NMCentennialBlueBook

1913 BOOK INTRODUCTORY
“The following italicized text was taken from the 1913 NM Blue Book, the next edition after
New Mexico became a state in 1912.”
Since the publication of the last Legislative Manual, by my predecessor in office, the Hon. Nathan
Jaffa, at the beginning of 1911. New Mexico has been endowed with that full measure
of self-government, under statehood in the American Union, which as at all times been the
aspiration and the pride of the free people of this Republic. This aspiration is the notable
characteristic of American citizenship. It is inborn in every native to the soil, and it seems to be
inbreathed and speedily inbred in every man who comes to our “land of the free” to establish
his hearthstone and erect his home. From the historic days of the revolt of the thirteen colonies,
amounting, graphically, then to but little more than a straggling line of sea-board settlements
on the Atlantic, the vast expanse of our domain has passed through the Territorial form of government
and the people of the various territories have aspired and have struggled until they
achieved that selfgovernment under Statehood which is the living spirit of the Declaration, the
cardinal principle of the Constitution. When the Fathers wrote in the preamble that they did
ordain and establish the Constitution to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity” they sounded the keynote of our Republic.
The people of New Mexico have given a signal illustration of the American spirit in this behalf.
While it is true that struggle has been the private of Statehood for all the territories in the past,
it is notably true that an unparalleled struggle was the price of Statehood for New Mexico. No
such disappointment and delay, no such sequence of untoward accidents, no such deferment of
hope that maketh the heart sick, ever so tried the spirit of civil liberty and selfgovernment in a
people. Unremittent agitation, unwearied struggle, vigorously sustained effort for more than
sixty years was the price we willingly and ardently paid. If ever long sustained effort in the
achievement of a patriotic purpose showed a people to be worthy of the exalted privileges and
the blessings of liberty such as the full measure of Statehood brings under our Republican form,
the people of New Mexico showed themselves to be worthy.
Surely it is both pleasant and becoming to sound a congratulatory note! Surely we may commendably
record our pride both in the merit of our unfaltering effort and in the dignity of our
achieved station in the sisterhood of states!
The first Secretary of the New State finds much pleasure in the above brief reference to this
creditable bit of history, and he begs to take space enough to record a word of hearty congratulation
thereon.
In this connection it may be noted that more than half the states of the Union have names,
nick-names, if you please, by which they are known in common reference, significant of some
fact, circumstance or characteristic incident to them respectively. By usage and it may be said,
by common consent, New Mexico has long been referred to in forecast by its people as “The
Sunshine State.” Our state has an abounding wealth of sunshine not equaled anywhere, even in
other parts of the notably salubrious Rocky Mountain region. Such sunshine, lifegiving as it is,
can be capitalized into an asset of great productive value in connection with the riches of our
soil and the sanitary equability of our climate.
Constant reference on proper occasions by our people to our commonwealth as the “Sunshine
State” will promote the adoption of the name in common parlance throughout the Union and
thus give constant advertisement to a resource that is inviting, wealth-producing, and better
than all, is inexhaustible above all others.
The elevation in political station from that of Colonial inferiority to that of sovereign Statehood
and full representation and voice in the Councils of the Nation, as well as that of complete local
selfgovernment according to the American idea, brought with it, in natural consequence, an
added weight of civic duty and responsibility—duty to the great confederation to make of New
Mexico a state worthy and competent to speak and vote, in equality, in control of the destinies
of the greatest of Republics—duty to ourselves and our posterity in the state to so legislate,
execute and adjudge as to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”
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