The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-11-24
NOT ALL ARE
EAGER FOR STATEHOOD

NJ. w. Mills. a prominent lawyer
and business man of Springer, n. M,
who is at the Coates House, declares
! that the desire to secure admission to
the Union as state IS neither SO sIrons
nor so general among the people OF
New Mexico as il has been currently
reported to be.
"Of course the politicians are in faV-
or of it," said he, but a large proper
ton of the business men and property
holders are against it. The politicians
have in view possible elections to Unit
ed States senatorships, to Congress,
| and the various state offices which
would be created, and this greatly in
creases the strength of their belief that
statehood would be a good thing. The
business men and property owners, on
the other hand, fear that the increased
expenses of government which would
result would much more than offset the
advantages gained
Some Of Mr.. Mills statements regard
| ing the taxes levied in New Mexico are
almost startling.
1.-THE territory has got into debt in
various ways" said he, with the result
that the rates of taxation in the diff
ferent counties vary from to Is per
| cent on the actual valuation of prop
erty. 1t is u per cent. in Santa Fe
county A large part of the debt which
/
incurred by the voting of railroad
bonds.
80 long as New Mexico remains a
| territory" continued Mr.. Mills, the
federal government has to bear a large
part of its expenses. The government
/ pays the salaries of its governor, secre-
tary, surveyor general and legislators
and many offices do not now exist
which statehood would require Those
who favor statehood argue that admis-
| sion would cause a great many people
1 to move in. and that thus the value Of
property would be considerably in
lcreased and the burden Of taxation re-
duced This may be true, but l can't
see It, | have lived there 30 years.
When went there New Mexieo's popu-
lation was 100, 900, of which $4,000 were
/ Mexicans and 5000 from the states.
| Since that time 1t has only doubled,
land we now have 10000 or $4,000 Mex
leans and about $4,000 or 10000 Ameri-
cans We have had only this small
growth, while many other territories
have become thickly populated states.
THE trouble is that we have never
had enough rain. If we could have rain
our soil would become productive and
then it would not be necessary to argue
/ that our population is kept down and
our rate of taxation up because we are
not in the Union
! Mr. Mills is one Of the largest proper
ty owners in his section of the terri
tory. which is the best part Of it, and
he frankly admits that his opinion is
largely determined by this fact. He has
u.s. 900 acres of land within 30 miles of
Springer. It is divided into a sheep
ranch Of six sections Of land. on which
there are $500 sheep. fruit farm of 500
acres. on which he raises apples, pears,
peaches piums, prunes, nectarines.
Ii
cattle ranch, on which he has a good
sized herd of Galloways, both pure
lbloods and grades. and a horse ranch,
on which there are 500 head of horses.
Springer is in the extreme northeast
ern part of the territory, and much OF
the land surrounding is irrigated in the
same way as large parts of the adjoin-
ing land in Colorado
Mr.. Mills ships his fruits to all parts
of the southwest. He has sold $4,000
worth from his farm this year. He ad
nlits that he is not so pessimistic re-
garding the future of the territory as
some of the foregoing statements might
be taken to indicate.
J Il suppose" said he. that some
! method will in course of time be dis
covered that will make ours produc-
1 tive and important part Of the country.
We have already irrigated with some
success. I keep six men constantly en-
ployed in this work on my fruit farm
DO you think that the adoption of
the proposed plan Of government irri-
cation would accomplish much?"
It's a subject that has not been
much discussed by our people. 1t might
OF course. we, like those of other sec
tons. are always prepared to accept
anything the government is willing to
/ give"
Mr.. Mills saws that the character of
1.-THE Mexican population is improving &