Trujillo v. Garley. On August 3, 1948, a special three-judge Federal court in Santa Fe ruled that New Mexico had discriminated against its Indian citizens by restricting the vote on the basis of the provision in the state’s constitution.

So, the franchise gained by statehood was not universal, but this was largely because the constitution of the new State of New Mexico chose to limit it in the ways I have discussed. Voting rights did not include all citizens, but the extension of franchise to permit voting for the highest national offices gave New Mexico a more meaningful voice on the banks of the Potomac. It also gave New Mexicans the right to select their own chief executive in Santa Fe.

Chapter 2: Safe and Sane for Statehood: Making the New Mexico State Constitution of 1910

Richard Melzer

It is impossible to exaggerate the frustration New Mexicans experienced in their struggle for statehood. For sixty-two years, from 1850 to 1912, territorial leaders applied for statehood and were rejected by Congress more often than any other territory in the United States in that era. Adding insult to injury, nearly every territory west of the Mississippi applied for statehood and was accepted with few, if any, previous rejections while New Mexicans looked on in dismay. The protracted struggle spanned the administrations of fifteen presidents and thirty congresses. In their seemingly endless efforts to impress Congress and facilitate their application for statehood, New Mexicans organized no less than five state constitutional conventions and wrote three state constitutions prior to 1910, in 1850, 1872, and 1889. The territory’s Congressional Delegates, from Republican Stephen Elkins to Democrat Harvey Fergusson, spent much of their terms in Washington fighting for the statehood cause. In the words of political scientist Dorothy I. Cline, the history of New Mexico’s campaign for statehood was replete with mystery, intrigue, eventful accidents, murders, Indian raids, scandals, fraud, land grabs, factional feuds, party warfare, and…personal ambitions, all leading to continuous rejection and disappointment.¹

The Enabling Act of 1910

A combination of fortuitous circumstances and endless hard work finally led to congressional passage of New Mexico’s Enabling Act on June 20, 1910.² New Mexicans were ecstatic. While January 6, 1912, is accurately celebrated as the date of New Mexico statehood, June 20, 1910, was celebrated with as much, if not more fanfare and enthusiasm. Banner headlines announced the June 20 victory in newspapers across the territory. New Mexicans took to the streets to make a joyful noise on what many declared to be the greatest day in their long history.³ Celebrations featured fireworks, bonfires, patriotic speeches, music, and parades, with buzz buggies [cars] honking for all they are worth.⁴ Fifteen days later, New Mexicans celebrated Independence Day as they had never celebrated the holiday before. Theirs would soon be the forty-seventh star on the nation’s hallowed flag.⁵

The Enabling Act of 1910 empowered New Mexicans to write yet another state constitution to be accepted or rejected by not only Congress, but, unlike previous state constitutions, by the president as well.⁶ Aware that an unacceptable document might destroy their statehood chances once again, New Mexican leaders were eager to produce a safe and sane constitution to satisfy the scrutiny of Washington (with a Democratic majority in Congress, a Republican majority in the Senate, and a conservative president in the White House) as well as to fit the needs – indeed the demands – of their unique population. They had one chance to get it right and they were determined not to disappoint by writing an unduly radical or unusual constitution that would derail the achievement of statehood just as the end drew near.

The Enabling Act called for the creation of a constitutional convention consisting of one hundred elected delegates representing New Mexico’s twenty-six counties. The act specified that the chosen delegates would commence their labors in Santa Fe at noon on the fourth Monday following their election and end their sessions in no more than sixty days, if only because the delegates’ per diem lasted this long. Each delegate received $5 a day plus 10 cents a mile for one trip to and from Santa Fe. Congress allocated $100,000 for the entire process, starting with the election of delegates to the convention and ending with the final vote of approval or rejection of the constitution by the voters of New Mexico.⁷

Delegates

The election of constitutional delegates took place on September 6, 1910.⁸ Although designated as a non-partisan contest, party loyalties were far too deep to allow non-partisan selections in most counties.⁹ Given the Republican Party’s strength in the territory, it came as no surprise that seventy-one Republicans were elected to serve, forming a huge majority at the convention. At least two-thirds of the seventy-one Republican delegates were identified as members of the party’s Old Guard, or extremely conservative faction.¹⁰ With only twelve delegates, Progressive Republicans and their progressive political agenda were clearly in the minority as the convention began. Twenty-eight Democrats were elected, with most of their strength centered on the territory’s east side, including largely Anglo Chaves, Curry, Eddy, Quay, and Roosevelt counties.¹¹

One delegate from Chaves County was a Socialist. Garnering a thousand votes, Green B. Patterson was proud to represent the common people of New Mexico, claiming that having come to Santa Fe directly from a dugout no one was closer to the grassroots than he. Three days after the convention began Patterson’s fellow, less grassroot delegates managed to have him quarantined for smallpox (officially excused from attendance on account of illness) and hence out of the picture for the duration of the proceedings.¹² To further discredit him – and his ideology – some delegates spread the rumor that Patterson had contracted his disease in a house of ill repute.¹³

Although Hispanics represented a 57 percent majority of the territory’s 327,396 residents,¹⁴ only one-third of the delegates sent to Santa Fe could claim Spanish ancestry.¹⁵ They were a significant voting bloc, however, especially because all but one were Republicans (equaling half of the Republican majority) and because the undisputed leader of the convention, Solomon Luna, came from their ranks.¹⁶ More troubling was the fact that Native Americans, representing 6 percent of the population, and African Americans, representing about 2 percent, had no representation among the hundred delegates. As for women, they could neither vote in the election to select delegates nor serve as delegates themselves.

The delegates’ ages ranged from twenty-three to seventy, with an average of forty-seven.¹⁷ As determined by population, San Miguel County had the most delegates with nine, while two counties (Luna and McKinley) had only one each.

The convention’s delegates came from various occupations, but three occupations dominated. The largest group (thirty-two) were lawyers, many of whom worked for railroad companies, mining companies, land companies, and other corporate interests that would clearly benefit from New Mexico’s statehood status. Another twenty delegates were large cattle or sheep ranchers, while fourteen delegates were listed as merchants. The remaining third included large farmers, bankers, physicians, newspaper editors, saloonkeepers, and a college president.¹⁸ Socioeconomically, the delegates represented mostly upper middle and upper class interests, at the expense of the working class, especially pobres (Hispanic poor) who made up a large majority of the general population. As one critic put it, most delegates represented large interests which, grouped together made a combination in which the general public was almost helpless.¹⁹

Leadership

The hundred delegates that gathered in the fall of 1910 were led by seven dominate personalities. With an overwhelming majority of delegates, Old Guard Republicans assumed most of these leadership roles, either by delegate vote or de facto. Charles A. Spiess was a handsome corporate lawyer, known as the Black Eagle of San Miguel County.²⁰ Charles Springer of Raton, with a similar legal background, frequently represented powerful companies and large land interests.²¹ Attorney Thomas Catron, the oldest delegate at seventy years of age, had become the largest landowner in the territory by representing land grant heirs, often accepting land in lieu of cash as compensation for his legal services. He