Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-02

/ l5sSS EAl domain that a hundred Rhode
/ IES&fGlGl Islands could be tucked away
1 within its rOomy boundaries
with still enough space left for
/ Massachusetts. In population 1t claims
nearly 100000. and OF wealth almost a
/ half billion dollars. Could Daniel Nep-
4 ster come back to earth long enough
to learn the facts about New Mexico
and California he would conclude that
/ he was neither a prophet nor the son
4 of a prophet. After the Mexican war
/ he inVeighed with all the force Of his
powerful oratory against accepting
/ California and New Mexico as indem-
nifty He said it was as sure as death
and taxes that neither of them would
ever be worth a dollar, and he be
seeChed and implored, entreated and
demanded that all this sage brush
/ be not made a part of the United
/ States. lie said that our children'S $
/ children would not live to see New
/ Mexico the home of more than $4,000
souls Yet Arizona was made in the
main from the territory Of New Mexico,
and together they have over a half
million people.
! New Mexico is known as the land of
the turquoise sky. The records of the
! United States weather bureau show
that no other region in America has
as many hours of sunshine. The fed
| eral government has shown what it
thinks of the climate by establishing
| its principal army and navy sani-
tariums there. Thousands of afflicted
Americans journey there for pulmon-
airy trouble. and someone has allitera-
lively styled it the land of the lunger"
! Former Senator Teller of Colorado tells
/ the prize story about the climatic ben
| ctitS OF New Mexico. once he had a
serious ailment that threatened to take
| from him the record of being the most
| persistent talker in the senate, SO he
| journeyed to New Mexico. He after
ward declared to friends that his throat
trouble began to get better soon after
he reached the New Mexico boundary,
and that by the time he reached his
| destinations he felt as well as ever. The
result was that he came back to the
! senate to use his famous "Ah, Mr..
| President" a few thousand times more
before his term of office expired.
Like Arizona, the territory of New
| Mexico is famous for its geology and
| for it's prehistoric ruins. Its geology
| tells of millions of years of world-mak-
| ing, and affords examples of how even
! the solid rock may grow. The face of
the Sandal mountains, which lies to-
ward the Rio Grande, shows a record
of 5000 feet of perpendicular geology,
each foot of which may have been
! thousands of years in the making.
! West Of Mount Taylor, toward the
| Zuni reservation, erosion has had q
! gigantic playground, and it is said that
! nowhere else on the earth has it played
such fantasies. The teeth of time
wind and water have been busy for
more million years than the geologist
/ can estimate.
1t is said that New Mexico possesses
| the oldest living town in the new
world If indeed its founding does not
antedate Babylon, NineVeh or any of
| the other cities of ancient story. 1t
| is the little Pueblo town of Picuris,
once a flourishing place of thousands
of inhabitants, but now having only
| about thirty denizens of the passing
race-the last links that bind the pre-
| historic past with the living present.
! The ethnologists conclude that ere long
! the last leaves of the whitening tree
of the Pueblos will have fallen and that
a noble race will then live only in
! tradition. Race suicide has become an
| epidemic among the younger Pueblos
race suicide in the shape of inter-
marriage with the Mexican greasers.
These marriages produce Il progeny
which forgets about it's Pueblo blood.
| Never did a high caste Spaniard or a
proud English nobleman protest more
vehemently against the Dtermarriage
of his children with mean-born people
than does the old Pueblo against these
matches that obliterate his racial iden-
tity, but his opposition meets with lit
| tie success.
That comparatively little of the area
of New Mexico has felt the influence
| of civilization is shown by the fact
that Of its 7S,000,000 acres OF land less
! than a alf-million acres are under
actual cultivation. But its river val
| leys. once their famished sands are sat
| isfied with draughts of water from the
big irrigation lakes, reward the irri-
gationist a thousand fold. Water is the
| only magic necessary to transform
them from parches deserts of hot sand
| to veritable bowers of wealth -produc-
ing vegetation.
In return for the water to satisfy
their thirst they give barley that stands
| seven feet high, oats whose heads
measure thirty inches pears weighing
nineteen ounces each, peaches that VIII
|