The Major Players

Before embarking on an account of the Rangers from 1921 to 1935, it might be useful to discuss the salient personalities the organization produced. It is important to note that these men were the product of a highly politicized organization. As had been the pattern for decades, there was a churning of Ranger personnel every time a new governor was inaugurated. The governor controlled the Rangers through the adjutant general, who administered both the Rangers and the National Guard, and naturally each governor wanted Rangers in whom he or she had confidence. In practice this meant that those hoping to become captains mustered all the political influence they could in hopes of being appointed; those who were already captains did likewise to keep their jobs. The same applied to the rank and file, for jobs were hard to come by. To a marked degree, the effectiveness of the Ranger Force depended on the caliber of its captains, who theoretically enlisted their own men and shaped their own companies. In a carryover from the old Frontier Battalion, the 1901 law establishing the Texas State Ranger Force still designated units as paramilitary companies, although in reality they more closely resembled squads.

FRANCIS AUGUSTUS HAMER

Frank Hamer was by far the most famous Ranger of his generation. He is the subject of admiring biographers who portray him as a larger-than-life character. He was born on March 17, 1884, in Fairview, Wilson County, Texas. Now a ghost town, Fairview produced a disproportionate number of Rangers. The Hamer family alone contributed Frank and his three brothers — Harrison Lester, Dennis Estill, and Flavious. As a young man Frank Hamer worked as a blacksmith and cowboy. His first enlistment in the Rangers was as a private in Company C from April 21, 1906, to December 1908, when he resigned to become city marshal of turbulent Navasota. He remained in that job until April 21, 1911, when he resigned to become a special officer in Houston, a member of a strong-arm squad Mayor H. Baldwin Rice assembled to clean up the city. Hamer reenlisted in the Rangers on March 29, 1915, as a private in Company C. He resigned again on November 8, 1915, to become a brand inspector at San Angelo for the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas. From November 8, 1915, to January 10, 1917, Hamer was also a Special Ranger attached to Company C. He reenlisted as a Regular Ranger on October 1, 1918, as a private in Company F and was promoted to sergeant eleven days later.

Hamer had enormous disdain for paperwork. Ranger Manuel T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas "recalled that one day in 1921 he came in from a long scout and, finding that Hamer was not in camp, sat down and wrote out a detailed report. It was so thorough, he thought, 'I ought to get a medal for it.' When Hamer returned, he perused the report, then tore it to shreds and tossed it into the campfire." Despising paperwork was only one of the ways Hamer reflected a nineteenth-century approach to law enforcement. As biographer John Boessenecker points out, "His 'shoot first and ask questions later' ethic was entirely contrary to the law. Police, then and now, are constrained to use deadly force only when lives are endangered." On December 11, 1918, Hamer's heavy-handed approach to law enforcement plunged the Ranger Force into one of the gravest crises in its history. In what proved to be an extremely ill-advised move, he abused his authority by threatening to rough up state representative José T. Canales of Brownsville, a product of Jim Wells's corrupt political machine, which had controlled Webb County for years. Canales complained bitterly to the adjutant general about "this ruffian Haymer," but that official merely reprimanded Hamer instead of summarily firing him as Canales demanded.

The vengeful politician then advocated "a law requiring that the Rangers should be under the civil authorities of the counties and not to override them; or to abolish the Ranger force entirely as a menace to our democratic idea of local self-government." Canales, whom some considered merely a mouthpiece for Wells, mounted a full-scale attack on the Rangers, up to and including a demand that Adjutant General James A. Harley be fired. He introduced a bill that would have crippled the organization by slashing its numbers and leaving it under the control of local officials, and he was instrumental in establishing a joint legislative committee to investigate the Ranger Force. Canales acted as prosecutor during the investigation in 1919 that produced 1,605 typed pages of testimony containing a wealth of evidence, much of it hearsay, detrimental to the Rangers. During the investigation Hamer continued to play mind games with Canales to the point that the legislator was afraid to go to the capitol. Although Canales's vendetta against the Rangers was motivated by personal and political considerations, he did perform a valuable service by publicizing the dark side of the Ranger Force — racism, brutality, abuse of authority, drunkenness, summary executions, and political favoritism. Nevertheless, the legislative committee ultimately upheld the Rangers, with Adjutant General Harley announcing: "Committee report all we could ask for. Vindication complete." The House upheld the committee's recommendation by a vote of 87 to 10. A substitute bill eliminating most of Canales's proposals was adopted by a vote of 95 to 5 in the state house, and only one senator voted against it.

Despite the fact that they are a myth, one repeatedly reads about the vaunted "Canales reforms." An amended Ranger law was passed on March 31, 1919, and the Ranger Force was indeed reduced, but not because of Canales. Most of the reduction was the deactivating of Ranger companies added during World War I. As the adjutant general wrote, "Due to the fact that the war time...