Arizona republican., 1904-09-30
PHOENIX. ARIZONA. SEPT. 30, 1901
How to Avert the Calamity |.

For nearly twenty years Mark Smith has been getting a seat in congress on the statehood issue" For the same length of time Arizona has been get ting 1t in the neck This year, MT. Smith varies his argument, somewhat. He has no longer the as surance to say that his cleo tion will secure statehood. He admits that it will not. All he claims is that his electon will defeat the pro- posed merging of Arizona and New Mexico into one state.
 Mir. Fowler's supporters are prepared to take the bull squarely by the horns on that proposition.
 The very logic with which Smith tries to sustain his argument defeats him. The indisputabie facts cut the ground from under his feet.
 MT. Smith confesses that his own re- liance and his sole reliance is upon the democratic minority in the United States senate. a body in which the re- publicans have a majority O: over 20 out of a membership of 90. In other words, according to MT. Smith, the only hope of defeating joint statehood lies in a democratic filibuster in the senate. He says the republicans are solidly for the pending bill. He tells his audiences that If he is defeated the democratic senators will reverse their present po- sition and assent to the union of these two territories.
 The democratic senators hope he ar gues, to see two democratic senators elected from this territory ultimately, and are therefore opposed to destroy ing the chance Of future democratic state by uniting it with another ter ritory. His defeat would convince the democrats that this territory might be- come a republican state. and conse- quentIy democrats would be willing to have the merger go through. Thus Arizona andlNew Mexico would be ad- mitted as one republican state, and there would be two republican sena- tors instead of four. The newspapers supporting Smith make the same ar gument. although they do not state 1t as bluntly as we have put it.
 Mark Smith cannot escape the cold logic Of his own argument. After throwing dust in the eyes of Arizona voters for two decades, he has frankly to admit that the statehood question in congress Is purely and solely a political question.
 And it Is a political question, and nothing else. Deprecate 1t as much as we may, get as mad about 1t as we choose, the fact stares Arizona in the face. The question above all others in congress when a territory applies for admission into the union is. What will be the politics of the new state? If the applicant Is likely to be demo cratic, republicans oppose admission unless a republican state can be ad- mitted at the same time. If likely to be republican. the democrats oppose 1t unless a democratic state can be admitted at the same time. It is only when each side thinks it will get some benefit that both parties can be united for an admission bill.
 The republicans in the United States senate today look with favor on the union Of Arizona and New Mexico, be- cause they know that the state thus created would be surely republican and would offset the democratic state to be created out of Oklahoma and Indian Territory.
 If republicans in the senate could be convinced that Arizona would by i'm migration and the growth of republican principles become a republican com monwealth within the next two or three years. they would vote solidIy this winter to leave us out of the pend. ing statehood legislation. They woul5 admit Indiana Oklahoma Territory. and offset 1t by the admission of New Mex. ico, leaving Arizona to wait awhile.