Lamy of Santa Fe (63 page)

“This, however, did not yet eliminate the inveterate evil, since the Bishop of Durango [Salinas] has not yet relinquished his jurisdiction, despite all the official Apostolic papers …” and so on and on. “Therefore I ask, and insistently ask, the Sacred Congregation that before I leave for America the eminent Cardinal Prefect of this congregation
issue an official document
in
which the jurisdiction be given to the Apostolic Vicar of Arizona over the counties of El Paso, Doñana (or Mesilla Valley),” and he asked for this in duplicate copies, one to go to Salpointe, the other to Salinas in Durango, whose delivery he, Lamy, personally would assure through “a trusted hand.” He specified further that henceforth all the priests in the area should receive their priestly faculties from Salpointe only. “The time is certainly come that there must be an end to all this for the good of our Faith,” and a powerful endorsement was added by Archbishop Kenrick, who wrote on it, urgently asking that
as soon as possible
the request therein be granted and “the whole matter be settled once and for all.” Lamy, with two other American bishops, was granted leave to return to his diocese “on account of the urgent wants” there.

He left for Auvergne, and there, on the first Sunday after Easter 1870, he reconsecrated the parish church of Lempdes, the home of his childhood faith and his mature vocation, where considerable renovation had been done. He was also to bring back a loan of twelve thousand francs which Machebeuf had asked his brother Marius to raise for him. Machebeuf was anxiously in debt for a brick church, and for the travel expenses of two or three Irish priests who were coming over after all, and for two freight consignments which were impounded by customs until he could pay the duty on them.

Homeward bound, Lamy sent one more bolt of argument to Simeoni in the territorial matter; for he had received certain information at Lyon which seemed to suggest strongly that Salpointe had come to the end of his endurance, and, unless the matter were settled immediately, would resign as apostolic vicar of Arizona—may, in fact, already have sent in his resignation, which would not “surprise” Lamy, for he knew him well. Salpointe might not suffer in futility the dismissal of all the efforts he had made on his own part to resolve the affair with Durango. Could Arizona be expected to slip away once again, until a third start on her spiritual colonization would have to be undertaken? As in all affairs between the field and headquarters, time alone could tell; and Lamy returned to America, and a peaceable crossing of the prairies, much of the way, now, by the railroad, and arrived at Santa Fe to receive the usual welcome on 23 June 1870.

iv
.

Follies and Dangers

S
ALPOINTE DID NOT RESIGN
—but neither was the Durango dispute resolved out of hand. A year later, Bishop Salinas wrote a long letter to the Vatican declaring that he would agree to ceding the locality of “Mesilla”—but not Doñana or “El Paso,” which embraced the three downriver villages so long ago delegated to Lamy by Odin. His argument was that the “El Paso district” was not in United States territory but in Mexican; and if he gave over spiritual jurisdiction of them to an American bishop, “sooner or later it would come to this: the forcible entry of those people [i.e., the North Americans] into the Republic [of Mexico] whose ancient tendencies, as we all know, are already manifest as to their eventual absorption of the entire frontier of Mexico.” His fears were not groundless—there had been some agitation in Congress at the time of the 1846 war for the annexation of all of northern Mexico.

But Bishop Salinas was confused by nomenclature, as his predecessor had been, for Mesilla and Doñana were practically interchangeable terms, and “El Paso,” designating the Mexican town south of the Rio Grande, had also been used since 1858 as the name of the settlement plotted in that year on United States land north of the Rio Grande. Moreover, he seemed not to recognize that the three villages once belonging to Mexico had become part of the North American possession when the course of the river had shifted and had passed to the south of them, thus leaving them north of the boundary line in the river's midstream. Salinas avowed that he would obey the Pope, whatever the decision, but until he had direct orders, he would hold his present position—and territory. Lamy told Rome that unless Salinas acceded, Salpointe would lose “half of his already poor diocese.” Moreover, Salpointe was concerned with that which, “by right,” belonged to him, “as he is in American, and not Mexican Territory.”

Rome once again issued an Apostolic Letter naming “El Paso” and “Doñana better known as Mesilla Valley” as part of the vicariate of Arizona, and had sent a copy to Tucson. Was it over at last?

Salpointe once again journeyed to Durango to see the bishop and
show him the papal order, after twice notifying him by mail without effect. Surely the actual papal document in hand would be “sufficient,” wrote Salpointe to Simeoni, “to show the will of the Holy Father and let his intentions take full effect. But”—he went on—”things turned out differently, and I am hesitant to relate this.” For the fact was that, after having actually read the Roman bull, Salinas “lost his composure and used words which had no reverence and refused to give the requested jurisdiction unless he received direct word from the Roman Curia …” Salpointe returned home hoping that Rome would support him by sending the papal order direct to Salinas. Further, he served notice that so far as he was concerned, he would carry out his duties in the disputed lands in full obedience to the decree of Rome, using the Mexican priests who remained in “Doñana,” though trouble could be expected of them.

Legally, the affair seemed done with; but in 1874 local residents of Las Cruces in the
Condado
petitioned Rome for “a foreign bishop” and “foreign priests” to establish a diocese at the city of Chihuahua who would minister to the old sore spot. But as this presumed territorial ties to Mexico instead of the United States, nothing came of it, and the Mexican mails must at last have carried to Durango the decree of cession to which Salinas bowed.

The twenty-three-year-old dispute was finally over.

Meanwhile, Salpointe asked Rome for a coadjutor bishop to help him in his far-flung duties; but this was not granted him.

In 1871 Lamy had the happy opportunity to ordain his nephew Anthony, who was assigned first to Taos, later to Abiquiu, and finally to Manzano. The bishop was now concerned largely with consolidations of works long begun. He went east as far as Baltimore to raise funds for the cathedral, and was grateful to “the two good ladies who gave me the gold buttons and the box of jewelry.” On his way home he paused in his old parishes in Ohio, and between the two visits was given “near $400.” In St Louis the donation was $275, and he gave thanks for all such generosity, “considering the sad circumstances of the Chicago fire which occurred at the very time” he was making his appeal. Bringing three more Loretto sisters and a deacon from Santa Fe whom he had sent East for study, he came to Denver, found Machebeuf “as lively as ever,” and was snowbound there for eight days before he could turn homeward to Santa Fe.

There the cathedral walls were slow in obscuring the old earth church within. Local masons had been trained by the Moulys, and scaffolding stood clear at the top of San Francisco street, and rows of cut stone, marked for placing, lay on the cathedral grounds. But it was slow, slow—and the cost seemed at times impossible to meet.

But the schools, convents, hospital, and orphanage were making their gains, and the bishop took his meals with the orphans, whose flour and fuel he personally supplied. Lamy and Machebeuf grieved over the news from France—the empire at war, the defeat, the disorders of the commune—
“Nos pauvres compatriotes”

Excitement seized Santa Fe and the whole West—and even a portion of the financial marts of New York and San Francisco—when a tremendous discovery was announced in 1872: precious stones, mostly diamonds and rubies, were suddenly found lying on the very surface of the Arizona desert. The “diamond fields” made news everywhere. Santa Fe papers were at first skeptical, then intrigued, at last in full cry of enthusiasm as they reported developments. Jewel experts in New York, London, and San Francisco had authenticated certain gems submitted for inspection by the discoverers and promoters of the great find. Parties of experts were led circuitously in blindfold to the fields and once there were allowed to see and to pick up gems from the earth. Stock speculation fed on its own excitement, there were fortunes to be made. But in a matter of months it was all over, for Clarence King, United States geologist, left his survey along the fortieth parallel, went to visit the rich sites with an associate, and promptly proved that the fields had been “salted” with a few real rubies and diamonds, while what were native were only garnets of small size, all too common to certain parts of Arizona. The affair was a swindle, and never more clearly so than when, among the “salted” jewels, prospectors found diamonds already cut and faceted. If the event had the air of an episode out of the cultural loam which produced Mark Twain and some of his moods, the sardonic style of public wit was present in an editorial item in the
New Mexican
for 16 December 1873:

A BUTTON

Presented to Governor Arny by Thos. V. Keams, which was found on a trail in the diamond country of Arizona, was sent by the Governor to the Smithsonian Institution and he has received the following letters in regard to it:

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Washington, D.C.            Nov. 14, 1872.

My Dear Governor: I send you what they have written me about the button from New York, and with this the article itself, as you probably may wish to add it to your museum of historical curiosities.

Very truly yours,
S
PENCER
F. B
AIRD.

Gov. W. F. M. Arny, Santa Fe, N.M.

New York, Nov. 12, 1872.

My dear Professor Baird: I enclose the button. An old button maker from England says that they were made in Birmingham, England, before 1820. Mr. Steele of the Schofield Button Manufactory Co., Conn., says that there is a pattern of a button at their factory made for a South American Republic forty-five years ago. The legend is “Republica de Columbia, Marina.” The Columbia consul says that about 1817 Columbia had a navy and a uniform button. I think it reasonable to say that this button was a Columbia navy button 1817 to 1820.

Yours truly,
A
MORY
E
DWARDS.

Who will solve the question how that button got to the unexplored region of Arizona? Did the marines of the Republic of Columbia visit there in search of minerals, garnets, etc.?

Follies and dangers were not far separated. The cattle trade was steadily increasing, and inviting Indian attacks. In mid-summer 1872 thirty thousand head of cattle crossed New Mexico northward out of Texas. Two of the droves were attacked, and Apaches were suddenly more active in town and out. In Santa Fe, a reporter “noticed a band of Apaches curiously threading the streets and peering into private and public doors and windows. Those who imagine that the Indian is stoical and utterly oblivious to all that passes about him when beneath the eye of the ‘paleface,' should have seen these wide-eyed, gaping mouth bummers, turning over children and colliding with posts and obstacles along the sidewalks as their faces were turned in a fixed stare and no noticeable emotion towards a fancy show window, a gay dress or some other equally common sight. Unlike the pueblos they were a filthy, cutthroat looking lot.”

In the open ranchlands—in one instance only three miles from a United States fort—Apache raiders murdered and mutilated their victims: “his face was cut off (nose, mustache and beard).' and settlers called for harsh military reprisals. Elements of the grotesque continued in contrast to the life of grace and amenity which Lamy, and others, worked hard to bring to the local life. The Santa Fe Plaza in the autumn of 1872 was “never so dirty as now.' Hay waggons and bull trains came there not only to sell their goods but also to camp, whose “debris” annoyed “the most frequented promenades and the most central business parts of the city.” Citizens finally made a volunteer force to clean “the disgraceful appearance and … eye-sore.” All the roads leading out of Santa Fe were barely passable by daylight, and not at all by night, and nothing was being done to improve them. Now and then a high wind drove stinging dust across the city, but as often as not was followed by a day so clear and air so mountain-pure and quiet that the citizens breathed deeply of the natural well-being which was as true of Santa Fe as its other qualities.

And when there was a feast of particular reverence to be observed, when splendor was appropriate, the bishop could officiate at the altar of an adobe church, vested in chasuble, maniple, and stole of white moiré, studded with precious stones, embroidered in red crosses, and laced and braided with gold bullion. The vestments had come from a Jesuit church in Paris as a donation to the mission of New Mexico.

Growth in what Lamy had begun continued now almost as if by natural law—all but the cathedral, where work went haltingly. The bishop often took the midday meal with the workers, serving them himself. Still, he could report in 1872 that including churches under construction he now had one hundred and eighty, and that he had forty private schools under instruction by priests, and five Loretto convents, whose schools were prospering, and that the Christian Brothers had up to two hundred and fifty scholars; and in the following year, that the first Santa Fe convent of the Lorettines had ordered the start of construction on their own new chapel, to cost thirty thousand dollars. It was to be Gothic in style, after the original inspiration of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, however far short of the original the local style must necessarily fall. Projectus Mouly, who was the son of the architect of the cathedral, undertook the chapel. It was a serious responsibility for a youth of eighteen, especially since his architect father could not even work with him—Antoine Mouly was going blind, and eventually had to be returned home to France. In 1873 there was again discouraging doubt that construction of the cathedral could continue—the
“petite cathédrale en pierre”
—for lack of money. Times were hard in New Mexico, worse there than in the nation, where at large a severe financial depression brought panic to investors and failures to banks. On Lamy's cathedral, at one time, only ten men could be asked to work for pay.