Transcripts For CSPAN3 Texas Rangers - Behind The Myths 20240712

Maybe from tvs and movies if nothing else. Florida i watched this show called texas john slaughter. Song was texas john slaughter do what they outta, because if they didnt they would die. The lone ranger may be the most cinematic ntb radio rangers that started in 1933. Out of wxyz in detroit. The script was originally called man hunter. But then they changed it to lone ranger. We would still be talking about it today. In rangers have been hundreds of movies. There have been hundreds of books written about them, hundreds of magazine and newspaper stories. The image was built. I will go into that a little more. First i want to get a brief history of the rangers. Why the talk about Texas Rangers have residence and a place in a conversation were having now nationally about Police Brutality and approaches to history and all this taking down of the confederate monuments. The rangers have a place in that too. Will try to toggle to vintage photos. This is the first time i have done this. F i mess up, im sorry i have my Technical Assistant and my lovely wife to help me if we mess up. I will try to pull of photos and do a slideshow. I hope everybody is seeing that. This is lone wolf gonzalez. Famous texas ranger in the 1930s, 19 40s, and 1950s. He was a sharp dresser. He has the custom boots. Was, by allf accounts, a good ranger. There are many rangers who were heroic, upright honorable, courageous, valorous individuals who formed a Public Service in texas. Whether you agree or not whether the anglos should have settled texas. Texas would not be texas without the rangers. They were a valuable for started starting in 1823. We have to say there were many terrific people who rangers continue to be. I dont want this to be seen as an attack on the rangers, but i want to get behind the myth of the rangers themselves. Lone wolf gonzales gives us a good example. He was a good ranger up a quite concerned with his public image. There was a saying, i know you heard this applied to other politicians, that there was no more dangerous place in texas than lone wolf gonzales. Being a rangerd he rode off to hollywood and became a tv show consultant. He put forth his own public image. 75was said that he killed ranchers. That was not true. He never abused anyone of that. He claimed to be descended from spanish royalty. He claimed to have fought in the mexican army as a mexican soldier, that was not true. One time a reporter was hanging out with him and they ended up spending the night together in a hotel. I dont mean to imply there was anything strange going on, there was no other rooms in the town where they work. The reporter woke up that morning and saw the loma lone wolf shaving with his towel on an boots and nothing else. The lone wolf explained that is what he did every morning. Put on his hats and his boots. That was lone wolf. The first rangers came together in april in 1823 when the first anglo settlers came into texas. Firstn f austin led the anglo texans. That is him in the center of this painting that comes from the library of congress. What he is doing is urging settlers to go out and kill the indians. Tribe whoa coastal had been in texas for thousands veryars, but they were large, very muscular, very tall, they smeared alligator grease on themselves to keep the mosquitoes off them. They put rattlesnake rattlers in their air hair and were said to be cannibals. First time he saw them he recorded in his journal these people must be exterminated. Urging is doing is settlers to exterminate these indians. The first 10 rangers, they were not firmly formerly recognized by any government. They were formed in 1823 to protect settlers against the indians. This was when mexico was still a part of texas. They did not do any fighting and they ran out of ammunition and food and returned to their day jobs. That was the beginning of the rangers. 197 years ago. And eventually they were exterminated in about 10 years. They cannot put up much of a fight. They did not have the ammunition or population to fight the settlers and they were long gone. Texas became an independent 1836. Ic in soon they had to fight the comanches. To 1850nches from 1750 with the most powerful indian tribe in north america. That is because they were the greatest horsemen in north america. This is a painting of comanche horsemen. They were very clumsy on foot. , werent veryt much good at anything. But when they got the horse, people who would see them, white men would see them and say it was like watching a thin tar cintar. It was one beast, comanche and horse. What the comanches could do was have a little strap that they rolled onto what their foot and they would lean down beneath the neck of the horse and fire their arrows. From there they can fire up to 30 hours in a minute. Settlers in the rangers were using a single shot, pistols and muskets. They would fire and have to reload. Took them toe it reload the comanches would fill them with arrows. It was not an easy fight. Lordsmanches were called of the plains. They ruled the planes from colorado into texas for these many years. Jack had a Ranger Company that was one of the First Companies use themerican west to revolving pistol. It was a five shot pistol that samuel colt developed and then went broke. But jack hayes and his company of rangers got hold of them and use them to fight the comanches. Thats when the tide turned. No longer could the comanches and wait for the rangers others to fire their oneshot and have to reload. That began to turn the tide. Jack hayes is seen as one of the great ranger captains of all times. Fears, heve, he was was a terrific tactician, any also led some companies in the mexican war. 1846. Xican war was in the u. S. Invaded mexico and the went and joined the army to fight against mexico. They were, at that time, army soldiers. They stayed to themselves, they did not dress as army soldiers. They stayed dressed as rangers. I want to tell you a free passage from a book by a new englander called my confessions. Its a terrific book. He was from New Hampshire and boston and he encountered the rangers in the mexican war. He wrote, the rangers were the scouts of our army and a more reckless, the devil may care it would be impossible to find this side of the region, shirts black with grease and blood. Some wore red shirts, their trousers thrust into their high boots. All were armed with revolvers and bowie knives. Together with their bearded faces, lean and form and swaggering manners, they were fit representatives of the outlaws that made up the populations of the lone star state. Here it lone star state. Here is where the rangers made their reputation. The mexican war had a number of war correspondents recording what had happened. They ran outward by the rangers. They were enamored by the rangers. They saved a lot of american lives. They kept american soldiers from ambushes. They fought guerrilla warfare very effectively. They were extraordinary valuable to the u. S. Army. At the same time, they were noted for their atrocities. They took prisoners and they killed them. They often wiped out the civilians in the village for no reason except revenge. Grant, a later president who was then a lieutenant in the mexican war, wrote a letter to his wife to be. He wrote, about all of the texans seem to pick it perfectly right to impose upon a city of a conquered city to any extent, even to murder them where the act could be covered by the dark. How much they seemed to enjoy ask of violence. Acts of violence. Texas rangers in the mexican war came to be known as los diablos tehanos. They would tejanos. Feared the rangers because they are fighting their atrocities. Here is an engraving that shows Samuel Walker, and was on the horse and one of the most famous Texas Rangers fighting in the mexican war. This is the death of Samuel Walker in a village in mexico near the end of the war. He was not how he died, shot. It was a traumatic rendering of him being pierced with a lamp. Walker was one of the more via fight rangers vilified rangers. He was instrumental in perfecting the colt revolver into a six shooter. It became the gun that won the west. Samuel walker was a pioneer in that regard. T and col helped him work on this new gun. Texass pro state. Its before the civil war, its the 1860s. This is a cartoon that ran in harpers magazine called young texas in repose. The figure on top is texas with the scars, sharp teeth and the knife. , who sitting on a slave stabbed,ripped, shackled and abused. Texas was a slave state before the war. Texas ordered mexico and the underground ro road in Texas Railroad in texas ranch off to mexico. If you were a slave and wanted to escape, you probably ran to mexico. Once you got across the rio becauseou are free slavery was illegal in mexico at the time. Cases, had, in some slave hunting expeditions into mexico. They would go in, try to seize the slaves, bring the back across the border and sell them in texas. Hence this cartoon. Rangers did a lot of valuable things. John wesley hardin, one of the great gunslingers of the old west. Here is John Wesley Hardin as a dead man. The rangers did not kill him, they put him in prison where he learned to become a lawyer. He got out and practiced law and was shot to death in el paso by either a dissatisfied client or a lover. No one is quite sure. The rangers were in sure mental in capturing a number of bad guys, including hardin. Lets move to the 20th century. 1913, 1914, 1915 on the new mexico border, the Rio Grande Valley in texas. This is a post card at the time. The men on horseback and rangers. The men on the ground are dead mexican bandits. The rangers were sent to sell texas at the time because the border was in place of was a place of great violence and of people. There was a revolution going on in mexico. At the same time there was a land boom going on in texas. The rangers were sent to keep the peace. It meant that the rangers, depending upon your sores, killed a hundreds, maybe thousands of mexicans and mexican americans, including these for here. Some of them were bad guys, some of them were abandoneds. Many of them, hundreds of them were only mexicans are mexicanamericans who lived on land that the white people wanted. They sent the rangers into force them off the land. Sometimes that meant scaring them, sometimes that meant scaring them burning them out , sometimes that meant killing them. Rangers were known at the time as common man killers. They operated death squads. There is a list a list of people that the anglo powerful wanted dead, so they killed them. This was the point that the bygers became as feared mexicanamericans along the border as the kkk was feared in the deep south by black people. Terror to these people. Now to the anglo powerbrokers who want this land, they were a godsend. It depended on which side you are on. This is where the rangers got their reputation as a force of death along the mexican border. That is a reputation that has been impossible for them to shake. We will talk a little bit more about that when we get to the end. Ranger company around the turnofthecentury. Well armed with the texas flag flying in the background. Century the early 20th 450 lynchings in texas. Im 1885 to 1930. Most of them of black men. Some of them hispanic men and women. 1919, which was known as the red summer because of racial violence, Texas Rangers conspired with Police Chiefs and sheriffs in texas at the governors order to quash the civil rights of black people. They conspired to keep them from voting. They conspired to keep them from meeting to pursue their civil rights. They blocked their mail. They instructed local gunshot owners Gun Shop Owners not to sell them weapons. At keepingaimed black citizens of texas from exercising their civil rights. This picture is from 1930. In sherman, texas. The black man is in shackles and is named George Hughes. He was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. So he went to trial. This is him being led to the core house from the jail to the courthouse for the first day of his trial for assault. The rangers were brought in to protect him. For rangers. You may have heard the slogan one ranger, one riot. This was set by a ranger who showed up one day where there was a riot going on in the local Law Enforcement official said there is only one of you and the ranger allegedly said, you only have one riot. That never happened. Statues, a number of signs and monuments around texas that have the slogan, one riot, one ranger. Here is what happened. George smith is on trial for assaulting a white woman. First day of trial for rangers are there to protect him. This is insurance, texas. A farm town north of dallas. Formed outside the courthouse. A mob of white people. They decided to storm the courthouse to get George Hughes. They got to the second floor, which is where the trial was taking place. The rangers fired some shotgun shots at them and the mob are treated. The rangers thought they had it fixed. But then the mob set fire to the courthouse. Hughesgers locked george and ewald on the second floor to try to protect him. The courthouse was ablaze. Therangers climbed out second floor window of the courthouse. Got in a car and left town. The mob waited for the fire to burn out. Out fromGeorge Hughes the vault, through his body out the second floor window, drag it through the streets behind a car and hoisted it from a tree limb on a noose in the black part of town and set it on fire. That was your one riot, one ranger. This is indicative of the rangers problematic history with race. Here is one of the best examples. The man leaning up the tree is a banks. Named j he was sent to a town called mansfield, texas, which is between dallas and fort worth. The naacp, after brown v. Board of education was to integrate texas schools. Which were all white. They chose mansfield as the place to start. This is mansfield high school. ,hey arrived with a court order ordering local officials to enroll black students. The governor sent in the rangers to keep the peace. I know you have all seen pictures, and may be like me youre old enough to remember in places like arkansas and mississippi, federal troops in the National Guard were deployed to make sure that black students could enroll. We have seen the photographs and the famous Norman Rockwell painting of a black student being led past speeding and yelling mobs to enroll in school. The rangers were there to keep black children out of the school. You see there is a figure hanging from a noose. That is a black figure hanging in effigy over the school. Schoolormed outside the carrying a sign that said black children must die. Kill all blacks. It did not say blacks, you can imagine what it said. The rangers, under the governors orders, were ordered to prohibit black students from enrolling. They cited with the mob. J banks, because of that. Mansfield and a week later in texarkana, texas, because of this photograph, which circulated worldwide, became the of the opposition to integration in texas. This photograph ran in newspapers all across the country. A couple more things to talk about and then we will deal with the rangers in general. This is captain alfred ali who is a distinguished ranger in south texas. Was one of the toughest rangers ever. How do i know he was one of the toughest ever . Patroltexas firemen wrote his wife a traffic ticket for a burnt out tell i, he went light,a burnt out tail he went in and he said his wife was lying, so he pistol whipped the highway patrolman. He would pistol whip or slap you. That was how he handled people he did not like. There was a farm workers strike. They were hispanic and paid maybe . 50 an hour to pick melons. They lived in shacks. They had no medical care. To get water they had to bend down and drink the puddles from the ground. There were aligning themselves with cesar chavez forces out of california. The melon growers asked them to bring in the rangers. He did. The strike by harassing the strikebreakers by beating them, by arresting them for no reason. Inchesing their faces from speeding freight trains that were barreling through town. And they were successful. The rangers were strike rakers in many cases. They broke steelworkers strikes, coal miners strikes. Broke an at one point cowboy strike up in the panhandle of texas. This is one of the most famous in 1967 led by the captain. And later in several courts and the Supreme Court and findings from the civil rights commissions censored him. In his defense, he was just a man out of his past. He once said these doggone civil rights is the dammed thing i ever heard of. When he retired he was hailed as one of the greatest ranch captains ever. He settled back in his hometown of south texas. One day he went to the store to buy a jug of water. Up young hispanic clerk rang a price of 1. 75. The captain thought it should be 1. 45. He slapped the clerk and pulled his pistol on him. And it was the captain until the end. One more ranger anecdote. This is henry lee lucas. The most one time famous serial killer in American History. Mid was in the late 1970s, 1980s. , perhapsedly killed 300 people across the United States. This was a guy who only had one good eye, his right eye. He had an iq of about 85. He had a fifthgrade education. Yet, he was able to go all over the country killing hundreds of people, never leaving a single clue. Not a fingerprint, not a hair, not a shell casing that could be matched to him, not a tire track, nothing. Not a witness, ever. But the rangers had him in captivity. He began confessing to these crimes. Police officers would come in and all over the country lucas would confess to unsolved murders, so they would clear these murders. Every time they would clear a murder and confessed to a crime the rangers would put a pin and a map. They ran from coast to coast. From texas to canada to california from california to new england. Between 200 and 300 workers this. An confessed to killing the murders were attributed to him. A deadly is,ad most dangerous man in america in captivity. We are very proud of that. A lot of the rangers got a lot of glory out of that. 1985, the dallas newspaper ran an expose and showed that lucas could not have committed these murders. He may have committed three of them. His mother, his commonlaw wife and a woman he woke for he worked for. But evidence proved that he could not have been in these places when he claimed to have committed these murders. What later came out was that he was allowed to see the files on these murders before he confessed to them. That is how he knew to say, yes i killed the woman in this place. Yes i used a knife or yes i used a gun. But it was all a hoax. When this was expose, the rangers said we do not know it was a hoax. All we did was make lewis available. We deny investigate his whereabouts, we were his custodian. He wasot have known lying. We do not probe his whereabouts, his background, anything like that. Thats what the rangers said. When i was researching this record found the rangers in the state archives. No one ever looked at them. What i found in those archives were proof that there rangers were lying. They did know it was all a hoax. Committedt know lucas these crimes. They had an extensive investigation into the whereabouts and they knew it was impossible that he killed someone in Shreveport Louisiana shreveport, louisiana when he lived in maryland, or killed someone in baytown texas while he was working in jacksonville, florida. They knew all this but they kept it secret. I dont know why. I think it was because they did that this wasmit a hoax. They did not want to admit they played along. Here is a problem beyond it being public responsibility. Clearedme a murder was or a true beaded to henry lee lucas, the investigation stopped. That means that these 200 plus to for that he confessed dozens of years while lucas was believed to be the suspect, no one was looking into these cases. These killers were walking free. And the rangers allowed that to happen. There is the book. A couple of things i want to add and then we will go to questions. Bankser the photo of j leaning against the tree and front of a high school with a black effigy was hanging. For a statue of a texas ranger that was completed in 1960. Why was he the model, because he was the goodlooking guy, the sculptor said he looked like a ranger. Sculpture, the statue was made. It was 12 feet high on its base. The base said one riot, one ranger. The statue itself was placed in the early 1960s in the lobby of Love Field Airport in dallas. Which is the main city which is the equivalent of Midway Airport in chicago. This is home port for southwest airlines. And it stood in the lobby of sincerelye field 1960s. Since the early 1960s. I am an old white guy so i never paid much attention to that statue. Lets remember that j banks was the face of official opposition into integration of texas schools in the 1950s. However you feel if you were an africanamerican getting off a plane in dallas and that and that is one of the first things you see, the statue of j banks. Maybe your parents or grandparents could not enroll in a school of texas because of what they were doing. Within days of my book coming city of dallas took down the statue of j banks. I dont know where it is now, but they were alarmed at the message that the statue may have sent. This was at the same time a lot of confederate statues and statues of columbus were coming down across the south and across the nation. At the same time we were having, and are still having a debate about Police Brutality. Going back to what the rangers did a long the border in the early parts of the 20th century, i have said before, the rangers did not admit to brutality, but they perfected it along the border. Rabid effective practitioners of Police Brutality for a long time. This is become part of the discussion. There have been suggestions that the Texas Rangers baseball. Eam should change its name the colonists from the Washington Post said the Texas Rangers Baseball Team is having none of it. There are many discussions taking place and museums across thattate and elsewhere glorify the rangers and dont take into account the histories of hispanics, blacks, native americans, and i think its really important, as the rangers come up on their 200th , and since in 2023 this is texas there will be a lot of pedantry in celebration, i think its really important that the rangers face up to their history. For many years, their image has been promulgated by this propaganda factory that they have operated. Saw abouttv shows we the rangers in the 1950s and 1960s. If the producers want cooperation from the rangers they had to get script approval. The rangers only approved scripts that showed the rangers in a flattering way. Its really important, as we are approaching his 200th anniversary, for the rangers to acknowledge the other side of their history. Lets talk about the honor, the courage and all the good things they have done, but lets also talk about the history of hispanics and blacks as a relates to the rangers. The native and other people. I think its really important to do for a number of reasons. Ts fairer to give voice to people who have not had a lot of voice. And i think it makes the rangers appear stronger as an institution. I dont think it diminishes them at all. If we Start Talking about, for example, the civil war and slavery and facing up to what happened, does that make us weaker as a nation . No. It makes it stronger. I hope they take this opportunity to do that. They are not sharing their plans with me at this point because they were not that happy with the book in many ways. But i hope thats what happens. That is a history. Im happy to answer any questions. That was awesome. Sitting here with me. We are both sitting here widemouth, particularly when he talked about bringing people within inches of speeding trains. As im listening to you, and anybody who knows me knows that i love following the stories of world war ii, but these clearly esknd like third reich tactics. We would never take what happens a the United States with stalinesque theme. You had a litany of things that that went on in the time from exterminating indians to the mexican war to the evolution of the colt revolver. It may be inadvertent for your point in terms of how this happened, but given all the that were used, and the ,onversations going on today you just mentioned that you they really have to come past. And fess up to their do you think thats possible . Do you think they will be able to do that . Doug that is a great question. To preface it, think we have to be aware of whats called presentism. Judging the acts of someone to hundred years ago by our present standards. We have to acknowledge that texas in the 1800s and 1900s was a wild and violent place. The rangers were reacting to that. Men in a tough time. That has to be a knowledge in this discussion. There is no doubt that the rangers were, for much of their acting under orders from, and on behalf of of the white anglo power structure in texas. And that meant wiping out indians, mexicans and quashing the civil rights of blacks, and looking the other way when people were lynched, that is what they were there to do and told to do. Do i think they will acknowledge that . I am a little bit hopeful. I am hopeful because i am from those whor are the custodians the official custodians of ranger history. I cannot be any more specific than that at this point because its not ready to be released yet. I am hopeful that it will be soon. I think they are feeling the pressure. Another reason i am hopeful, there is a state texas museum in austin called the bullet museum. Anew years ago they put up exhibit of violence on the border. It was very graphic and it explained the rangers roll and the role of others. That was a real change. Im hoping we see more of that. I think the rangers, and those of have been the custodians their image will realize they are out of step. And texas is becoming a. Ajority minority state i think the citizens are going to insist on that. I think the National Climate brings that to bear as well. We are revisiting this all over the country, except maybe parts of the deep south. I am from the deep south so i can acknowledge that. It is happening. Its happening slowly. But this is a little bit of a switch. Just to give you an example. A different metric. Have never been many Texas Rangers. Right now there are only 160 Texas Rangers in the state of texas in the state of 30 million people. Most people in texas have never seen a ranger. Of them are women. Eight of them are black and 34 are hispanic. They did not have any women rangers until 1993. They did not have black rangers until 1988, that was after an naacp complaint. Its changing, but its changing slowly and its tardy. We would like to see if further along, but it is changing. Your a long answer to question to say, yes i am hopeful. What i bet on it, probably not. How cooperative were they, were Texas Rangers . You mentioned about the keepers of the flame. How cooperative where they with you in researching this . How long did it take you to compile this . Doug individual rangers were cooperative. Individual rangers operate often independently. A you are a prominent lack of bureaucracy within the rangers. Ranger does what he thinks he needs to do. Dayexample, i spent the with a ranger in southeast texas. Great guy, terrific ranger, terrific law man and a credit to the agency. Officials would not cooperate with me at all. The book took five years to research and write. Yearst all five of those trying to get cooperation out of the rangers officials. Emails, phone calls, letters, personal appeals, nothing worked. They wanted nothing to do with me. The only comment they have had on the book so far is that historians will judge its veracity. They have not said anything else. The rangers have a professional operation and they have changed dramatically. They have standards and training a professional Law Enforcement organization and a really good one in many ways. But the rangers are under what is called a Texas Department of Public Safety and that agency is not known for its transparent. With me or any other journalist. So its a problem. I would like to see more transparency, but im not too optimistic about that. You clearly told us some anecdote anecdotes about individuals and activities. Were there things that you found in your research that you just simply could not put in the book . Either they were just too heinous, you cannot verify . There were things that you had a or im not trying to touch this one moment . Doug i was interested in George Hughes being led to his or date. There is a photograph of his being hung from a tree. I cannot put that in the book. There were so many incidents that at some point you just have to say, can i put another atrocity in here . Am i piling on too much . Both were atrocities on sides. The comanche indians were notorious for torturing anglo settlers. There were atrocities by the Mexican Forces in the mexican war. It was not onesided. But to answer your question more directly, it was more a manner of volume than individual incidents. I could have gone on and on and talking about executions and atrocities and war crimes and at some point you just have to say, i hope ive made my point and move on to the next one. Have some questions coming in. Somebody in the audience. A fellow floridian. I appreciate your work on this issue. There has been a long issue of night writing as a tool of enforcing in the antebellum time for reconstruction. There is a lot of evidence that people involved are public including Police Officers by day and violent vigilantes by night. I wondered if you talk about the rangers who functioned as rangers for extrajudicial activity. For example, they legitimized our about texas or the rest of the south . Ing it was no secret that the 1920s, 1930s there were many rangers who were members of the kkk. Night riders were also called night cap verse cappers. Every now and then they would arrest people involved in racial disturbances, white people, but they rarely went to trial. It was extremely rare for someone who was involved in a lynching to be prosecuted. Going back to the lynching where the mob turned down the court house the rangers ended up arresting nine people. Only one of them went to trial. He was convicted of arson. He served a very brief sentence. If we are looking at the time of the 1920s, 1930s when racial violence, 1910s, when racial violence was across texas and across the south, the rangers did very little to stop it. Its true, many of the night riders were Law Enforcement officials. Complicit innt was hand with that. The National Director of the naacp, a white man came to texas to try to talk to the governor about racial violence. Violence against black people in texas saying we want some protection. The governor issues to see him in austin. He saw the rangers, the second in command, the assistant general, and he asked for protection because he believed his life was in danger. He was a white man but was the head of the naacp. He felt he was in danger and asked for protection and the assistant general refused. He walked out onto the streets of austin were he was accosted by three Public Officials who beat him savagely on the streets of austin and put him on a train to st. Louis and told him never come back to texas again. These were Public Officials, they were not prosecuted. They were hailed as heroes in texas. That is the way it worked. Act ofe the rangers and military unit during the civil war . Did they Stay Together . There were some rangers who became confederate soldiers. Famouss one particularly unit and is part of the confederate army. There were other rangers who controlled the friends here and i guess they would call them rangers. Their purpose was to protect settlers against indian attacks. The rangers were german touring the civil war. And in the era right after the civil war, the jim crow era, the rangers only reformed as an official unit. Why did you undertake this project . When you did, did you have a good idea of what was going on, or were you surprised at what you are finding . Doug i have been carrying the idea out of my head for a long time. I was planning to do a story about the rangers and never got around to it. I had written another book about a texas character who is a racketeer. He moved to las vegas and started the world series of poker. After i wrote that my publisher said we want a big texas book. So i said lets do the rangers. I set about thinking i would a comprehensive history of the rangers thinking it would take me a couple years. And are estimated the amount of material i would have to go through. I found that i started poking around and found stories behind the myths. A lot of the myths began to fall right away as soon as i began poking into them. I want to say that many other scholars who had written about rangers atrocities on the border or in the mexican war, or elsewhere, and i was not the first to get there. But in the other case is, it had been done in a fairly discreet way. They had written about one small piece of history or one geographical part of texas, or Something Like that. What i wanted to do was put it all together across the nearly 200 years and see what it looked like as a whole. I began assembling downhole. That is what surprised me. How every time, every era i looked at what the rangers had done. And again i have to keep saying that. Once you start looking behind legends and taking the myths apart, some pretty bad stories began to emerge. I begin to see how the rangers, a ken and again, covered them up. They not only covered them up, but to these terrible incidents and remanufactured them, transform them into stories of heroism. It was uncanny. It was really surprising to me. Took meone reason it five years to pull all of this together. How has this been received in texas . Beside the fact that they took down the statue. Doug because of covid19 and i am here in pittsburgh, i have not been back to texas yet. I dont know if i will be shot. Lots of support and lots of really good evenings. The reviews have been great. Sales have been good. At the same time, all i have to do is go to the books page on amazon. Com and there are plenty of people lining up to tell me what an idiot i am and all of that. Im not a real texan. Someone wrote the other day that i hate texans, which will come as a surprise to my wife and two children who were all born in texas. I spent half my life in texas. But i would say on the whole, more than on the whole, the reception has been very good. Newspaper and radio coverage has been very encouraging. In to ait taps recognition that many people in texas have had that its time to look at this. There are some who dont want to talk about this. They do not want to examine the myths and the legends. I am dismissed as another woke liberal who wants to poke holes in heroes. That is not the case. What i wanted to do was, as i said earlier, tried to tell the whole story because i think thats really important. As a writer, thats far more interesting to me. You always have the internet. Trust me. Too full ofr get yourself, the internet will always make sure. Protagonist of Texas Rangers said he joined doug the first part of the question was . In the song of Texas Rangers the protagonist that he joined at 816. Is that realistic . Doug that israel is the. There were some at the age of 14 and 16. , if younew the captain had been shot and want to go out and fight people are chase indians. Danger, itimmune to was for you. That is about all the requirements that were in place for many years. It was only until the 1930s, the mid1930s that the rangers adopt standards and and training to make the rangers into a professional force. Before that it was if youre in the right place at the right time and knew the right people and wanted to work in bad conditions but had the title of ranger then you were there. I dont think you are a woke liberal, i think you have done Great Research in history. I have this on order. Its a fascinating read. I have been looking forward to this. I want to thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for taking the time. Thek your wife for being Technical Advisor behindthescenes. Good luck with this book. I know its already on the bestseller lists. Andgood luck with this thank you for joining us. I want to thank everyone else for being in the audience tonight. You are watching American History tv, covering history cspan style. With the coverage, eyewitness films, archival lectures and College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. August marked the 75th anniversary of the atomic comics of hiroshima and nakasaki. Monday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, we look act with the author. Here is a preview. The author. With here is a preview. Japanese strengths were down to its last drop. That the japanese were essentially pouring all of their remaining military and their civilian population. There were preparing to meet the invasion and to fight tooth and nail. I had women and children being organized into militias being trained how to fight with bamboo to use being told kitchen knives if necessary. I think avoiding an invasion of japan was absolutely critical. Thatnk it was so critical if it was true, really if you to bomby the choice was to cities with an atomic bomb or launch a bloody invasion. I think that that was true. I think that using the bombs exactly the way we did that was hitting cities without a warning. I do think you could defend that. The traditional way in which americans understand the atomic bombing sets up this for spine we have to choose either hit the cities without warning or launch an invasion. I personally dont think that thats right, i think that there were many other options other than just those two. I think you can make a pretty good case. But it is counterfactual that an invasion would not have been necessary. With or without the atomic bombs. Keep in mind that the invasion of the first stage of the planned invasion, the target they put out was november 1. Thats almost three months after the bombing of you a shema hiroshima. The idea that the bombs were a last resort to an invasion that was just about to happen is not quite right. But as i say, veterans of that war had their own very strongly held beliefs about what had happened at the end of the war. As a historian and someone who has interviewed hundreds of world war ii veterans, i have never made it a practice to argue with world war ii veterans about this. I present my views, but i think its important to recognize, and to honor the very strong feelings that veteransfeelings e about the subject. Learn more about the atomic bombings in the end of world war ii monday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv. Next, on the presidency, a look at president ial retreats. We will see Abraham Lincolns summer cottage, herbert hoovers fishing camp and hear stories on the kennedys, clintons and obamas in marthas vineyard. The White House Historical association provided this video. Tonight ist guest from the lincolns cottage, where Abraham Lincoln resided for over a quarter of his presidency. Situated on a hilltop in northwest washington, d. C. , president lincoln made some of his most critical decisions at lincolns cottage