| dc.description.abstract | The Texas Rangers, long fabled for their uncompromising law enforcement methods, faced and endured their most serious challenge during the period 1910-1919. Assigned chiefly as peace-keepers and crime-fighters along the extensive and chaotic Rio Grande border they encountered, in the short span of nine years, the triple ills of Mexican revolutionary excess, persistent banditry, and world war furor. And, as they had done so many times before in their storied past, they responded to the new turbulence and increased danger by being as tough as they needed to be to preserve order and to prevent violence. They, thus, stood firm and did their part in taming the terrible tumult. When the perilous times ended, however, the Rangers were held accountable for their harsh ways and rough work. Civic-minded reformers called attention to their mistakes and abuses. The state legislature investigated charges of their misconduct and enacted a measure for their reorganization. But the Rangers, somewhat less forceful and more humane, survived and continued on in their evolutionary process from frontier Indian fighters to sophisticated criminologists. Three primary sources proved invaluable in this study. The Adjutant General Papers in the State Archives at Austin supplied the bulk of daily, weekly, and monthly communications between the Ranger captains and headquarters as well as departmental and interdepartmental memoranda. Contemporary newspapers furnished helpful insights into local and regional concerns and events. And the Canales Report provided both a negative and a positive appraisal of Ranger Service worth. | |
