Bisbee daily review., 1909-10-05
STATEHOOD
 PROBLEMATicAL.


 sion of congress is concerned it is all right to think we are going to have it. but it is all wrong ,o say that we are going to have 1t sure. Cameron may thiak so and he may not, but be that as il may he must profess to be
 Iieve that statehood will be assured whether it is or not. That is the pop ular side and the time he is expected to dance, be his belief what it may. The declarations of President Taft may be sincerely made and as sincere Iy believed by him, but, it is up to Aldrich and a few others of his kind to deliver the goods. President Roose
 welt was a true friend of the territo- ries and used his best efforts to SC cure their admission as states, but was unable to do SC, and it is more than questionable if President Taft can improve on the Roosevelt record. When he comes to the territory he will see but little of it that is good. He will be one hour only in the great Salt River valley and much Of that time will be taken up in hand shaking and speech making. He will pass Yuma in the night and between Yuma and Tempe he will see one of the prettiest deserts there is out of doors. Between the Salt River and Prescott he will see one of the toughest bits of rough and tumble country that God ever made-that is if he did make it.
 Between Prescott and Ash Fork his attention will be attracted to several bits of magnificent scenery, but he will not see a wheatfield, a patch of corn, a mining camp or a hundred head of cattle on the entire drive. Between Ash Fork and Flagstaff he will see some pine forest and about a half dozen sheep raising railroad towns, but nothing more From the time he enters Arizona till he crosses the line at Gallup, New Mexico, he will have travelled over 800 miles of which 575 miles is not state produc- ing country. He will stop one hour in Phoenix and one hour in Prescott and the balance of the time he is in Ari- zona he will use in getting out of it. He will be in Texas five days. but he could not give southern Arizona, where the great weight of taxable wealth and population is to be found, half day. The signs of the times are not these of statehood, but even if they were it does not lie with the presi- dent to admit us. If it did Arizona and New Mexico would have been states and not territories today. The late special session of congress did more to destroy the hopes of state hood than anything that has happen d within the past ten years Up to that time it had been the fear of four more Democratic senators that had stood like a stone wall between the territories and the fruitioa of their hopes. Now 1t is neither color nor politics to be dreaded, but the west against the east. A few more wes- tern senators and the domination of the east is at an end. The growing importance of the great west in na- tional affairs cannot be over esttmat- ed. The potential movement now un- der way is not to array section against section. the west against the east, but to nationalize congress. and to make that body truly national the west must have a larger voice in the af- fairs of the nation New England does not represent the spirit or the interest of the nation at large but 50 far as the present tariff law is con cerned it is primarily New England law, just as the Dingley law was be- fore it, and just as the next law will be unless the west comes into it's own The greatest individual factor in mak- ing that law was Aldrich of Rhode Island, the smallest and most untypi- cal state in the union. With two sen ators each from Arizona and New Mexico western representatives would not be obliged to take out New Eng land naturalization papers when they go to Washington. as has too often been the case if they expected to get anything through either house of con gress. Senators from Arizona and New Mexico would stand by western