The Gun That Wasn't There (review)

2??8Book Reviews461 large parties with minimal labor support, it was necessary to attract die support of labor to populism. Previous historians have acknowledged the continuity ofagrarian protest from the GLP to the People's Party; however, Hild's analysis of the primacy of labor's involvement in this continuity differs gready from the current historiography. The stark difference comes through in Hild's interpretation of the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1 886. While historians have argued that the defeat ofrail workers at the hand ofJay Gould served as a hindrance that prevented future farmer-labor collaboration due to blows suffered by die KOL, HiId states "the strike actually served as a catalyst for farmer-labor third party insurgency" (48) . The strike, according to HiId, fostered direct political collaboration between farmers and laborers against tiieir common enemy in the railroad corporations. For HiId diis collaboration laid the groundwork for future farmer-labor insurgency through the populist revolt. Some readers may argue that the KOL's declining numbers through the 1 890s prevented any potential labor supportfor populism. HiId suggests the KOL's influence persisted despite its decline in actual members. He points to the fact that many individuals, including Texas Alliance president William Lamb, belonged to botii the KOL and Farmers' Alliance. In many areas across the South, before the spread of the Alliance, many insurgent-minded farmers belonged to KOL chapters. As the Alliance spread they blended naturally into the Alliance due to their common platforms. According to HiId, the non-segregationist practices of the KOL also laid the groundwork for biracial farmer-labor insurgency across the South that lasted until the brutal repression of populism and the advent ofJim Crow laws. Students of Southern radicalism and labor history will find this book incredibly enlightening, especially those with a particular interest in Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas, due to the more pronounced convergence of farmers and laborers in diese states. While HiId, with his focus on joint farmer-labor insurgency, did not intend to create a general study of Southern agrarian insurgency and populism, no broader understanding of the topic is possible without taking into account diis well-argued and convincing book. Texas State University-San ManosThomas E. Alter II The Gun That Wasn't There. By Russell S. Smith. (Privately printed, 2007. Pp. 254. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 1-41962-817-8. $i8.gg, paper.) Russell S. Smidi's longtime history as a Texas law enforcement officer and police chiefsuit him, his subject, and readers well in his taut nonfiction recounting ofviolence set in West Texas in die 1 960s. Having said that, it is refreshing that the tale told in his book, TAe Gun That Wasn't There, was done widijust a tip of the hat brim in recognition ofhis relationship to die brotherhood of police officers. That is refreshing because unlike many cop stories Smith appears to have made an effort at not writing a completely prejudiced account of heroism (real or perceived) of the real-life subjects in die book. Instead he has presented each of these men as they likely were: well-meaning, honest individuals who for the most part viewed law enforcement as more dian a paycheck and not at all glorious. His account of the 462Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril personal struggles of some of the individuals and their families brings an all too familiar but all too forgotten truth to the fore. And even though modern media has portrayed police work as dangerous and wildly exciting at times, it is in reality usually mundane and tedious. But it is in tedium that we find Terrell County sheriff Bill Cooksey's best efforts at capturing the man who shot and very nearly killed the sheriff out in the Chihuahuan Desert. It was in Cooksey's tenacity, coupled with a certain stick-to-itiveness, and aided by many other determined lawmen that die years-long career of the Caveman Bandit was finally ended. But even the Caveman Bandit, a man named Alfredo Hernandez, at the time a thirty-one-year-old illegal Mexican national whose repeated nighttime border crossings were fraught with crimes ranging from tidy, nearly victimless break-ins to attempted murder, was given...