The Texas Legislature's Joint Committee of the House and Senate in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force was created in January of 1919 and functioned during January and February of that year. The purpose of the Committee was to investigate the actions taken by the Texas Ranger Force during the period from 1914 to 1919.
In 1910 a revolution against Mexico's President Porfirio Díaz had unsettled the populace on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. By 1914, tensions along the border country had been heightened by Mexican nationalism, German intrigue and sabotage, and American draft dodgers. Then, in 1916, Pancho (Francisco) Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico intensified already harsh feelings between the two countries. During the course of these events, the regular Texas Rangers, along with hundreds of special rangers appointed by Texas governors, killed an estimated 5,000 Hispanics along the border between 1914 and 1919.
In January 1919, Texas State Representative José T. Canales of Brownsville filed nineteen charges against the Texas Rangers (as a part of his ongoing concern over their conduct) and demanded a legislative investigation and the reorganization of the force. On January 24, Canales offered a simple resolution requesting the Adjutant General to deposit its 1917-1918 investigative records of the Texas Rangers with the Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, so that House members could easily review the materials. On January 27, the Adjutant General wrote to the House urging a full and complete investigation of the Ranger force. Accordingly, Representative Miller offered a resolution proposing an investigative committee of seven. Canales offered a substitute resolution later that day, also calling for a committee of seven but proposing that four members come from the House and three from the Senate. Canales' substitute was passed as House Concurrent Resolution 20 (36th Legislature, Regular Session). On January 28 and 29 Representatives Leonard E. Tilson, Sam C. Lackey, W.M. Tidwell, and Dan S. McMillin and Senators Paul D. Page, Edgar E. Witt, and R.L. Williford were appointed to the joint investigating committee.
The committee began taking testimony on January 31, 1919. Representative Tilson had been replaced by Representative William H. Bledsoe. Bledsoe served as committee chair and Senator Page as vice-chair. Testimony was taken for two weeks and the report of the committee was submitted to the House on February 19, 1919. The report recommended a reorganization of the Ranger force. Later that session, the legislature passed House Bill 5 (36th Legislature, Regular Session), authored by Canales, which maintained the four company structure of the Rangers, but reduced the number of recruits from twenty to fifteen per unit; instituted more competitive salaries, but with minimal expense accounts; and established specific procedures for citizen complaints against any ranger wrongdoing.
From the guide to the Transcript of proceedings, 1919, (Repository Unknown)
