Historical perspective on N.M., the Interior

New Mexico has again sent a nominee to serve as secretary of the interior. A hundred years ago, Albert Fall was selected by President Warren G. Harding to be secretary after his first choice, Jake Hamon, was shot by his mistress and failed to recover. Fall had bought votes from the New Mexico delegation to the Republican National Convention for Harding and hoped to use the office for his personal benefit — which he did by taking money from Harry Sinclair for rights to drill for oil in what became known as the Teapot Dome scandal.

An Albuquerque newspaperman, upon seeing significant spending at Fall’s ranch, began asking questions, and the scheme became known. Fall resigned. In his place, Gov. Merritt C. Mechem appointed Republican power broker E.O. Bursom to the Senate seat vacated by Fall.

Bursom, following up on a desire of Fall’s, introduced what became known as the Bursom Bill, a bill that would have confiscated mineral rights from Native American lands and allowed reservation lands claimed by whites to be transferred to them. After 300 years of power and land grabs from Natives, this was just another. Amazingly, the bill passed the Senate.

This was 1922, and across the nation there remained a significant network of women’s clubs that had formed partly as an effort to secure suffrage. Mabel Dodge of Taos, having been informed of the dangers of the bill by Native leaders, helped ignite a push among those women’s clubs to call into question this dangerous effort. Their objections brought the bill to the light of public scrutiny, and it was duly shelved.

Now, a hundred years later, New Mexico and New Mexico’s Native Americans will see a New Mexican with a far different outlook on public and tribal lands.

It may have taken a century, but the negative type of actions by people such as Fall, Bursom, and President Donald Trump will now have an honest person to negate and overcome those actions. What a fine New Year’s present.