In the February 2012 Issue...

The Tombstone Perspective
on Statehood

(Arizona celebrates its statehood centennial on Feb. 14.)

s summer yielded to fall in 1908, The Tombstone Epitaph carried a short front-page story that suggested the simmering issue of statehood for Arizona Territory might be moving to the front burner. President Theodore Roosevelt, it was reported, would soon recommend “immediate admission” of Arizona as a separate state and use “all honorable means to have the bill passed” before leaving office in early 1909.

Talk of creating a state, presumably named Arizona, was hardly new. Arizona Territory was created as a Union bulwark in 1863, during the Civil War. Less than a decade later, in 1872, the territory began agitating for statehood. For the next four decades, various proposals for statehood advanced and receded. It was not until Feb. 14, 1912, that a final hurdle – pitting President William Taft against Arizona’s statehood partisans – was cleared.

As a territory, Arizona essentially was controlled by elected and appointed officials in Washington, D. C. Its most direct influence was through a single territorial delegate who could speak but not vote in the House of Representatives.

In 1908, as the statehood issue was again started to percolate, a story on The Epitaph’s front page yielded some not-altogether-new news: Arizona statehood, regardless of President Roosevelt’s claim, was bubbling in a pot being stirred by Democratic and Republican partisans with local and national agendas. Ralph Cameron, a Republican, was running against Marcus Smith, a Democrat, to serve as the territory’s congressional delegate. To Democratic minds – including that of William Hattich, The Epitaph’s editor – voters were being “deluded into believing that Cameron’s election might further statehood.”

Cameron’s pro-statehood position, Hattich insisted, was part of a larger plan for Republicans to “wrest Arizona from the Democrats.” The maneuvers, Hattich wrote, “only strengthened the local Democrats in their allegiance to their party.” Statehood wasn’t the issue – it was then, as now, another touchstone for partisan political power.

More partisan invective poured from Hattich’s pen elsewhere in the Oct. 18 issue. Smith, a noted attorney who had practiced in Tombstone, sat at the right hand of God, insofar as Hattich was concerned. It was Smith, assisted by a few “manly Republicans” who had fought back an earlier proposal to bring Arizona and New Mexico into the Union as a single state.

Referring to “MARCUS AURELIUS SMITH” in capital letters, Hattich said Smith and principled Democrats had fought back the work of the single-state crowd, which he described as “folded up in the Navajo blanket of heterogeneous, non-descript, mass of superstition to the east of us.”

Alluding the New Mexico’s large Hispanic population, Hattich made it clear that white Arizonans did not want “our statute printed in two languages, our juries composed of men to whom the law and the evidence had to be interpreted, our revenues paying the bills of the state, their vote controlling.”

“What we want is reason, justice, patriotism, that is American.” Which meant Arizona should not be tainted by New Mexico.

Erasing Territorial Memories

n late November 1908, Hattich launched another broadside under the headline, “Some Reasons Why We Should Be Granted Statehood.” This time around, Hattich rolled the calendar back to the 1880s to make his case:

“The people are in the East, the money is in the East, and these people imagine that so long as Arizona is a territory, holdups, bad men, and scalping parties are in evidence every day of the year. You cannot make them understand that Arizona is one of the most progressive and law-abiding communities in the nation, so long as we are a territory. We must circumvent their ignorance and the only way to do it, is to secure statehood.


“As soon has this has been accomplished, Eastern people with Eastern capital will immediately conclude that Arizona has become civilized. That their bald scalps will no longer be in danger. That they can walk forth in broad daylight without intercepting the bullet of the bold highwayman, that churches may be rearing their steeples to the sky, that school houses may dot the embryo commonwealth, that capital and individuals have ample security.

“Until statehood is obtained you can never convince those old orthodox fools that all of these splendid conditions already exist.

“Therefore we want statehood, and then capital will be poured into the territory by the barrel and we shall have recognition in the eyes of the financial and commercial world.”

By early 1909, Sen. J. B. Foraker, of Ohio, had introduced a new bill to admit Arizona as a single state. It proposed a constitutional convention, land grants for schools, $5 million from the federal government for education and another $150,000 to cover the costs attendant to creating the new state.

The real news, however, was in a separate Epitaph story under the headline, “Sounds Death Knell of Promised Statehood.” Arizona’s territorial governor, Joseph H. Kinney, said statehood legislation was not going anywhere. Kinney didn’t even bother to include a statehood appeal in his annual governor’s report. Speaking in Washington, Kinney said, “It is by no means a sure thing…I could talk to you all night about the good things of Arizona and the resources of the territory.”

Our other February features…

Protecting the San Bernardino Frontier – The first military installation in what became San Bernardino County, Calif., was organized in 1847 when a detachment from the Mormon Battalion was stationed for a time at the base of Cajon Pass. Over time, the Army’s presence extended along the Mojave Road, the desert route that linked Southern California to Arizona Territory. As Nick Cataldo explains, life in the tiny and remote forts had its ups and downs.

Ken Maynard, the “Singing Cowboy” – Born in Indiana, Maynard became a major box office draw as westerns became a staple of the American movie industry in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a superb trick rider who became Hollywood’s first “singing cowboy” – a title that later passed to Gene Autry.

Adventures in Overland Travel – When older folks headed west in the 19th century, children were at their sides. Life did not pause for young people on the trail – they experienced thrills and spills just like everyone else. Due to disease or injury, some children never made it to their family’s destination – a wrenching hardship for parents in search of new beginnings.

He Couldn’t Say, “I’ll Drink to That” – The West is full of strange tales, including that of a saloon robber who was killed in a subsequent gunfight with northern Arizona lawmen. Inebriated friends could not believe the robber was buried without a last shot of whiskey. So they went to the cemetery to right what they saw as a grievous wrong.

And Much More – Our regular monthly features, including Frontier Fare, YesterWest, Book Bag, Twisted Tails, the antics of the Buffalo Gals and your letters!

Be sure to check out Just Around the Bend, a free listing of upcoming Old West events. To list your event, contact Gary Ledoux at epitaphads@tombstoneepitaph.com