While the Society disbanded in the Fall of 1923, the leadership continued to influence Indian affairs. In May 1923, Society leaders joined with reformer John Collier and founded the American Indian Defense Association in response to the injustices forced upon the Pueblos of New Mexico by the Bursum Bill (1921) and the Dance Order (1923). In 1921, Senator Holm O. Bursum of New Mexico introduced a bill whose effect would have been to divest the Pueblos of large portions of their lands in favor of squatters. By 1922, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall strongly supported the "Bursum Bill". By 1923, the plight of Pueblos in New Mexico evoked widespread public sympathy emerged as the symbol of the injustices forced upon American Indian. The Pueblos of New Mexico maintained a strong internal cohesion as self-governing societies for hundreds of years. Each Pueblo owned lands communally and unconditionally under grants from the King of Spain later confirmed by the United States Congress. Also in 1923, Commissioner Charles H. Burke of Indian Affairs issued a "Dance Order", also known as the "Leavitt Bill", directing superintendents to discourage the "giveaways" which were part of the ceremonials of a number of tribes, as well as to any dances the agent deemed immoral, indecent or dangerous. The Dance Order was issued in response to lobbying by the Indian Rights Association and missionaries who were opposed to the growing influence of the Peyote religion, and threatened to remove the right of Pueblo Indians to perform their traditional dances and ceremonies in New Mexico. The American Indian Defense Association became a powerful new lobby in Washington and successfully challenged government confiscation of communal Indian lands and restriction of religious freedom, and the Bursum Bill was defeated and the Dance Order withdrawn.