It is of course with a peculiar feeling of pleasure that I come here to New Mexico, from which Territory half (and if my memory serves me correctly a little over half) of the men of my regiment came. The man is but a poor man wherever he may be born to whom one part of this country is not exactly as dear as any other part. And I should count myself wholly unworthy of the position I hold if I did not strive to represent the people of the mountains and the plains exactly as much as those of the Mississippi Valley or of either coast, the Atlantic or the Pacific. I know your people, Mr. Governor, and I need not say how fond I am of them, for that you know yourself. How could I help being fond of people with whom I have worked, with whom I marched to battle? The only men here to whom I would doff my hat quicker than to the men of my own regiment are the men of the great war. You know well the claim that comradeship in war makes between man and man; and it has always seemed to me, Mr. Governor, that in a sense my regiment in its composition was a typical American regiment. Its people came from the West chiefly, but some from the East, from the South chiefly, but some from the North, so that every section was represented in it. They varied in birthplace as in creed; some were born on this side of the water, some on the other side; some of their ancestors had come to New Mexico, as did your ancestors, Mr. Governor, when this was already a city and at a time when not one English-speaking community existed on the Atlantic seaboard; some were men whose forefathers were among the early Puritans and Pilgrims; some were of those whose forefathers had settled by the banks of the James even before the Puritan and Pilgrim came to this country, but after your people came. There were men in that regiment who themselves were born, or whose parents were born, in England, Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia, but there was not a man, no matter what his creed, what his birthplace, what his ancestry, who was not an American and nothing else. We had representatives of the real, original, native Americans, because we had no inconsiderable number who were in whole or in part of Indian blood. There was in the regiment but one kind of rivalry among those men, and but one would have been tolerated. That was the rivalry of each man to see if he could not do his duty a little better than any one else. Short would have been the shrift of any man who tried to introduce division along lines of section, or creed, or class. We had serving in the ranks men of inherited wealth and men who all their lives had earned each day’s bread by that day’s labor, and they stood on a footing of exact equality. It would not have been any more possible for a feeling of arrogance to exist on one side than for a feeling of rancor and envy to exist on the other.
I appreciate to the full all the difficulties under which you labor, and I think that your progress has been astonishing. I congratulate you upon all that has been done, and I am certain that the future will far more than make good the past. I believe that we have come upon an era of fuller development for New Mexico. That development must of course take place principally through the average of foresight, thrift, industry, energy and will of the citizens of New Mexico; but the government can and will help somewhat. This is a great grazing State. Because of the importance of the grazing industry I wish to bespeak your support for the preservation in proper shape of the forest reserves of the State. These forest reserves are created and are kept up in the interest of the home-maker. In many of them there is much natural pasturage. Where that is the case the object is to have that pasturage used by the settlers, by the people of the Territory, not eaten out so that nobody will have the benefit after three years. I want the land preserved so that the pasturage will do, not merely for a man who wants to make a good thing out of it for two or three years, but for the man who wishes to see it preserved for the use of his children and his children’s children. That is the way to use the resources of the land. I build no small hope upon the aid that under the wise law of Congress will ultimately be extended to this as to other States and Territories in the way of governmental aid to irrigation. Irrigation is of course to be in the future wellnigh the most potent factor in the agricultural development of this Territory and one of the factors which will do most toward bringing it up to Statehood. Nothing will count more than development of that kind in bringing the Territory in as a State. That is the kind of development which I am most anxious to see here—the development that means permanent growth in the capacity of the land, not temporary, not the exploiting of the land for a year or two at the cost of its future impoverishment, but the building up of farm and ranch in such shape as to benefit the home-maker whose intention it is that this Territory of the present, this State of the future, shall be a great State in the American Union.
AT THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903
Bishop:
Permit me to thank you and to say how much I appreciate the courtesy you showed in putting yourself to such inconvenience to come here to greet me. I had hoped to meet you at Santa Fe in the cathedral, where I participated in the baptism of the son of one of the men of my regiment.
I greet the school children and the sisters. There can be no greater privilege than to meet a missionary who has done good work. Of all the work that is done or that can be done for our country, the greatest is that of educating the body, the mind, and above all the character, giving spiritual and moral training to those who in a few years are themselves to decide the destinies of the nation.
AT THE INDIAN SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903
Mr. Superintendent:
I wish to express the peculiar pleasure it is to have seen the Indian schools to-day, and through you, Mr. Superintendent, I want to say to the Indians that are right behind you, what a fine thing it is to see the industry and thrift of their people. I was struck by their orchards, the irrigated fields, and by seeing them working in the fields and along the road. The Indian who will work and do his duty will stand on a par with any other American citizen. Of course I will do as every President must do, I will stand for his rights with the same jealous eagerness that I would for the rights of any white man. I am glad to see the Indian children being educated as these are educated so as to come more and more into the body of American citizenship, to fit themselves for work in the home, work in the fields, for leading decent, clean lives, for making themselves self-supporting, for being good providers and good housekeepers; in other words, for becoming American citizens just like other American citizens.