Chasing the Santa Fe Ring: Power and Privilege in Territorial New Mexico

7: A Progressive and Enterprising Spirit

131 Chapter Seven A PROGRESSIVE AND ENTERPRISING SPIRIT Y I n 1891, the Hillsborough Advocate ventured to explain a persistent topic of speculation for the edification of its readers: “For the benefit of an inquisitive subscriber the Advocate will say that the Santa Fe Ring is an organization existing under the laws of New Mexico with a capital stock of $000,000,000 on which dividends amounting to $500,000 are declared annually . Principal place of business, Santa Fe and the towns along the productive valley of the Rio Grande.”1 True enough, the men identified with the Ring were very much about making money, and they pursued that end through a variety of enterprises—essentially, anything that might turn a profit. Friendly governments—territorial and national—were vital accessories to the cause, as they have been since. At the same time, there was something to Franklin Jordan’s protestation that those who were denounced as Ring members also contributed to the stability and progress of the communities in which they lived. The men who organized cattle companies, mining ventures, banks, and mercantile businesses were, in many cases, the same ones who led in building schools, churches, civic organizations, and cultural institutions. The Advocate’s beef with Ring men was not that they sought wealth, but that their gains were so often perceived to have come from legal trickery and self-serving manipulation of the levers of government. A diversity of enterprises distinguished the Santa Fe Ring from similar but more focused combinations. Seeing how matters lay in Lincoln County, John H. Tunstall marveled that nearly every profitable enterprise was being worked by a ring. He could discern an Indian ring, an army ring, a political ring, a legal ring, a Roman Catholic ring, a cattle ring, and a land ring, along with “half a dozen other rings.”2 Years later, an exasperated governor, Edmund G. Ross, described a territory awash in “Cattle Rings, Public Land Stealing Rings, Mining Rings, Treasury Rings, and rings of almost every 132 Chapter seven description.” The result, he said, was that “the affairs of the Territory came to be run almost exclusively in the interest and for the benefit of combinations organized and headed by a few longheaded, ambitious and unscrupulous Americans, attracted hither by the golden opportunities for power and plunder.”3 What caught the attention of the young Englishman and the battle-weary governor were the exploits of a core group of business and political men whose methods and success had drawn unfavorable notice. At the center of this movement were Elkins and Catron, frequent participants in joint ventures, with each other and with other presumed Ring figures. Their orbit embraced the whole territory and involved diverse pursuits and multiple collaborators. Foundations of Enterprise When the originators of New Mexico’s dominant economic and political coalition arrived with ambitions in tow, basic structures to support a cash economy were lacking. There was no regular, economical transportation to larger markets, and there were no banks. These were needed for development of the kinds of economic assets the territory offered, including timber, minerals , livestock, and other agricultural products. English-language newspapers , essential to the business infrastructure, cropped up soon after the Occupation, providing for local advertising and promotion of counties and towns to prospective immigrants. Banks and railroads were slower in coming . Men identified with the Ring were involved in organizing all of these, along with related accessories including a bureau of immigration, territorial fairs, and chambers of commerce. Throughout the 1870s, the railroad was fervently anticipated, but construction stalled in the depth of a financial panic, and recovery sufficient to stimulate capital was painfully slow. But banks were established beginning in 1870, with Elkins, Catron, and other Ring figures taking prominent roles. New Mexico’s first bank grew out of Lucien Maxwell’s sale of the Maxwell land grant. The First National Bank of Santa Fe was capitalized by Maxwell with $150,000 from proceeds of the sale. Maxwell then became its president. Charles F. Holly, who had been involved in the sale of the grant, and John S. Watts, a director of the new Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company, were principals in the new bank. Holly was to be its cashier, and both men would sit on the board of directors.4 133 A Progressive and Enterprising Spirit In Grant of Kingdom, a novel based on the Maxwell land...