"The Gallup 14"

A Novel by

Gary L. Stuart

Politics in New Mexico can be a can of worms, a squirmy mess of suspicion, coercion and blatant abuse of power. And, sometimes, people in the way end up bankrupt, dead, or worse, in a desert jail in the mid-1930's.

In The Gallup 14, author Gary Stuart takes a little known part of New Mexico's political history and brings it to life. Stuart weaves a fictional story in and out of a real-life event. He tells the tale through the eyes of local lawyer Billy Wade and his girlfriend-schoolteacher, Mary Ann Shaughnessy, and in her conversations with her diary, Madame Journal.

One can smell the dusty, sooty smell that hung over Chihuahuaita, the camp set up by Mexican strikebreakers during the labor strike of 1917. With a coal strike under way, and a labor union with communist backing holding the mines hostage, Gallup was a power keg. All that was needed was a spark and the town was going to blow.

A riot explodes when a local senator buys the shantytown out from under the striking mine workers, sends out eviction notices and some of the Chihuahuaita evicted residents go to jail.

In an alley where the evicted are being escorted to jail, seven people are wounded; two left for dead and the longtime Sheriff "Mack" Carmichael is killed by a rioter's bullets. But whose?

Law enforcement rounds up the striking Chihuahuaita miners and sends them to a jail in cattle cars. Fourteen immigrants are initially charged in the murder of the sheriff and three go to trial.

Stuart uses court records and newspaper clips of the 1934 murder trial to put readers in the front-row seat in Judge McGhee's courtroom. One can see state-appointed defense lawyers Hugh Woodward and John Simms facing the prosecution team of J.R. "Dick" Modrall, Frank Patton and David Chavez. When the verdict is read, not only are the accused on the edge of their seats, so is the reader.

The Gallup 14 is a powerful tale of racism, exploitation, labor union politics, and a legal system charged with somehow finding justice.

The book is a must for New Mexico history buffs and for fiction lovers.

The Albuquerque Journal, March 19, 2000

Review by Carolyn Appleman