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Show d>, needed to frame and institute the suit.' Senator Bursum stated there were 5,000 claimants; at /ico per suit, the lawyers would tJtlu-r tip half a million dollars frt-iii these poor Mexicans! Under the substitute laws which the Ir.Jians themselves endorse, rruny and probably most of those occupying Indian land will keep their land or get full compensation for it, without having to institute suit or pay lawyers at all. Validating Illegal Grants Hut the troubles of the Mexican and the small white squatter have only started at this point. Once upon a time, the Spanish jovernors of New Mexico used to hand out land-grants to theii friends in place of cigarros. Perhaps the land had already been granted to the Indians; well, another grant would be piled on lop of it. Later it became in New Mexico a fine art to invent indent Spanish grants. Now, by the law and court practise intil now, the basic or earliest .alid grant was the grant which cprcsented real title. Furthering, Congress previously has nacted that no superimposed mJ-grant, conflicting with a rior grant to the Indians, shall nder any circumstances be held alid.and the Supreme Court has jstained this decree of Congress. Knters the Bursum bill; and it re-amps, makes effective and gives priority > these heretofore - worthless super-iposcd Spanish grants. Who holds these icudo-titles, waiting till a grand fraud cc the Bursum bill shall make them orth money? Not the Mexican and ncrican farmers who occupy Indian nd. Speculators, politicians, lawyers id corporations hold those grants, raven defend us, was it the Indians the irsum bill was going to get? Here is the lole town of Fernandez -de Taos, oc-pied by Mexicans and Americans and Indians at all, which is covered by the .1 To T»:« ienyle Ct Tl.e RBl ted s fWllo Irdl-.'.B of I n lexico Ve, t.'.e underr.l.-ii.-.' roprcncnlr.il ret of the twenty puthlna of !'e» ve*lcc,neaeirbled In Council St ii_-.tr. Dar.lnyo I'Jetlo or. KoTcr.ttr Hm I f Ui.l'.Ili.fv >« ts.l: fftraMl to t.'.e A.T s rl c.r. people i3 r f:tlr 9l»j oni Justice and l*ne erercrv-lion o' our piietlo l i f e. Wc.tiie luetic lntfi»n», hN»e aUnya not teen .'< tureen on liir 5ov«r.-.r..-r.t. ~J f ellni-JU-trions even r. -.!!.• r.c r.: ve •»tcrht our U-nla .->r.'! >. tera. To-':ny, :_ny of eer. eelf- auppcrtl r\f *.'.- b.vc *.ive Hired at pvtce ,1th our the frKjutol U.H.'..- nway of sur ;.u-.lltt fci-VT tr.o utfi r.T i.n,-.. ltd li.>id,r e.t-B In l»j rt/lco .cn-iaerco r.ecuunary for & t.l.l i - r.in a j-olr.t there *e :«.u,t tilr.-^r live c.r l.-.zr tst.lt cr.v cere per rcr«on lir. c-crca i.f Ir.'ii. lu< land ..r to llvt on. He :-Te rcner. J i t . Yon tc diLCCTer l£*t ti.e 3ci-4le r.ar pa;ic<! a VI11, cr l l « i :u.n f.J 11, ttiltli will coar.iete our destruction.ur.u lh.it Con.; ret I •..'.> :.eei< ktol'i^-t^^t r.t, L-.e r-jello Ir...i;.-.:. •:. v- i r\ t r u w " ^ " ^ The pueblos,aa la veil known, existed in a elTlllzed condition before tho "/hi te Van cuee tc Kt erica. ^o luie kept our old customs and llrcd in harmony slth ourselves and xl ts our feilou-Axerlcans. Thla b i l l . w i l l destroy our corocn l i f e am s i l l rob ue of every-.i.lng uhlch »e hold dcar--our lands,our cur, toss,our traditions. Are Lr.e American people willing to see this hoppen? W& i 'Z$y£&z~Pp: flPti***'*'^/*v^a£>*. <3>uM6 J Parts of the appeal addressed by the All-Pueblo Council to the American people Gijosa Grant, declared to be bona fide by the Court of Private Land Claims but outlawed by Congress as being posterior in time to the basic grant to the Indians. Property owners of Fernandez de Taos are secure under present conditions; there is not an Indian who wants to reclaim that land, and the Taos Pueblo Council has stated that this old town of white people need not be disturbed. But out of house and home go the whites and Mexicans if the Bursum bill becomes law, or a staggering price they pay to the holder of that Gijosa Grant. Mr. Fall's and Mr. Bursum's party capitalized the Bursum bill to get votes in the November election. Is it to be wondered that Fernandez dc Taos, and Taos County as a whole, and the State as a whole, elected Democrats all the way up from the grave-digger to the Governor and Senator? 'I he Bursum bill authors had actually believed that by devious legal wordings, and loud and whispered advertising that this bill was grand for the white folks, they would sweep the States in the elections. Fbere arc limits to the innocence of voters, even in New Mexico. Altogether over 50,000 acres of the best Indian land, including towns and farm land occupied by non-Indians, are delivered to speculative Spanish-grant claimants by this one clause of the Bursum bill. And that subtly- drawn measure fills twelve printed pages! W h a t is Needed N ow The Bursum bill, exposed to the light, withers up and that is the end of it. But are the Pueblos saved, and does the story end with the discomfiture of certain persons in high office? No. The Bursum bill was like lynching a man already sentenced to death. The lynchers would get pleasure and profit, but the lynched man was doomed anyhow. There are needed new laws, new appropriations from Congress, a changed policy in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, if the Pueblos are not to starve slowby, die slowly or swiftly from contagious disease, or disperse with untold heart-anguish and with a loss of precious elements of civilization and of beauty which America needs to conserve. Aside from the physical extermination of these Indians, there is something which in the long course of history matters far more than individual deaths. It is the assassination of the soul, the killing of traditional virtues, traditional beauties and beautiful and good institutions which : > # • ' A% ^&A?AA£A~'^*Z v \vr "I :-K^p^ffef ^*A^ri<m&Az5;4 !£- '• '•- <•'/• v '&' PAS:3 2--rV ". v- 4 »^-'J«*^*>.V>t»,*;,-:**^;*< 'tichlo mothers. On the left, wife and child of the Governor of through Secretary Fall's Bursum bill. On the right, mother a Lac/una Pueblo who would lose their home as well as their fields nd children of Zia. a small pueblo rarely visited by white men |
