Τ

HE saving grace of the Republic has been its power of assimilation. Out of a conglomerate mass from all nations it has made its citizens. A generation from the father land and they are thorough Americans. Not so with the Mexicans. For half a century they have been Americans, but to-day they are well-nigh as alien as when we acquired them. The slowness and dullness of the race accounts for this in part, yet it is only fair to allow for the difference in the method of acquisition. They came to us not by choice but by force; they were not transplanted, but left on the same old soil in the same surroundings; they were not thrown with Englishspeaking people, but remained with users of their mother tongue. To some extent the blame is ours, for we have known and cared as little for them as they have for us. It is only with their demand for Statehood that eyes have been turned upon our Mexican brothers of the Southwest.

That they are Spanish in tongue and customs is well known, but how tenaciously they have held to their race peculiarities is known only by those who have lived among them. Get away from the

cities and the railroads and one would have difficulty in determining whether he was in New Mexico or our sister republic to the south. After hours of futile effort to find some one who would meet his English question with a more intelligible answer than "No sabe," he would probably be inclined to think that he had by chance crossed over the border of the United States into Mexico.

Through the veins of many of the natives of the Southwest flows the best of Spanish blood. Had their family records been kept, many could trace their descent from the daring Espejo and his party which pushed north as far as the city of Santa Fé in 1582. Yet they have so degenerated and mingled with the Indian tribes that they do little credit to their intrepid ancestors. There is no higher compliment than to call a native of the Southwest a Spaniard. The rich and educated insist upon being so called, the remainder being Mexicans or, somewhat contemptuously, "greasers. The greaser is the interesting, picturesque fellow.

The most fruitful region in interesting types is the Rio Grande valley. There they are more Americanized than back on

the mesas and in the mountains-the cattle and sheep country where the outof-doors, nomadic life adds a wild, savage turn to the already evil-looking fellow but they are still far removed from the commonplace. One spring day, the same on which most of the photographs illustrating this article were taken, I started south from Albuquerque along the Rio Grande. The river was swollen to a wide, muddy stream, the acequias were running bank full, and the fields were flooded with water. The budding trees were alive with birds, all the various members of the blackbird family, even to the beautiful yellow-neck fellow, singing in grand concert. Fencepost after fence-post was glorified as the seat of the prince of warblers-the meadow-lark. The robins, not yet gone north, dug in the soft earth for the fat angleworms, and chirped and chuckled at each new find. This irrigated valley is a garden spot.

Now and then we passed a ranch-house

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY D. T. DUCKWALL, JR.

AN OLD CITIZEN OF NEW MEXICO

built of adobe, in that style which has ever proven effective for defense, the house opening only on an inclosed court formed by a high wall, the barn, and other outbuildings. All who enter pass through one massive gate into the court, and here, in grand confusion, live the Mexicans, with their horses, cattle, chickens, hogs, and dogs. Every two or three miles the houses get closer together, clustering around a little adobe church with its painted wooden cross and heavy bell ornamenting the plain exterior. These little towns take the name of the church, and it would be difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends.

As we neared a church we heard the bell tolling, and, rounding a corner, we saw a small company coming down the dusty road. Bareheaded men walked ahead, six bearing a coffin, while behind trailed fifty or more women, each with a black shawl over her head, and all wailing and moaning. They passed into the little

church, dimly lighted by a few candles, and there chanted, without a priest, the most dismal of funeral ceremonies. As the body was borne to the grave in the churchyard the women remained inside, seemingly vying with one another in vocal powers as they wailed and moaned. It was all very depressing until of a sudden they broke up into little groups and went off chatting, laughing, and smoking cigarettes. It made me think of the hired mourners of China. At another little town we were surprised to see a woman kneeling in the road, and in front of houses near by were others in the same devout attitude. The explanation was forthcoming when a procession headed by a priest in his robes and followed by girls in white came into view. The devout always kneel at the approach of a priest. The procession went to the house of a sick man, and the girls in white had just taken their first communion. These people are deeply religious, but seldom moral, and are completely under the power of the

Roman Church. There are some problems in the Southwest akin to those which face us in the Philippines and not unlike those with which President Diaz has dealt so summarily in Mexico.

An Indian pueblo which we passed through further on differed but little from the Mexican towns-a little more compactly built, that was all.

By evening we had reached the home of a friend, Abel Apodacca, and drove through the big gate into the court. Here we unharnessed our horses, watered them at the old-fashioned well, and, throwing the feed on the ground, turned them loose. Baking was in progress in the beehivelike oven in the courtyard, the progress of which we watched with interest. Fire having been kept in it for hours, the coals and ashes were raked out and bread and meat put in. These ovens do the best of baking. Abel is quite American, and we were not surprised on entering his house (the walls of which were of adobe nearly two feet thick, the floor and roof of the same useful material, in the first case tramped as hard as rock, in the latter spread thick on poles and baked hard by rain and sun) to find a trunk, an iron bed,

and a cook-stove. None, however, were used for their intended purposes. The bed was an ornament used only by visitors who did not know better, the trunk had a few precious things in it, and the stove was a cupboard, a fire never having been lighted in it. By an open fire Mrs. Apodacca cooked our supper, which we ate sitting cross legged on the floor, the dishes set upon a sheepskin which at night was part of some one's bed. We ate from common dishes without knives or forks, dipping out the frijoles (beans), chille con carne (chunks of meat swimming in the quintessence of red pepper), with pieces of tortilla (pancake). We drank our coffee, which was strong and vile, from a gourd. Being wise in matters of Mexican houses, we made our bed in the open court.

The men of this race are seldom handsome, nor the women pretty. The handsome, dashing cavalier and the beautiful señorita with whom the fictionist has peopled the Southwest land are more romantic than real. The people are small, dark, swarthy, unusually dirty, and meanly clad. The women wear black shawls over their heads, thinking thus to look like the Mother Mary, but they delight in bright

colors and often indulge in them to the total disregard of harmony. They invariably smoke cigarettes, men and women sitting idly in the sun for hours smoking and chatting.

Until recently the children were taught in Spanish, and even now there are many private schools in which Spanish is used. The church schools as well as the public schools are now teaching in English, but the teachers oftentimes have a better knowledge of Spanish than of English, and little real headway is made against the mother tongue. Upon visiting a school in charge of two Sisters, they had the twenty children sing for me:

"Good-morning, gentle sunshine,

What made you come so soon?
You drove the little stars away,

And scared away the moon.' They sang without expression or tune, and a Latin verse would have been as intelligible to them and as easily learned. Some of the Protestant churches have established missions and schools in which commendable work is being done.

Most impartial people who have become acquainted with the people and affairs of New Mexico feel that it would be a mistake to grant the Territory Statehood. The people spring from a stock which has ever shown itself incapable of self-government, and they have improved very little since they became Americans. They are led by dishonest and unscrupulous men, neither demanding nor expecting honesty in office. In one county in New Mexico

the sheriff, without other income than his office, openly spends two or three times. his lawful salary. He only makes a pretense of turning in fees; but the majority of the Mexicans vote for him and his gang because he is lavish to them with his, or rather the county's, money. In another county there is not one cent of the public money turned into the treasury, but the dishonest officeholders are continued in office. The people care little for Statehood, being influenced by the political office-seekers and large property

owners.

I have often been asked whether these people are at heart loyal citizens of the United States, and in turn I have many times asked the question. It is too sweeping to answer directly; but there is no doubt that, in case of war between the United States and Mexico, a large portion of the uneducated non-Englishspeaking population would sympathize with, if not openly aid, the enemy. Few speak English or want to learn. American customs and the spirit of progress do not appeal to them. Now and then you find a spark of it, and it gives you joy. One night I stopped at a hut in the mountains. The two boys of the family had been to the Presbyterian mission school in Albuquerque, and spoke fairly well. Finding in the house a little United States flag which they had brought home, I pointed to it and said to the old man, "Americano?" and with great feeling he replied, "O, mucho Americano."

T

HE preservation of old and interesting places which have been hallowed by association or are attractive for beauty is interesting several National organizations, notably that of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. This National organization of men and women has for its aim the protection of beautiful features of the natural landscape from destruction either by physical alterations or the erection of unsightly structures, the preservation of remarkable geological formations, and the saving from obliteration of names, places, and objects identified with National or local history.

This Society was founded by its President, the Hon. Andrew H. Green, of New York, and numbers among its active members such influential persons as George W. Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance Company; J. P. Morgan; the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, and others. The Daughters of the American Revolution

and the Colonial Dames are also working along similar lines, and it is hoped that a little at least of our heritage of the past in beauty and history may be saved from the hands of vandals and the ravages of time.

Prominent among efforts in these directions is the purchase by the State of New York and the rehabilitation of the historic Stony Point Battlefield on the Hudson, and the thirty-odd acres at the head of Lake George, made famous by events during the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, and selected by Cooper as the principal scene of his romantic novel "The Last of the Mohicans." Efforts are also being made to preserve Watkins Glen as a State Reservation and to make it a free country park. In this case it is hoped visitors will be attracted from all over the country and the place will become more familiar to the traveling public.

No visitor to historic places can help a