GUNS Magazine December 1955 - Jeffersonian's Home Page

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Write todayfor complete information.world's largest complete listingsfrom "The World's first clearinghouse for Firearms and weapons"Box 6651B, Zone 9, Columbus, OhioTools & Equipment6. 6 M. #28 Straightline Reloading Tool,complete ..........................IDEAL No. 310 Reloading Tool .........Extra set Dies of above.. .............IDEAL Tru-line Jr. Press Comolete ....Extra set Dies for above ..............PACIFIC Super Tool, complete.. ........Extra set of Dies for above tool .......Extra Sh~llHolders. ....................Extra Primer Arms. ....................B & M Visible Powder Measure, regular..B & M Visible Powder Measure, MicrometelPACIFIC Powder & Bullet scale ..........REDDING Scale, latest model. ..........B & M Stainless Steel Cleaning Rods 1 PC.BULLETSComplete stock - All calibers G weights ofSierra. Speer, Hornadq, Remington, Winchester,Western Norma and Jordan.Also empty prided Cartridge Cases, Primers andPercussion Caps of all popular makes.POWDERSComplete Stock - Dupont G Hercules.Every thing to ServiceThe Nation's Shooters.your shooting costs............swell ranks with Texas-Mexican "volunteers,"who were legally citizens of the UnitedStates.Texas military officials issued an appealurging all ex-Rangers to re-enlist for protectionof the border. Frank Hamer was oneof the first Ranger veterans to answer thatcall.Five hundred a month he gave up to workfor fifty. He provided leadership for thatmajority of the Texas-Mexicans who wantedno part of the foreign political upheavalrocking their settlements. His rifle barrelbecame not only a permanent "git goin' "sign pointed south for undercover agents ofDon Pancho. It also proved to be the grimdispenser of death to Villista invaders, ledby "General" Anciento Pizano, who crossedthe Rio Grande in August, 1915, with theannounced intention of reconquering Texasand the Southwest for Mexico.Ranger Frank Hamer helped give the invadersa reception hotter than the Texassun. Largely because of Hamer's preliminarypolicing, not one of the thousands of Texas-Mexicans fulfilled Pizano's hopes by joininghis "army" of 61 swashbuckling bravados.Of those filibusters, only ten returned aliveto Mexican soil after the Rangers ran themin a mad rout toward the boundary. Borderlegend asserts to this day that more than halfthe slugs dug from the gaping Mexican skullshad been planted by the efficient carbine ofFrank Hamer.Hamer decided to cripple Don Pancho bystaging a counter-offensive on the enemy'shome ground. Against official orders anddefying a threat of court-martial, the determinedTexan forded the Rio Grande on hisbig stallion. , Bugler. - He contacted the comminderof a Mexican regular corps buckingVillistas. That officer assigned him a squadof soldiers to direct mop-up operationsagainst international raiders and gun runners.First gringo ever to direct Mexacan troopers,Hamer trained his outfit in Texas-stylegun science, then led them through bristlingcactus jungles to fight battles that are stillremembered as classics of border warfare.Eventually the Villa revolt ended whenDon Pancho disillusioned his followers bysettling for a hacienda and a pension fromthe Mexican government. Some men alongthe Rio Grande say yet that his decisionwas considerably influenced by the activitiesof Frank Hamer. But before the guerillachieftain had furled his colors, new troublehad started festering on the border.With the enactment of the ProhibitionAmendment in 1919, Mexican liquor beganslaking Texan thirsts. Soon alien distillersof tequila were reaping fortunes from "wet"cargoes transported on horseback or by camouflagedburro carts across shallow stretchesof the Rio Grande.Privately, Frank Hamer had no love forthe unpopular "dry" laws. "But they arelaws, by God!" he reminded friends, whoadvised him to let bootleggers be. "And solong as they're on the books, I'll enforce'em."He made good his word with his Win-chester. Border booze barons either wentout of business or went to the cemetery.Hamer led one lightning raid after anotheron innocent-looking cafes and tiendas servingas storage places for illegal rotgut. Heslew the kingpin of the Lower Rio Grandetequila peddlers, Encarnacion Delgado, in apitched battle after Delgado had killed RangerSergeant Delbert Timberlake.Finally Hamer received a long-overduepromotion to the rank of Ranger commander.In September, 1921, he was designatedCaptain of Company stationed at DelRio on the border. A few months later, whenthe hell-popping new oil towns had becomestinks in the Texas nostrils, he was appointedheadquarters captain or senior officerof the entire force.Perhaps history will declare that FrankHamer was to the Oil Age what Earp andHickok were to the Cattle and Mining Eras.Except that unlike many other officers trainedon the raw and naively violent frontier,Hamer was able to make the transition froma basically simple milieu to a vastly com-~lex one. Ranger Hamer was one of the fewwho understood the new epoch and its efficientways of getting your man.He found himself able to read the cluesleft by auto tires infallibly as he'd interpretedthose left by mustang hooves. He masteredthe Bertillon fingerprint system and orderedprints taken of every man picked up by theRangers. He interested himself in the newtypes of police communication which beganwith the two-way radio.He captured and jailed several big "hotcar rings," tracing them not only by tiremarks and juggled license plates but evenby the types of gas that the thieves boughtat roadside filling stations.Unerringly the Ranger chief matched deathslugs with murder weapons. By a combinationof new techniques, he learned the identi-ties of a state-wide group of organizedassassins engaged in putting innocent farmboys on the spot and having them murderedin order to collect promised rewards for "deadbank robbers."For 11 years till the bizarre "Ma" Fergusonwas elected governor, Hamer commandedthe Texas Rangers.Now many citizens felt-perhaps wrongly-that the work of the Rangers was finished.After "Ma" Ferguson took over, some sentimentalregard for the Texas past made thestate legislature retain a skeleton corps bearingthe honored Ranger name but mainlyfunctioning as a plainclothes squad of thenewly-established state police.Already that heroic last commander of thespur-and-Stetson brigade had glimpsed thehandwriting on the wall. A few months beforethe sunbonnet regime was installed inAustin, he resigned his post to become aprivate investigator for clients who flockedto him.His hair was graying and he was hitting50. Never again did he expect to lead achase nor buck a draw. But once again, akill-mad gunman came along to alter hisplans. This time, however, it was not apeasant who'd run amuck, but a hard-facedlittle slum hoodlum who had graduated fromwhat peaceful folk dub juvenile delinquencyto what criminals call being a big shot.Pancho Villa had led hundreds in butchery.Clyde Barrow generally traveled onlywith the tough hussie named Bonnie Parkerwhom he'd picked up after her legal spousehad been sent up to the Texas penitentiaryfor highjacking. It was 1934 when Clyde andBonnie, doubling as bedmates and pistolpartners, skyrocketed into the headlines. InJanuary of that year, they staged a daringraid on a Texas prison farm where four of