The First 100 Years

When the weekly New Mexican was founded in 1849 in Santa Fe, at the southwest end of the Santa Fe trail, the editors decided it was politic to pick as few quarrels as possible. In brawling Santa Fe, arguments were usually won by the man who was first on the draw. So the New Mexican's first two-page issue carried a "let's-be-friends" note: "The New Mexican, in Politics and Religion, will maintain a strict neutrality, regarding partisanship as utterly unnecessary and a barrier to the general good . . ."

Last week, when the New Mexican celebrated its 100th birthday,* it had long since broken its neutrality promise, was not only the oldest newspaper in the West but one of the most politically powerful little dailies (circ. 10,565) in the U.S. In honor of its centennial, the New Mexican published a 124-page edition, in which such long-departed local heroes and villains as Billy the Kid, Geronimo and Archbishop John (Death Comes for the Archbishop) Lamy made posthumous headlines. The New Mexican's tough, fighting Editor Will Harrison suspended his running feud with New Mexico's Governor' Thomas Mabry long enough to print a historical sketch under Mabry's byline.

Renegades & Traitors. What the New Mexican calls "furious disputation and fuming contumely" have marked its first 100 years, and the editorial page has long bristled with such words as "renegade," "traitor," "scum." But it was not until rich, scholarly and ambitious Bronson Cutting bought the New Mexican in 1912 that it swept toward the high tide of its influence. In 23 years as Publisher Cutting's personal mouthpiece, the paper helped him win political control of the state and eight years in the U.S. Senate.

After Cutting's death in a 1935 plane crash, the New Mexican changed hands and politics several times, is now owned by Robert M. MtKinney, cousin of Railroader Robert R. Young (TIME, Feb. 3, 1947), and Southwest Newspapers, Inc. which own three other small papers. But it is run by 42-year-old Editor Harrison, a hardfisted, soft-hearted political reporter who has been a hair shirt for New Mexican politicos for 17 years, political columnist of the New Mexican for five and editor for 17 months.

Saxophone & Type. A onetime coal-miner, logger, ranch hand, construction worker and saxophone player, Tennessee-born Will Harrison broke into journalism in Gallup, N. Mex., where he was stranded in 1932. He worked without pay on the

Gallup Independent to learn the business, later became editor of a crusading political weekly. There he got in the habit of carrying type metal wrapped in a handkerchief to defend himself.

Harrison kept right on crusading in his column ("At the Capitol'') in the New Mexican. He has put the finger on an attorney general who was drawing a salary as a corporation lawyef on the side, exposed an unpardoned felon who was serving in the state senate, complained about the potash industry's "free ride" until the legislature tripled its taxes, uncovered a former governor's use of the highway department to pave his private property. Harrison's sarcastic nickname for Governor Mabry, "the first-floor governor"--to distinguish him from Commissioner1 of Revenue (and Democratic political boss) Victor Salazar, "the second-floor governor"--is a political byword in the state. Chunky, fast-moving Will Harrison does his own legwork.

Amigos & Atoms. Editor Harrison puts out a partially bilingual paper. He sprinkles Spanish words through the English news stories, even uses them in headlines (VAUGHAN'S AMIGOS BLABBING). He thinks it a good day when he can run on Page One "a political scandal, an archeological discovery, a sculptor's prize, and an Indian fracas--all local."

But for nearly three years the New Mexican had to sit on the biggest local story it ever had--Los Alamos and the atom bomb. As a reward for not even hinting at the story only 35 miles from Santa Fe, the Army gave the New Mexican an international beat on the 1945 announcement of what had been going on at Los Alamos. Will Harrison thinks his crusading journalism also pays off. Since he took over, the New Mexican's circulation has gone up 35%.

*Three months early, to coincide with the annual Santa Fe Fiesta.

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