The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 318

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

funds between male agricultural extension programs and female home dem-
onstration work prompted strong protest from women's groups; Shackel offers
no information for New Mexico. Social Housekeepers presents some interesting
portraits of individual women, but insufficient evidence for statements such as:
"Because they had established female-based organizations and goals, women
were able to exercise power within the political structure" (p. 164).
University of Houston, Vzctorza JUDITH N. MCARTHUR
Death Comes for the Chzef Justice: The Slough-Rynerson Quarrel and Polztzcal Vzolence
in New Mexico. By Gary L. Roberts. (Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colo-
rado, 1990. Pp. xviii + 204. Preface, acknowledgments, prologue, black-
and-white photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95.)
Professor Gary Roberts uses the assassination of Chief Justice John Potts
Slough to set the stage for a larger discussion of post-Civil War violence. This
incident became indicative of the New Mexico political scene from 1867 to
192o. The death of John Slough was not an isolated event in the post-bellum
period of the American West.
While political violence in New Mexico appears to be rather common, the
author notes that such violence in the United States in the post-Civil War era
was the rule rather than the exception. In his concluding chapter, entitled
"Harvest of Violence," Professor Roberts gives an in-depth analysis of violence
as a product of the frontier experience. Characteristics of the late nineteenth-
century era of violence include the conclusion of the plains war, labor unrest,
nativism, frontier justice, and farm unrest. While many find violence pervasive
in the West, and several judges were murdered in Texas during Reconstruc-
tion, the author notes that assassination was rampant in other regions of the
United States, including the mills, mines, and city streets of the Northeast.
Much of the turbulence of the Gilded Age manifested the growing imperson-
alization of the newly-emerging urban industrialism.
Professor Roberts does an excellent job of using the William Rynerson-John
Slough quarrel and assassination to look at the early development of New Mex-
ico as a territory. Perhaps this season of violence is another reason why state-
hood was so delayed. The author's insight into the tricultural setting of New
Mexico is satisfactory.
The book is well done in its research methodology. The author not only
acknowledges secondary materials but also makes use of rare archival materi-
als, as well as newspapers, government documents, and some private papers.
The only decision this reviewer would question is the choice of title for a
work that is historically well done-an obvious attempt to capture the reader
who may have read other works on New Mexico. Didn't Willa Cather use a
similar title many years ago?

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Sul Ross State Universzty

ROBERT C. OVERFELT