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Little Brown Handbook

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 Little Brown Handbook

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.
institution of slavery was introduced, expanded, and maintained in
the United States by the white people and for their own benefit; and
that they likewise created the conditions that followed emancipation.
Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro's making. No
group in our population is less responsible for its existence. But
every group is responsible for its continuance; and every citizen,
regardless of color or racial origin, is in honor and conscience bound
to seek and forward its solution.
Centuries of the Negro slave trade and of slavery as an institution
have created, and are often deemed to justify, the deep-seated
prejudice against Negroes. They placed a stamp upon the relations
of the two races which it will require many years to erase. The
memory of these relations has profoundly affected and still affects
the industrial, commercial, and social life of the southern states.
The great body of anti-Negro public opinion, preserved in the
literature and traditions of the white race during the long, unhappy
progress of the Negro from savagery through slavery to citizenship,
has exercised a persistent and powerful effect, both conscious and
unconscious, upon the thinking and the behavior of the white group
generally. Racial misunderstanding has been fostered by the
ignorance and indifference of many white citizens concerning the
marvelous industry and courage shown by the Negroes and the
success they have achieved in their fifty-nine years of freedom.
The Negro race must develop, as all races have developed, from
lower to higher planes of living; and must base its progress upon
industry, efficiency, and moral character. Training along these lines
and general opportunities for education are the fundamental needs.
As the problem is national in its scope and gravity, the solution must
be national. And the nation must make sure that the Negro is
educated for citizenship.
It is of the first importance that old prejudices against the Negroes,
based upon their misfortunes and not on their faults, be supplanted
with respect, encouragement, and co-operation, and with a
recognition of their heroic struggles for self-improvement and of
their worthy achievements as loyal American citizens.
Both races need to understand that their rights and duties are
mutual and equal, and that their interests in the common good are
identical; that relations of amity are the only protection against race
clashes; that these relations cannot be forced, but will come
naturally as the leaders of each race develop within their own ranks
a realization of the gravity of this problem and a vital interest in its
solution, and an attitude of confidence, respect, and friendliness
toward the people of the other race.
All our citizens, regardless of color or racial origin, need to be taught
by their leaders that there is a common standard of superiority for
them all in self-respect, honesty, industry, fairness, forbearance, and
above all, in generous helpfulness. There is no help or healing in
appraising past responsibilities, or in present apportioning of praise
or blame. The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the
present; and an understanding of the facts of the problem—a
magnanimous understanding by both races—is the first step toward
its solution.
 CHAPTER I

THE CHICAGO RIOT

July 27-August 2, 1919

Thirty-eight persons killed, 537 injured, and about 1,000 rendered

homeless and destitute was the casualty list of the race riot which
broke out in Chicago on July 27, 1919, and swept uncontrolled
through parts of the city for four days. By August 2 it had yielded to
the forces of law and order, and on August 8 the state militia
withdrew.
A clash between whites and Negroes on the shore of Lake Michigan
at Twenty-ninth Street, which involved much stone-throwing and
resulted in the drowning of a Negro boy, was the beginning of the
riot. A policeman's refusal to arrest a white man accused by Negroes
of stoning the Negro boy was an important factor in starting mob
action. Within two hours the riot was in full sway, had scored its
second fatality, and was spreading throughout the south and
southwest parts of the city. Before the end came it reached out to a
section of the West Side and even invaded the "Loop," the heart of
Chicago's downtown business district. Of the thirty-eight killed,
fifteen were whites and twenty-three Negroes; of 537 injured, 178
were whites, 342 were Negroes, and the race of seventeen was not
recorded.
In contrast with many other outbreaks of violence over racial friction
the Chicago riot was not preceded by excitement over reports of
attacks on women or of any other crimes alleged to have been
committed by Negroes. It is interesting to note that not one of the
thirty-eight deaths was of a woman or girl, and that only ten of the
537 persons injured were women or girls. In further contrast with
other outbreaks of racial violence, the Chicago riot was marked by
no hangings or burnings.
The rioting was characterized by much activity on the part of gangs
of hoodlums, and the clashes developed from sudden and
spontaneous assaults into organized raids against life and property.
In handling the emergency and restoring order, the police were
effectively reinforced by the state militia. Help was also rendered by
deputy sheriffs, and by ex-soldiers who volunteered.
In nine of the thirty-eight cases of death, indictments for murder
were voted by the grand jury, and in the ensuing trials there were
four convictions. In fifteen other cases the coroner's jury
recommended that unknown members of mobs be apprehended, but
none of these was ever found.
The conditions underlying the Chicago riot are discussed in detail in
other sections of this report, especially in those which deal with
housing, industry, and racial contacts. The Commission's inquiry
concerning the facts of the riot included a critical analysis of the
5,584 pages of the testimony taken by the coroner's jury; a study of
the records of the office of the state's attorney; studies of the
records of the Police Department, hospitals, and other institutions
with reference to injuries, and of the records of the Fire Department
with reference to incendiary fires; and interviews with many public
officials and citizens having special knowledge of various phases of
the riot. Much information was also gained by the Commission in a
series of four conferences to which it invited the foreman of the riot
grand jury, the chief and other commanding officers of the Police
Department, the state's attorney and some of his assistants, and
officers in command of the state militia during the riot.
Background of the riot.—The Chicago riot was not the only serious
outbreak of interracial violence in the year following the war. The
same summer witnessed the riot in Washington, about a week
earlier; the riot in Omaha, about a month later; and then the week
of armed conflict in a rural district of Arkansas due to exploitation of
Negro cotton producers.
Nor was the Chicago riot the first violent manifestation of race
antagonism in Illinois. In 1908 Springfield had been the scene of an
outbreak that brought shame to the community which boasted of
having been Lincoln's home. In 1917 East St. Louis was torn by a
bitter and destructive riot which raged for nearly a week, and was
the subject of a Congressional investigation that disclosed appalling
underlying conditions.
This Commission, while making a thorough study of the Chicago riot,
has reviewed briefly, for comparative purposes, the essential facts of
the Springfield and East St. Louis riots, and of minor clashes in
Chicago occurring both before and after the riot of 1919.
Chicago was one of the northern cities most largely affected by the
migration of Negroes from the South during the war. The Negro
population increased from 44,103 in 1910 to 109,594 in 1920, an
increase of 148 per cent. Most of this increase came in the years
1916-19. It was principally caused by the widening of industrial
opportunities due to the entrance of northern workers into the army
and to the demand for war workers at much higher wages than
Negroes had been able to earn in the South. An added factor was
the feeling, which spread like a contagion through the South, that
the great opportunity had come to escape from what they felt to be
a land of discrimination and subserviency to places where they could
expect fair treatment and equal rights. Chicago became to the
southern Negro the "top of the world."
The effect of this influx of Negroes into Chicago industries is
reviewed in another section of this report.[4] It is necessary to point
out here only that friction in industry was less than might have been
expected. There had been a few strikes which had given the Negro
the name of "strike breaker." But the demand for labor was such that
there were plenty of jobs to absorb all the white and Negro workers
available. This condition continued even after the end of the war and
demobilization.
In housing, however, there was a different story. Practically no new
building had been done in the city during the war, and it was a
physical impossibility for a doubled Negro population to live in the
space occupied in 1915. Negroes spread out of what had been
known as the "Black Belt" into neighborhoods near-by which had
been exclusively white. This movement, as described in another
section of this report, developed friction, so much so that in the
"invaded" neighborhoods bombs were thrown at the houses of
Negroes who had moved in, and of real estate men, white and
Negro, who sold or rented property to the newcomers. From July 1,
1917, to July 27, 1919, the day the riot began, twenty-four such
bombs had been thrown. The police had been entirely unsuccessful
in finding those guilty, and were accused of making little effort to do
so.
A third phase of the situation was the increased political strength
gained by Mayor Thompson's faction in the Republican party. Negro
politicians affiliated with this faction had been able to sway to its
support a large proportion of the voters in the ward most largely
inhabited by Negroes. Negro aldermen elected from this ward were
prominent in the activities of this faction. The part played by the
Negro vote in the hard-fought partisan struggle is indicated by the
fact that in the Republican primary election on February 25, 1919,
Mayor Thompson received in this ward 12,143 votes, while his two
opponents, Olson and Merriam, received only 1,492 and 319
respectively. Mayor Thompson was re-elected on April 1, 1919, by a
plurality of 21,622 in a total vote in the city of 698,920; his vote in
this ward was 15,569, to his nearest opponent's 3,323, and was
therefore large enough to control the election. The bitterness of this
factional struggle aroused resentment against the race that had so
conspicuously allied itself with the Thompson side.
As part of the background of the Chicago riot, the activities of gangs
of hoodlums should be cited. There had been friction for years,
especially along the western boundary of the area in which the
Negroes mainly live, and attacks upon Negroes by gangs of young
toughs had been particularly frequent in the spring just preceding
the riot. They reached a climax on the night of June 21, 1919, five
weeks before the riot, when two Negroes were murdered. Each was
alone at the time and was the victim of unprovoked and particularly
brutal attack. Molestation of Negroes by hoodlums had been
prevalent in the vicinity of parks and playgrounds and at bathing-
beaches.
On two occasions shortly before the riot the forewarnings of serious
racial trouble had been so pronounced that the chief of police sent
several hundred extra policemen into the territory where trouble
seemed imminent. But serious violence did not break out until
Sunday afternoon, July 27, when the clash on the lake shore at
Twenty-ninth Street resulted in the drowning of a Negro boy.
The beginning of the riot.—Events followed so fast in the train of the
drowning that this tragedy may be considered as marking the
beginning of the riot.
It was four o'clock Sunday afternoon, July 27, when Eugene
Williams, seventeen-year-old Negro boy, was swimming offshore at
the foot of Twenty-ninth Street. This beach was not one of those
publicly maintained and supervised for bathing, but it was much
used. Although it flanks an area thickly inhabited by Negroes, it was
used by both races, access being had by crossing the railway tracks
which skirt the lake shore. The part near Twenty-seventh Street had
by tacit understanding come to be considered as reserved for
Negroes, while the whites used the part near Twenty-ninth Street.
Walking is not easy along the shore, and each race had kept pretty
much to its own part, observing, moreover, an imaginary boundary
extending into the water.
Williams, who had entered the water at the part used by Negroes,
swam and drifted south into the part used by the whites.
Immediately before his appearance there, white men, women, and
children had been bathing in the vicinity and were on the beach in
considerable numbers. Four Negroes walked through the group and
into the water. White men summarily ordered them off. The Negroes
left, and the white people resumed their sport. But it was not long
before the Negroes were back, coming from the north with others of
their race. Then began a series of attacks and retreats, counter-
attacks, and stone-throwing. Women and children who could not
escape hid behind débris and rocks. The stone-throwing continued,
first one side gaining the advantage, then the other.
Williams, who had remained in the water during the fracas, found a
railroad tie and clung to it, stones meanwhile frequently striking the
water near him. A white boy of about the same age swam toward
him. As the white boy neared, Williams let go of the tie, took a few
strokes, and went down. The coroner's jury rendered a verdict that
he had drowned because fear of stone-throwing kept him from
shore. His body showed no stone bruises, but rumor had it that he
had actually been hit by one of the stones and drowned as a result.
On shore guilt was immediately placed upon a certain white man by
several Negro witnesses who demanded that he be arrested by a
white policeman who was on the spot. No arrest was made.
The tragedy was sensed by the battling crowd and, awed by it, they
gathered on the beach. For an hour both whites and Negroes dived
for the boy without results. Awe gave way to excited whispers.
"They" said he was stoned to death. The report circulated through
the crowd that the police officer had refused to arrest the murderer.
The Negroes in the crowd began to mass dangerously. At this crucial
point the accused policeman arrested a Negro on a white man's
complaint. Negroes mobbed the white officer, and the riot was under
way.
One version of the quarrel which resulted in the drowning of
Williams was given by the state's attorney, who declared that it
arose among white and Negro gamblers over a craps game on the
shore, "virtually under the protection of the police officer on the
beat." Eyewitnesses to the stone-throwing clash appearing before
the coroner's jury saw no gambling, but said it might have been
going on, but if so, was not visible from the water's edge. The crowd
undoubtedly included, as the grand jury declared, "hoodlums,
gamblers, and thugs," but it also included law-abiding citizens, white
and Negro.
This charge, that the first riot clash started among gamblers who
were under the protection of the police officer, and also the charge
that the policeman refused to arrest the stone-thrower were
vigorously denied by the police. The policeman's star was taken from
him, but after a hearing before the Civil Service Commission it was
returned, thus officially vindicating him.
The two facts, the drowning and the refusal to arrest, or widely
circulated reports of such refusal, must be considered together as
marking the inception of the riot. Testimony of a captain of police
shows that first reports from the lake after the drowning indicated
that the situation was calming down. White men had shown a not
altogether hostile feeling for the Negroes by assisting in diving for
the body of the boy. Furthermore a clash started on this isolated
spot could not be augmented by outsiders rushing in. There was
every possibility that the clash, without the further stimulus of
reports of the policeman's conduct, would have quieted down.
Chronological story of the riot.—After the drowning of Williams, it
was two hours before any further fatalities occurred. Reports of the
drowning and of the alleged conduct of the policeman spread out
into the neighborhood. The Negro crowd from the beach gathered at
the foot of Twenty-ninth Street. As it became more and more
excited, a group of officers was called by the policeman who had
been at the beach. James Crawford, a Negro, fired into the group of
officers and was himself shot and killed by a Negro policeman who
had been sent to help restore order.
During the remainder of the afternoon of July 27, many distorted
rumors circulated swiftly throughout the South Side. The Negro
crowd from Twenty-ninth Street got into action, and white men who
came in contact with it were beaten. In all, four white men were
beaten, five were stabbed, and one was shot. As the rumors spread,
new crowds gathered, mobs sprang into activity spontaneously, and
gangs began to take part in the lawlessness.
Farther to the west, as darkness came on, white gangsters became
active. Negroes in white districts suffered severely at their hands.
From 9:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. twenty-seven Negroes were beaten,
seven were stabbed, and four were shot.
Few clashes occurred on Monday morning. People of both races
went to work as usual and even continued to work side by side, as
customary, without signs of violence. But as the afternoon wore on,
white men and boys living between the Stock Yards and the "Black
Belt" sought malicious amusement in directing mob violence against
Negro workers returning home.
Street-car routes, especially transfer points, were thronged with
white people of all ages. Trolleys were pulled from wires and the
cars brought under the control of mob leaders. Negro passengers
were dragged to the street, beaten, and kicked. The police were
apparently powerless to cope with these numerous assaults. Four
Negro men and one white assailant were killed, and thirty Negro
men were severely beaten in the street-car clashes.
The "Black Belt" contributed its share of violence to the record of
Monday afternoon and night. Rumors of white depredations and
killings were current among the Negroes and led to acts of
retaliation. An aged Italian peddler, one Lazzeroni, was set upon by
young Negro boys and stabbed to death. Eugene Temple, white
laundryman, was stabbed to death and robbed by three Negroes.
A Negro mob made a demonstration outside Provident Hospital, an
institution conducted by Negroes, because two injured whites who
had been shooting right and left from a hurrying automobile on
State Street were taken there. Other mobs stabbed six white men,
shot five others, severely beat nine more, and killed two in addition
to those named above.
Rumor had it that a white occupant of the Angelus apartment house
had shot a Negro boy from a fourth-story window. Negroes besieged
the building. The white tenants sought police protection, and about
100 policemen, including some mounted men, responded. The mob
of about 1,500 Negroes demanded the "culprit," but the police failed
to find him after a search of the building. A flying brick hit a
policeman. There was a quick massing of the police, and a volley
was fired into the Negro mob. Four Negroes were killed and many
were injured. It is believed that had the Negroes not lost faith in the
white police force it is hardly likely that the Angelus riot would have
occurred.
At this point, Monday night, both whites and Negroes showed signs
of panic. Each race grouped by itself. Small mobs began
systematically in various neighborhoods to terrorize and kill. Gangs
in the white districts grew bolder, finally taking the offensive in raids
through territory "invaded" by Negro home seekers. Boys between
sixteen and twenty-two banded together to enjoy the excitement of
the chase.
Automobile raids were added to the rioting Monday night. Cars from
which rifle and revolver shots were fired were driven at great speed
through sections inhabited by Negroes. Negroes defended
themselves by "sniping" and volley-firing from ambush and
barricade. So great was the fear of these raiding parties that the
Negroes distrusted all motor vehicles and frequently opened fire on
them without waiting to learn the intent of the occupants. This type
of warfare was kept up spasmodically all Tuesday and was resumed
with vigor Tuesday night.
At midnight, Monday, street-car clashes ended by reason of a
general strike on the surface and elevated lines. The street-railway
tie-up was complete for the remainder of the week. But on Tuesday
morning this was a new source of terror for those who tried to walk
to their places of employment. Men were killed en route to their
work through hostile territory. Idle men congregated on the streets,
and gang-rioting increased. A white gang of soldiers and sailors in
uniform, augmented by civilians, raided the "Loop," or downtown
section of Chicago, early Tuesday, killing two Negroes and beating
and robbing several others. In the course of these activities they
wantonly destroyed property of white business men.
Gangs sprang up as far south as Sixty-third Street in Englewood and
in the section west of Wentworth Avenue near Forty-seventh Street.
Premeditated depredations were the order of the night. Many Negro
homes in mixed districts were attacked, and several of them were
burned. Furniture was stolen or destroyed. When raiders were driven
off they would return again and again until their designs were
accomplished.
The contagion of the race war broke over the boundaries of the
South Side and spread to the Italians on the West Side. This
community became excited over a rumor, and an Italian crowd killed
a Negro, Joseph Lovings.
Wednesday saw a material lessening of crime and violence. The
"Black Belt" and the district immediately west of it were still storm
centers. But the peak of the rioting had apparently passed, although
the danger of fresh outbreaks of magnitude was still imminent.
Although companies of the militia had been mobilized in nearby
armories as early as Monday night, July 28, it was not until
Wednesday evening at 10:30 that the mayor yielded to pressure and
asked for their help.
Rain on Wednesday night and Thursday drove idle people of both
races into their homes. The temperature fell, and with it the white
heat of the riot. From this time on the violence was sporadic,
scattered, and meager. The riot seemed well under control, if not
actually ended.
Friday witnessed only a single reported injury. At 3:35 a.m. Saturday
incendiary fires burned forty-nine houses in the immigrant
neighborhood west of the Stock Yards. Nine hundred and forty-eight
people, mostly Lithuanians, were made homeless, and the property
loss was about $250,000. Responsibility for these fires was never
fixed. The riot virtually ceased on Saturday. For the next few days
injured were reported occasionally, and by August 8 the riot zone
had settled down to normal and the militia was withdrawn.
Growth of the riot.—The riot period was thirteen days in length, from
Sunday, July 27, through Thursday, August 8, the day on which the
troops were withdrawn. Of this time, only the first seven days
witnessed active rioting. The remaining days marked the return
toward normal. In the seven active days, rioting was not continuous
but intermittent, being furious for hours, then fairly quiescent for
hours. The first three days saw the most acute disturbance, and in
this span there were three main periods: 4:00 p.m. Sunday till 3:00
a.m. Monday; 9:00 a.m. Monday till 9:00 a.m. Tuesday; noon Tuesday
till midnight. This left two long intervals of comparative quiet, six
hours on Monday and three hours on Tuesday. On the fourth day,
Wednesday, there were scattered periods of rioting, each of a few
hours' duration. Thus Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning was the
longest stretch of active rioting in the first four days.
For the most part the riot was confined to the South Side of the city.
There were two notable exceptions, the district north and west of
the south branch of the Chicago River and the "Loop" or downtown
business district. A few isolated clashes occurred on the North Side
and on the extreme West Side, but aside from these the area
covered was that shown on the accompanying outline map.
For the purposes of discussion it is convenient to divide the riot area
into seven districts. The boundaries in some instances are due to the
designation of Wentworth Avenue by the police as a boundary west
of which no Negroes should be allowed, and east of which no whites
should be allowed.
 I. "Black Belt." From Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth, inclusive;
Wentworth Avenue to the lake, exclusive of Wentworth; Thirty-
ninth to Fifty-fifth, inclusive; Clark to Michigan, exclusive of
Michigan.
II. Area contested by both Negroes and whites. Thirty-ninth to
Fifty-fifth, inclusive; Michigan to the lake.
III. Southwest Side, including the Stock Yards district; south of the
Chicago River to Fifty-fifth; west of Wentworth, including
Wentworth.
IV. Area south of Fifty-fifth and east of Wentworth.
V. Area south of Fifty-fifth and west of Wentworth.
VI. Area north and west of the Chicago River.
VII. "Loop" or business district and vicinity.

In the district designated as the "Black Belt" about 90 per cent of

the Negroes live. District II, the "contested area," is that in which
most of the bombings have occurred. Negroes are said to be
"invading" this district. Extension here instead of into District III,
toward the Stock Yards neighborhood, may be explained partly by
the hostility which the Irish and Polish groups to the west had often
shown to Negroes. The white hoodlum element of the Stock Yards
district, designated as III, was characterized by the state's attorney
of Cook County, when he remarked that more bank robbers, pay-roll
bandits, automobile bandits, highwaymen, and strong-arm crooks
come from this particular district than from any other that has come
to his notice during seven years of service as chief prosecuting
official.[5]
In District IV and V, south of Fifty-fifth Street, Negroes live in small
communities surrounded by white people or are scattered through
white neighborhoods. District VI has a large Italian population.
District VII is Chicago's wholesale and retail center.
 THE CHICAGO RIOT
JULY, 27 TO AUGUST, 8, 1919

On only one day of the riot were all these districts involved in the
race warfare. This was Tuesday. On Sunday Districts I, III, and IV
suffered clashes; on Monday all but District VI were involved; on
Tuesday the entire area was affected; on Wednesday District VII was
not included, and District VI witnessed only one clash; on Thursday
District IV was again normal, and Districts II, V, and VII were
comparatively quiet; during the remainder of the week only the first
three districts named were active.
The worst clashes were in Districts I and III, and of those reported
injured, 34 per cent received their wounds in the "Black Belt,"
District I, and 41 per cent on the Southwest Side, in the district
including the Stock Yards, District III.
Factors contributing to the subsidence of the riot were the natural
reaction from the tension, efforts of police and citizens to curb the
rioters, the entrance of the militia on Wednesday, and last, but
perhaps not least, a heavy rain.
The longest period of violence without noticeable lull was 9:00 a.m.
Monday to 9:00 a.m. Tuesday. On Tuesday the feeling was most
intense, as shown by the nature of the clashes. Arson was prevalent
on Tuesday for the first time, and the property loss was
considerable. But judging by the only definite index, the number of
dead and injured, Monday exceeded Tuesday in violence, showing
229 injured and eighteen dead as against 139 injured and eleven
dead on the latter day. While it is apparent that no single hour or
even day can be called the peak of the riot, the height of violence
clearly falls within the two-day period Monday, July 28, and Tuesday,
July 29.
The change in the nature of the clashes day by day showed an
increase in intensity of feeling and greater boldness in action. This
development reached its peak on Tuesday. Later came a decline,
sporadic outbursts succeeding sustained activity.
Factors influencing growth of the riot.—After the attacks had
stopped, about 3:00 a.m. Monday, they did not again assume serious
proportions until Monday afternoon, when workers began to return
to their homes, and idle men gathered in the streets in greater
numbers than during working hours. The Stock Yards laborers are
dismissed for the day in shifts. Negroes coming from the Yards at
the 3:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., and later shifts were met by white gangs
armed with bats and clubs. On Tuesday morning men going to work,
both Negro and white, were attacked.
The main areas of violence were thoroughfares and natural
highways between the job and the home. On the South Side 76 per
cent of all the injuries occurred on such streets. The most turbulent
corners were those on State Street between Thirty-first and Thirty-
ninth, on Cottage Grove Avenue at Sixty-third Street, on Halsted
Street at Thirty-fifth and Forty-seventh streets and on Archer Avenue
at Thirty-fifth Street. Injuries at these spots were distributed as
follows:[6]
Injuries Deaths
State Street—
at Thirty-first 7
between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth 2
at Thirty-fifth 9 1
between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-ninth 19 2
at Thirty-ninth 3
Cottage Grove Avenue—
at Sixty-third Street 8
Halsted Street—
at Thirty-fifth 8
at Forty-seventh 5
Archer Avenue—
at Thirty-fifth Street 7
Streets which suffered most from rioting were—
State 61 6
Thirty-fifth 50 5
Forty-seventh 32 2
Halsted 32
Thirty-first 29 1

The street-car situation had an effect upon the riot both before the
strike and after it. Because of a shortage of labor at the time, the
surface-street-car company had put on a number of inexperienced
men. This may account for the inefficiency of some crews in
handling attacked cars.
An example is the case of Henry Goodman who was killed in an
attack on a Thirty-ninth Street car. The car was stopped at Union
Avenue by a truck suspiciously stalled across the tracks. White men
boarded the car and beat and chased six or eight Negro passengers.
When asked under oath to whom the truck directly in front of him
belonged and what color it was, the motorman replied, "I couldn't
say." When asked what time his car left the end of the line and
whether or not he had seen any Negroes hit on the car, he
answered, "I didn't pay any attention." The motorman said he made
a report of the case, but it could not be found by anyone in the
street-car company's office. The conductor of this car had been
given orders to warn Negroes that there was rioting in the district
through which the car ran. He did not do this. He ignored the truck.
No names of witnesses were secured. The motorman was an extra
man and had run on that route only during the day of the attack.
In the case of John Mills, a Negro who was killed as he fled from a
Forty-seventh Street car, the motorman left the car while Negroes
were being beaten inside it. Neither motorman nor conductor took
names of witnesses or attempted to fix a description of the
assailants in mind.
When B. F. Hardy, a Negro, was killed on a street car at Forty-sixth
Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, the motorman and conductor
offered no resistance and did not get names or descriptions.
The testimony of the conductor and motorman on a car attacked at
Thirty-eighth Street and Ashland Avenue was clear and showed an
attempt to get all information possible. They secured names of
witnesses. One member of the crew had been in the service of the
Chicago Surface Lines for ten years, and the other for twelve years.
The tie-up of the street railways affected the riot situation by forcing
laborers to walk, making them more liable to assault in the hostile
districts, by keeping many workers from jobs, turning out on the
streets hundreds of idle men, and by increasing the use of
automobiles.
Tuesday morning two white men were killed while walking to work
through the Negro area, and two Negroes were killed while going
through the white area.
Curiosity led the idle to the riot zone. One such was asked on the
witness stand why he went. "What was I there for? Because I
walked there—my own bad luck. I was curious to see how they did
it, that is all."
Under cover of legitimate use gangs used motor vehicles for raiding.
Witnesses of rioting near Ogden Park said trucks unloaded
passengers on Racine Avenue, facilitating the formation of a mob.
On Halsted Street crowds of young men rode in trucks shouting they
were out to "get the niggers." An automobile load of young men
headed off Heywood Thomas, Negro, and shot him, at Taylor and
Halsted streets, as he was walking home from work.
Beside daily routine and the street-car situation, the weather
undoubtedly had an influence in the progress of the riot. July 27 was
hot, 96 degrees, or fourteen points above normal. It was the
culmination of a series of days with high temperatures around 95
degrees, which meant that nerves were strained. The warm weather
of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday also kept crowds on the streets and
sitting on doorsteps until late at night. Innocent people trying to
keep cool were injured when automobiles raced through the streets,
the occupants firing to right and left. Wednesday night and Thursday
it rained. Cool weather followed for the rest of the week.
Gangs and "athletic clubs."—Gangs and their activities were an
important factor throughout the riot. But for them it is doubtful if the
riot would have gone beyond the first clash. Both organized gangs
and those which sprang into existence because of the opportunity
afforded seized upon the excuse of the first conflict to engage in
lawless acts.
It was no new thing for youthful white and Negro groups to come to
violence. For years, as the sections of this report dealing with
antecedent clashes and with recreation show, there had been
clashes over baseball grounds, swimming-pools in the parks, the
right to walk on certain streets, etc.
Gangs whose activities figured so prominently in the riot were all
white gangs, or "athletic clubs." Negro hoodlums do not appear to
form organized gangs so readily. Judges of the municipal court said
that there are no gang organizations among Negroes to compare
with those found among young whites.
The Stock Yards district, just west of the main Negro area, is the
home of many of these white gangs and clubs; it is designated as
District III in the discussion of the riot growth. The state's attorney,
as already indicated (see p. 8), referred to the many young
offenders who come from this particular district. A police detective
sergeant who investigated the riot cases in this district said of this
section, "It is a pretty tough neighborhood to try to get any
information out there; you can't do it." A policeman on the beat in
the district said, "There is the Canaryville bunch in there and the
Hamburg bunch. It is a pretty tough hole in there."
There was much evidence and talk of the political "pull" and even
leadership of these gangs with reference to their activities in the riot.
A member of "Ragen's Colts" just after the riot passed the word that
the "coppers" from downtown were looking for club members, but
that "there need be no fear of the coppers from the station at the
Yards for they were all fixed and told to lay off on club members."
During the riot he claimed they were well protected by always
having a "cop" ride in one of the automobiles so everything would
be "O.K." in case members of the gang were picked up. Another
member of the club said he had been "tipped off by the police at the
Yards to clean out and keep away from the usual hangouts because
investigators were working out of Hoyne's and out of Brundage's
offices, and were checking up on the activities of the 'Ragen's'
during the riot."
The foreman of the August grand jury which investigated the riot
cases said in testifying before the Commission:
The lead we got to investigate the Forty-seventh Street district was
from an anonymous letter stating that Ragen had such influence in
the Forty-seventh Street police station that these individuals were
allowed to go without due process of law.
I didn't believe that was a fact in this particular instance. We did learn
that Ragen was a great power in that district and at the time of our
investigation we learned that some of the "Ragen's Colts" had broken
into the police station and pried open a door of a closet where they
had a good deal of evidence in the nature of weapons of prisoners
concealed, and they got all of this evidence out of there without the
police knowing anything about it.

The station referred to is at Forty-seventh and Halsted streets.

Gangs operated for hours up and down Forty-seventh Street, Wells,
Princeton, Shields, and Wentworth avenues and Federal Street
without hindrance from the police.

CROWDS ARMED WITH BRICKS SEARCHING FOR A

NEGRO
 WHITES STONING NEGRO TO DEATH
Actual photograph of the killing of a Negro by the mob shown above after
chasing him into his home.
 THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE
He was knocked from the stairway by a brick. Two men are here shown
hurling bricks at the dying Negro.

A judge of the municipal court said in testimony before the

Commission: "They seemed to think they had a sort of protection
which entitled them to go out and assault anybody. When the race
riots occurred it gave them something to satiate the desire to inflict
their evil propensities on others."
Besides shouting as they rode down the streets in trucks that they
were out to "get the niggers," they defied the law in other ways.
When the militia men came on the scene on the fourth day of the
riot, they testified to trouble with these gangsters. One of the
colonels testified before the Commission: "They didn't like to be
controlled. They would load up heavy trucks with rowdies and try to
force through the lines. They'd come tooting their horns and having
back pressure explosions like gatling guns."
Some of the "athletic club" gangsters had criminal records.
L —— W —— was accused of being one of the leaders of the gang
around Forty-seventh and Wells streets. He himself said boastfully, "I
have been arrested about fifteen times for 'disorderly' and never was
arrested with a knife or a gun." Several witnesses said they had seen
him during the riot one night leading the mob and brandishing a
razor and the next night waving a gun. He was not arrested.
D —— H ——, seventeen years old, was identified as being active in
the rioting near Forty-seventh Street and Forrestville Avenue. His
defense was that he was not closer to the Negro assaulted than
across the street, but because he was arrested the year before for a
"stick-up" people looked "funny" at him when anything happened.
R —— C —— was accused of having been implicated in the arson
cases on Shields Avenue. When his mother was interviewed, she
said she knew nothing of the rioting, but said her son was at the
time in the county jail, "but not for that." W —— G —— was
identified many times as having taken part in the arson on
Wentworth Avenue. He was indicted for both arson and conspiracy
to riot. Two years before the riot he had been arrested for larceny.
All who discussed gangs before the Commission said that most of
the members were boys of seventeen to twenty-two years of age.
Witnesses before the coroner's juries testified to the youth of the
participants in mobs. Many of the active assailants of street cars
were boys. In the case of the Negro Hardy who was killed on a
street car, it was said that the murderers were not over twenty
years, and many were nearer sixteen. In the raids in the Ogden Park
district the participants were between the ages of fifteen and twenty.
The raid just west of Wentworth Avenue, where a number of houses
were much damaged, was perpetrated by boys of these ages. The
attacking mob on Forty-third Street near Forrestville Avenue, was led
by boys of eighteen to twenty-one. The only two hoodlums caught
participating in the outrages in the "Loop," the downtown business
district, were seventeen and about twenty-one. Most of those
arrested on suspicion in the arson cases were taken before the boys'
court. Negroes involved in many cases as assailants were also
youthful. The young Negro boys who killed Lazzeroni were fourteen
to eighteen; those who killed Pareko and Perel were about sixteen.
A member of "Ragen's Colts" is said to have boasted that their
territory extended from Cottage Grove Avenue to Ashland Avenue
and from Forty-third Street to Sixty-third Street. At Sixty-third Street
and Cottage Grove Avenue they were said to have attacked a
colored man in a restaurant and thrown him out of the window. It
was reported that trucks of a downtown store, each carrying about
thirty men, yelling that they were "Ragen's Colts" and that "Ragen's
bunch" were going to clean out the community, came to Sixtieth
Street and Racine Avenue. Some of the boys who took part in the
assault upon Negroes at Sixtieth and Ada streets were reputed to be
members of "Ragen's Colts." The club, according to some of its own
members, operated with automobiles from which they managed to
"bump off a number of Niggers." A truck driver said he had driven
some "Ragen's Colts" to Forty-seventh and Halsted streets, where
they "dropped" four or five people, then he drove them back to the
"Ragen's Colts" clubhouse at Fifty-second and Halsted streets. "And,"
he says, "they had plenty of guns and ammunition." State's Attorney
Hoyne, however, said that no evidence could be found that "Ragen's
Colts" had a store of arms. Members of the Illinois Reserve Militia
reported that they had been threatened by "Ragen's Colts" that they
would be picked off one by one when they got off duty.
One of the most serious cases of rioting in which members of
"Ragen's Colts" were reported to be implicated was the raid upon
Shields Avenue, where there were nine houses occupied by Negroes.
At 8:30 Tuesday evening 200 or 300 gangsters started at one corner
and worked through the block, throwing furniture out of windows
and setting fires. A white man who owned a house on this street
which he rented to Negroes says that after the raid several young
men warned him, "If you open your mouth against 'Ragen's' we will
not only burn your house down but we will 'do' you."
The Lorraine Club, according to five witnesses, was also implicated
in arson and raids upon homes of Negroes. Their operations,
according to reports, were on Forty-seventh Street and on Wells
Street and Wentworth Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-
eighth streets. Negroes were chased, guns were fired, windows
broken, front doors smashed in, furniture destroyed, and finally
homes were burned. All Negro families were driven out. The attack
was planned, and news of its imminence spread abroad in the
morning. Rioting started in the afternoon of July 29, and culminated
late that night. There was no interference from the police at any
time. It was said that one of the leaders of the gang who had an
express and coal yard carried away furniture in his wagon. Another
was recognized as a youth who had shot a Negro woman during the
afternoon. They are reported to have attacked an undertaker and
friends who came to remove the body of a dead Negro. Three of the
rioters were arrested upon the identification of several people, but
two were released in the municipal court, and the third had a "no
bill" returned before the grand jury. One was released because no
witnesses were present to prosecute him. The witnesses said they
were not notified.
A member of the Lorraine Club denied that his club had anything to
do with this riot, but said it was Our Flag Club that did the "dirty
work." Our Flag Club is located farther east on Forty-seventh Street
near Union Avenue. When John Mills was dragged from a street car
at this point and killed, a policeman recognized several of the club's
members in the crowd, but vouchsafed the opinion that they were
not part of the aggressive mob, "for they did not run as did the
others when the patrol came down the street." Another policeman
said he had never had any trouble with the club.
Eight members of the Sparklers' Club were seen at the fire at 5919
Wentworth Avenue, a building in which two Negro families lived. The
arson is reported to have been planned in a neighboring cigar store.
One of the boys put waste soaked in gasoline under the porch and
ran. Two of them threw oil in the building and two others lit it. It
took three attempts to make a fire at this place. Each time it was
started the Fire Department put it out. Two of the boys are declared
to have stolen phonograph records and silverware from the house. A
lad not a member of the club was with them at the fire. Afterward
one of the boys warned him, "Watch your dice and be careful or you
won't see your home any more." Six boys were held for arson, in
connection with this affair; one was discharged in the boys' court,
and the cases of two others were nolle prossed. In connection with
their arrest the Chicago Tribune of August 15, 1919, said:
Evidence that organized bands of white youths have been making a
business of burning Negro dwellings was said to have been handed to
Attorney General Brundage and Assistant State's Attorney Irwin
Walker.... Chief of Police Garrity, also informed of the Fire Marshal's
charges, declared several so-called athletic clubs in the Stock Yards
district may lose their charters as a result.

A report about the Aylward Club was to the effect that as the
Negroes came from the Stock Yards on Monday, a gang of its
members armed with clubs was waiting for them and that each
singled out a Negro and beat him, the police looking on.
The names of a number of gang ringleaders were reported by
investigators. For illustration, L. Dennis, a Negro of 6059 Throop
Street, was attacked on the night of Monday, July 28, by a mob led
by three roughs whose names were learned and whose loafing place
was at Sixty-third Street and Racine Avenue. A mob of thirty white
men who shot Francis Green, Negro, eighteen years old, at Garfield
Boulevard and State Street had a club headquarters in the vicinity of
Fifty-fourth Street and their "hangout" was at the corner of Garfield
Boulevard and State Street.
Other clubs mentioned in riot testimony before the coroner's jury,
but not in connection with riot clashes, are the Pine Club, the
Hamburgers, the Emeralds, the White Club, Favis Grey's, and the
Mayflower. The police closed the clubs for a period of several months
after the riot. There were then in existence a number of Negro
gambling clubs, and the state's attorney declared that it was the
colored gamblers who "started this shooting and tearing around
town," and that "as soon as they heard the news that the boy
Williams was drowned, they filled three or four machines and started
out to shoot."
A saloon-keeper near Wabash Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, one of
the leaders of these colored gamblers, was identified by a white
woman as being in an automobile with five other Negroes exhorting
colored men to riot after the drowning of Williams. The next day he
was arrested in an automobile with other colored men who were
said to be shooting into the homes of white people. They were
arrested but were discharged by Judge Barasa at the Stock Yards
court.
Police raids were made on some of the "Black Belt" clubs on August
23. At the Ranier Club, 3010 South State Street, two revolvers, one
razor, one "black-jack," seven cartridges, one cattle knife, and one
ordinary knife were found. At the Pioneer Club, 3512 South State
Street, eight guns, four packages of cartridges and twenty-four
knives were taken. A raid at 2700 South State Street netted four
guns, one hunting-knife, and fifty-eight cartridges and bullets.
The foreman of the grand jury which investigated the riots
discussing the "athletic" and "social" clubs before the Commission,
said:
Most of them were closed immediately after the riots. There were
"Ragen's Colts," as they were known, concerning whom the grand
jury were particularly anxious to get something concrete, although no
evidence was presented that convicted any of the members of that
club. There were the Hamburgers, another athletic club, the Lotus
Club, the Mayflower, and various clubs. These were white clubs.

Asked if they really were athletic clubs, he replied:

I think they are athletic only with their fists and brass knuckles and
guns. We had Mr. Ragen before the grand jury, and he told us of the
 noble work that they were doing in the district, that Father Brian, who
had charge of these boys, taught them to box and how to build
themselves up physically, and they were doing a most noble work,
and you would think that Ragen was a public benefactor. During the
deliberations of this grand jury a number of anonymous letters were
written with reference to "Ragen's Colts," and most of the
explanations of the fact that they failed to put their names on these
letters were that they were afraid they would lose their lives.

The grand jury included in its report this reference to the gang and
club phase of the riot:
The authorities employed to enforce the law should thoroughly
investigate clubs and other organizations posing as athletic and social
clubs which really are organizations of hoodlums and criminals formed
for the purpose of furthering the interest of local politics. In the
opinion of this jury many of the crimes committed in the "Black Belt"
by whites and the fires that were started back of the Yards, which,
however, were credited to the Negroes, were more than likely the
work of the gangs operating on the Southwest Side under the guise of
these clubs, and the jury believes that these fires were started for the
purpose of inciting race feeling by blaming same on the blacks. These
gangs have apparently taken an active part in the race riots, and no
arrests of their members have been made as far as this jury is aware.
SCENES FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD
"BACK OF THE YARDS"
 NEGROES UNDER PROTECTION OF POLICE LEAVING
WRECKED HOUSE IN RIOT ZONE

The coroner's jury which conducted inquests into the thirty-eight riot
deaths said:
The suggestion has also been made that race hatred and tendency to
race rioting had its birth and was fostered in the numerous social and
athletic clubs made up of young men and scattered throughout the
city. We doubt this, but if in part true, it calls for the inspection and
control of such clubs. These clubs are here, they are popular, they
take the place of the disappearing saloon and poolroom. Properly
governed and controlled, they should be encouraged and fostered
and, when necessary, disciplined.
Hoodlums are the nucleus of a mob—the young, idle, vicious, and in
many instances degenerate and criminal, impatient of restraint of law,
gather together, and when fortified by sufficient numbers, start out on
a mission of disorder, law-breaking, destruction, and murder. Mobs,
white or colored, grow about a nucleus of this character.

Types of clashes.—Racial outbreaks are often characterized by

hangings, burnings, and mutilations, and frequently the cause given
for them is a reported Negro attack upon a white woman. None of
these features appeared in the Chicago riot. An attempted hanging
was reported by a white detective but was unsubstantiated. A report
that Joseph Lovings, one of the Negroes killed in the riot, was
burned, was heralded abroad and even carried to the United States
Senate, but it was false. The coroner's physicians found no burns on
his body.
Reports of assaults upon women were at no time mentioned or even
hinted at as a cause of the Chicago riot, but after the disorder
started reports of such crimes were published in the white and
Negro press, but they had no foundation in fact.
Of the ten women wounded in the Chicago riot, seven were white,
two were Negroes, and the race of one is unknown. All but one of
these ten injuries appears to have been accidental. The exception
was the case of Roxy Pratt, a Negro woman who, with her brother,
was chased down Wells Street from Forty-seventh by gangsters and
was seriously wounded by a bullet. No cases of direct attacks upon
white women by Negro men were reported.
The Commission has the record of numerous instances, principally
during the first twenty-four hours, where individuals of opposing
races met, knives or guns were drawn, and injury was inflicted
without the element of mob stimulus.
On Monday mobs operated in sudden, excited assaults, and attacks
on street cars provided outstanding cases, five persons being killed
and many injured. Nicholas Kleinmark, a white assailant, was
stabbed to death by a Negro named Scott, acting in self-defense.
Negroes killed were Henry Goodman at Thirtieth and Union streets;
John Mills, on Forty-seventh Street near Union; Louis Taylor at Root
Street and Wentworth Avenue; and B. F. Hardy at Forty-sixth Street
and Cottage Grove Avenue. All died from beatings.
Crowds armed themselves with stones, bricks, and baseball bats and
scanned passing street cars for Negroes. Finding them, trolleys were
pulled off wires and entrance to the cars forced. Negroes were
dragged from under car seats and beaten. Once off the car the
chase began. If possible, the vanguard of the mob caught the
fleeing Negroes and beat them with clubs. If the Negro outran the
pursuers, stones and bricks brought him down. Sometimes the chase
led through back yards and over fences, but it was always short.
Another type of race warfare was the automobile raids carried on by
young men crowded in cars, speeding across the dead line at
Wentworth Avenue and the "Black Belt," and firing at random.
Crowded colored districts, with people sitting on front steps and in
open windows, were subjected to this menace. Strangely enough,
only one person was killed in these raids, Henry Baker, Negro.
Automobile raids were reported wherever colored people had
established themselves, in the "Black Belt," both on the main
business streets and in the residence sections, and in the small