Towards Statehood: Finally, Statehood
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In 1906 there was a move to combine New Mexico and Arizona into one state with Arizona as its official name. President Roosevelt even supported the effort. However, the Arizonans were adamantly opposed to being so joined. New Mexicans were very anxious to achieve statehood and although not exactly thrilled by the name change; they held their noses and voted in favor, while knowing full well that the proposal would be resoundingly defeated in Arizona.
In spite of continual setbacks, New Mexican persistence paid off when in 1910, Congress passed and President Taft signed an Enabling Act allowing the state to hold a constitutional convention.
The resulting Constitution was ratified in January of 1911 and finally at 1:35 PM on January 6, 1912, President Taft signed the proclamation admitting New Mexico as the forty-seventh state in the union. After signing, Taft is reported to have said “Well, it is all over. I am glad to give you life. I hope you will be healthy."
And so we find ourselves today, after ninety-eight years – alive and healthy, albeit still equally feisty, proud, and uncompromisingly different from our neighbors.
As I like to explain it to folks from away, New Mexico, it’s not really “new” and not really “Mexico.”
To learn more about New Mexico’s efforts at statehood, read Territorial Governor L. Bradford Prince’s seminal New Mexico’s Struggle for Statehood, first published in 1910.
Claude Stephenson is the New Mexico State Folklorist
