"You will remember that at the request of the sheriff, county attorney, and other local authorities of that county, Captain McDonald and Private Old were sent to assist them and myself in the investigation of that horrible murder which was then enshrouded in a mystery that it seemed almost impossible to uncover. Before the Rangers reached us the people in the neighborhood seemed afraid to talk. They said they would be murdered, too, if they took a hand in working up the case. About the first thing that Captain McDonald did was to assure the people that he and his associates had come to stay until every murderer was arrested and convicted, and that those who assisted him would be protected. They believed him, and in consequence thereof, soon began to talk and feel that the law would be vindicated, and I am glad to say that it was. The work of the Rangers in this one case is worth more to the State, in my opinion, than your department will cost during your administration. In fact such service cannot be valued in dollars and cents."[12]
[12] For further official details of this and other work of that period, see Appendix B.
Other Mobs and Riots
RANGERS AT ORANGE AND AT PORT ARTHUR. FIVE AGAINST FOUR HUNDRED
A riot at Orange, Texas, followed the Trans-cedar episode. Orange is a lumber town on the Sabine River in the extreme south-east portion of Texas, and many negroes are employed in the sawmills. A white mob composed of the tougher element in and about the city had organized, with the purpose of driving the negroes away. The negroes received anonymous warnings, and as they did not go immediately, were assaulted. Some twenty or more of the mob, one dark night, surrounded a house where a number of the colored men were assembled and opened fire, killing one man and wounding several others. Ranger Captain Rogers of Company E, with his men, was ordered to Orange, but soon after his arrival, while making an arrest among desperate characters, was disabled through injury to an old wound. Captain McDonald then came down from Athens with Rangers Fuller, Jones, Old, McCauley, Saxon and Bell. They lost no time in taking a firm grip on the situation and landed twenty-one of the offenders in jail, with evidence sufficient to convict. But it was a hard profitless work. Whatever the citizens might want, Orange officially did not care for law and order. A gang controlled the law of the community, and the order took care of itself. Private Fuller found it necessary to kill one man who interfered with an arrest and attempted to use a knife. Later, Fuller was summoned to Orange, ostensibly to answer to the charge of illegal arrest, but in reality for purposes of revenge. Captain McDonald protested to the Governor that it was simply an excuse to get Fuller over there to kill him.
It turned out accordingly: Fuller was washing his face in a barber shop when the dead man's brother slipped up behind and shot him through the head with a Winchester, killing him instantly. The assassin was made chief deputy sheriff, as a reward, and in due time was himself killed by the city marshal, who, in turn, was killed by the dead man's family; which process of extermination has probably continued to this day, and perhaps Orange has improved accordingly. There was room for improvement. The cases against the twenty-one men arrested by Captain Bill and his Rangers were all dismissed, as soon as the Rangers got out of town.[13]
Port Arthur, also on the Sabine River, below Orange, is a city of oil refineries, and is a port of entry, as its name implies, its outlet being through Sabine Pass. In March, 1902, trouble broke out there between the longshoremen and the operators of the refineries. As a result the longshoremen struck, and when the operators introduced Mexican laborers, the strikers, numbering about four hundred, drove them away and issued a manifesto, declaring that no more Mexicans need apply.