The Tombstone epitaph., 1882-01-23
NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA.

NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA. Senator Ingalls,, of Kansas, has in
 troduced bill "to enable the people
 of New Mexico to form a constitu
 ton and state government, and fol
 Its admission as state into the un.
 ion" There are several reasons
 why New Mexico as at present or.
 ganized should not be admitted into
 the Union. It has not sufficient pop.
 ulation. According to the last cen
 sus there were but l19,265 persons
 in the territory, including 10000 In.
 dians and half f-breeds. ] he rate of
 growth is slow. New Mexico has
 been open for settlement 250 years.
 Santa Fe is one of the oldest towns
 in North America, and has been the
 capital of New Mexico since 164O
 If there had been any capacity in the soil for sustaining large population,
 New Mexico would have been thickly settled long ago. Moreover, the character of the population is not satisfactory. It is largely made up of ''Greaser" Mexicans, mongrels, half-breeds, none of whom speak English, cowboys, and rowing class of adventurers who have no fixed habitations. The scanty mining pop ulation may not be permanent. It cannot, at any rate, be depended on as an element of stability in a new state.
 New Mexico and Arizona ought to be consolidated. They were formerly parts of one territory. The reason for their division was the want of means of communication between them and the alleged hardship of compelling residents in the western half to make the toilsome journey over the sterile plains to the seat of government in Santa Fe. But this reason for separation has now been removed. There are, or soon will be, three great lines of railway traversing New Mexico and Arizona from side to side. The journey from almost any part of Arizona to Albuqurque, which ought to be the new capital, will be less difficult than to Tucson. The two territories together would only have sufficient population for state. The last census gives the pop laton of each as follows:
 New Mexico. .119,565
 Total ...............,,... .1eo,ole
 There are in Arizona 5000 Chi nese, Indians and half-breeds, and in New Mexico, 10000 half breeds and Indians, leaving an effective whi'e populs ton in the two territor- ies of l45,O0O, more than 100000 of whom are ignorant, superstitious Greasers, who know nothing ot our language, literature, ia WIS, customs, or civilization.
 The area of the two territories is very large. Arizona has 113,916 square miles, and New Mexico has l2l ,20l square miles. If they should be consolidated and admitted as one state the area would be 235,l17 | square miles. This would be nearly As much as Texas, but its agricul- tural resources would not be one- tenth as great. Its power to sustain population will ever be limited to few valleys susceptible of irrigation and whatever minerals may be found worth working.
 There would be grave objections o making any new state of such vast dimensions, if all of its soil, or any of it, were fertile. But most of New Mexico and Arizona is utterly worthless. It has strips of good lands in the valleys and along he river courses, but the high lands Ire waterless, treeless, rainless des- rts. The Southern Pacific railroad uns for hundreds of miles through lesolate, sandy plains, which are but it:le better than a desert. Eastern New Mexico is continuation of the "Staked Plains" of Texas;