By Jay Eby
In the Territory of Arizona; in 1900, I am sure the citizenry were just as expectant, just as sure something new and better would happen as we enter 2001. Maybe, this would the year, 1900, that Arizona would become a State. But, this was not to be; not for another 12 years.
Territorial government officials were few, though I'm sure Arizonans might have believed there were too many! Most importantly were: the Governor, his Secretary, the Judges, and the U.S. Marshall Benjamin Franklin Daniels, who was appointed in 1906, to serve the Arizona Territory until 1908. Born to Aaron and Mariah Sanders Daniels in Illinois, November 4, 1852, Ben lost his mother, two brothers and four sisters to cholera. In 1863, at eleven, he moved with his father and stepmother to Kansas. At sixteen, Ben left for Texas to cowboy then returned home to hunt buffalo two years later. By the time he was thirty, he held a number of law enforcement positions: Marshall of Dodge City, deputy sheriff in Bent County, Colorado, town marshal in Guthrie, Oklahoma and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Along the way, he married his first wife in 1887.
In 1898, Teddy Roosevelt formed the First United States Volunteer Cavalry to go to war with Spain in Cuba. Ben, in Texas at the time, volunteered and was placed in "K" Troop of the Rough Riders at San Antonio and was assigned to the machine-gun crew.
According to the unit's history by Captain James McClintock: "While (Daniels's) Troop was in camp at San Antonio, numbers were assigned to each (member) of the company but no one could be found who would accept No. 13. Mr. Daniels, however, took the number and out of the twenty men in his company was the only one not killed, crippled or injured in battle, and returned home with an added disbelief in an old and time-honored superstition."
After the battles in Cuba, Ben was employed as a guard for Wells Fargo. Subsequently, President Roosevelt appointed him U.S. Marshal in Arizona over the opposition of Arizona Republicans. He had first come to Arizona in Yuma, then Nogales. He also had mining interests in southern Arizona.
Ben, however, forgot to mention to President Roosevelt that at 18 he had served time in prison for stealing government mules in Montana. The Arizona Republicans has no qualms about informing the public and Roosevelt asked Ben to resign. "You did a grave wrong to me when you failed to be frank...and tell me about this one blot on your record," he said.
In the politics of the time, two issues important to Arizonans were entwined. They wanted statehood for Arizona and abhorred the intrusion of Federal regulations. From early times, Arizonans had taken a strong states-rights and local control attitude and ethic. President Roosevelt favored admission of Arizona jointly with New Mexico. To the Arizonans, Ben Daniels embodied all they disliked. Arizona was a territory and Federal law prevailed. Ben's job was to enforce this law as a friend and supporter of the President.
Roosevelt appointed Alex Brodie territorial Governor and Brodie assigned Daniels in 1904, to superintend the prison at Yuma. The 'Colonel,' President Roosevelt, did not give up on his friend and again appointed him U.S. Marshall for Arizona in 1906. Even with continued local opposition and a delay in confirmation, the Rough Rider won appointment with the help of Bat Masterson and Speaker of the House, Joe Cannon. He was confirmed June 1905.
Shortly after that, Ben took a train east to join his wife who was visiting relatives in Kansas. However, before he arrived in Kansas he received a telegram informing him that his wife had died. He later remarried in 1908.
Back in Arizona, Burt Alvord, Deputy Sheriff for John Slaughter in Cochise County was convicted of mail robbery. Ben was the warden at Yuma where Alvord was jailed. In the fall of 1905, Mexican officials asked that Alvord be extradited to face charges in Sonora, Mexico. Ben, intending to serve the warrant upon the prisoner's release, missed his opportunity. Friends of Alvord's in Douglas had secured his early release. Although embarrassing to both governments, this may have been a good thing for Daniels in the long run.
According to an article in the Journal-Miner of May 12, 1906, Daniels was escorting 21 Chinese deportees to San Francisco when the train wrecked after hitting a sinkhole caused by a recent earthquake. Ben reported he was finishing his breakfast in the dining car when he, his deputies, and their charges were thrown about the car. Although, no one was killed, many sustained injuries and four of the deportees ended up boarding the ship on stretchers.
The Journal-Miner carried an article on August 5, 1909: "Ben Daniels was summoned to Washington about three weeks ago and at the White House was asked to resign. He did so and it was effective September 30, 1908." The article went on to say, his appointment was as a friend of Roosevelt and his resignation purely political. The former Rough Rider went on to take a position as Indian Agent for the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin.
Unhappy with that position, Ben returned to Tucson and his mining operations. In McClintock's history, he referred to Ben as, "one of the most respected and esteemed men of Tucson."
Jay W. Eby is a Forester and a member of the Arizona Rough Riders.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (mil238pe). Reuse only by permission.
Many of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders from the Spanish-American War found employment after the war through political appointment. Benjamin Daniels (not shown in this post-war photo) worked throughout Arizona in the early 1900s .