The weekly Arizona miner., 1870-05-28
pREscorr, ARIzosa. April l5, 1870
WM. J. BERRY.


 In your Editorial Notes in the Weekly Alta of April 2d, you do great injustice to Arizona. You are pleased to speak of this Territory as "the land of the prickly pear and the scorpion" You then go on to say that "in few brief lines you are informed that the Apaches are roaming at will over the country" As though this was anything new. You then proceed to say that " the smallpox has broken out, and to crown all, the first earthquake of the period has just reached there" Then you sum up the fate Of "poor Arizona" in these words. Prick ! ly-pear, and scorpions are bad enough, but when we come to throw in Apaches small pox and earthquakes, the country may as well be considered untenable.n
 We'll it is hard to be thus disposed of and we did not expect this verdict from the Aid, a newspaper that in times past has had some good words to say for this struggling people. l trust that before being entirely wiped out, you will permit us to say word in our de- fense.
 In the first place, permit us to say that your premises do not justify your conclusion, and the charges which you bring to sink this Territory into nothingness, come with very bad grace from California. Secondly, as to Arizona being the land of the "prickly pear and the scorpion" have to say that Cali fornia can beat us in these productions. l have resided for twenty three years oh the Pacific slope, and speak what know when l say that California has more desert waste, more land unfit for human habitation and producing not only the prickly-pear and SCOT pion, but the horned toad, the centipede, the rattle-snake and the tarrantula, than Arizona can boast of. Thirdly; as to "the Apache roaming at will over the Territory that is too true, but the same state of things has existed in every Territory, as "the star of Empire has taken its way across the Amer ican continent. Every step in the advance of civilization has been disputed by the mur- derous savage. But they have only retarded, they have never pTereated the ultimate subju- , gation of any Territory. And where, let me ask, ,-where in the westward march of civil ization-has any Territory been given up as nntenable because of the hostility of the Indians7 Echo answers, AoNlers
 The price that civilization has to pay is a fearful one, and we of Arizona, in common , with the western pioneers, are paying that price. Many of our bravest mountaineer, have fallen, and we who remain know mol , how soon it may be our turn; but here VI
 stand, on the extreme outpost of civiliza tion, inhabiting the richest Territory on God
 earth, and with all the drawbacks that W,
 have had to encounter, or may yet have tt ' encounter, we know that it cannot be saiC ? with truth that Arizona is untenable." ' As to " earthquakes,n the little one we hac
 was "no great shakes" Very few pfopl,
 felt it at all, and the idea of San Francisco | journal taunting us with " earthquakes" il '- particularly rich; knowing that in that city 1T thousands live in hourly dread of hayin, ), their houses tumbling down about their ears !; for the very good reason that they refiec
 that " what has been may be again.
 Your remark about smallpox I think i " equally out of place. I have heard that thi terrible disease has broken out in Tucson q down on the frontier, some three hundre
 miles south of this, but it has not reache VI Central Arizona yet. But suppose it had
 suppose it was all over the Territory, in eyer if house, would that be any reason to conside
 the Territory untenable 7n Not long sine, that tarrthla .-;a O..
 and remained there for long time, caryin :. off thousands of your citizens; but neye
 read in any ofyour papers that San Francisc 10 was considered untenable, in consequence.
 I cannot believe that the editorial parr
 graph to which refer ever met the eve , Io either of the responsible editors of the Ait, ,d before 1t was in print have been reade
 of the Aita ever since its first number, and
 has been par excellence, my favorite ourna l l have always held it in high estimation fc
 its candor and fairness of expression. Bu S. for brave and struggling people, endeavol
 ing to open up to the benefits and blessing
 of civilization, Territory possessed of mir Do eral wealth without parallel on the eartl
 and also boundless agricultural resource.
 bafiied in every step of our progress by tn of raids of the most blood thirsty and treacheI
 ous sayages that ever cursed the America Q! continent; say, for such people to be thu n, fiippantly disposed of, and their country prc nd nouIced untenable, because in the souther
 part of this vast Territory there is som m desert land, on which the prickly pear grow