Captain J. A. Brooks, Texas Ranger

8. The Ranger Force

As the Twenty-seventh Texas Legislature convened for its 1901 session, Governor Sayers entered his “Message to Congress” into the records on January 10. Under the title of “The Adjutant General ’s Department,” Sayers wrote this about the Rangers: “This body of men cannot be too highly commended for the manner in which they have discharged the many dangerous and delicate duties incident to their employment. They have been used only where necessary to repress lawlessness, to detect crime, and to arrest and bring to trial the more serious classes of offenders. Their services in this respect have been invaluable, and may be regarded as an absolute necessity to the State.” Clearly, the exigency of the argument to disband or reorganize the Rangers was on the governor’s mind as he penned his report to the legislature. “Failure to provide properly for the continuance of this force,” Sayers continued, “would involve the assumption of a responsibility which no one at all acquainted with prevailing conditions should care to assume. It is earnestly recommended that the men be invested with such powers of arrest and detention as are conferred upon the officers.”1 Subsequently, on January 14, Rep. Ferguson “Ferg” Kyle of Hays County introduced House Bill No. 52, “An Act to provide for the 125 THE RANGER FORCE 5’10” tall, 170 pounds, blue eyes, joined the Rangers on January 15, 1882, in Cotulla 8 organization of a ‘ranger force’ for the protection of the frontier against marauding and thieving parties.” The so-called “ranger force” would consist of four companies, each under the command of a captain and including one 1st sergeant and no more than twenty privates, and one quartermaster for the entire organization. Presumably in the writing of this law, provisions would be clearly stated enabling each ranger to enforce the laws of Texas and make arrests legally. The bill was sent to the Committee on Military Affairs, and on January 17 committee chair Semmes Parish of Robertson County reported that the committee was sending it “back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass.” The next day Representative Kyle presented on the floor for second reading but it was tabled for two weeks. When Speaker Robert E. Prince read the bill on February 4, Rep. John Houts of Jack County offered an amendment effectively killing the bill; that amendment was tabled. A second amendment, offered by Rep. John Ackerman of Grimes County and detailing the furnishing of supplies and weapons for each ranger, was accepted. The amended bill was then ordered engrossed.2 Meanwhile, in the Senate chambers a similar bill was being walked through the proceedings by Sen. William Ward Turney of El Paso. Turney, a prominent West Texas lawyer and rancher who had previously served two terms in the House before his election to the Senate in 1896, often represented the ranching industry of Texas whose concerns for security and law enforcement had always included broad support for the Rangers. Turney offered Senate Bill No. 31 on January 14, where it was then sent to the Committee on State Affairs. The bill had its second reading seven weeks later and joined House Bill 52 in joint committee discussion.3 Regardless of their future, the Rangers still had more than enough work to do besides listening to the legislators debate their fate. Cattle and horse thieves continued their activities across the state, and a flare-up of the fence-cutter wars sent Rangers from Company F to the John Kenedy ranch in Karnes County late in February. And as interested as Captain Brooks was in the Austin proceedings, a telegram Captai n J. A. Brook s, Te xas Rang e r 126 from General Scurry on February 19 hinted at even bigger trouble on the immediate horizon: a prizefight was to take place in the storm-battered city of Galveston. Following the debacle of the Fitzsimmons-Maher fight five years earlier, a loophole in the enforcement of the ban on prizefighting in Texas was soon discovered. As long as neither boxer was paid for the fight, nor any money waged, nor admission fee charged, such a bout would be considered only an exhibition or, as one promoter called it, a “scientific demonstration.” The exchange of money would, of course, be done surreptitiously else no professional boxer would accept an invitation to “demonstrate.”4 In 1899 the Galveston...