THE MYSTERY OF SAN XAVIER

The Mystery of San Xavier Del Bac

Early in the year 1691 the Father Visitor, Juan Maria de Salvatierra, accompanied by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, entered the Pimeria Alta to determine the feasibility of extending the missionary efforts that had been steadily moving northward since the Coronado expedition of 1540. Now, having penetrated this terra incognita, these pioneer Jesuits were about to turn back to their missionary base at Dolores when messengers from the Sobaipuris of Bac sought them out, and "kneeling with great veneration asking us on behalf of all their people to go to their ranchería also. The Father Visitor said to me that these crosses, which they carried, were tongues that spoke volumes and that we could not fail to go where they called us."¹ This may have been the solitary instance in the missionary conquest of the New World where the natives came to the Old World Padres rather than the Padres going to the natives. This, of course, is speculation. However, these Sobaipuri Indians evidently came with crosses seeking out the followers of the Cross of Christ, who for nearly two centuries had been slowly working their way into newly discovered territory from India to China, and from Spain to the unknown lands of the Pimas, Apaches, and Sobaipuris.

It is also worth noting that the Indians came from Bac, a place where the water rises on the desert floor to sustain life in a parched wilderness. This might be a holy place where the spirit stirs in the souls of men, causing them to journey more than forty leagues to the South to seek out the missionaries who were carrying out their Master's command to "go forth and preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit." It was, indeed, an unusual as well as notable incident.

From time immemorial, the Spirit of the Lord has been associated with mountains or water. It was on a Mount, called Sinai, where Moses stood in the blinding presence of God; and it was on a mountain in Judea, where Peter, James and John beheld the Transfiguration of their Lord. It was on cloudcapped Olympus that the Gods of pagan antiquity made their homes. It was in the Vale of Tempe, where Apollo dwelt on the banks of a meandering stream in a dry land. Thousands of years later, on a desert hill near a well in Mexico, the Lady of Guadalupe gave the poor Indian, Juan Diego, miraculous roses to convince a skeptic Bishop the first Bishop in this New World. Centuries later, in rationalistic, atheistic France, the Mother of God came down to this sinful, sorrowful Earth and caused the waters to stir in the holy grotto at Lourdes. And so it may have been at Bac a holy place where the water rises and the ways of the spirit move in a mysterious manner.

Some 17 centuries before the Indians of Bac came seeking news of the miracle of the Incarnation that the men in the black robes were bringing into the New World, a Samaritan woman went to draw water from an ancient well near Sichau. There, she saw a man resting who asked her to draw water from Jacob's well because he thirsted. She replied: "How is it that you, although you are a Jew, asks drink of me who am a Samaritan woman?" The man replied: "If thou but knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to thee 'give me to drink,' then perhaps you would have asked of him and he would have given thee living water." "Sir," said the woman, "Thou hast nothing to drink with. Art thou greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons and his flocks?" And the man answered: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. He, however, who drinks of the water I will give him shall never thirst." After some revealing personal conversation, the man continued: "The hour is coming, and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeks such to worship him. God is Spirit, and they who worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth." Then the woman of Samaria said: "I know that Messias is coming (which is called Christ) and when he comes he will tell us all things." And the man said to her: "I who speak with thee am he."2 And so it is that tens of centuries after Jacob had worshipped at the well God gave him for his descendants, unknown Indians mysteriously came from Bac, the place where the waters rise, and asked that the word of God be brought to the holy ground from which they came.

On August 23, 1692, Kino arrived at Bac and wrote in his historical Memoirs of Pimeria Alta: "I found the natives very affable and friendly, and particularly so in the principal ranchería of San Xavier del Bac, which contains more than 800 souls." And he explained his mission on this northernmost outpost of the Spanish Empire in these simple and direct words: "I spoke to them of the word of God, and on a map of the

Beauty in natural and architectural forms.

world showed them the lands, the rivers and the seas over which Fathers had come from afar to bring them the saving knowledge of our holy faith.5 "And I showed them on the map of the world how the Spaniards and the Faith had come by sea to Vera Cruz and had gone to Pueblo and to Mexico, Guadalajara, Sinaloa and now . . . to the land of the Pimas where there were already many persons baptized. . . . They listened with pleasure to these and other talks concerning God, Heaven and Hell, and told me that they wished to be Christians, and gave me some infants to baptize. These Sobaipuris are in a very fine valley of the Rio de Santa Maria."4 In November 1694, Father Kino writes: "I went inland as far as the Casa Grande, as these Pimas call it, which is on the large river of Hila. . . . This river and this large house and the neighboring houses are forty-three leagues to the northwest of the Sobaipuris of San Xavier del Bac."

Then he describes the famous ruin: "The Casa Grande is a four-story building, as large as a castle and equal to the largest church in these lands of Sonora. It is said that the ancestors of Montezuma deserted it and, beset by neighboring Apaches, left for the East or Casas Grandes, and that from there they turned towards the south, finally founding the great city and court of Mexico."

Three years later, Kino returns again to Bac. On the thir teenth of January, 1697, he writes, "I went to the Sobaipuris of San Xavier del Bac. We took cattle, sheep, goats and a small drove of mares. . . . At the same time, some cattle were placed at San. Xavier del Bac, where I was received with all love by the many inhabitants of the great ranchería, and by many other principal men, who had gathered from parts adjacent. The word of God was spoken to them, there were baptisms of little ones, and beginnings of good sowings and harvests of wheat for the father minister whom they asked for and hoped to receive."

After further travels and explorations to the north, Father Kino heads south again to his mission base at Dolores on November twenty-first, 1697. He notes in his diary: "We passed by the great rancherías and valley of San Xavier del Bac, in which and its environs we counted more than six thousand people, all very domestic and friendly. We found and killed cattle, sheep and goats, and found even bread, fresh and very good, which they baked for us in the new oven which I had ordered at San Xavier del Bac."

By the end of April 1700, Father Kino was well on his way to proving that California to the west was a peninsula, not an island as the cartographers and scientists of that day believed. He states in his Memoirs: "I tried to take and did take measures to find out whether the blue shells came from other regions than the opposite coast of California. To that end, I dispatched messengers in all directions, some to the east to call on Captain Humaric; and others to the north to call on those of Santa Catalina, and those of La Encarnation and of San Andres, of the Rio Grande, with their governors and captains; and espe cially others to the west and northwest to call various Pima, Opa, and Cocomaricopa governors from near the Rio Colorado, to learn with all possible exactness in regard to the blue shells and the passage by land to California." Eventually, Kino's theory was proved correct, and so it was that some seventy years later Captain Juan Bautista de Anza set out under the guidance of the famed Franciscan missionary and explorer, Father Garcés, of San Xavier del Bac, to open up a land route from Sonora in Northern Mexico to Monterey and San Francisco, the west ernmost outposts of empire on the shores of the Pacific.

Nevertheless, Father Kino's greatest interest was in the souls of his beloved Indians, and so it was that on April 28, 1700 he reports: "We began the foundations of a very large and capacious church and house of San Xavier del Bac, all the many people working with much pleasure and zeal, some in digging for the foundations, others in hauling many and very great stones of tezontle from a little hill which was almost a quarter of a league away. For the mortar of these foundations, it was not necessary to haul water. And that house, with its great court and garden nearby, will be able to have through-out the year all the water it may need, running to any place or workroom one may please, and one of the greatest and best fields in all Nueva Biscaya.

By May 1, 1700 the various justices, captains and gover nors that Kino had invited to come to San Xavier del Bac had arrived. As the meeting progressed, Father Kino notes: "At the same time I made further and further inquiries as to whence came the blue shells, and all asserted that there were none in the nearest Sea of California (what we now call the Gulf), but that they came from other lands more remote . . ."

"We talked with them a great part of the night, as we had done the night before in regard to the eternal salvation of all the nations of the West and the Northwest, at the same time continuing various inquiries in regard to the blue shells which were brought from the Northwest and from the Yumas and Cutganes, which admittedly came from the opposite coast of California and from the sea which is ten or twelve days journey farther than this other Sea of California, on which there are shells of pearl and white, and many others, but none of those blue ones, which they gave us among the Yumas, and sent me with the holy cross to Neustra Señora de los Remedios."

A year later, in April 1701, Father Kino had returned to Bac to find that the governor and captain, with Indians from Bac and nearby rancherías, had marched out to confront the Jacomes, Janos and Apache marauders who had been attacking in recent months. Kino writes: "We rested here at San Xavier, giving various Christian instructions to the many natives who were here.... Much kindness was shown us by these excellent natives. They gave us many of their provisions, many of their good fabrics and blankets of cotton, numerous baskets, buckskins and red feathers. That afternoon came the news of the victory which these Pimas had won."

The general success and current well being of this most distant missionary effort caused Kino to write towards the end of 1702: "I began also the very large church at San Xavier del Bac, among the Sobaipuris, distant about 60 leagues to the very north of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. And in all places there was a very rich and plentiful harvest of souls, so ripe that I, as well as some other persons, zealous for the advancement of their own conquests and conversions, were of the opinion that it would be well if I should go to Mexico to try to secure the Fathers so necessary for the salvation of so many souls."

By May 1703 the Faith at Bac was established, and the good life of the new converts to Christianity so harmonious in this land of nomadic attacks and frequent strife, that the Father Visitor, Antonio Leal, wrote to Kino: "I greatly appreciate . . . the quietude, fidelity and firmness of the children of Bac, God keep them in this good disposition; may they see their holy church finished, with a Father to attend them, and may they enjoy it many years."

That the importance of this most distant outpost of San Xavier del Bac was now established and recognized by the secular and military arms of Spain is attested by the letter of General Juan Mateo Manje written September 15, 1706. In part, he says: "I have already copied a few (diaries and reports of discoveries, itineraries, etc.) to be sent to the Viceroy and set forth the advantage which may follow for God and the King from the 30 soldiers and father laborers for the reduced nations of the Pimas, Sobaipuris, Cocomaricopas and Yumas of the Rio Colorado, where I state a villa can be founded and serve as a haven (and base) for reducing the other nations the Moquis, the Apaches of the North and Northwest as far as the South Sea (the Pacific), and a refuge for the navigators from China and that this squadron will serve not only for these frontiers, but also to visit the nations which shall be reduced to our holy faith . . . in order that the father laborers whom I ask, can be secure in preaching the law of the Holy Gospel."

In spite of the significant achievement of the spiritual conquest of the Pimeria Alta, false and malicious reports were being sent into Ecclesiastical headquarters from this new frontier. For that reason, Father Rector Melchor Bartiromo wrote Father Kino on September 7, 1706: “The iniquitous report makes no difference to me, because the Devil will hinder as far as the Lord will allow; and he avails himself of men; but God is above all. Remember, your Reverence, that they have spoken against the Pimeria, but notwithstanding, God is sustaining it and advancing it until all may become Christians. Non est concilium contra Dominicum.” Father Kino died in Magdalena, Sonora in 1711 and the work at San Xavier continued for the next half century with such strange and unpredictable setbacks as the revolt of the Pimas in 1751, and the expulsion of the Jesuit Missionaries in 1767, by order of his Catholic Majesty of Spain, who may have been influenced by the satanic forces of Revolution then gathering in Bavaria, under the guidance of Weishaupt. Eventually, these showed their hand in the French Revolution, which was more a revolt against God than against the King and nobles of France, who lost their heads on the chopping blocks of the guillotine.

Prior to their expulsion, however, another notable missionary appeared at San Xavier del Bac Father Alonso Espinosa, who came in 1756. He will be remembered in the annals of Bac because he built a church, possibly upon the ruins of the original church started half a century earlier by Father Kino.

These were years when the Sobaipurís of Bac were inclined to wander mountain in summer, valley in winter. The incessant attacks by the Apaches and other warlike nomadic tribes were taking their toll, just as they did a century later when the Mexicans were mining and ranching in the Pimeria Alta on lands granted by the King of Spain and the succeeding Mexican Republic, which continued the royal policy of land grants in order to encourage colonization and development. Espinosa carried on in spite of the discouragements of the times, and this second church at Bac was recognized in 1772 by Antonio Maria de los Reyes, the first Bishop of Sonora. He describes Father Espinosa's church at Bac in these words: “The church is of medium capacity, adorned with two side chapels with paintings in gilded frames. In the sacristy are four chalices, a pyx, a censer, dish and cruets, a baptismal shell all of silver, four sets of vestments of various colors, with other ornaments for the altar and divine services.” In the next year, 1773, the Jesuits who had been expelled from the Pimeria Alta by their Church in 1767, were now officially suppressed throughout the world by the Brief of Pope Clement XIV. This was a significant aspect of the revolt against God and society by forces gathering in Central Europe as early as 1750 to attack in what we now recognize as the World Revolution. In this respect, it should be noted that Catherine of Russia provided the only haven where the Jesuits were received as a teaching body and given a measure of protection against their own Church, as well as the arcane forces then active in much of the Western World. It was Holy Mother Russia who succored the Jesuits; and a century later, it was Russia that was overwhelmed by the anti-God forces in the 20th Century. By 1920, the practice of all religion was forbidden, and a ruthless secular tyranny, called the Dictatorship of the Proletarist, was established under leadership of Lenin and Trotsky.

Meanwhile, life ebbed and flowed at Bac with the coming of the Franciscans under Father Francisco Hermenegildo Garcés. The story of this great priest, explorer, and trail blazer has been recorded in Helen White's novel, “Dust on the King's Highway.” Garcés, who opened up the land route to San Francisco on the Pacific from Royal Spanish and Ecclesiastical headquarters in Queretero and Durango in interior Mexico, subsequently made another important exploration among the Hopi Nation and the Pueblo Indians of the North. Then he was transferred from Bac to Yuma in 1779, and several years later won the crown of martyrdom at the hands of the savage Yumas. Although Garcés was a follower of the gentle St. Francis of Assisi, his bold career was more reminiscent of that of St. Francis Xavier, the Patron Saint of Bac, who died on Sancian Island en route to China after ten years of difficult missionary explora-tions and conversions starting at Goa and including Japan, Malacca, and the Philippines. "Brother Death," as the 12thcentury Francis would have phrased it, was the constant com-panion of these missionaries, who were willing, and often did lay their lives on the line in most inhospitable and unknown lands throughout the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. That was an age when men were willing to die for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It was a great age of faith.

Next in the succession of great leaders and doers in this most distant of outposts at Bac, came Father Juan Bautista Velderrain, a brother of the wife of Captain de Anza, who was the most illustrious military commander in the Pimeria Alta at that time. It was Father Velderrain who started the work on the third church at Bac, which still stands today and is known throughout the world for its serene beauty and mystery. This was begun in the year 1783.

For fourteen years, the work went on and was finally completed in 1797, when Pedro Bojorquez, one of the builders of this most beautiful of all mission churches, carved his name and the date on the sacristal door. In that year, Francisco Ituralde visited Bac and reported the following: "I inspected the baptismal font, the holy oils, and the books of administration, and found them all in accord with the Roman ritual "I visited the church and sacristy which is a structure . . . of burnt brick and lime. The roof is barrel-vaulted. The church is very large. It has five altars, four in the crossing and the high altar. The latter has a reredos of burnt brick and lime, and it is painted and gilded, and the other altars are only painted, and all are adorned with 32 statues of Saints, including the four that are on the four pillars of the body of the church and all are very beautiful. The walls of the church are octagonal drum, the cupola, as also the choir (loft) are adorned with various images and mysteries in fine painting which are applied on the walls, but in such a manner that they appear to be on canvas. There are four windows in the drum of the crossing, all with glass. The church has two towers, one unfinished. . . . The pavement of the floor of the church is of mortar, well polished. In one of the towers is the baptistry with its good font and a door. . . . It (the church) also has a new cemetery with walls of burnt brick and lime and a door and a good chapel of the same material. All this structure is new. It has only the necessary ornaments to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which are already well used, and they are well kept, as are also the sacred vessels."

That is the third church at Bac, the place where the water rises into a parched and expectant land. Since Kino's day, it has been called San Xavier del Bac in honor of San Francisco Xavier, patron of the Indies and patron of the great California harbor by the Golden Gate, as well as the highest peak in the Pimeria Alta. It is the most fascinating, mysterious and beautiful church ever built in a desert wilderness.

Herein lies the mystery of San Xavier del Bac. It is revealed in the traditional cruciform church of all Christiandom, the Cross of Christ. In hoc signo vinces. And soldiers, crusaders and missionaries have marched in distant unknown lands over the centuries to carry the message of salvation dramatized on another cross on Calvary Hill, where a Savior died that men might live the mystery of mysteries.

Here at Bac where the waters rise built of burnt brick and lime, is a sophisticated structure with domes and vaults, pillars and buttress, finials and arabesques, pendentives and towers. In many ways it is an Eastern Church as the cruciform plan indicates. The influence of the Moors and Byzantines is here, as well as the coloring and carvings of the Aztecs of earliest

Arizona's most famous flag was still to see dawn's early light. It was to be bathed in glory, honor, and victory. It was the flag of Company "A," Arizona Squadron, First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry better known as the Arizona Column of the Rough Riders!

Who, when hearing the name, "Rough Riders," does not conjure up visions of that famous charge up San Juan Hill, led by swashbuckling. "Teddy" Roosevelt? The sentiment is nationwide, knowing no state boundaries.

The flag that led the regiment that day was Arizona's! As the Arizona Column was about to join the regiment in San Antonio, it was noticed they had no flag. Unthinkable! So the ladies of the J. W. Owens Relief Corps, Phoenix Chapter, Grand Army of the Republic, leaped into the breach. After scurrying to attic trunks and yard goods shops to find the material of red, white, and blue, they met at the home of one of the members to work collectively on the task before them.

landed. One of the troop's captains noticed it blowing out in the breeze, and raised his field glasses. There were the tricolored streamers at the top of the staff! Throwing his hat to the deck and leaping onto the ship's bulwark, he shouted: "Howl, ye Arizona men it's our flag!" The loudest cowboy yell ever heard reverberated across the water. Somebody tied down the ship's whistle; the band struck up "A Hot Time;" revolvers spit flame over the side, and the ship's cannon roared. Every ship in the convoy joined in with a cacophony of sound that startled the Demons in Hell.

It was the greatest salute given to any flag in the war! The flag fought through the bloody battle of Las Guasimas, led the charge up Kettle (San Juan) Hill, and crossed the trenches at Santiago. When the troops reached Montauk an "official" regimental flag was waiting for them. They would have none of it! Their flag was shot full of holes, and the colors had started to run in the rain but that is the only time they Scissors snipped furiously; needles flew frantically, and many a delicate finger suffered a stab of steel in their haste. Dawn was breaking but the flag was finished. Except no silken cord could be found for the top of the staff. Undaunted, the ladies tied tri-colored ribbon to the top of the pole. Eyes bleary from lack of sleep, but sparkling with pride, they presented their flag to the boys heading for Prescott. It was presented to the column by Governor McCord at an impressive ceremony May 4, 1898. The flag was carried to San Antonio to join the other flags of the regiment. But the regiment had no other flag! So the flag of the Arizona Column became the flag of the Rough Riders. Fortune carried the banner to Tampa, then on to Cuba. It was in the bow of the first small boat to land at the port of Daiquiri that 22nd day of June the first American flag ashore.

ran. This flag had been baptized by their blood, under fire. No other banner would do! They carried it to the day they were mustered out. The Rough Riders' flag is preserved in a glass case at the Capitol Building in Phoenix. It isn't especially pretty it was sewn by hand, and in haste, so it lacks the perfection of professionalism. The stars are on askew, and even crudely shaped, but there are 45 of them, along with 13 stripes, alternate red and white, for this was the flag of the United States from July 4, 1896 to July 4, 1908.

This was the flag referred to by "Bucky" O'Neil, who, when asked why he, a man of wealth and distinction, would go to Cuba to risk his life for an alien people, replied: "Who would not risk his life for another star in his flag?" It was a prophetic reply Bucky O'Neil was killed in Cuba by a sniper's bullet.

With statehood just around the corner, the trials and tribulations of the state flag were to begin. In 1910, Arizona's National Guard Rifle Team went to Camp Perry, Ohio, to compete in the national matches. All the teams there flew a distinctive state flag except Arizona, who had none. The team members asked their captain to remedy the embarrassing situation. Here, in his own words, is the story of Arizona's flag creation: "I was selected to design the flag, and felt it was no easy matter to design one that would be attractive, distinctive of Arizona, and, at the same time, have historical value. I designed the flag that is known today as the State Flag, the only difference being that the first flag had a red bar entirely across the copper star, indicating our Indian Wars. This did not add to the symmetry of the flag, so it was taken off the second flag we made (emphasis added). The first thing I considered was the historic value, then the colors. Arizona colors are Blue and Old Gold. The old Spanish colors were Red and Gold. These colors had historical value, as they were the colors carried by Coronado. In considering something distinctive of Arizona, its copper industry was outstanding. In our connection with the Federal Union we were the last state to be admitted, so I decided to use something symbolical of the original colonies, so I used thirteen rays. I wanted to represent Arizona as a western state, and it was for this reason that we used the setting sun. Superimposed upon the center of the flag is the copper-colored Star of Arizona. The flag in this way carries the state colors, the old Spanish colors, and the distinctive copper color of Arizona."

"I realize that someone might possibly have designed a better flag, but since it has been adopted by the state, we have had many favorable comments on the beauty of this flag."

Harris designed, but could not sew that first flag. The lady who did sew it together tells her story: "I went to the national matches with Carl, who was a member of the Arizona National Guard Rifle Team of which Captain Harris was team captain. He was quite concerned because the other states had their flags, but our team had no flag. He came to me with a design he had drawn up, and the material to make the flag. I said I would sew it up, which I did. He raised it over the Arizona camp. I know that it was not easy to follow his design."

The "Betsy Ross of Arizona" was Nan D. Hayden, wife of Carl T. Hayden, destined to become the first man to serve in the U.S. Congress for fifty consecutive years. Captain Harris' wife, Fannie, also stated: "Mrs. Carl Hayden made the first flag (of Arizona). Whatever became of it I do not know. At the time it had no historic value to us. (emphasis added). I think it was in the Adjutant General's office, but probably was destroyed when that office burned."

FLAG PRINTS FOR FRAMING - SET OF SIX PLATES

A very limited number of artist's proofs of the color plates shown on the front cover (minus type), and pages 4, 7, 36, 39, and 42 are available to our readers and may be purchased for $3.00 each, or $12.00 per set of six. The scenes are the same size as reproduced, on special paper with white borders.

Address all mail to: ARIZONA HIGHWAYS MAGAZINE, 2039 WEST LEWIS PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85009 $3.00 single plates - $12.00 set of 6 - Postage is included.

Proper Display and Use of the United States Flag

When to Display the Flag-The flag should be displayed on all legal holidays, and on special occasions designated by the President, the governors, or other authorities, on official buildings, when in use; at polling places on election day, and on or in front of schools, when in session. On Memorial Day, May 30, it should be displayed at half staff until noon. The flag is customarily displayed from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open. It may be displayed at night on occasions and should be lighted.

How to Fly the Flag-The flag should be raised and lowered carefully, without touching the ground. The flag is raised to the top of the staff, with the union at the peak. When hung over a sidewalk from a rope, the union should be away from the building, and the flag should hang flat, not draped. No other flag may be flown above the United States flag.

When flags are flown on one halyard, the United States flag is placed at the peak. When flags are flown from adjacent staffs the U.S. flag is hoisted first and lowered last. Flags of other nations may not be displayed to the right of the U.S. flag, and must all have staffs of the same height. When two flags are placed against a wall with crossed staffs, the U.S. flag should be at right-its own right, and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag; when a number of flags are grouped and displayed from staffs, it should be at the center and at the highest point of the group.

On Private Dwellings-A citizen may fly the flag at any time he wishes. If he flies the flag from an upright staff on or in front of his dwelling, or projecting at an angle from the house, the flag is always raised to the peak of the pole with the union (stars) at the top.

Church and Platform Use-The flag may be displayed flat, above and behind the speaker, in an auditorium. If on a staff, the position of the flag is determined by the displayer who displays it. On his right (observer's left), whether he is on a platform or on the same level as the audience. It should not cover a speaker's desk or be draped in front of a platform.

When the flag is displayed horizontally or vertically against a wall, the stars should be at the observer's left.

The Flag in a Parade-When carried with another flag or flags, the flag of the United States should be either on the marching right or in front of the center of a line of flags.

The Flag at Half-Staff-When flown at half-staff the flag first should be hoisted to the peak and then lowered to half-staff. The flag should again be raised to the peak before it is lowered.

Prohibited Uses of the Flag-The flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. It should never be displayed with the union down save as a signal of distress. It should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

It should not be displayed on a float, motor car or boat except from a staff.

The flag should never be used for advertising purposes, nor be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs, printed or otherwise impressed on boxes or used as a costume or athletic uniform. Advertising signs should not be fastened to its staff or halyard.

It was not until 1915 that the Legislature attempted to make the design official. House Bill No. 68, introduced by Speaker Brooks, described the flag as: bottom half shall be blue, the upper half divided into 13 equal segments, to consist of seven yellow and six red rays. There was no red bar across the middle. This was the second design.

It drew objections. Mr. McClain protested that it would set Arizona apart from other states. Mr. Goodwin suggested that a more fitting flag would be that of the Rough Riders. The objections prevailed. It was recommended "that the State Flag Bill do not pass." Arizona was still flagless!

Mr. J. L. Edwards, Yuma, tried again in 1917, but Mr. Cureton, Coconino, reported unfavorably on the bill, stating, "The chief objection to the flag was that the star was grotesque, and the coat-of-arms of Arizona should be in its place." Another recommended a Gila monster as a suitable device. The Conservation Club of Phoenix had earlier proposed the "beautiful Golden Eagle of the San Francisco mountains be placed in the center of a bright blue field." Many objected that the proposed design might be confused with the Japanese flag. Mr. Cook, Cochise, moved the whole matter be resubmitted to the Education Committee, Mr. Pinkley, Pinal, thought the copper star The rifle team which represented Arizona at the championship matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, in 1911. Charles Harris is 4th from left, top row; Carl Hayden, 4th from left, seated.

Exercising his veto power, and a bill has automatically become law upon expiration of the five day limit. House Bill #2, which creates an official flag for the state of Arizona, was the latest bill on which the Governor refused to take action. The five day limit expired at midnight last night, and is automatically injected into the statutes today... (emphasis added).

The THIRD DESIGN made it.

Why Edwards reversed the sequence of the rays, using seven red and six gold, doesn't matter... Arizona had a flag! Before the First Arizona Infantry left for the front in World War I they accepted the new flag passed by a fluke from the Governor who didn't sign the bill at Naco, on Sept. 11, 1917.

Raising against a setting sun "was a sufficient strain of astronomy to have been atoned for by a happier description, for instance, a star of hope raising against a glorious dawn."

Then the bombshell! "for the sake of clearing the floor for other business, a motion to adopt the Edwards motion that the flag be recommended was carried, it being certain the bill would die when it came to its third and final reading."

It didn't. The Arizona Republican reported, on February 27, 1917: "For the second time since he took office, Governor Thomas E. Campbell has refused to affix his signature to a bill without exercisinghis veto power."

Despite the massive documentation to the contrary, there are still those who would like to claim credit for designing the State Flag. One woman, who came to Arizona in 1914 three years after photographic evidence exists of a state flag claimed Harris came to her with a flag design he had sketched in pencil on the back of an envelope. (Shades of the Gettysburg Address!) She contended she convinced Harris to use 13 rays of a setting sun in the top half of the flag, rather than a moon! Her claim was made by telephone, without any supporting evidence. Any further comment would be superfluous.

Harris is firmly established as the designer of the State Flag. The Charles Wilford Harris School, at 55th Ave. and West Encanto Blvd. (Phoenix) was formally dedicated on September 6, 1963. On the third floor of the Capitol Building now hangs a bronze plaque, "In Honor and Memory of Charles Wilford Harris," placed there by District No. 9, The American Legion, Department of Arizona, on June 14, 1963.

The distance between two points beginning to end has now been reached. Not in a straight line, due to the twists and turns of history, the ironies of fate, and the interplay of personalities, who, in the course of their day-to-day-business were if they only knew it creating history.

The last line of the one page flyer, given to visitors at the capitol building, sums it up succinctly:

Arizona's most travelled and most acclaimed flag was the Regimental United States Flag of the Rough Riders, who under Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, blazed their way into history in the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War.

The following excerpt from the book ROUGH RIDERS, by Theodore Roosevelt, proves nothing was closer to the future 26th president than the men from Arizona and their flag.

"The most serious loss that I and the regiment could have suffered befell just before we charged. Bucky O'Neill was strolling up and down in front of his men, smoking his cigarette, for he was inveterately addicted to the habit. He had a theory that an officer ought never to take cover a theory which was, of course, wrong, though in a volunteer organization the officers should certainly expose themselves very fully, simply for the effect on the men; our regimental toast on the transport running, "The officers; may the war last until each is killed, wounded, or promoted." As O'Neill moved to and fro, his men begged him to lie down, and one of the sergeants said, "Captain, a bullet is sure to hit you." O'Neill took his cigarette out of his mouth, and blowing out a cloud of smoke laughed and said, "Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me." A little later he discussed for a moment with one of the regular officers the direction from which the Spanish fire was coming. As he turned on his heel a bullet struck him in the mouth and came out at the back of his head: so that even before he fell his wild and gallant soul had gone out into the darkness.

My orderly was a brave young Harvard boy, Sanders, from the quaint old Massachusetts town of Salem. The work of an orderly on foot, under the blazing sun, through the hot and matted jungle, was very severe, and finally the heat overcame him. He dropped; nor did he ever recover fully, and later he died from fever. In his place I summoned a trooper whose name I did not know. Shortly afterward, while sitting beside the bank, I directed him to go back and ask whatever general he came across if I could not advance, as my men were being much cut up. He stood up to salute and then pitched forward across my knees, a bullet having gone through his throat, cutting the carotid. When O'Neill was shot, his troop, who were devoted to him, were for the moment at a loss whom to follow. One of their number, Henry Bardshar, a huge Arizona miner, immediately attached himself to me as my orderly, and from that moment he was closer to me, not only in the fight, but throughout the rest of the campaign, than any other man, not even excepting the color sergeant Wright."

MYSTERY / from page 35

Known America. Here is the baroque from Spain, as well as the royal lions of Castile and Leon. The scalloped shell of St. James from Campostella, the frescoed cord and pomegrantes, symbolic of the Franciscans, are on the walls. Our Lady of the Sorrows, Mary Immaculate, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Virgin Martyrs, Adam and Eve, San Cayetano, St. Joseph, the grapes and the sheaves of wheat-symbolic of the EucharistSt. Francis of Assisi, and in the center of the main altar San Francisco Xavier del Bac himself. But, high above all, stands God, the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth and all things.

In the tower to the West are the bells capped with the royal crown of Spain. One of the bells is said to be a member of the famous "lost chimes" from the Mission of San Juan Bautista in California. During a century and a half, there had been long intervals when these bells were silent. Then, in the mysterious manner that is the essence of San Xavier del Bac, they boomed out once more their music on the silent desert air to call the faithful Papagos descendants of the Sobaipuris and Pimas to come and give praise to the Lord, for "he alone is good and his mercy endureth forever." There have been long periods when it seemed theirs was the song that would never be heard in this world again. Yet, after years of raids and abandonment, through times of diabolic political suppressions, when the ways of Satan move as mysteriously as the hand of God, the bells would be silent and the song of San Xavier seemed to have ended. Decay and dissolution were about to be the fate of this glorious mission church as had been the fate of so many others in Sonora, California, Texas and New Mexico. Unexpectedly, the French missionaries came when all seemed lost.

While San Xavier stood deserted and abandoned the Mormon Battalion passed by on its historic march to California. In 1848, a company of United States soldiers came from Mexico and stopped en route to California. The Treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo was signed, and the Gadsden Purchase confirmed that this northernmost outpost of the Pimeria was now American. Bartlett's original Boundary Commission visited San Xavier in 1851, and he noted that "this church has more pretensions to architectural beauty than any I saw in the country." Emory, Lunt and Parke led surveying parties through the land near Bac, and about this time a passing Ohioan observed: "The birds are its only occupants and they sing praises from morning until night. They build their nests on the heads of Saints and warble their notes of joy while perched on their fingers. The door of the church is open, but the property of the church is undisturbed. The natives look upon the structure with awe and could not be persuaded to deface or injure it. If this country should ever again become thickly populated, it will be renovated and repaired and again used as a place of worship."

A few years later, the redoubtable Bishop Lamy, of Santa Fé, sent the Rev. Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, the first of a new wave of French missionaries, to inspect and report on San Xavier del Bac. This was in 1859. On his second visit, Father Machebeuf providentially made a successful effort to repair the roof on the church, thereby saving it from almost certain destruction, as had occurred at the lovely mission church of San Jose del Tumacácori a few leagues to the south.

In 1864, Bishop Lamy came to San Xavier and installed two remarkable Jesuit priests, Fathers Messea and Bosco refugees from the clerical persecution then raging in Italy who had been given asylum at Santa Clara College in California. Of their coming to Bac, Charles D. Poston wrote in 1865: "It was a strange coincidence that two Jesuit fathers from California accompanied us to their neglected neophytes. They were received by the Indians with great demonstrations of joy and amid the ringing of bells and explosion of fireworks, entered into possession of the long-neglected mission at San Xavier. These dedicated fathers immediately commenced laboring with late of the Church in Arizona, and whose remains are resting under the main altar in the Cathedral. I don't suppose you ever knew Archbishop Salpointe, but you may, perhaps, know of him. He was a holy soul and a grand missionary, and to him we owe the fact that the church of our faith is now strongly established and is becoming so more and more every day, in this part of the country, the Diocese of Arizona. I intend to put up a monument with a suitable inscription, enclosing an oil portrait of the Archbishop, which I have ordered made by an artist in Rome." 10 the zeal and fidelity of their predecessors, and in a few days, had the Mass regularly chanted by the Papago maidens with the peculiar softness of their language."

A few years later, Archbishop Lamy of Santa Fé, appointed Jean Baptiste Salpointe to head up the new Vicariate Apostalic of Arizona, created by Pius IX on September 28, 1868. Following in the tradition of San Xavier del Bac, Salpointe was no ordinary cleric. When he died, some twenty years later, The Arizona Daily Citizen (Tucson) reported: "With the death of this man, the Rt. Rev. J. B. Salpointe, there passes away one of the most important figures in all the early history of Arizona.

On Dec. 5, 1905 his successor, Bishop Henri Granjon, wrote his long-time friend, William Henry Brophy of Bisbee: "Another undertaking I am now engaged in is the taking up subscriptions towards the erection in our Cathedral of a memorial monument to Archbishop Salpointe, the founder and first pre-

late

Concerning San Xavier del Bac, Bishop Salpointe, who is remembered on account of his excellent history of the Pimeria Alta, Soldiers of the Cross, wrote: "These registers (i.e. the records and registers of the church at San Xavier del Bac) reveal that this mission was almost never without priests as far back as its foundation, which took place about the time the mis sionaries first came to the Sobaipuris in the year 1670. It can also be seen from the number of birth entries that this mission served a rather large population."

But, true to its tradition of surmounting the difficulties which had destroyed most of the early missions in the Pimeria, San Xavier del Bac invariably had the right man at the right place at the right time. This was as true of Bishop Henri Granjon in the early 20th Century as it had been of Father Kino at the end of the 17th Century. On June 20, 1906, the Bishop wrote his friend W. H. Brophy of Bisbee: "I am under the weather and need badly a few weeks' change of climate, only I am tied up here just now by trying circumstances. I am threatened with the suppression of our Sari Xavier's Sisters' School for the Papagos, an institution which I have been supporting, I thought success fully and satisfactorily. But the agent at the reservation has been working agairist us of late with the Indian Department at Washington, and he has succeeded, by dint of erroneous repre sentation, in persuading the Department that it should put up at San Xavier its own school and teachers; which means, of course, the death blow to our Catholic, school, and the loss of all our children there to the faith. It is the more saddening, as all these Papagos are Catholic, have been since the Spanish Padres made them so, and our school there has educated their children for the last 35 years. The agent's plea is that our school buildings are not kept in good repair, and that we cannot accoin modate all the children of school age. Therefore, I am about to spend $1,000 in general repairs in order to silence the agent as to the condition of the buildings, and I have informed the Department at Washington that if this be a condition for our being left unmolested with our school I will build an additional classroom. I have stated this matter at length, as, in case you have some funds in réserve for charitable purposes, I may say that at the present moment and in this Diocese, there is no object more worthy, more meritorious and more urgent for charity. I am left to fight my own fights as best I may. But, I trust in God, since it is His cause we are struggling for."

A month later, the Bishop was pleased to report to his friend: "I think I have good chances to come out all right in my struggle with the hostile, non-Catholic Indian agent. My protest with the Department at Washington is receiving, thus far, polite and favorable consideration. I am giving much of my own for ultimate success in this fight, and I assure you that your assistance in this matter is by me highly prized and very much appreciated."

No sooner had Bishop Granjon won his fight to keep the school at San Xavier from being taken over by the government than he discovered that the toll of time was taking effect upon the ancient church at Bac, and his next struggle would have to do with saving this noble building from disintegration on account of decades of neglect. Towards the end of 1906, he wrote: "When you left for Europe I was engaged in the exten sive repairs and additions that had become indispensable at the old Mission of San Xavier del Bac. I am still engaged in the same work. One repair made another compulsory, until, after spending to date three times as much as I expected, I now find myself in the same plight as the man in St. Luke's Gospel. "This man began to build, and was not able to finish"."

A year later, Bishop Granjon wrote: "I am well again and still busy with those grand repairs and renovating work at San Xavier del Bac. The work seems to grow in magnitude every day, as we have reached a point where we simply have to go ahead and keep at it to a finish."

Several months later: "Many thanks for the financial state-ment. I will have use at San Xavier for the interest of 1906 on both the note and balance of my account. My undertaking will keep me busy for many months to come. But, when finished, I think the restoration of the Mission will be a source of pride to the Territory, and a credit to the Church."

By the end of 1907, the good Bishop could write: "I have been compelled to discontinue my task at San Xavier Mission. The cyclone of August 20 there has done damage to the recently finished building. New arches, principally, to the amount of $700. My resources have given out for the present. I am anxious to resume work at once, and be done with the difficult and considerable undertaking. I have been at it two years, off and on, having spent to date $11,000. But, it is all for God's glory and the honor of the Church in America."

With the coming of another year, January 1908, Bishop Granjon writes: "If you intend to run over some day, kindly let me know a day or two ahead. I am absent a good deal from town, but only to direct the work at the old mission, when I have men there."

By August 1908, the Bishop was running up against technical difficulties with the roof and dome of the old church. He writes: "The manufacturer of paints for concrete roof, of whom I heard by your letter of July 1st, did not send me the circulars as yet. Would you please call the attention of the firm to the matter. I hope this will solve a problem which no one in Tucson can handle that of a roof at the Mission."

At long last, after three years of effort, with occasional interruptions, and at a personal cost of many thousand dollars, the church at San Xavier del Bac was renovated and restored. Arizona Territory was still three years away from Statehood and the Roosevelt Dam was not yet completed. With the exception of the coming of the railroad, electricity, and the telephone, the Pimeria Alta was still a frontier, with this difference. Bac was now the most distant outpost of a new Yankee Imperialism; whereas, yesterday it had been the frontier of the vast Spanish Empire of Kino's day.

It is now almost three centuries since the Black Robes stopped at Bac the place where the water rises and sustains life for the tribe and its flocks. As their Lord and Master had told the woman at Jacob's well in Samaria, they would now drink not only the water which wells up from this holy ground but they would also have water that sustains eternal life the living water after which one never thirsts again.

San Xavier del Bac is therefore no ordinary church nor is its history the conventional recording of man's seeming futility. In spite of raids, revolts, massacres, wars, cyclones, lightning, the inevitable erosion of time and politics, the church at Bac retains the peaceful beauty of its earliest days. The song of the turtle dove is still heard in the land, and the fair beauty and mystery of San Xavier del Bac vibrates in the clear desert air year after year. Indeed, that song the angels sang on a desert night near Bethlehem can still be heard at San Xavier del Bac, and sometimes one seems to hear an echo of another ancient song that says: "The foolishness of God is mightier than the wisdom of men."

FOOTNOTES

Memoirs of the Pimeria Alta Kino Vol. I, p. 119 2John IV-1 to 42 3 Bolton-Kino's Historical Memoirs - Vol. I, p. 122 This river is known today as the Santa Cruz River Probably Casas Grandes to the Southsast in Chihuahua, Mexico There is no counsel against the Lord In this sign you conquer 'The story of this remarkable cleric is preserved in the classde "Death Comes to The Archbishop," by Willa Cather, in 1927 That is to say in Arizona Territory, U.S.A. This monument is now in the newly restored Cathedral of St. Augustine in Tucson Fortunately, Bishop Granjon came from a wealthy family in France. Since his new Arizona Diocese was very poor, throughout his entire career he met most emergencies with his own personal inherited funds.

Photographs credited to Dick Frontain are from his book: San Xavier del Baç A Living Mission, published by Los Amigos 1005 North Sixth Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85705 As it was in the days of Padre Kino, the children of the Mission have always found an encouraging word, a helping hand, and kindness from the men and women of San Xavier.

POEM IN MARCH

Now the advancing season Begins A bright design; Changing The barren landscape With appropriate haste.

The woods are thin, No colors Quicken the maples, Stir; Late winter's festive promise Lingers in the air. William Beyer

REBIRTH

Spring will blow The winter fences down, Leave them underfoot, Give the meadow Brightest green; Feed The tapered root.

Spring will cover Wash the dead earth Black with showers; Cover The solemn hillside With blue and crimson flowers. William Beyer

HOME

I am home at last. I hang my hat on the limb of a tall saguaro. Now I can sit in its shadow and make marks in the sand for the wind to blow away.

If I visit the glow of other saguaros I will still find my way back by the curve of my hat.

Eleanor O'Hearon

SILENT THOUGHTS

I pass you by on crowded streets, And all along the way, I gather thoughts of you and me, On bright and sunny days We were like children playing In fields of golden grain And then the fields they left us, And crumbled in the rain.

Sondra Rogers

LANDLUBBER

Early this morning the sky was an ocean, With treetops awash in a riffle of blue, And clouds scudding over like whitecaps in motion.

I captained a ship for a heartbeat or two. - Margaret Hillert

YOURS SINCERELY FEBRUARY ISSUE:

I have been receiving ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for more years than I like to count, a magazine always beautiful and rewarding. Now the February, 1970, issue has a feature so excellent that I feel I must express my appreciation. I refer to the article on "The San Pedro Valley" by Eulalia (Sister) Bourne. After reading only a few paragraphs, I hurried to find a map so that I could follow the San Pedro River with a better understanding. Mrs. Bourne has done a competent and accurate job of historical research, adding so many items of interest not to be found in the conventional histories. This is a result, of course, of her long association with the river as well as her wide acquaintance with oldtimers along that historic stream.

This talented author has a gift for descriptive writing and one could have "seen" the river even without the fine pictures that accompany the article. Historical chronicles are sometimes, dull, but this one is as readable as either of Mrs. Bourne's two entertaining books.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS of February, 1970, goes into my "Keep" file, and I thank you again for your wise selection of an author to tell us of "The San Pedro Valley."

Gail I. Gardner Prescott, Arizona

Your magazine is always tops and I think that the article by Mrs. Bourne about the San Pedro is outstanding. It is a wonderful contribution to the world wide readers of the magazine. Very well done.

Nobody but a grass roots rancher would wade into the muddy stream with "boots on" to see if it was safe for a car to cross.

Dave Hopkins Camp Verde, Arizona

THOUGHTS ON LONG ARTICLES:

For a great many years I have been a devoted reader of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. I always liked and admired it, but I always regretted the brevity of your articles. Now that you have changed your editorial policy to devote an entire issue to one topic or one section of your state, I am entirely happy. The broader, deeper understanding that results from such treatment is most satisfying.

Elinor W. Hiatt Long Beach, California

NO QUESTION ABOUT IT: We have enjoyed ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for a good many years and have enjoyed traveling and camping in Arizona. I would like to add my voice and a "me, too" to the letter from G. S. Kennedy, long Beach, in the February issue. He suggested a small map of the area written about in the current article. Anyone reading the article can then place the area immediately in the whole big state. Just a small map will do as most travelers have a big state map. We feel it would add a great deal to the issues and more enjoyment and knowledge.

Quote Mr. Kennedy: "Your admiring but frustrated reader."

Sincerely Yours, Gretchen C. Woodin San Francisco, Calif. 94121

OPPOSITE PAGE

"DESERT SYMPHONY OF SPRINGTIME HUES" BY DARWIN VAN CAMPEN. This photograph was taken along the Beeline Highway south of Sunflower, Arizona. The Beeline Highway leaves U.S. 60-70 a few miles east of Mesa and goes north to Payson, the mountain metropolis in northern Gila County. The highway is a truly scenic joy to visitors who will find Payson area delightful to visit.

BACK COVER

"BRIGHT VISITOR IN LONELY PLACES" BY ESTHER HENDERSON. This photograph was taken at Wahweap Bay, Lake Powell. A lonely cactus plant responds to the caress of a spring sun and adds a gay note to a Northern Arizona landscape.