The past 100 years

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

June 7, 1917: Every woman who has a sense of humor must be amused when she attends a patriotic celebration and listens to orators and statesmen expatiating on the services to be rendered by the men of the nation and making no mention of the part that women are to play in the war.

Such an admission is hardly justified when one thinks of the history of the past three years and the part that women have played and are now playing in France and England.

June 7, 1967: BULLETIN — Gov. David Cargo was quoted by the Albuquerque Tribune today as saying Reies Lopez Tijerina would surrender to the governor today.

The report said Cargo was contacted through an intermediary and told that Tijerina, leader of the armed band of Spanish-American fugitives sought in northern New Mexico, would give himself up to the governor.

June 7, 1992: CANJILON — Twenty-five years ago Reies Tijerina was known to people in these parts as El Tigre del Norte, the Tiger of the North. Both charismatic and commanding, he was a hero to some in Northern New Mexico, an outlaw to those whom he cursed and threatened with both fist and gun.

Today, at 65, he no longer is the firebrand in scuffed black combat boots. He is the grandfather in tan soft-leather shoes, carrying 15-month-old Diana, among the youngest of his offspring, on his arm.

When excited, he still punctures holes in the air with a broad forefinger as he speaks. But if one were counting on this day, the score likely would show that for every poke into the cool mountain air, little Diana with the big Tijerina eyes got two kisses planted firmly on her cheek.

It is the 25-year reunion of the June 5, 1967, raid on the Rio Arriba County Courthouse by land grant activists running under the name of La Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres.

They were self-proclaimed heirs to thousands of acres of old Mexican and Spanish land grants now occupied largely by the U.S. government, and they wanted their property back.