The Men Who Wear the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers

Predating the entry of Texas into the United States, the Texas Rangers came into being as a ragtag outfit of frontiersmen who battled a host of enemies, from Mexican soldiers to Comanche Indians to Anglo outlaws, and who were not often scrupulous about method--or the niceties of law. The Rangers were a controversial instrument of state justice throughout the 19th century, taming the frontier and borderlands with a hail of bullets and sometimes acting as little more than what historian Charles M. Robinson calls "officially sanctioned lynch mobs" with an unfortunate habit of singling out nonwhite Texans for punishment.

Even with their sometimes flawed conception of right and wrong, the Rangers earned widespread fame a century and more ago for conducting well-publicized campaigns against such desperadoes as Sam Bass, John Wesley Hardin, and John Selman. Less inclined to seek the spotlight today, the Texas Rangers still operate as an effective law-enforcement unit. In 1997, for example, they figured prominently in the surrender of self-styled "ambassador of the Republic of Texas" Richard McLaren. Robinson examines the checkered career of the Rangers, acknowledging the organization's darker moments while maintaining that the lawmen also did much to lessen violence in a markedly violent time and place. He approvingly cites a Ranger saying of long ago: "No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that's in the right and keeps on a-comin'." --Gregory McNamee