Arizona weekly citizen., 1889-08-10
"w" SAYS YES.
TUCsoN, August 7th, 1888

EDITOR CITIZEN: I am surprised to see such serious opposition to the con- stitutional convention. The reasons
 urged are that we cannot afford it and | that it will not help us in the effort to become a state. The Star heads this opposition, and has elected itself the champion of these two reasons; and yet ! the Star assures us that 1t is heartily in favor of statehood. Following in this | line comes the other newspapers and in dividuals who indorse these reasons as sufficient to defeat the convention and ] all of them like their leader, insisting they are in favor of admission.
 Nevertheless, ,before.we can be admitted,
 we must first hold a convention, frame a constitution and adopt it by a vote of the people. Each of these are steps
 preliminary to admission, and if we are
 to De admitted, they must be taken and the expense of taking them must be paid. In some cases those steps have been taken before and in others after enabling acts have been passed by Con
 gress. The logical procedure is to take
 them before enabling acts are passed;
 because the true way to admission is to
 go to Congress in an authoritative way,
 and armed with the demand of the
 people of the territory for admission, ac-
 companied with an official showing that
 tho needful preliminary steps thereto
 have been taken and that these have
 been endorsed by its people. A request
 for admission under these circumstances
 becomes a demand, and congress can
 answer it in but one way,-namely, by
 admission.
 The objection that Arizona has not the requisite population has no grain of merit or of law in 1t; for congress has the undoubted right to admit territory irrispective of this question.
 The objectition that the territory Is
 "HoPELESsLY DEMOCRATIC"
 is a knavish one, for democrats have as much right to be sovereigns as republi- cans. Besides it does not lie in any mans mouth to say this objection is true in fact. Arizona is debateable ground. Every one knows that politics in Ter ritory occupies a secondary place in elections. Men, rather than party. con trol the elections. Colorado was admit | ted by Republican congress, through | and by means of the influence and tact | of a Democratic delegate it then had | | ocrats voted to admit her, because she | urged her admission strongly and per | siStently. At the time of her admission | she did not have as many voters as Ari- | zona has to day.
 The objection that we cannot afford a | state government can only be urged by | ignorance. Any one knowing the histo- " of our Commonwealths would never | roc rt fn oh nc.1 haN can show that we have nothing out of | which a self-sustaining state can be con | structed. then I will be one of them and l will join them in opposing admission. | Every ordinarily intelligent observer | who knows Arizona, care not how | skeptical he may be, knows we'll that l she is
 PECULIARLY AND PARTICULA RLY BLESSED l She has an almost unlimited mining. | territory, throughout all of which is | thickly sprinkied paying gold, silver, c c)pper, mica, lead and iron ores; she has | broad valleys, representing millions of | acres, that can be cheaply and thorough | ly irrigated, composed of the same soil | that has made the valley of the Nile fla 1 nous for centuries. and in which all the | cereals can be grown, as well also, all | kinds of grapes, almonds, English wal ! nuts, figs, apples, apricots and in many places, oranges. Whatever is grown here and IS properly watered and cared for yields enormously. We have thous- ands of acres that can be reclaimed where Colorado has hundreds. What ever she can grow we can grow, and all these highly profitable fruits in addition. Add to these things the further fact that Arizona is a sanitarium; that for in the year her climate if the most perfect in America; that there are many diseases that will cure themselves here that cannot be cured elsewhere, and we have the prominent things out of which population can be maintained; and the myriad of things that grow out of these.
 That these things exist here in their