Taking on Theodore Roosevelt

by Harry Lembeck

  The Citizens’ Committee asked Senator Culberson to turn up the heat. Culberson wired Taft, “Some time ago I called your attention to the danger of locating negro troops in Texas, especially at Brownsville.” After this polite “I told you so,” Culberson got down to business. “Can not these troops be removed at once?”66 This letter landed on General Ainsworth's desk. A medical doctor who enlisted in the Army Medical Corps in 1874, Ainsworth's remarkable organizing and administrative skills and success in bringing order out of chaos led to duty in the Adjutant General's Office. Enjoying this kind of billet more than surgery, in 1891 he resigned his medical commission and accepted a line commission with the rank of major. In 1904 he was appointed military secretary in the War Department and given the rank of major general.67 By the time of the shooting in Brownsville, Ainsworth had been in the army for thirty-two years and knew better than to ignore demands from US senators. And he knew how to pass the buck to “the highest authority” and, at the same time, use information and advice from others to influence this highest authority. He would be merely the conduit for passing information and requests up and decisions back down.

  The same day he received the first appeal from Senators Culberson and Bailey, Ainsworth was pressured from another direction, the army itself. From the Department of Texas, General W. S. McCaskey described a gruesome picture of the situation in Brownsville. Mischaracterizing Penrose's somewhat hopeful and confident report, McCaskey instead reported that Penrose had said things were “grave,” a word Penrose never used and a thought he never intended to express.68 McCaskey recommended the soldiers be transferred away from the hostile situation in Brownsville. When Ainsworth asked Oyster Bay what to do about the second Culberson-Bailey request, he included McCaskey's warning and recommendation but repeated that he and the army's chief of staff thought this was not a good idea before “the culprits have been discovered and punished.”69

  Brownsville citizens sent a second and much-stronger telegram to President Roosevelt. This time, there were seven more signatories. No longer identifying themselves as the Citizens’ Committee, they now were representative citizens of the city appealing to him “out of great necessity.” Conditions were “deplorable”; families would not leave their homes, so great was their fear of another attack. Many were leaving town. “The accidental discharge of a firearm, any overt act of an excited citizen—and our citizens are fearfully excited—would precipitate upon the whole negro force at Brownsville.” Combe's fear that citizens would attack the fort was clearly implied here. It was a tandem of threats designed to get attention. The town needed protection from the soldiers because five officers were unable to restrain them. Just as critical, the soldiers needed protection from the town. There would be a “fearful loss of life and probable destruction of city.”70

  When he saw this, General Ainsworth knew the troops had to leave. Accepting a suggestion in Culberson's telegram that he ask the man on the ground, the post's commanding officer, if he thought otherwise, he wired Penrose immediately and got right to the point: “Have you any doubt as to your ability to restrain troops from further violence? Have you any apprehension of collision with civilians or of other trouble?” Again Penrose was reassuring. “Have no doubt of my ability to restrain troops. Everything quiet in city…. Think Mayor has control of situation, and do not anticipate further trouble.”71

  Ainsworth backstopped Major Penrose by asking the same questions to Major Augustus Blocksom with the Department of Texas's inspector general, who had come to Brownsville the night before. Ainsworth wanted to know if Blocksom thought the colored troops should be removed from Fort Brown. Blocksom, in no uncertain language, wired back that he did. “I consider it necessary to remove colored troops, the sooner the better.”72

  MAYOR COMBE MAY NOT have realized it, but he was close to getting what he wanted. The initial reluctance of the army to relocate the soldiers and President Roosevelt's refusal to second-guess the army's advice were yesterday's news. By sending two scorched-earth wires to Oyster Bay, the Citizens’ Committee changed the investigation from “Who did the shooting?” to “Should we get those guilty Negro soldiers out of there?” To frame the question this way guaranteed the answer would be yes. It was one thing to keep the Twenty-Fifth Infantry at Fort Brown if things were calming down, as the battalion's commanding officer said they were. But tension in Brownsville was swelling. There was a report that 150 armed men were positioning themselves between the town and the fort and promising to shoot any soldier who tried to leave it. The city appealed to the Texas governor for state troops to defend it, and he was considering sending a force of the fabled Texas Rangers to keep order. Business and commerce and almost all social interaction in the city came to a full stop.73

  The appeals of the townspeople were too strident, too frightening, too threatening, and from too many of their officials and leading citizens to be ignored. The inspector general who was sent to Brownsville to find out what happened was worried after reading the mood of the town and surrounding countryside. Moreover, two general-grade officers (the military secretary and the army chief of staff) had changed their minds after the second appeal on August 18, and now they too endorsed moving the soldiers away.74 The only one still advising that the black soldiers stay in Brownsville until things were sorted out was Major Penrose. While the opinion of the commanding officer as the man on the scene was important, this particular man on the scene said the mayor had things under control, but this same mayor was not so sure and twice signed appeals to save his town from “probable destruction” and separate the soldiers from it. The weight of opinion was too great to withstand. Roosevelt changed his mind. Combe's plan was working. In time, even Major Penrose realized the mayor was right. The following March, he would say, “In my opinion, he was solely responsible for the prevention of disaster.”75

  On August 20, President Roosevelt took the matter into his own hands and told his secretary William Loeb to wire General Ainsworth, “Send troops to Fort Ringgold.”76 Theodore Roosevelt now owned the Brownsville Incident.

  WITH THE PRESIDENT'S BLESSING, the black soldiers would leave Fort Brown. But there would be delays that must have driven Mayor Combe to nervous exhaustion. Other units had to be found to take their place and brought to Brownsville. It turned out it would be the white soldiers from the Twenty-Sixth Infantry, who had been replaced such a short while ago by the Buffalo Soldiers of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry.77

  An unforeseen problem was where to send the black soldiers. Displaying the zealousness of a convert, Major Penrose, once so sure Brownsville would remain calm and safe for his men, made an about face when he learned they were to go to another fort in Texas, only one hundred or so miles away. “I do not think,” he wired General McCaskey, “the extremely bitter feeling existing throughout the southern part of the State of Texas over the shooting in Brownsville is thoroughly appreciated…. Situation at Ringgold would relieve the situation in Brownsville, but no wise alleviate the feelings of the people in this part of State, especially as similar troubles have occurred at Ringgold in the past. For the best interests of the service and the people of the State, the battalion should, in my opinion, be sent out of Texas.” McCaskey agreed and forwarded Penrose's wire to Washington with the recommendation the new post be changed to Fort Reno, Oklahoma.78 Roosevelt, now really in the weeds of decision making, agreed, and the next day the orders were changed.79

  ENTER CAPTAIN WILLIAM “BILL” McDonald of the Texas Rangers, who arrived in Brownsville with the anger, bitterness, and aggressiveness that led south Texans to say he would charge hell with one bucket of water. And with no sense. Bill McDonald brought to Brownsville, its mayor, and the army a “good deal of trouble.”80 Of all the rabble-rousers in the Brownsville Incident, none was more dangerous than Ranger McDonald, who came to town to show the locals how Negroes should be dealt with and, possibly only incidentally, to prove the black soldiers were guilty.81 Deciding on his own that Brownsville needed his skills if any progre
ss was to be made in identifying the guilty soldiers, he sought from the Texas adjutant general the assistance of the Texas state militia, the forerunner of what would become the National Guard. He was turned down and told he had no authority to investigate the army.82 He didn't care; he could take care of it by himself anyway. When his train to Brownsville stopped in Corpus Christi, District Judge Stanley Welch, who had been asked to come to Brownsville by District Attorney John Kleiber to assist him in his own investigation, came aboard.83 Disputing the advice of the adjutant general, Judge Welch told McDonald that as a Texas Ranger he did have the authority to look for and apprehend the shooters. Fortified by this more agreeable clarification, McDonald got down to settling the business in Brownsville. But by the time he got there, President Roosevelt already had decided to redeploy the soldiers, and soon they would be away from McDonald and his authority, whatever it might be.

  Unaware he might already be too late, McDonald started nosing around. First stop was a meeting with Mayor Combe and Captain Kelly to complain they had not moved the investigation along as quickly as he might have.84 Kelly recalled he showed up with a battery of pistols ostentatiously strapped to him on a big belt. If these were insufficiently protective, McDonald also had a knife.85 Accomplishing little else than antagonizing Combe and Kelly, the next stop was the Brownsville jail to speak to prisoner Mack Hamilton, a former Buffalo Soldier with the Tenth Cavalry. He had been posted at Fort Brown when it was stationed there, met and married a woman from the area, and returned after leaving the army. He supported his wife and family by running a lunch counter at Tillman's bar, where he had been working on the day of the shooting.86 Right after the shooting, Sheriff Celedonio Garza of Cameron County got a tip that Hamilton might know something and arrested him. Garza had suggested McDonald talk to his prisoner.

  “I got some good information from him against Corporal Miller,” McDonald reported. Corporal Willie Miller of Company C was Hamilton's cousin and had been across the border in Matamoros on a pass that permitted him to be away from the post until the next morning. After returning to the American side of the Rio Grande, Miller made a visit to his cousin.87 A few years later, Miller testified that Hamilton learned the afternoon before the shooting that white citizens were planning to attack the fort and seize the soldier who assaulted Mrs. Lon Evans. It is unlikely this is the “good information” McDonald was referring to, since it would hardly show the soldiers were the shooters, unless they learned of this and came into town to preempt the attack on them.88 The next morning, McDonald went to Fort Brown, blustered his way past the sentries, and met with Corporal Miller, after which he snooped around the post, spoke to other soldiers, and decided he was on to something.

  THE NEXT DAY, AUGUST 23, barely a day and a half after arriving in Brownsville, Ranger McDonald was ready to show the local rubes he had the goods. From Judge Welch, he asked for and received warrants to arrest twelve soldiers and one former soldier. The speed with which the soldiers were accused, with little or no evidence, shows how stacked against them the law and the system of justice were in Brownsville. Likewise, the speed with which Roosevelt accepted the soldiers’ guilt—almost as quick as men like Ranger McDonald—tainted Roosevelt and showed his true feelings. General McCaskey was astounded by it all: “The manner by which their names were procured is a mystery. It seems to have been a dragnet proceeding.”89

  McDonald's haste was inexcusable. The evidence he had was thin, and he could expect little of it to be admissible in court or withstand a cross-examination by any halfway competent lawyer. All he had was conjecture. Yet it had a thread of logical thought to it:

  Of the twelve soldiers, six were members of Company C. It seemed to be in the thick of the shooting. Its gun racks were the ones that had to be smashed open with an ax. Its acting first sergeant refused to open them, and his excuse that he never heard the “Call to Arms” suggested he was trying to keep the rifles away from an inspection that would show they were fired. It was Company C's commanding officer, Captain Macklin, who was missing during the shooting and the formation of his and the other companies right after, and his excuse that he slept through it all sounded fishy. Two soldiers from Company C were away outside the fort on passes. They could have been in the town and participated in the shooting and not have been missed. Two others from Company C had altercations with citizens just before the shooting. This provided motives for the soldiers to shoot up the town and possibly target certain houses.90 And an army cap of another man from Company C, identified by his initials, was found in the street where the shootings took place.

  Three men were from Company B. Its barracks were closest to the fort's main gate, permitting a quick way out of the fort to commit the offense and an easy way back in after hearing the “Call to Arms.” One of its arrested men had charge of its rifles. His key would give access to them. Another was sergeant of the guard that night and therefore able to cover for the shooters. Another also was a sergeant, and some of the witnesses heard what sounded like a noncommissioned officer directing the shooting. One was the financial partner in the segregated saloon opened for the soldiers, a likely place for soldiers to gather and plan the shooting, and he often spent his off-duty time there protecting his investment and would have been there for such talk. It closed early on the night of the shooting, and perhaps McDonald thought this suspicious.

  A soldier from Company D was a sentry during the shooting, and he fired his rifle, supposedly as an alarm, something that would explain a “dirty” rifle if it had been inspected right afterward. A second man from Company D was in charge of its rifles and, like his counterpart in Company B, had a key and access to them.

  None of this was anything more than speculation. Some was not even suspicious. Not a bit of this justified arrest. As a lawman, McDonald was acting irresponsibly. As an investigator, however, he may have discerned a pattern that fit a theory of what may have happened.

  Penrose was just as baffled as General McCaskey and had no idea why McDonald thought these men had anything to do with what happened.91 He also feared what would happen to these soldiers once Ranger McDonald got his hands on them. When McDonald tried on August 23 to serve the warrants and take possession of the twelve soldiers, to keep them away from him, Penrose made a suggestion to Judge Welch. He would confine the men in Fort Brown's guardhouse and not take them from the post without the judge's permission. Welch accepted this arrangement and in return did not enforce the arrest warrants issued to McDonald. When the order came to leave Fort Brown, Penrose had to tell the army why they might not be able to. If the judge now insisted these men stay behind, Penrose was in a box. Both orders—the army's and the judge's—could not be obeyed.

  Penrose wired the Department of Texas in Austin that the men could not get a fair trial and he feared for their safety if they stayed behind. Major Blocksom sent a solution: turn the confined men over to the detachment from the Twenty-Sixth Infantry on its way to secure the base. “Authorities pledge themselves able to keep prisoners from violence.” General McCaskey forwarded Blocksom's wire to Washington with his own opinion that the men's lives would not be safe, urging they be confined elsewhere. To make the point, he separately forwarded a wire from Company D's Captain Lyon: his men were “absolutely innocent” and would not get a fair trial in Brownsville.92 The messages from Penrose, Blocksom, Lyon, and McCaskey hit their target. The next day, General Ainsworth sent two wires directly to Penrose. The first ordered him to delay his departure from Fort Brown.93 The second, marked “Confidential,” ordered Penrose to keep the confined men under proper guard. If civilian authorities demanded their custody, Penrose was to send Ainsworth the demand along with authorities’ assurances the men would be safe and would receive a fair trial. Without these assurances, which Penrose and the others already had said were unlikely, the War Department would keep the men in its custody, and Judge Welch's order be damned. Then Penrose was asked if he was sure he could protect his men while they were at Fort Brown, and, if not, c
ould he escort them safely elsewhere?94 If he said no to the first and yes to the second, the twelve men would not even be kept at Fort Brown.

  Now it was Judge Welch's turn to find out what was happening. Violating the confidentiality of the second telegram, Penrose showed his orders to the judge. With Welch was Ranger McDonald, who somehow knew what was happening, probably from a leak to him by the Western Union agent handling the telegrams. McDonald demanded the prisoners be turned over to him. Penrose refused; he had orders otherwise. The judge postponed his decision until later that night, when he asked Mayor Combe, District Attorney Kleiber, Congressman John Nance Garner of Brownsville, and James Wells, the most prominent lawyer in town, to join him. McDonald showed up too. This time he blundered and in so doing took himself out of the case, giving Combe and by now everyone else what they wanted. His first mistake was carrying a shotgun into a judge's office. Judges frown on that sort of intimidation. His second was, in the presence of a judge, getting a little “excited.” Judges dislike that even more. Lawyer Wells tried to calm him down: “If you attempt to interfere with those soldiers down there, this matter will break out anew and we will lose a great many lives here.” As the now-triumphant Combe would recall, Judge Welch felt that “it was dangerous for [McDonald] to hold this bench warrant, and Judge Welch said, ‘I am going to withdraw that bench warrant from [him].’”95 Judge Welch had heard enough and had had enough of Ranger McDonald. The formerly arrested men were free to leave with the rest of their battalion, and all soon would be gone from Brownsville.

  Had Judge Welch wanted to keep the men in Brownsville and had Ranger McDonald persuaded him to affirm the arrest warrants, it would not have mattered. Even before the judge's ruling, President Roosevelt, in a telegram over his name and not William Loeb's, decreed the battalion would be transferred and the confined men taken with it.96 The last two words in his telegram were “Act immediately.”