Graham guardian., 1906-08-17

lao0oNhuibS hViShe VI w NAN w
thirds per cent. There the In
debtedness is sl,l15,OOO; the valu
alton, sl,75O,OOO.
; To the county Indebtedness o
New Mexico is to be added thu
territorial Indebtedness which ha'
been kept so prominently before
us, eff SS53,000, leaving gran6
total of 81, ,029, 500, as against the
S3,1l5,000 of Arizona. From the
Indebtedness of New Mexico there
rs to be deducted a sinking fund OF
about $4,000 and from the debt
of Arizona there is to be deducted
cash balance in the treasury, OF
about the same amount. Thus the
Indebtedness of New Mexico by
this showing exceeds that of Ari-
zona by about SS00,000.
But this is not nearly all. There
are two other classes of New Mex
leo Indebtedness of which "The
Commercial and Financial Chron.
icle" could take no cognizance and
to which the joint statehood papers
have made the vaguest possible
allusion. One OF these classes is
made up of the railroad bonds of
several of the counties, said to
aggregate about 5000, 900 The
other class consists of the so.called
"militia warrants, issued in an un'
known amount. Conjectures have
reached as high as $3,000,O00 and
recently New Mexican paper ad-
mitted as a matter of no conse.
quence that militia warrants had
been issued to the amount of some
thing more than one million
dollars.
There seems to be no way of
ascertaining even approximately
the amount of this indebtedness,
but if joint statehood should pre-
vail the amount would be made
known to cent by the time Of the
sitting of the first legislature.
The joint statehood papers have
met reference to these railroad
bonds and militia warrants with
the assurance that they are invalid !
and dead and that the statehood |
bill could not breathe lite into
them. We know as fact that
men who are not ignorant of the
law think otherwise, since last fall |
when the passage of the Hamilton
bill seemed probable, the traffic in
these old knocked about bonds be-
came active and the holders Of
them were identified as among the
most earnest advocates of jointure.
Ii also stated that there was at
the same time an overhauling of
ancient and dusty records in a
search for those long-despised
militia warrants.
The friends of jointure pretend
to believe that the following clause
of the statehood bill precludes the
assumption by the new state Of
any county Indebtedness: "That
the debts and liabilities Of said
territory of Arizona and of said
territory of New Mexico shall be
assumed by said state" Their
view is that the clause relates only
to "territorial Indebtedness IfI.
that had been the intent of the bill
it would have been set forth in
those two words. 1t will be OBJ.
served that whenever the name of
either of the territories is used in
the bill it takes the form of "The
Territory of Arizona" or "The
Territory Of New Mexico"
The clause undoubtedly provides
for the cleaning up and the con-
solidation of all the Indebtedness
and Liabilities of the two territories
aud not merely the "territorial in
1ebtedness" Of the two territories.
But whatever the intent of the law
n that matter, itls almost absolute
" certain that such a construction
Of it would prevail, if not at the
of the state, as soon
lfter as legislature could enact
hat idea into statute. The
counties which groan under the
weight of this indebtedness are the
'nes which would supply the ma.
ority in the legislature,
GRAHAM county is not the only