We are all surrounded by a great number of things the value of which we fail to recognize because we have never been deprived of them. We do not realize the value of the surrounding atmosphere until we are suddenly deprived of air, and find ourselves being smothered to death.

If any of you gentlemen, who have lived in an atmosphere of self-government all your days, so that it seems almost like a part of nature itself, should find yourselves suddenly deprived of it entirely, you would probably better appreciate its value, and would have some idea of that of which your fellow-citizens in the territories are deprived. If the officials of your states were appointed by some power in whose selection you had no voice whatever, you would quickly recognize the change in your situation and your comparatively helpless condition. If, in addition to this, that appointing power was located thousands of miles away so that it could by no possibility have a knowledge of local conditions, and the true character of local men, the situation would be far more intolerable.

The system of provincial government, under which local officials are appointed by a central supreme power, far from the localities affected, has always been bad from the days of Babylon anl Assyria down to the Turkish and Persian empires of our own times. It can not be otherwise, for its fundamental principle is wrong. No matter how well-meaning the appointing power may be, the result is largely the same.

Of course, good men may occasionally be appointed under that system as they are under any other, but the system itself is essentially vicious, for it is impossible for the appointing power to have personal knowledge of requirements and character, and the most unworthy or corrupt officials are those who can afford to expend the most, both in time and money, to prevent its enlightenment, or any reform in administration. While it would seem as if, in America, the redress of such evils ought to be easy, experience has too often shown, not only that the officials thus appointed by some accident of favoritism, are entirely regardless of the people, because they are not responsible to

them, but also, that the worse the official, the more ingenuity he develops in intrenching himself in power.

Again, this system is practically the destruction of an enlightened and vigilant public sentiment. We are a practical people here in America, and as a rule we do not cultivate anything unless it has practical value, and when public sentiment cannot be effectively exercised in a practical way, it does not flourish. In no community that is not self-governed can you find a healthy, vigorous and active public sentiment either in the Press or among the people, because it is without power either to effect appoint ments or removals, or to reform the administration of the government. Thus the whole fiber of good citizenship is weakened.

What we insist upon is that this right to self-government is so fundamental in our institutions that no citizen should be deprived of it except under such peculiar circumstances as render its exercise impossible or dangerous. When a population is so sparse that it is not able to support a local government or that elections are impracticable, one of these exceptional cases occurs, and such a population has to be ruled in some other way and is deprived temporarily of its right to self-government; but the moment the peculiar conditions are removed the disability should vanish with them and the citizen should regain his inherent right.

A territorial condition is an exceptional one, only intended as a temporary expedient, and is in derogation of the civil rights of all the citizens affected thereby; and, as the normal condition of an American citizen is one of selfgovernment, the burden of proof is upon those who desire to' continue the abnormal form, and not upon those who insist on the organization of a state.

CHAPTER XVII.

JOINT STATEHOOD MOVEMENT OF 1906.

That the idea of Joint-Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona was distasteful in both territories, there is no doubt. There was good reason for this. It was not caused by any ill feeling in either of the Territories toward the other, but because there was an entire lack of cohesion and community of interest. They were more disconnected, so far as personal acquaintance and business or social relations go, than most States far more distant from each other. Nature itself had separated them by placing the great Continental Divide as a practical barrier between them. The rivers of New Mexico flow eastward or southward to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic; those of Arizona flow westward to the Gulf of California and the Pacific. The trade and business relations of Arizona are with California and the Pacific coast, those of New Mexico are with Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, and New York. As a rule no New Mexican visits Arizona except en route to California; and no citizen of Arizona visits New Mexico except en route to the east; and those visits are simply en passant. The number of residents of either Territory who have ever passed a night in the other, except in a railroad car, is remarkably small. In short, there is less connection between the two than there is between either one of them and New York or California.

It seemed impossible for the eastern mind to grasp this elemental fact. The average eastern Congressman, knowing that each Territory was anxious for Statehood, and really unfavorable to an increase of western States, looked at the map, saw two squares contiguous to each other, and instantly found a satisfactory solution of the difficulty by saying: "Why not join them together and make one oblong of them?" The opponents of western influence saw in this an easy method to reduce the danger of too many Senators; and to the ignorant and unthinking it seemed a simple and natural arrangement; and so the "joint State

hood Bill" was passed. How President Roosevelt could have been induced to favor it, with his general knowledge of western conditions, is one of those mysterious things past ordinary comprehension; but he certainly did give the project the entire weight of his great influence.

The feeling on the part of Arizona was plainly expressed. Gov. Joseph H. Kibbey in his report to the Secretary of the Interior, of 1905, devoted almost his entire attention to an argument, and an able one, against jointure, from the Arizona standpoint. He summed up the matter in this brief sentence: "The proposed union is regarded by our people as a menace to the property and progress of the Territory."

At the hearings before the Committee on Territories of the House of Representatives in January, 1906, the representatives of Arizona expressed their opposition to this union-we might almost say, their detestation of it—in words more forcible than complimentary. It would be difficult to use language more distinct. The chairman of their delegation, Mr. Dwight B. Heard, said: “We are opposed to Joint Statehood. We want to be let alone. A vast majority of the people of Arizona, regardless of politics or business, are utterly opposed to Joint Statehood."

Mr. R. E. Morrison said: "We object to this amalgamation, and object to being dominated by people whom we do not think should be mixed up with us at all."

They presented a petition against jointure which they stated had been signed by thirty-one hundred people within thirty minutes, at their Territorial Fair; and they added that only two per cent. of those to whom it was then presented declined to sign.

Mr. W. S. Sturges said: "I know the Arizona cattle men ; every one, owner and cow boy, is against Joint Statehood to a finish. As one man expressed it, 'We would rather see it a Territory to all eternity than joined to New Mexico.""

Gen. A. J. Sampson used these words: "It would be unwise, unjust and un-American to force us into the proposed Statehood." "In the name of all that is just and

right do not try to force us into this unnatural, inharmonious, unholy and un-American wedlock."

More than a dozen members of that delegation addressed the committee and each in turn said that while they wished for Statehood, yet they infinitely preferred remaining as a Territory to being linked with New Mexico.

While no such violent language was used in New Mexico, yet the general sentiment of the people of the Territory was thoroughly opposed to jointure.

What made the plan even more unpalatable to New Mexicans was the proposition to call the new State "Arizona." This showed as great an ignorance of history as the proposed union did of geography.

For Arizona at best only represented what had been a single county of New Mexico, and to impose the name of the daughter on the parent domain, was, at least, a humiliation. Besides, the name Arizona had no settled meaning and no historic interest. It seems, according to the best authorities, to have been the Pima name of the locality of a mine in northern Sonora, with no known significance and very various spelling; and was used as a name of a new county established by the New Mexico legislature in 1860 to include the Gadsden Purchase and adjoining territory. To abandon the historic name of New Mexico was always obnoxious to the New Mexican people, for reasons stated ir another chapter.

But the Joint Statehood Bill having been passed and signed, the practical question was, what to do about it. The national administration in Washington was fully committed to this plan of admission. The Territories were practically threatened by the dominant powers at the national Capitol that if this plan for admission was rejected by the people, it would be long before any new opportunity for Statehood could be obtained. In the minds of most New Mexicans it was a choice between two evils, and the intense desire to escape from the demoralizing conditions almost inseparable from the provincial system, and to enjoy the American right of self-government, prevailed with a great number of citizens.