PERSONAL RECORD 
159 
not until several years later, due to the activities of certain people in Pueblo, Messrs. Thatcher 
and Raynolds and others, that a line of railway was built down the Arkansas to La Junta, 
where it joined the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in its construction into the 
Southwest. 
Mr. Springer was the retained counsel of the Santa Fe Railway during that period; and 
during all of the years of his active career at the bar, either as trial lawyer or as counsel, was 
consulted in every case of any consequence which was heard in the courts of New Mexico, 
as well as in many other jurisdictions where the interests of that great company were affected. 
These are matters of which I have personal cognizance. 
IMy acquaintance with Mr. Springer began in the spring of 1883. In the summer of that 
year there was celebrated here in Santa Fe the Tertio-Millenial Anniversary of Spanish con- 
quest and occupation of all the areas between the Pacific and the Mississippi. 
When Mr. Springer came to New Mexico the bar was composed of many distinguished 
lawy'ers. The na^nes of these eminent jurists are found in the published reports of our 
Supreme Court. Within two years after his coming Mr. Springer took the position and was 
recognized as one of the leading lawyers at the bar, and during his active career retained that 
position of leadership. And from my personal acquaintance with the volume and character of 
the litigation confided to his charge, the manner in which it was handled, in results obtained 
and in the satisfaction always accorded to his clients, he enjoyed a position pre-eminent among 
his fellows at the bar. This became an accepted fact when the final determination of the most 
important suit, involving title to great tracts of land, was had in the court of last resort in 
this country. I refer to the Maxwell Land Grant case. LaAvyers of the greatest distinction 
in America had been employed in the litigation involving the title to that great property, but 
it remained for Mr. Springer to secure a final conclusion and determination favorable to the 
contentions of the grant owners. 
The Supreme Court of the United States was right in following the argument and con- 
tentions of Mr. Springer. Few there were of the Anglo-American population who, with the 
advent of the transcontinental railways, could appreciate or who would attempt to understand 
how any one individual or company or organization could possibly have the right of owner- 
ship in a million or more acres of the public domain. The real question at that time was the 
one which a few years before had been dominant in California — the question of the squatter 
and the Don, or the Don’s descendants and grantees. Few there were who understood or com- 
prehended the policy of the Mexican government in making these grants ; a protective policy, 
brought about largely owing to the experience which that Republic had passed through in the 
case of Texas, and the settlement on Mexican soil of Americans from Tennessee, Mississippi 
and Louisiana, the final divorcement of the province from the Mexican Republic and its final 
entrance into the American Union. As a policy of protection, the Mexican Government gave 
great grants of land on its northern frontier, which was the Arkansas, to Mexican citizens. 
Those granted were the Maxwell, the Montoya, the Tierra Amarilla, and other grants of lands, 
empires in area and extent ; granted to Mexican citizens for the purpose of establishing upon 
the American frontier a zone of Mexican influence which would resist the advance of the 
American, brought about through the commerce of the prairies and the establishment of the 
Santa Fe trail. These are the facts which caused the creation of those great land grants, and 
it was the student of history, as well as jurisprudence, as exemplified in Mr. Springer, who was 
thus enabled to sustain his contentions in our court of last resort. The determination of that 
court in that case not only revealed him as the leader of the bar in New Mexico, but gave him 
an international reputation : a reputation of a character which any lawyer, no matter where 
the scene of his activities, would appreciate as the acme of professional success. His reputa- 
tion must rest upon his argument in that great case. The information which he obtained in 
its preparation, the knowledge that was his, and exclusively his, relative to questions arising 
under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the matter of Spanish Land Grants and their rela- 
