On this day in 1918 US Scout Royall Collins and Texas Ranger J.J. Edds assaulted Aurelio Farfán in Rio Grande City. Farfán was a former colonel in the Mexican army under Díaz and Madero. He was reading a newspaper after dinner with Antonio Rengeo, a merchant, when Edds and Collins burst in. Speaking through a translator, Farfán described the order in the 1919 Canales hearings into Ranger abuse:

Collins marched Farfán out of the house at gunpoint, hit him with the gun, and locked him in a closet, repeatedly threatening “If you come out of here I will kill you.” Edds witnessed this treatment. After about an hour of “abusing [him] not only by word but by deed,” a US army officer arrived on the scene. Collins’ and Edds’ behavior changed dramatically.

During cross examination, Ranger Attorney Knight accused Farfán of being a foreign agent trying to undermine the US in World War I by helping men sympathetic to the Mexican Revolution escape across the border and avoid the US draft. Knight’s accusation shows how afraid some in the US were of German involvement in Mexico during WWI and contextualizes Ranger violence against Mexicans and Mexican Americans as part of larger wartime surveillance and suppression.

You can read more about the eighth day of the Canales hearings, when Farfán testified, here: https://refusingtoforget.org/eighth-day-of-canales-hearings/