Captain Bill McDonald, Texas Ranger: A Story of Frontier Reform

by Albert Bigelow Paine

On his return he told me it would be all right and that there were no Democrats at the door just then, but another of my deputies from below in response to my call came up and told me the Republicans had taken possession of the staircase and lower door and would only let such Democrats in as forced their way by them at peril of their lives.

At the end of about (2) two hours the disorder became so great that repeated demand had to be made on Mr. Jose Pina and the other inside officers to regulate the people outside the rail. On seeing that even Mr. Pina could not control his Republican friends I had to threaten the crowd with closing the polls if they did not preserve order, and remain in line instead of filling the area outside the railing to such an extent as to threaten to tear it loose from the floor.

Immediately after the fourth threat of this kind, I was informed and could see from the faces of the crowd that only trouble would ensue if I tried that method to handle them, so I let them have their own way and thereafter they did break the railing supports loose from the floor. Thereafter, I repeatedly called on Mr. Juan Hinajosa, the Republican challenger, to enforce order and refused to receive any more votes until his people should get into line.

On entering the polling place, my only object was to see that a fair election should take place, and I do not think that I neglected any precaution to have it so. I repeatedly sent word to my peace officers below, after about half-past ten A.M., to clear the stairs and lower corridor of all who had already voted, but none of them could be found generally, and when one was found he would send back word that he could do nothing with the crowd and that Democratic voters were being turned away from the lower door and only Republican voters were being allowed to enter.

I have since been told by the peace officers of the election, that fear for their lives led them to desist from trying to enforce the entry of Democrats into the line going to the polls.

I have also since learned that Democratic voters who were business men of the town, left their places of business as many as three and four times and went to the polls to vote, but were denied entrance by Mr. Pina's armed deputies and other Republicans and their sympathizers. And also that four desperate characters with Winchesters in their hands were picketed in front of the lower entrance to the court-house, and that when asked if they were voters Mr. Gregorio Duffy replied, "No, they are only some posts driven in the ground there for a rear-guard to keep out the Democrats."

Also on examination of the certified list of poll-tax payers of this precinct after the election, I find that 126 of them did not vote, and nearly all were Democrats. Why, I have not had time yet to inquire, but you will note that this failure to vote bears out the statements of the peace officers appointed by the presiding judge.

During the course of the election 160 out of the 367 voters who deposited their ballots were sworn, and I believe that if the legal voters only of those 160 had been permitted to vote and the Democrats of the 126 poll-tax payers who did not get to vote had been permitted to do so that the majority would have stood about 40 in favor of the Democrats instead of 103 against them, as it did result.

Permit me to explain in closing that I had reasons to believe before the election that the Republicans intended to appear in force and with arms at the election, but, under the advice of Judge Welch, I had made no arrangements up to the evening before the election for peace officers of my appointing, but that, when I told him about five o'clock P.M. on November 5th that 30 or 40 strangers from Mexico were in town, Judge Welch told me to appoint whatever number I thought proper to guarantee a peaceable election, but especially admonished me not to have so many as to give the semblance of an armed force at the polls.

Such being my course beforehand, I felt myself morally responsible for the lives of the men I had appointed as peace officers, and therefore never sent them any command during the day to use force in handling the crowd, and that they were all men of good enough sense to see the futility of such a course is shown by the fact that they did not in any instance act arbitrarily.