READER’S GUIDE
TO THE CANALES HEARINGS
State Representative José Tomás Canales, representing the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, filed House Bill 5, calling for a modest reform of the Texas Rangers, on January 15, 1919.
His successful concurrent resolution created a committee of four House members and three Senate members to oversee a full inquiry. The extensive hearings uncovered many instances of murder, torture, dispossession, and other illegal activities by active members of the Ranger Force. Canales chronicled many of them in a list of charges that grew to twenty-one with the inclusion of complaints offered by fellow legislators. The committee, nonetheless, provided a sweeping endorsement of Ranger leadership and exonerated the Rangers.
The Hearings
During the twelve days of the hearings, eighty witnesses generated 1400 pages of testimony, and the advocates entered more than 200 pages of documents into the record.
The Readers Guide to the Canales Hearings is a chronological presentation of the testimony and related matters. It will provide the reader a guide to the proceedings.
The Readers Guide to the Canales Hearings was written by Richard Ribb, PhD, a multiple-award winning educator with extensive experience in higher education. He has taught history at UT Austin, Texas A&M, and Austin Community College. He recently completed a book manuscript for Texas A&M Press on legislator J. T. Canales’s valiant 1919 attempt to reform the Texas Rangers.
