The late Senator Barry Goldwater, from Tucson Citizen archive

Published in today’s Arizona Republic is an opinion piece with the late Senator Barry Goldwater’s 2/14/62 predictions in the Tucson Daily Citizen (predecessor to our Tucson Citizen newspaper) as to Arizona at age 100.

Here’s the online article
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2012/03/06/20120306goldwaters-crystal-ball.html

but the newsprint article has photos (on pages B12 and B13) of the actual 1962 article itself. Good to see our Tucson Citizen newspaper still being remembered, since its demise on May 16, 2009.

Senator Goldwater had 10 predictions, but the most interesting one for us in Southern Arizona is when he stated in prediction #8 (prediction # 7 online version which is lacking one prediction of the 10 printed in the newspaper):

Our ties with Mexico will be much more firmly established in 2012 because, sometime within the next 50 years, the Mexican border will become as the Canadian border, a free one, with the formalities and red tape of ingress and egress cut to a minimum so that the residents of both countries can travel back and forth across the line as if it were not there.

Under Senator Goldwater’s predictions are comments by legal scholar Jack August Jr. who is also the Executive Director of the Barry Goldwater Center for the Southwest.

But the Senator was mostly correct in prediction # 2 since Phoenix is now the 6th largest U.S. city:

The forests will still be protected, as well as our parks and monuments. But even they will have as neighbors the people who today enjoy hardships to visit them.

But it will be the deserts that will support the majority of the new homes. Phoenix will have a population of about 3 million, and Tucson will grow to about 1.5 million.

Phoenix and Tucson will remain the two largest cities in the state, with Phoenix being either the fourth- or sixth-largest city in the United States.

At least Tucson is not at the 1.5 million mark yet…

More information on Senator Goldwater (click here), who represented Arizona in U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1965, 1969 to 1987, and was the Republican Presidential nominee for U.S. President in 1964. He died at age 89 in 1998.

In the Tucson Daily Citizen (predecessor of the Tucson Citizen newspaper) a May 20, 1971 article featured a straw ballot to vote for one of the 10 candidates vying for Mayor of Tucson:

1. Joseph I. Brown, D, ran twice before for Mayor & lost
2. James N. Corbett, D, the Mayor (up for re-election)
3. James Dunleavy, D (formerly R), political newcomer
4. Douglas Edgell, R, ran before for City Council & lost
5. Harmon Harrison, R, on the School District 1 Board of Trustees
6. Larry G. Kelly, I, political newcomer
7. Lewis C. Murphy, R, former Tucson City Attorney
8. H. Kelley Rollings, D, political newcomer
9. Robert Royal, R, Ward 6 Councilman
10. Cynthia Schiesel, D, political newcomer (only woman in the race)

Trivia questions for long time Tucsonans:
Q 1: Who won these Republican and Democratic Mayoral primaries (out of the 4 Republicans, 5 Democrats listed above) in 1971?
Q 2: And who eventually won the General Election in 1971? (see answers at bottom of this blog)

40 years later in June, 2011 the City of Tucson had 7 candidates vying for Mayor after the June 1 deadline for nomination petitions:

Ron Asta, R (formerly D), who ran against the same Lewis Murphy (#7 above) in 1983
Dave Croteau, G, ran for Mayor in 1999 (write-in), and again in 2007
Pat Darcy, I (formerly D), ran for Mayor in 1999 Democratic primary
Mary DeCamp, G, ran for Ward 3 Council seat in 2009, only woman in the race
Marshall Home, D (formerly R and I), political newcomer
Shaun McClusky, R, ran for Ward 5 Council seat in 2009
Jonathan Rothschild, D, political newcomer

There were almost 10 candidates this year, but political newcomers Green Jon McLane and Democrat Thomas Lombardi withdrew before the June 1 deadline for filing of nomination petitions. Both had residency problems.

Subsequently 3 of these candidates (Asta, Darcy, and McClusky) were found to not have enough valid petition signatures, and one (Home) withdrew due to a lawsuit over his residency in the County and not in the City of Tucson.

There are three candidates left (Croteau, DeCamp and Rothschld) and currently three new write-ins, Democrats David Karr and Joseph Maher, Jr. and Republican Rick Grinnell. So with the 3 additional write-ins, there have been 10 candidates vying for the Mayor’s job this year as well.

Stay tuned for any additional write-ins prior to the July 21, 2011 filing deadline.

For you history buffs, may I recommend a 1970 booklet, “The Tucson Citizen – A Century of Arizona Journalism” by former reporter Don Schellie. Our Tucsoncitizen.com editor Mark Evans was giving out copies of this booklet at our Tucson Festival of Books booth in March, 2011. (In 1970 after 100 years of publication of the Tucson Citizen newspaper, Schellie reports that the population in Tucson was about 320,000 people. In 1870, the population was only 3200.)

Answer to trivia Q #1: Mayor James Corbett (D) and Lewis Murphy (R)
Answer to trivia Q # 2: In the General election Lew Murphy upset the Mayor by receiving 32,699 votes (52.32%) to Corbett’s 29,797 votes (47.67%), and went on to serve 4 terms as Mayor.
(The official canvass of November 2, 1971 does not list the Independent candidate Larry Kelly.)

And I have no idea what the results of that voter straw poll were. Anyone know? Tucson Daily Citizen readers were supposed to “vote for any one candidate of your choice regardless of his or your party affiliation”, and mail in to:
“STRAW VOTE, Tucson Daily Citizen, Tucson, Ariz.” No further address was provided. And no internet in 1970, so no online-voting.

Don’t miss the 21st Annual All Souls Procession tonight! More than 20,000 revelers in calavera (skull) and skeleton costumes will gather tonight starting at 5 p.m. at Epic Cafe, 745 N. 4th Avenue (SW corner of University Blvd). The procession goes south on 4th Avenue, through the Underpass, west onto Congress Street, then north on Stone Avenue.

The Grand Finale at Toole & Stone Ave. will feature pyrotechnics by Flam Chen, Ensphere (rock band), Odaiko Sonora (taiko drumming), Silver Thread Trio and more! New this year will be a metal art tower for the procession’s climax.

“Flam Chen have been creating, performing, and touring new circus and fire theater since 1994. We create dazzling public spectacle by merging daredevil acrobatics, pyrotechnics and a mastery of light, air and fire.”

Log onto www.allsoulsprocession.org or sponsor Many Mouths One Stomach, www.manymouths.org for more information.

Many Mouths One Stomach (MMOS) is a Tucson-based collective of artists, teachers and community activists who come together with the intent to create, inspire, manifest and perpetuate modern festal culture.The All Souls Procession is an event that was created to serve the public need to mourn, reflect, and celebrate the universal experience of Death, through their ancestors, loved ones and the living.

Poster is entitled “For the Road”- original artwork by Philip Felix at Red Sky Studio.

And last year Val Canez, former employee of the Tucson Citizen newspaper was marching in the All Souls Procession, with other former employees carrying a coffin of our beloved print edition. The Tucson Citizen, age 139, ceased publication on May 16, 2009, may it R.I.P.

Photo of Val and “Our epitaph”, courtesy of Ryn Gargulinski, one of the two online Tucsoncitizen.com’s editors.