#OTD on February 1, 1919, the third day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the state capitol.
Texas State Capitol, ca. 1909. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/93516788/
This day of hearings was different than the others. No testimony, but rather the filing of five more charges against the Ranger Force by Canales, along with supporting evidence, and responses from Adjutant General James Harley.
James Harley (1883-1942), Legislative Research Library.The most distinctive of the new charges concerned the murder of Ernest Richburg in the town of . . . wait for it . . .Ranger, Texas the previous December by Rangers Nalls and Bloxom. Town citizens and elected officials filed a mass protest with Ranger commanders.
Ranger, Texas 1919. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/tex/id/1123Richburg was Anglo, unlike almost all of the victims of police violence named over the hearings. Canales filed the charge to call attention to the way Ranger leadership aimed “to protect and shield men of desperate character in their unlawful acts while in the Ranger force.”
Canales’ allegation about killings in Ranger, Texas. Text from Canales Hearings, Volume 1, page 132.The last charged alleged that the Rangers were used to do “special favors” for the friends and “political pets” of the Governor, including Caesar Kleberg, general manager of the King Ranch. Rangers kept citizens from exercising their rights to hunt in pastures > 5,000 acres.
Image of Hunting Party on King Ranch, 1909. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s15585/These charges broadened the hearings to include how Ranger violence impacted Anglos. Canales was the only non-Anglo legislator, because of Jim Crow restrictions on Black voting and similar de facto measures against the smaller Mexican American population. He needed allies.
Harley pushed back hard, asserting that most charges were baseless or that officers involved had been dismissed from the force. He also accused Canales of “evil intent to mislead this committee,” a preview of his effort to make the hearings about Canales, not the Rangers.
Adjutant General Harley’s charge that Canales was motivated by “evil intent.” Canales Hearings, Volume 1, page 140.The breadth of Canales’ charges, the extensive evidence he submitted, and the outrageous nature of Ranger violence made some headway. Harley hoped that the committee would dismiss the charges without discussion, but the legislators agreed that the charges merited consideration.
Two days later, February 3, the committee would hear further charges and rebuttals by Ranger leaders. Our next thread will pick up on February 4, when the committee began hearing witnesses.
This thread is a part of the #OTD in Ranger history campaign that @Refusing2Forget is running this year. Follow this twitter handle or https://refusingtoforget.org/ranger-bicentennial-project/, and visit our website https://refusingtoforget.org/otd-calendar/ to learn more.
Key secondary sources for this thread include:
@BenjaminHJohns1‘s Revolution in Texas (pp 169-175)
@MonicaMnzMtz‘s The Injustice Never Leaves You (182-216)
Reverberations of Racial Violence
and Ribb, “Reader’s Guide to the Canales Hearings”
