Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1902-12-30
Mesilla Valley Chamber Of
Commerce Acted on State
hood Question.
ARGUMENTS PRESENTED
A Dignifed and Powerful Reply
to the Majority Report
Of the Senate Com
mittee.
Special to the New Mexican.

Las Cruces, Dec. 29.-The Mesills
Valley Chamber of Commerce met ir
special session Friday to take action or
the statehood question and adopted the
following resolutions:
Be it Resolved, By the Mesilla Val
ley Cham ber of Commerce, and organiz
alton, the constituent members of which
are practically all the merchants, farm
ers. miners, professional men, educators
and capitalists of the county of Dona
Ana, in the Territory of New Mexico
in number more than 110 active mem.
bers, in special session assembled, at
Las Cruces, N. M !, this Goth day of De-
cember 1909, that it is the unanimous
sense of this Chamber that the "proper
time" has arrived when the United
States should redeem its pledge to the
people of this Territory contained in the
Treaty of Feb. 2, 1S4S, known as the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, made be-
tween the United States and the Repub-
lie of Mexico, to the effect that the peo-
pie of said Territory should be admitted
to the enjoyment of all the rights Of
citizens of the United States at the pro-
per time," That taxation without re-
presentation" continued beyond fair
probationary period, is contrary to the
policy and tradition of the American
people, and it was a violation of this
wise maxim of government by the Brit
ish Government that constituted the
principal grievance of the American
Colonies against that Government and
caused the severance of the political
ties until then binding the said Colonies
to the British empire. The Supreme
Court of the United States in one of its
decisions has well said:-A Territory.
sis acquired to become State and
not to be held as a colony and governed
by Congress by absolute authority. Te-
rritorial Governments are organized as
matter Of necessity. because the peo-
Pile are too few in numbers and scant
In resources to maintain State govern
ment; they are contrary to the spirit OF
our American Institutions, and are to he
tolerated and continued only so long as
that necessity exists"
OBe it Further Resolved, That this
Chamber entertains no doubt as to the
fitness of the people, of this Territory,
by character, intelligence, wealth,
population and political expert
ence, to successfully maintain
and conduct an orderly and up
right State in the American union,
measured by every standard that has on
past occasions been applied in the ad-
mission of new States in the Union, and
that by right, justice and experience
they are entitled to their immediate ad-
mission into the Union as Sovereign
State. In reply to those who question
this assertion we would point to the
fifty years successful conduct of all our
territorial and local political and mu-
nicipal affairs; to the 10000 children in
our public and private schools and in
our higher institutions of learning; to
the millions of dollars our people have
voluntarily spent in the building of
colleges, university, normal schools, hos
pitfalls, public school buildings, capitol,
asylums, court houses and penitentiary;
to the millions annually spent upon the
education of the children of the Terri
tory; to the rapid reduction of the per-
centage OF illiteracy and the rapid
growth among the native people OF the
Territory in knowledge Of the English
language; to the fidelity of all our people
W d ItpuUHCdu lOIlH VI SoNOAAluOuu dHu
their attachment to republican institu-
tions, and their loyalty to the nation in
two wars, although one of those wars
was against the mother country Of
many of them; to the churches of many
denominations, to be found almost
everywhere throughout the Territory
where settlement is to be found, all
working harmoniously together for the
moral training and uplifting of the peo-
pie of the Territory; to our population
OF nearly 1000; to our largo taxable
wealth; to the protection uniformly |
given to life and property; to the re-
preston of crime; to. the purity and
dignity of our courts, and to the uni |
form manner in which even.handed JUS
tice is meted out to rich and poor by our
juries, composed Unfortunately OF all |
elements OF our people; to the wisdom
exhibited by our legislators uniformly |
In the enactment of laws; to our liberal
for charitable pur-
poses; to the high standing of our
higher educational institutions, at
as they do, students |
from foreign countries and from many |
of the eastern and southern states; and,
finally, the patience with which, year
after year, for more than half century, |
and while their fathers have grown gray |
and many of them passed down to the
grave, they have borne with the indif-
ference with which their earnest ap-
peaIs for the full rights of American
citizens have been met by successive
congresses of the United Stats.
II it be said by those who deny us our
los In