Page:Michael Welsh - Dunes and Dreams, A History of White Sands National Monument (1995).pdf/56

 44 anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Morris Opler, had researched the Mescaleros and other bands of Apaches in the 1930s Southwest, and spoke in September 1933 at the dunes to a group of Alamogordo Rotarians about "the habits of the Mescalero." Rose knew of local interest in these native people, and reported to the NPS: "Unless some archeological national monument reasonably close to the Mescalero Reservation can lay stronger claim to a full and complete treatment of the Mescalero Apache, these modern Indians should be made the subject of exhibits" at White Sands.

The theories of Robert Rose had a basis in fact, as White Sands would count 34,000 visitors in both 1934 and 1935. Tom Charles constructed a registration box at the park entrance, asking patrons to indicate their hometowns and size of party. He did so only after Superintendent Pinkley requested "a detailed report of the contact which I [Charles] make about the White Sands;" a condition he considered "too big an order at the present salary [$1 per month]." Charles would make an average of three trips per week to the dunes, stopping cars of picnickers to inquire about their well-being. Charles also met a steady stream of visitors in his Alamogordo insurance office, and handled all correspondence, publicity, and report-writing there. Among the less pleasant aspects of Charles' custodial work were the appeals of the unemployed for work. One such individual was W.A. Warford, a 48-year old San Franciscan who had not worked for four years. Needing to support his wife and five young children, Warford wrote to Charles seeking a position as a foreman in a White Sands CCC camp (which unfortunately did not exist).

For every W.A. Warford, however, there were other information-seekers more interested in the growing publicity around the dunes. The newly elected governor of New Mexico, Clyde A. Tingley, would make tourism promotion a critical feature of his economic program. The first liberal Democrat to sit in the governor's office in the 1930s, Tingley assiduously cultivated President Roosevelt and his New Deal officers, often joining FDR when the polio-stricken president spent time in the nearby Hot Springs/Elephant Butte area. Tingley would also apply for every conceivable federal grant, and work with the state's congressional delegation to receive dispensations from matching-funds regulations (by 1938 New Mexico ranked last nationally in its share of state matching funds; three-quarters of one percent). This would benefit the Tularosa basin and White Sands financially, but would also intensify the political influence of the Democratic party, which had not been able to overcome the power of the Republican/Bronson Cutting network (to which Tom Charles belonged).