History paper

For study of conservatism in the 1920s you will be reading primary documents about race in Chicago. The documents are excerpts from a book, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, that was published in 1922 and that explored the sociological and economic conditions underpinning the 1919 race riot in Chicago. The author of the book was the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, a state government appointed commission appointed by the governor of Illinois to study the riot. This was the first time a governmental entity in the United States had undertaken a study of race relations. The commission was ground-breaking in other ways in that its membership consisted of white and black people. Contained in this PDF are two of the chapters from that book, the first chapter that details the history of the riot and the ninth chapter that explores public opinion regarding race relations. You are required to read pp. 2-11, 25-52 in chapter 1 and pp. 436-445, 459-519 in chapter 9. As you read contemplate how race and racial conflict contributed to a move away from the Progressivism of the 1900s and the 1910s and toward the conservatism of the 1920s. What does this reading suggest to help our study of reform in years from the Progressive Era through the New Deal?

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THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

A STUDY OF RACE RELAStIONS AND A RACE RIOT

BY

THE CHICAGO COMMISSION ON RACE RELATIONS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAG-.l ILLINOIS

/

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THE NEW YOPK PUBLIC LIBRARY

39314741 ASTOx*, LKNOX AND,

1ii,DJCN FOUK DATION SJii

JK 1928 L

Copyright 192J By

The University of Chicago

All Rights Reserved

Published September 1922

Second Impression January 1923

Comp5Sj4 jnd Printed By ,* "rtie tlni»ersity' (J

Cfiicago Press

'. « -piic^go, liiBcJsJ U.S.A.

2 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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 informa-

tion 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

191 7 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 migra-

tion 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 feehng, 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 discrimina-

tion 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.' It is necessary to point out here only that fric-

tion 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

' Pages infra.

THE CHICAGO RIOT 3

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 impos-

sibiUty 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 neighbor-

hoods 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 i, 1917, to July 27, 1919, the day the riot began, twenty-four such bombs had been thrown. The poUce had

been entirely unsuccessful in finding those guilty, and were accused of making

Uttle 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 poHticians affihated with this faction had been able to sway to its support a large propor-

tion 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 i, 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 aUied 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.

4 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

The beginning of the riot.—Events followed so fast in the train of the drown- ing that this tragedy may be considered as marking the beginning of the riot.

It was four o'clock Sunday afternoon, July 27, when Eugene WiUiams,

seventeen-year-old Negro boy, was swimming offshore at the foot of Twenty-

ninth Street. This beach was not one of those pubhcly 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 simimarily 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 debris 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 battUng 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

pohce 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.

THE CHICAGO RIOT S

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 gambUng, 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 poUce officer, and also the charge that the police-

man 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 poHce 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 feehng 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 possi- bihty 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 ofiicers was called by the policeman who had been at the beach. James Crawford, a Negro, fired into the group of ofiicers and was himself shot and killed by a Negro poHceman 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

6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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 retaUation. 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 institu- tion 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 poHce protection, and about loo poUcemen, 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 kiU. 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.

THE CHICAGO RIOT 7

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 com-

plete 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 con-

gregated on the streets, and gang-rioting increased. A white gang of soldiers

and sailors in uniform, augmented by civilians, raided the "Loop," or down-

town 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. Premedi-

tated 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 accompUshed.

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 ItaUan 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.

ResponsibiHty 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 miUtia was with-

drawn.

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

8 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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 SideJ'but aside from these the area covered was that shown on the accompanying

outline map. ,

For the purposes of discussion^t 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 boimdary 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; Went-

worth 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 neighbor-

hood, may be explained partly by the hostihty which the Irish and PoUsh

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.'

In District IV and V, south of Fifty-fifth Street, Negroes five in small

communities surrounded by white people or are scattered through white

' Carl Sandburg, The Chicago Race Riots, chap, i, p. i. Harcourt, Brace & Howe.

IffifflBi

' THE CHICAGO RIOT

,•• -^ JUL'i

THE CHICAGO RIOT

neighborhoods. District VI has a large Italian population. District VII is

Chica<^o's wholesale and retail center. , , • .i, „ ^

On only one day of the riot were all these districts mvolved » the race

wariare ThU was Tuesday. On Sunday Districts I, III, and IV suSered

Tshe" on Monday all but District VI were involved; on Tuesday the enUre

Lea w^s affected; on Wednesday District VII was not included, and D strict

VI witnessed onty one clash; on Thursday District IV was agam norma

and

DistfictsII V, and VII were comparatively quiet; dunng the remainder

of

the week only the first three districts named were active. _

The worst clashes were in Districts I and HI, and of those reported injured,

34p^'c:nt received their wounds in the "Black Belt,"

^^^^^''yJI per cent on the Southwest Side,

in the district including the Stock Yards,

"''rictor"' contributing to the subsidence of the riot -re the natural

reaction from the tension, eSorts of police and citizens to curb the

rioters, the

entrlce of the militia on Wednesday, and last, but perhaps not least, a heavy

""'The longest period of violence without noticeable lull was 9:00 A.M. Monday

to 9;oo A.M Tuesday. On Tuesday the feeling was most intense, as

shown

by the nature of the dashes. Arson was prevalent on Tuesday

for the fir t

tiJ.Z the property loss was considerable. But judging by the only definite

X "he nui^ber of dead and injured, Monday exceeded Tuesday m violence, showing 2.9 injured and eighteen

dead as against 139 mjured and elev n

dead ol 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 w.thm

the two-day period Monday, July 28, and Tuesday, July 29.

tIc change in the nature of the clashes day by day showed an increas

in intensity of feeUng and greater boldness in action.

This develo^en

reached its peak on Tuesday. Later came a decline, sporadic

outbursts

succeeding sustained activity. , , j i. j

TacJs innuencing gro-^ih of the rioL-Mler 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 then- homes, and idle

men gaAered in the streets in greater numbers than during working hours.

?he Stock Yards laborers are dismissed for the day in shifts. Negroes coming

^omie 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 mormng men going to work,

both Negro and white, were attacked.

, i,- 1, , ,

The main areas of violence were thoroughfares and natuxa highways

between the job and the home. On the South Si^de 76 per cent o all the

injuries occurred on such streets. The most turbulent corners were those on

State Street between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth, on CotUge Grove

Avenue

!slfty-third Street, on Listed Street at Thirty-fifth and Forty-seventh

10 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

streets and^on Archer Avenue at Thirty-fifth Street. Injuries at these spots were distributed as follows:^

Injuries Deaths State Street

—

at Thirty-first 7

between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth 2

at Thirty-fifth 9 i

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 i

The street-car situation had an efiect 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

' Thirty-first, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-ninth streets are chosen for special notice because these are transfer points for north and south cars to east and west lines. The figures given are for the first three days of the riot only. Other days showed too few injuries to allow accurate conclusions.

THE CHICAGO RIOT ii

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-eight 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, faciUtating 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.

12 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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 poHceman 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 poUtical "pull" and even leader- ship 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 every- thing would be "O.K." in case members of the gang were picked up. Another member of the club said hctad been " tipped off by the police at the Yards to clean out and keep away fromi 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 poUce.

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 desure to inflict their evil propensities on others."

CROWDS ARMED WITH BRI

WHITES STONING NEGRO TO DEATH

Actual photograph of the killing of a Negro by the mob shown above after chasing him into his home.

S SEARCHIXC; FOR A NEGRO

THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE ft-as knocked from the stairway by a brick. Two men are here shown hurUng bricks at the dying Negro

I

THE CHICAGO RIOT 13

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 miUtia 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 himseK 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 ex- tended from Cottage Grove Avenue to Ashland Avenue and from Forty-third

Street to Sixty-third Street. At Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue

14 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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."

THE CHICAGO RIOT 15

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 Went-

worth Avenue, a building in which two Negro families Hved. 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 connec- tion 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, 19 19, 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 poHce 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

i6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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 WilUams. 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, alt'jough 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 rephed:

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 organiza- tions 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

'

THE l^EW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOPv, LENOX ANO ^ Tifc'^^N FOUNDATiONS

NEGROES UNDER PROTECTION OF POLICE LEAVING WRECKED HOUSE IN RIOT ZONE

TilE KEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

UTOPv, LENOX XNB

DEN FOUWOATiOWa

THE CHICAGO RIOT 17

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 seK-defense. Negroes killed were Henry Good- man 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.

i8 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

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. Some-

times 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 community near Ada and Loomis streets in the vicinity of Ogden Park.

These raids began Monday night, continued spasmodically all day Tuesday, and were again prevalent that night. In spite of the long period, reports of

motorcycle policemen show no white raiders arrested. One suspected raiding automobile was caught on State Street Tuesday night, after collision with a

patrol wagon. One of the occupants, a white man, had on his person the badge and identification card of a policeman assigned to the Twenty-fourth

Precinct. No case was worked up against him, and the other men in the machine were not heard of again in connection with the raid.

Most of the police motorcycle squad was assigned to the Stanton Avenue

station, which was used as police headquarters in the "Black Belt." Several

automobile loads of Negroes were arrested, and firearmfs^were found either

upon their persons or in the automobile.

In only two cases were Negroes aggressively rioting found outside of the

"Black Belt." One of these was the case of the saloon-keeper already men-

tioned, and the other was that of a deputy sheriff, who, with a party of other

men, said they were on the way to the Stock Yards to rescue some beleaguered members of their race. It is reported that they wounded five white people

en route. Sheriff Peters said he understood that the deputy sheriff was

attacked by white mobs and fired to clear the crowd. He was not convicted. "Sniping" was a form of retaliation by Negroes which grew out of the

automobile raids. These raiding automobiles were fired upon from yards,

porches, and windows throughout the "Black Belt." One of the most serious

cases reported was at Thirty-first and State streets, where Negroes barricaded

the streets with rubbish boxes. Motorcycle Policeman Cheney rammed through and was hit by a bullet. His companion officer following was knocked

from his machine and the machine punctured with bullets.

THE CHICAGO RIOT 19

After the wounding of PoKceman Cheney and Sergeant Murray, of the Sixth Precinct, poHcemen made a thorough search of all Negro homes near the scene of the "sniping." Thirty-four Negroes were arrested. Of these,

ten were discharged, ten were found not guilty, one was given one day in jail,

one was given five days in jail, one was fined and put on probation, two were

fined $10 and costs, one was fined $25; six were given thirty days each in the

House of Correction, and one, who admitted firing twice but said he was firing

at one of the automobiles, was sentenced to six months in the House of Correc-

tion. His case was taken to the appellate court.

Concerted retaliatory race action showed itself in the Itahan district

around Taylor and Loomis streets when rumor said that a Httle Italian girl

had been killed or wounded by a shot fired by a Negro. Joseph Lovings, an

innocent Negro, came upon the excited crowd of Itahans. There was a short

chase through back yards. Finally Lovings was dragged from his hiding-

place in a basement and brutally murdered by the crowd. The coroner

reported fourteen bullet wounds on his body, eight still having bullets in them;

also various stab wounds, contusions of the head, and fractures of the skull.

Rumor made the tale more hideous, saying that Lovings was burned after

gasoHne had been poured over the dead body. This was not true.

This same massing of race against race was shown in a similar clash between

Itahans and Negroes on the North Side. The results here, however, were not

serious. It was reported in this last case that immediately after the fracas

the Negroes and Italians were again on good terms. This was not true in

the neighborhood of the Lovings outrage. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull-House,

which is near the scene of Lovings' death, testified before the Commission

that before the riot the Italians held no particular animosity toward Negroes,

for those in the neighborhood were mostly from South Italy and accustomed

to the dark-skinned races, but that they were developing antipathy. In the

September following the riot, she said the neighborhood was still full of wild

stories so stereotyped in character that they appeared to indicate propaganda

spread for a purpose.

The gang which operated in the "Loop" was composed partly of soldiers

and sailors in uniform; they were boys of from seventeen to twenty-two,

out for a "rough" time and using race prejudice as a shield for robbery. At

times this crowd numbered 100. Its depredations began shortly after 2 : 00 a.m.

Tuesday. The La Salle Street railroad station was entered twice, and Negro

men were beaten and robbed. About 3:00 a.m. activities were transferred

to Wabash Avenue. In the hunt for Negroes one restaurant was wrecked

and the vandahsm was continued in another restaurant where two Negroes

were found. One was severely injured and the other was shot down. The

gangsters rolled the body into the gutter and turned the pockets inside out; they

stood on the corner of Wabash Avenue and Adams Street and divided the spoils,

openlyboasting later of having secured $5 2 , a diamond ring, awatch, and a brooch.

20 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Attacks in the "Loop" continued as late as ten o'clock Tuesday morning, Negroes being chased through the streets and beaten. Warned by the Pinker-

ton Detective Agency, business men with stores on Wabash Avenue came to protect their property. The rioting was reported to the police by the restaurant

men. PoUcemen rescued two Negroes that morning, but so many policemen had been concentrated in and near the "Black Belt" that there were only

a few patrolmen in the whole "Loop" district, and these did not actively

endeavor to cope with the mob. In the meantime two Negroes were killed

and others injured, while property was seriously damaged.

Tuesday's raids marked the peak of daring during the riot, and their

subsidence was as gradual as their rise. For the next two days the gangs

roamed the streets, intermittently attacking Negro homes. After Tuesday

midnight their operations were not so open or so concerted. The riot gradually

decreased in feehng and scope till the last event of a serious nature occurred,

the incendiary fires back of the Stock Yards.

While there is general agreement that these fires were incendiary, no clue

could be found to the perpetrators. Negroes were suspected, as all the houses

burned belonged to whites. In spite of this fact, and the testimony of thirteen

people who said they saw Negroes in the vicinity before or during the fires,

a rumor persisted that the fires were set by white people with blackened faces.

One of the men living in the burned district who testified to seeing a motor truck filled with Negroes said, when asked about the color of the men, "Sure,

I know they were colored. Of course I don't know whether they were painted." An early milk-wagon driver said that he saw Negroes come out of a barn on Forty-third Street and Hermitage Avenue. Immediately after-

ward the barn burst into flames. He ran to a poHceman and reported it. The policeman said he was "too busy" and "it is all right anyway." One of

the colonels commanding a regiment of militia said he thought white people

with blackened faces had set fire to the houses; he got this opinion from talking

to the police in charge of that district.

Miss Mary McDowell, of the University of Chicago Settlement, which is located back of the Yards, said in testimony before the Commission:

I don't think the Negroes did bum the houses. I think the white hoodlums burned them. The Negroes weren't back there, they stayed at home after that Monday. When we got hold of the firemen confidentially, they said no Negroes set fire to them at all, but the newspapers said so and the people were full of fear.

All kinds of mythical stories were afloat for some time.

The general superintendent of Armour & Company was asked, when testi- fying before the Commission, if he knew of any substantial reason why Negroes were accused of setting fires back of the Yards. He answered:

That statement was originated in the minds of a few individuals, radicals. It

does not exist in the minds of the conservative and thinking people of the community,

even those living in back of the Yards. They know better. I believe it goes without

THE CHICAGO RIOT 21

sajang that there isn't a colored man, regardless of how little brains he'd have, who would attempt to go over into the Polish district and set fire to anybody's house over there. He wouldn 't get that far.

The controlling superintendent of Swift & Company said he could not say it from his own experience, but he understood there was as much friction between the Poles and Lithuanians who worked together in the Yards as between the Negroes and the whites. The homes burned belonged to Lithuanians. The grand jury stated in its report: "The jury believes that these fires were started for the purpose of inciting race feeling by blaming same on the blacks."

The methods of attack used by Negroes and whites during the riot differed; the Negroes usually clung to individual attack and the whites to mob action. Negroes used chiefly firearms and knives, and the whites used their fists,

bricks, stones, baseball bats, pieces of iron, hammers. Among the white men,

69 per cent were shot or stabbed and 31 per cent were beaten; among the

Negroes almost the reverse was true, 35 per cent being shot and stabbed and

65 per cent beaten. A colonel in charge of a regiment of militia on riot duty says they found few whites but many Negroes armed.

Arms and ammunition.—The foregoing figures and statements gave some color to the belief persistent during and after the riot that Negroes had stores

of arms and ammunition. A lieutenant of police testified before the coroner's jury that he had known in advance that the riot was coming because " there

were guns in every house out there; I knew they were there for a purpose."

He said he had heard that Negroes had been advised to arm themselves and defend their homes, that the Constitution of the United States provided for

that. The state's attorney said before the Commission that prior to the

riot he had received reports from detectives of private agencies stating the same

thing. He was informed that Negroes readily got firearms from Gary, Indiana,

and that porters on the Pullman trains brought them in from outside places.

He further stated: "I am very definitely assured of the fact that they were arming and that there were more arms and weapons grouped in that general

district loosely termed the 'Black Belt' than any place else, and my informa- tion is that conditions are that way now."

During the riot there were frequent rumors that Negroes had broken into

the Eighth Regiment Armory for guns and ammunition, but all these rumors

were proved false.

Since the riot many tales have been told of stores of arms brought in by

Pullman porters and by white prostitutes. Mexicans were reported to be

assisting Negroes in the manufacture of bombs and hand grenades. Lists of

addresses where ammunition was being stored have been gathered by detec-

tives, but not verified.

The same sort of rumors are found circulating among the Negroes in regard

to the arming of whites. It is said that such and such white men have great

boxes of guns and ammunition in the cellars of their homes, and that white

22 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

men are forming shooting clubs for the purpose of attacking Negroes in the event of another riot. There are also widely believed stories that a department

store sold guns to white people before the riot but refused to sell to Negroes. It

was said that pawn shops sold to white people without permits from the police. Crowds aitd mobs.—It may be observed that a crowd is merely a gathering

of people while a mob is a crowd with its attention so strongly fixed upon some lawless purpose that other purposes are inhibited and it acts along the line

of the one purpose. During the riot many crowds of curiosity seekers were transformed into vicious mobs when exciting rumors circulated and the sugges- tion of vengeance was made by leaders. Such suggestion was frequently accompanied by some daring act, stimulated by the excitement.

The mob in its entirety usually did not participate actively. It was one in spirit, but divided in performance into a small active nucleus and a large

proportion of spectators. The nucleus was composed of young men from sixteen to twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. Sometimes only four would

be active while fifty or 150 looked on, but at times the proportion would be as

great as twenty-five in 200 or fifty in 300. Fifty is the largest number reported

for a mob nucleus. This was in the case of John Mills and five other Negroes who were beaten, dragged off a Forty-seventh Street car and chased. Mills

being killed. Here there were three degrees of crowd formation. First came

the nucleus of fifty active men who did the beating, chasing, and killing. Closely aiding and abetting them were 300 or 400 others. After the Negroes

had been forced off the car and were being hunted through the neighborhood

a crowd of about 2,000 gathered and followed the vanguard of attackers

and spectators. These were present out of morbid curiosity, but sufficiently

imbued with the spirit of the mob not to interfere with the outrages. The fact that children were frequently a part of mobs is one of the thought-

provoking facts of the Chicago riot. Psychologists say that impressions made

upon the child mind are forces which mold adult character to a great extent.

A number of children, some not more than four or five years old, swarmed in front of the Forty-seventh Street car in the John Mills case and effectively

blocked it while men climbed aboard and sought out the Negroes. Children, often witnesses of mob brutality, ran to where Negro victims had fallen and pointed them out to the policemen who came up after the mobs had dispersed.

There were others, still children in mind, Negro boys of fifteen, accused

of murders. The enormity of their acts faded in the joy of describing their

weapons. "Fat had a club; it looked like a police club," said one, "it had

leather on it." "And the gun had a Uttle picture of an owl on the side of it," said another describing a patched-up weapon that brought down a white

laboring-man who left a widow and eight children.

Among the spectators of mob violence were men, women, and children of all ages; they included tradesmen, craftsmen, salesmen, laborers. Though

the spectators did not commit the crimes, they must share the moral responsi-

SCENES FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD "BACK OF THE YARDS'

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ASTOH, LENOX AND

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THE CHICAGO RIOT 23

bility. Without the spectators mob violence would probably have stopped

short of murder in many cases. An example of the behavior of the active

nucleus when out of sight of the spectators bears this out. George Carr,

Negro, was chased from a street car. He outstripped all but the vanguard

of the mob by climbing fences and hiding in a back yard. This concealed

him from the rest of the crowd, who by that time were chasing other Negroes.

The young men who followed Carr left him without striking a blow, upon his

mere request for clemency. In regard to the large non-active elements in

the crowds, the coroner said during the inquest, "It is just the sweUing of

crowds of that kind that urges them on, because they naturally feel that they

are backed up by the balance of the crowd, which may not be true, but they

feel that way." Juror Ware said, "If sightseers were lending their aid and

assistance —

" Juror Dillon interrupted and finished, "they ought to be

punished."

Often the "sightseers" and even those included in the nucleus did not know

why they had taken part in crimes the viciousness of which was not apparent

to them until afterward. A mere attempt to cover up participation would have called forth excuses in testimony, but their answers show irritation at

the questioning, an inability to appreciate the situation, or complete bewilder-

ment. These excerpts from the testimony before the coroner's jury are

examples:

Henry Woodman, in the mob at Sixtieth and Ada streets: "I don't know.

I didn't have any grudge against them [the Negroes]. But they [the mob]

seemed to have it in for the colored people. That is all."

Edward Klose, in the mob in front of 102 1 South State Street: "I followed

the crowd, and I was in there because I was in there; they all bimched around

and what could I do ? "

One of the boys in the mob at Forty-third Street and Forrestville Avenue:

"I just wanted to see how things were getting along. We wanted to see what the riot looked like."

Another of this same crowd: "I was following the rest. I wanted to see

what they were going to do."

Another from the same mob: "When they started to grab them [the

Negroes] in the lot, I rushed over directly to the conflict, by the colored men,

thinking I would see more on that side."

Mobs got under way for the commission of atrocities by having the direct

suggestion put to them by one of the leaders. With minds already prepared

by rumors circulating wherever crowds gathered, it was easy to arouse action.

A street car approaching and the cry, "Get the niggers!" was enough. Prompt action clinched the idea, and the emotion of the attack narrowed the

field of consciousness. War cries aided in keeping emotion at fever heat.

"Get the nigger!" "KiU the black — of a !" "Kill him!" These were always an incident of mob action.

24 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Counter-suggestion was not tolerated when the mob was rampant. A

suggestion of clemency was shouted down with the derisive epithet, "Nigger

lover!" Silenced objectors made no further effort to thwart mob action.

There are no records of such persons notifying the police or persisting in their

remonstrances. Those whose objections took the form of action against

the mob met with violence. A white man, an instructor in music at the

University of Chicago, saw several white men attack a Negro who was waiting

for a street car at Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. Without

trying verbal remonstrance he struck out at them. His glasses were knocked

off, and he was thrown into the middle of the street and left unconscious.

Not only did action once under way make interference hazardous, but it

brought into the mob circle a greater number of participants and increased

its energy. Five men jerked a trolley from the wires; ten men boarded the

car; twenty-five men chased and beat the routed Negroes. The mob action

grew faster than the increase in numbers. Ideas suggested by individual

members were quickly carried out in the action of all. The mob as a whole

and the individuals in it increased in fury, and a normal street crowd was

often turned from peaceful assemblage to brutal murder.

A sharp diversion of attention sometimes caused the dispersal of mobs.

An unexpected revolver shot was the most effective means of such diversion.

Here are some instances:

When Thomas Joshua, a Negro boy, was shot by Police Lieutenant Day,

a throng of Negroes came on the run from State Street. The officers, terrified,

escaped in a taxi, leaving their own automobile behind. The mob attempted

to make this car suffer vicariously for the escaped police officers. Other

poHcemen on the scene had difficulty in holding them back. Two shots were

heard on Federal Street. Immediately the crowd ceased its clamoring, left

the automobile, and apparently lost all thought of Lieutenant Day and ran

to Federal Street.

In the first mob of the riot, that at Twenty-ninth Street and Cottage

Grove Avenue, Negroes and pohcemen were struggling in a mass in the middle

of the street. A shot was fired by James Crawford, and the mob dispersed

from that corner.

A mob chased a Negro off a street car on Thirty-ninth Street near Wal-

lace. A pohceman with presence of mind followed the group into the alley,

fired a few shots in the air, and the crowd ran.

In no case where an unexpected shot was fired did it fail to scatter the mob,

but shooting which was part of the mob's own action did not seem to have

the same effect.

The course of one riotous mob can be traced in the activities of a certain

group of five white boys who linked up with the riot excitement. They met

at the corner^of Sixty-third Street and Ingleside Avenue at 8:30 Monday even-

ing. While they were trying to decide which movie to attend, a taxi driver

THE CHICAGO RIOT 25

informed them of a riot at Forty-seventh Street. They took the " L " to Forty- seventh Street and joined the mob. From then until 2:00 a.m. they were active in mobs which assaulted Negroes at several points. Two were beaten at Forty-seventh Street and the elevated railway. The mob then proceeded to Fifty-first Street, but the police drove it back and it moved on to Indiana Avenue and Forty-third Street, where a deputy sheriff held it off. Returning

here later it attacked a street car, beat a Negro, and then moved south on Indiana Avenue, jerking trolleys from wires and assaulting passengers. At

Forty-fifth Street a shot fired by a poUce sergeant scattered it toward Forty-

third Street.

There the mob met Lieutenant Washington, a Negro ex-soldier, who, with five Negro companions, was obliged to walk across town because car service

had been discontinued on account of the rioting. Lieutenant Washington,

testifying before the coroner's jury, gave this account of the affair:

After we crossed Grand Boulevard I heard a yell, "One, two, three, four, five, six," and then they gave a loud cheer and said, "Everybody, let's get the niggers!

Let's get the niggers," and we noticed some of them crossed the street and walked on up even with us. The rest of them were about ten or fifteen feet north .... there were about between four and six men .... crossed the street and got in front of us ... . just before we got to Forrestville Avenue, about twenty yards, they swarmed in on us.

After this attack, in which Lieutenant Browning was shot, and Clarence

Metz, a white boy, was kiUed by a stab wound inflicted by Lieutenant Washing- ton in self-defense, the mob moved on to Grand Boulevard, preceded by the rumor that it intended to attack the homes of Negroes. A shot from a house grazed a white lad, and the crowd went on, leaving the police to come and

arrest the Negroes who had fired. Mob action in planned attacks was more daring, but not more dangerous.

Robbery was occasionally an accompaniment of spontaneous attack, but arson

never. Whether or not some of the organized raids could readily have been

stopped by the poHce, and the mobs dispersed, remains unproved. No attempt was made either in the "Loop" district, in the Forty-seventh and Wells streets districts or in the Sixty-ninth and Elizabeth streets district to

check the depredations.

Rumor.—Rumor was often the first step in crowd formation and often opened the way for the sharp transformation of a crowd into a mob. The circulation of rumors was partly due to natural repetition, often with increasing

embellishment, by one person to another of what he had heard or read. The

desire to tell a "big story" and create a sensation was no doubt an important

factor. With so much bitter feehng there was also considerable conscious effort to provoke vengeful animosity by telling the worst that the teller had

heard or could imagine about the doings of the opposite race. The latter type of rumor circulation especially fed the riot from the beginning to the

26 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

final clash. It continues to be a constant menace to the friendly relations

of the races.

Newspapers were often supplied a source of rumor material through

mistake in fundamental facts, due either to misinformation or exaggeration.

In considering the newspaper handling of riot news, it should be borne in

mind that the task was most difficult during a period of such excitement

and such crowding of events. Further it must be considered that white

reporters might very justifiably avoid the risk of seeking news where

crowds of Negroes had been roused to a high pitch of resentment against

whites. There were doubtless instances in which news was secured from

sources ordinarily trustworthy, but inaccurate during the riot. On the other hand, it must be recognized that in a time of such excitement the effect of

sensational news on the popular mind is generally accentuated, and the responsi-

bility for careful handUng of news is correspondingly greater. Where bias

is as pronounced as in a race riot it is of the utmost importance that essential

facts be stated correctly.

TABLE I

Date

THE CHICAGO RIOT 27

The Daily News of July 29 gave the starting-point of the riot as the Angelus clash, referring to it as " the center of the trouble." The same item mentioned the spread to the Stock Yards district. The fact was that the assault upon street cars in the Stock Yards district Monday afternoon and rumors of further brutalities there helped to start the Angelus riot Monday evening.*

The Tribune of July 30 stated that "the Black Belt continues to be the center of conflict." Up to July 30 the "Black Belt" had witnessed 120 injuries, while the district west of Wentworth Avenue had had 139. For the entire riot period the "Black Belt" furnished 34 per cent of the total number of injuries, and the district west of Wentworth Avenue 41 per cent.

Exaggeration in news reports, when popular excitement is at a high pitch, is peculiarly dangerous. For the very reason that the essential fact seems

authenticated by the simultaneous appearance of the gist of the report in

several papers, the individual reader is the more inclined to beheve such

exaggerations as may appear in his favorite journal. Cases of exaggeration could be adduced from every Chicago newspaper,

but a typical one is the report in the Chicago Daily News of July 29 concerning the killing of Harold Brignadello, white. This item said:

Four women and nine men are held at the South Clark Street Station after their arrest at 102 1 South State Street, where they had a formidable arsenal.

Harry Signadell [sic], 35, white, died on the way to St. Luke's Hospital shortly before noon after his bullet-riddled body had been picked up by the police in front of 102 1 South State Street, where a colored woman and 20 other Negroes had barricaded themselves and were shooting at aU whites who passed the place.

Other persons arrested included Kate Elder, 26 years old, who gave her home as the State Street address. In all, four women and nine men were made prisoners at the raid on the place which was found to be an arsenal for the Negro rioters. Two revolvers, two rifles, an axe, several knives, and several hundred rounds of ammuni- tion, including 38 and 48 [sic] calibre cartridges, were discovered piled up near the window from which the Negroes had been shooting.

Patrolman John Hayes, of the South Clark Street Station, heard the shots fired

by the Negroes who were firing from the house and saw the spurts of fire from their rifles and revolvers whenever whites ventured to pass the place. An unknown white man, a victim of the Negroes' bullets, was found lying on the sidewalk. He was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital where he died.

The facts of this case, as reported by the coroner's jury are as follows:

.... Harold Brignadello .... came to his death on the 29th day of July, A.D. 1919, at St. Luke's Hospital from shock and hemorrhage due to a bullet wound in the chest cavity.

[Note.—"c buUet wound," not "bullet-riddled."] We find the deceased while standing at the southwest comer of State and Tay-

lor ... . was shot and wounded by a buUet fired from the revolver held in the hand of one Emma Jackson who was standing at an open window on the second floor of the premises at 102 1 South State Street.

' Testimony before the coroner's jury.

28 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Testimony shows that just prior to the shooting, said premises had been stoned

by a mob of white men. We, the jury, recommend that the said Emma Jackson, said Kate Elder, said

John Webb, said Ed. Robinson, and said Clarence Jones be held to the grand jury

upon a charge of murder until discharged by due process of law.

[Note.—^Two women and three men, not "four women and nine men," nor yet "a colored woman and 20 other Negroes." They were indicted by the grand jury

but found not guilty.]

We believe from the evidence that the poHce have suflficient information as to the identity of some of said white men to warrant arrest, and we recommend such action

be taken.

[Note.—^No arrests of men in the white mob were made.] The testimony further showed that there were 150 white men in the mob

grouped in front of 102 1, and four of the men were stoning the house at the

time Emma Jackson fired into their midst. Only one gun was found and no stores of ammunition, instead of "a

formidable arsenal," or a "barricade" or "an arsenal for Negro rioters," or

"two revolvers, two rifles, an axe, several knives, and several hundred rounds

of ammunition, including 38 and 48 [sic] calibre cartridges .... piled up

near the window from which the Negroes had been shooting." The one gun

was hidden in a niche in the skylight.

Following are examples of rumors current during the riot and disseminated

by the press and by word of mouth, grouped on the basis of the emotions

which they aroused—vengeful animosity, fear, anger, and horror: Daily News, July 30. Subheadline: "Alderman Jos. McDonough Tells

How He Was Shot at on South Side Visit. Says Enough Ammunition in Section to Last for Years of Guerrilla Warfare":

[Note.—The reference in the headline to the large amount of ammunition is repeated in the text, but not elaborated or explained.]

An alderman in an account of his adventures says the Mayor contemplates open-

ing up 3Sth and 47th streets in order that colored people might get to their work. He thinks this would be most unwise for, he states, "They are armed and the white

people are not. We must defend ourselves if the city authorities won't protect us." Continuing his story, he describes bombs going off, "I saw white men and women

running through the streets dragging children by the hands and carrying babies in

their arms. Frightened white men told me the police captains had just rushed through the district crying, 'For God's sake, arm. They are coming, we cannot

hold them.'"

The point here is not whether the alderman was correctly quoted, but the

effect on the public of such statements attributed to him. There is no record

in any of the riot testimony in the coroner's office or in the state's attorney's

office of any bombs exploded during the riot, nor of police captains warning

white people to arm, nor of any fear on the part of whites of a Negro invasion.

In the Berger Odman case before the coroner's jury there is a statement that

WRIXKED HOUSE OF A NEGRO FAMILY IN RIOT ZONE

\ t n-R IVK i

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PUBLi. ^ A

ASTOR, LE>'OX A?-0

TiLDEN FOUW NATIONS

THE CHICAGO RIOT 29

a police sergeant warned the Negroes of Ogden Park to arm and to shoot at

the feet of rioters if they attempted to invade the few blocks marked off for

Negroes by the police.

Herald-Examiner, July 28. Subheadline: " Negroes Have Arms "

:

A man whose name is withheld reported to the Herald-Examiner that Negroes had more than 2,000 Springfield rifles and an adequate supply of soft-nosed bullets.

R. R, Jackson, alderman from the second ward, brands the story as untrue.

This statement is not substantiated.

Herald-Examiner, July 29:

Several thousand men stoned the old Eighth Regiment Armory in the heart of

the riot zone, doors were burst in, and hundreds of guns with ammunition taken by

the mob. Police rushed to the scene firing into the mob and finally drove it from the armory. According to reports more than 50 persons were shot or otherwise injured.

Refutation of this statement is found in the testimony of Police Captain

Mullen before the coroner's jury in the Eugene Williams case:

I received a rumor that the soldiers [referring to Negro soldiers of the Eighth

Regiment] had gone over to the armory for the sole purpose of breaking in and getting

rifles. I dispatched two patrol wagons full of men; after arriving there, we found

out they had been there and broke some windows, but they found out there were

no weapons in there.

Another type of fear-provoking rumor current in street crowds reported the

force and the aggressive plans of the opposing race. Some of these rumors, cur-

rent among Negro crowds, were to the effect that a white mob was gathering on Wentworth Avenue ready to break into the "Black Belt"; that a white mob was waiting to break through at Sixtieth and Ada streets; that a white mob was ready to advance upon Twenty-seventh and Dearborn streets. The first

of these rumors had its effect upon the inception of the Angelus riot, and the

second so aroused the fears of Negroes that when a white mob led by young white boys did step over the "dead-line" boundaries established by the police,

guns were immediately turned upon them, and one of the invaders was killed.

Of the third rumor, Police Lieutenant Burns said:

.... an old colored man came to me .... and said that the colored people on Dearborn Street in the 2800 block were moving out in fear of a white mob coming

from across the tracks from across Wentworth Avenue On the southwest comer of Twenty-eighth and Dearborn I found a number of colored men standing in

front of a building there. They had pieces of brick and stone in their pockets and

were peering around the comer west on Twenty-eighth Street apparently in great fear.

Among the whites fear was not so prevalent. A fear-producing rumor was revealed, however, in the examination of two deputy sheriffs who fired

on a Negro. The deputies had heard that Negroes were going to burn up

or blow up factories in the district which they were patrolling. When a dark form was seen in an alley, panic seized both deputies, and they emptied their

revolvers at an innocent Negro who lived in the adjoining house.

30 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Chief among the anger-provoking rumors were tales of injury done to

women of the race circulating the rumor. The similarity of the stories and

their persistence shows extraordinary credulity on the part of the public. For

the most horrible of these rumors, telHng of the brutal killing of a woman and

baby (sometimes the story is told of a Negro woman, sometimes of a white)

there was no foundation in fact. The story was circulated not only by the

newspapers of both races, but was current always in the crowds on the streets.

Here is the story as told in the white press:

Chicago Tribune, July 29:

There is an account of "two desperate revolver battles fought by the police with

colored men alleged to have killed two white women and a white child."

It is reported that policemen saw two Negroes knock down a woman and child

and kick them. The Negroes ran before the police could reach them.

Herald-Examiner, July 29:

Two white women, one of them with a baby in her arms, were attacked and wounded by Negro mobs firing on street cars

A colored woman with a baby in her arms was reported at the Deering Police Station, according to this item, to have been attacked by a mob of more than 100 white

men. When the mob finally fled before the approach of a squad of police both the woman and chUd were lying in the street beaten to death, "it is said."

Daily News, July 29:

Another man is held at the Stock Yards station charged with the murder of a

white woman in West 47th Street and Wentworth The Negroes, four in number, were arrested at East 39th and Cottage Grove

Avenue, this afternoon by the detective. They are believed to be the ones who

seriously wounded Mrs. Margaret Kelley, white woman, at W. 47th and Wentworth.

She was shot in the back and may die. The names of those under arrest were not

given out.

[Note.—"Murder" changed to "seriously injured" in the main story. Mrs. Mary KeUy was shot in the arm according to the police report and not in the back.]

The men arrested for the shooting were Henry Harris and Scott Brown,

deputy sheriffs, and four others according to the records of the state's attorney.

Sheriff Peters says of the case, that Harris was charged with shooting someone,

but when the case came up the charge was dropped. Sheriff Peters was con-

vinced that Harris was innocent.

Daily News, July 29. Headline, given place of first importance in the

pink section: "Women Shot as Riots Grow." Columns 7 and 8 of first-page white section are headed, "Attack White Women as Race Riots Grow. Death Roster Is 30."

The item reads: "Race rioters began to attack white women this afternoon

according to report received at the Detective Bureau and the Stock Yards

PoUce Station." The article continues, that Swift & Company had not received any such reports of attacks on their women employees. But farther

THE CHICAGO RIOT 31

on the item gives an account of a Swift & Company truck filled with girl employees fired upon by Negroes at Forty-seventh Street and the Panhandle

railroad. The driver was reported killed and several of the girls injured. The juxtaposition of "Death roster is 30" and "Attack white women"

gives a wrong impression. The "several girls injured" at Forty-seventh

Street evidently refers to the case of Mrs. Mary Kelly. The records of the state's attorney's ofiice also show that Josephine Mansfield was supposed to

have been wounded by Harris, et al., but the charge was dropped. She was

wounded in the shoulder, according to the police report.

Daily News, July 30:

Alderman McDonough described a raid into the white district the night before by a carload of colored men who passed Thirty-fifth Street and Wallace "shouting and shooting." The gunmen shot down a woman and a little boy who stood close by.

[Note.—No record of such a case.] Here is the " injury done to women " story as it appeared in the Negro press: Chicago Defender, August 2

:

An unidentified young woman and three-months-old baby were found dead on the street at the intersection of Forty-seventh and Wentworth. She had attempted

to board a car there when the mob seized her, beat her, slashed her body to ribbons, and beat the baby 's brains out against a telegraph pole. Not satisfied with this one rioter severed her breasts and a white youngster bore it aloft on a pole triumphantly

while the crowd hooted gleefully. The whole time this was happening several police- men were in the crowd but did not make any attempt to make a rescue until too late.

Concerning all of these stories it may be stated that the coroner had no cases of deaths of women and children brought before him. There was nothing in the police reports or the files of the state's attorney or hospital reports or

the reports of Olivet Baptist Church, which would give any foundation for

reports of the killing of a woman and child, white or Negro. There were other rumors which had the same anger-producing effect as

reports of attacks on women. A notable case of this kind was the fatal clash at the Angelus, an apartment house for white people at Thirty-fifth Street

and Wabash Avenue, on Monday, July 28 (see p. 6). The trouble here grew from four o'clock in the afternoon until it culminated in the shooting

at 8:00 P.M. The excitement was stimulated by the rapid spread of various

rumors. It was said that a white mob was gathering at Thirty-fifth Street and Wentworth Avenue, only a few blocks from the colored mob which was massed on Thirty-fifth Street from State Street to Wabash Avenue. The

rumor was that the white men are armed and prepared to "clean up the 'Black Belt.'" Another rumor had it that a Negro's sister had been killed

while coming home from the Stock Yards where she worked. Finally came

the rumor that a white person had fired a shot from the Angelus building,

wounding a colored boy. The rumor quickly went through the crowd swarming

around the building, but no one heard or saw the shooting. A search of the

32 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

building disclosed no firearms. Police Sergeant Middleton, Negro, described

the situation as "everybody trying to tell you something and you couldn't

get anything." Another Negro policeman said it was "just a rumor that

went around through the crowd and everybody was saying, 'He shot from

that window'; I would go to that window and the crowd would say, 'That is

the window over there.'"

The anger-provoking power of rumor was seen in the ensuing clash. About

1,500 Negroes massed on one corner of Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue,

and about 100 policemen grouped themselves at the intersection of the two

streets. At the sight of a brick flying from the Negro mob the police fired a volley into the midst of the mob. More shots came quickly from both sides.

Four Negroes were killed, and many were injured, among both the Negroes and the pohce.

The Angelus rumor appeared as follows in a Negro newspaper, the Chicago

Defender, August 2: "White occupants of the Angelus apartments began

firing shots and throwing missiles from their windows. One man was shot through the head but before his name could be secured he was spirited away."

In the case of Joseph Lovings, a Negro killed by an Italian mob, press

reports that were entirely false tended strongly to provoke the anger of Negro

mobs. For example:

Herald-Examiner, July 30: "He had been shot, stabbed and gasoline had been thrown on his body which had been set afire. The police extinguished

the fire and took the body to the County Morgue."

Tribune, July 30: "This report says that he was stabbed and shot sixteen

times, then his body saturated with gasoline and set afire."

The coroner's jury in commenting on this rumor said: "It gives us satis-

faction to say that this rumor, from our investigation, is false and unsub-

stantiated."

Among the horror rumors one finds such examples as the story of the white man who stood at the entrance to Exchange Avenue and knocked down half a dozen Negroes as they came by. This was current in the Stock Yards and

was told by one of the workers at the inquest on the body of William Dozier,

Negro, killed in the Yards. Another rumor had it that a Negro woman nicknamed "Heavy" had partly slashed off the head of a white man. This

was picked up by a detective circulating among white people Kving in the

"Black Belt."

But chief among horror rumors was the Bubbly Creek rumor, which took

this form in the press:

Daily News, July 29. SubheadHne: "Four Bodies in Bubbly Creek."

The article does not give details but says, " Bodies of four colored men were taken today from Bubbly Creek in the Stock Yards district, it is reported."

This was one of the most persistent rumors of the riot, and intelUgent men

were found repeating it in half-credulous tones. A meat curer, talking in the

THE CHICAGO RIOT 33

superintendent's office of Swift & Company, said: "Well, I hear they did drag two or three out of Bubbly Creek Dead bodies, that is the report that came to the Yards, but personally I never got any positive evidence that

there was any people who was found there." A juror on the coroner's panel said: '* A man told a friend of mine—I can

furnish the name of that man—a man told him that he saw fifty-six bodies taken out of Bubbly Creek. They made a statement they used a net and seine to drag them out."

Mr. Williams, Negro attorney, said he was told that the bodies of 100

Negroes had been found in Bubbly Creek.

In its final report, the coroner's jury made this conclusive statement regarding the Bubbly Creek rumor:

Bubbly Creek has been the favorite cemetery for the undiscovered dead, and our

inquiry has been partly directed to that stream. In our inquiry we have been assisted by the Stock Yards officials and workers, by adjacent property owners and residents,

by private detective bureaus, the Police Department, Department of Health, State's

Attorney 's office, by observing aind intelligent colored citizens, apd by other agencies,

and we are firmly of the opinion that these reports, so widely circulated, are erroneous, misleading, and without foundation in fact, the race riot victims numbering thirty-

eight, and no more, nor are there any colored citizens reported to us as missing.

Rumor, fermenting in mobs, prepares the mob mind for the direct suggestion impelling otherwise law-abiding citizens to atrocities. Another more insidious

and potentially more dangerous result is the slow accumulation of feeling which

builds between the white and Negro the strongest barrier of race prejudice.

Police.—There has been much criticism of the manner in which the riot was handled by the authorities, but it may be pointed out that the riot was not quelled until at least four groups of peace guardians had taken part in

handling it. The two most important groups were the police and the militia;

the others were composed of deputy sheriffs and Negro ex-soldiers.

Testimony before the coroner's jury and in hearings before this Commission

throws considerable light on the actions of the PoHce Department as a whole

during the riot, its methods in meeting the unusual situation, and on the

conduct of individual poHcemen. First-hand information and opinion was

obtained from Chief of Police Garrity and State's Attorney Hoyne.

The police had two severe handicaps at the outset of the rioting. The first,

as declared by Chief Garrity, was lack of sufficient numbers adequately to

cope with the situation. The coroner's jury found that "the police force

should be enlarged. It is too small to cope with the needs of Chicago." The

grand jury added: "The police force is also inadequate in numbers, and at least one thousand (1,000) officers should be added to the existing force."

This number approximates the need urged by Chief Garrity, who, when

asked before the Commission as to the sufficiency of his force, answered:

"No. I haven't sufficient force. I haven't got a sufficient force now to

34 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

properly police the city of Chicago by one-third." Militia officers and other

police ofiicials held the same general opinion.

The second handicap, distrust of white policemen by all Negroes, while

impUed and not admitted by Chief Garrity, was frankly explained by State's

Attorney Hoyne. He said before the Commission: "There is no doubt that a

great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests. They shut

their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were very vigorous

in getting all the colored men they could get."

Leaders among the Negroes clearly indicate that discrimination in arrest

was a principal cause of widespread and long-standing distrust. Whether

justified or not, this feehng was actual and bitter. This distrust had grown

seriously during the six months preceding the riot because no arrests were

made in bombing cases. State's Attorney Hoyne said before the commission:

"I don't know of a single case where the poHce have apprehended any

man who has blown up a house." Charles S. Duke, a well-educated and fair-minded Negro, gave his reaction

to the bombings when he said that he did not "believe a Negro would have

been allowed to go unpunished five minutes." Mrs. Clarke, Negro, said her

house was bombed three times, once while a plain-clothes poHceman was inside

waiting for bombers, but no arrests were made. One suspect was put under

surveillance but was not held.

The trial of the three Negro pohcemen before the Merit Committee of

the Police Department because they refused to use the "Jim Crow" sleeping-

quarters in a poHce station doubtless added to race feeling, particularly in

view of the publicity it received in the "Black Belt."

Negro distrust of the pohce increased among the Negroes during the

period of the riot. With each clash a new cause for suspicion seemed to

spring up. The most striking instance occurred on the first afternoon when

PoHceman Callahan refused to arrest the white man whom the Negro crowd accused of causing the drowning of WiUiams, the Negro boy. This refusal

has been called the beginning of thejiot because it led to mob violence of grave

consequences. However that may have been, the fact remains that this refusal was heralded broadcast by the Negroes as the kind of action they

might expect from the poHce.

Typical of the minor tales which laid the foundation for the Negroes'

bitterness toward this white policeman are the following:

1. Kin Lumpkin, Negro, was beaten by a mob on the "L" platform at Forty-seventh Street, as he was going home from work. The poUceman

arrested Lumpkin and had him booked for rioting. No other arrests were made. Lumpkin was held from July 28 to August i.

2. Two pohcemen, one of them Officer McCarty of the Twenty-sixth Precinct, witnessed the beating of Wellington Dunmore, Negro, of 4120

South Campbell Avenue, but, according to the victim, refused to assist him.

NEGROES BEING ESCORTED BY POLICE TO SAFE 1 A /ONE FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF FORTY-EIGHTH STREET AND

WENTWORTH AVENUE

SEARCHING NEGROES FOR ARMS IN POLICE STATION

THE CHICAGO RIOT 35

3. John Slovall and brother, Negroes, were beaten and robbed by whites

in sight of a white poHceman. No arrests were made. The officer did not even call for aid.

4. While looking for his mother at Thirty-first and State streets on Tuesday,

July 29, Wm. F. Thornton, Negro, 3207 South Park Avenue, asked a poUceman to take him home. The officer took him to the poHce station and locked him

up. Another Negro applied for protection, but the police searched him,

clubbed him, and when he ran, the sergeant told another policeman to shoot him. The policeman obeyed and the man fell under the " L " station. He was picked up by the same patrol wagon that took Thornton to the Cottage

Grove Police Station. The officer, Bundy, arrested Thornton.

A report on 229 Negroes and whites accused of various criminal activities disclosed the fact that 154 were Negroes and seventy-five were whites. The

state's attorney reported eighty-one indictments against Negroes and forty-

seven against whites after all riot cases were cleared up. These figures show

that twice as many Negroes appeared as defendants and twice as many were indicted as whites.

At first glance these figures indicate greater riot activity on the part of

Negroes, and therefore one would expect to find twice as many whites injured as Negroes. But out of a total of 520 injured persons whose race was definitely

reported, 342 were Negroes and 178 whites. The fact that twice as many Negroes appeared as defendants and twice as many were injured as whites sug- gests the conclusion that whites were not apprehended as readily as Negroes.

Herman M. Adler, state criminologist of Illinois, testifying before the Commission, expressed the belief that the police showed much more readiness to arrest Negroes than whites because the officers thought they were "taking

fewer chances if they 'soaked' a colored man."

Negro distrust of police and courts seems to have been confirmed by

the action of the state's attorney's office in bringing only Negro riot cases

before the grand jury. This body, however, took a stand for fair play and

justice for both sides, and though its action may have been novel, it was effect- ive. In its final report, the grand jury said:

This jury has no apology to offer for its attitude with reference to requesting the

state 's attorney to supply it with information of crimes perpetrated by whites against

blacks before considering further evidence against blacks. This attitude gave rise

to the reports in the press that this grand jury "had gone on a strike." As a matter

of fact, its position was merely a suspension of hearing further cases of crimes com-

mitted by blacks against whites untU the state's attorney submitted evidence con-

cerning the various crimes committed by whites against blacks. The reason for this attitude arose from a sense of justice on the part of this jury. It is the opinion of

this jury that the colored people suffered more at the hands of the white hoodlums

than the white people suffered at the hands of the black hoodlums. Notwithstanding

this fact, the cases presented to this jury against the blacks far outnumber those

agamst the whites.

36 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

State's Attorney Hoyne justified this action by saying that the Police

Department brought in Negroes only, and until they arrested whites, he was

limited to proceedings against Negroes.

The coroner's jury on November 3, 1919, reported as follows:

Our attention was called strikingly to the fact that at the time of race rioting,

the arrests made for rioting by the police of colored rioters were far in excess of the

arrests made of white rioters. The failure of the poHce to arrest impartially, at the

time of rioting, whether from insufficient effort or otherwise, was a mistake and had

a tendency to further incite and aggravate the colored population.

This seeming discrimination in arrests naturally deepened Negro distrust

and lack of confidence in the pohce. Testimony was taken by the Commission

on the plans and action of the Police Department during the riot period,

since the Commission felt that the distribution of forces and the methods

used by the department to meet such an emergency were matters of first

importance.

Chief of Police Garrity testified that there were 3,500 policemen in the

department at the time of the riot, and that he had " practically every policeman

in the city of Chicago down there," indicating Thirty-fifth Street and Rhodes

Avenue as "practically in the heart of the district where the most trouble was."

The widest distribution from that center, he said, was over an area bounded

by Lake Michigan, Ashland Avenue, Van Buren Street, and Sixty-ninth Street.

The heaviest concentration of pohce, however, was in the "Black Belt."

The Stanton Avenue Police Station at Thirty-fifth Street and Rhodes Avenue

is at about the center of the most congested Negro residential area. Asked

how many poHcemen were assigned to that vicinity (the area from Twenty-

second to Thirty-ninth streets). Chief Garrity said, "We had in the neighbor-

hood of 2,800 men in that territory." Later the chief said only " the necessary

sergeants and one or two men at each station were held back for emergency

calls" in all other parts of the city. This means that four-fifths of the total

police force was concentrated there.

Although there is no direct testimony as to the existence of flying squadrons

of police, yet such bodies appear to have been operating. Probably the most

important of these was the patrol under Pohce Captain Mullen, who said

that his territory extended from Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth streets and

from the lake to the Rock Island tracks, or roughly the "Black Belt." Chief

Deputy Alcock' sent eighty-eight policemen into this district on Sunday

afternoon, twenty-five more at midnight, and fifty more on Monday morning.

In describing the disposition of pohce details, Chief Garrity said: "They

were routed by him [Alcock] according to conditions existing in different dis-

tricts. Some districts might have a hundred men in the block and in the

next block there might be only ten, according to what conditions were."

I Chief of Police Garrity was out of the city at the time the riot began on Sunday, but

returned on Monday.

THE CHICAGO RIOT 37

Forces were moved from one point of disturbance to another by means of

patrol wagons on request of local commanders.

The 2,800 policemen in the "Black Belt" were under the command of

Chief Deputy Alcock with headquarters in the Stanton Avenue Station. He

"used his discretion in the number of men assigned to the different points

and the handUng of them in the different territories."

Riot orders were given by Chief Garrity as follows: "Wherever possible

suppress the riot and restore peace"; "the second day I ordered a dead line

on Wentworth Avenue and Twenty-second Street to, I think, Sixty-third

Street"; "instructions were that 'you will allow no colored people to go across

to the west and no white people to go across to the east.' " Cabarets, saloons,

and pubHc places were ordered closed, and all large gatherings of either whites

or Negroes were prohibited from Van Buren to Sixty-ninth streets and from

Ashland Avenue to the lake. The chief added, "Closing clubrooms and

everything in the district west of Wentworth Avenue as well as east of it."

A general policy was adopted of search and seizure of persons suspected of carrying weapons on the street, and of houses from which firing came. Captain

Mullen testified before the coroner's jury at the Eugene Williams inquest

that on July 29 Chief Deputy Alcock lined up the poHcemen in front of the

Stanton Avenue Station and gave them their orders. They were told to

"preserve the peace; that was all."

Police records of clashes were incomplete and often inaccurate. This

was in part due, and naturally so, to the stress of the moment. In many

cases the station hsts of injured were far from complete and in few instances

were the names of witnesses given. Even the dates and hours of clashes were

loosely recorded. Persons arrested were frequently not booked at all, while

on the other hand it was not uncommon to find innocent persons charged

with serious offenses. Henry Scholz, policeman of the Twenty-sixth Precinct,

threw much light on police records while being examined in connection with

certain automobile arrests:

They were all discharged, booked for "disorderly," because we couldn't find

the guns in the mix-up. It was the first or second day down there and they were

bringing them in right and left, and I suppose in the mix-up they mislaid the guns,

or put them away somewhere, or booked them to someone else. We held them about a week trying to find the guns and trying to find the ofiicers that got the guns.

It is important to know how the distribution and routing of pohce affected

the general riot situation. As already shown four-fifths of the police forces

were concentrated in the "Black Belt." This undoubtedly both weakened

poHce forces elsewhere and also prevented or delayed reinforcements in outside

districts. Only 34 per cent of the total number of reported injuries occurred

in the area of concentration. Negro hatred of the pohce is worth mentioning

again here, especially since many of the deaths and injuries occurred during

clashes between white policemen and Negro mobs.

38 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

That other districts where danger existed were poorly protected is shown

by the fact that fatal clashes occurred there without interruption by the

police. The most conspicuous case is noted in the "Loop" atrocities on July

29, where two Negroes, Hardwick and Williams, were killed, several were

injured and robbed, and business property of whites was damaged. A police sergeant said that only three officers and one sergeant were in the district

on the night of July 28-29. In the Stock Yards district, where 41 per cent

of the injuries and several deaths occurred, there is no record of an attempt by

the police to increase the riot forces. In this district gang raids by whites

were practically beyond control. On July 28 B. F. Hardy, a Negro, was killed at Forty-sixth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. Sergeant Clancy

later testified that there were no policemen in this district until after the

trouble. The foreman of the grand jury investigated the activities of the

Deering Street Station under Pohce Captain Gallery. He says: "They didn't have a sufficient number of policemen to handle the situation. If I

remember correctly, he had eight patrolmen covering a district of any number

of square miles."

In spite of the concentration of police in the "Black Belt" some parts of

that area seem at times not to have been properly guarded. Several serious

clashes occurred there after the poHce arrived in force. Theodore Copling,

Negro, was shot to death at Thirtieth and State streets in the heart of the

"Black Belt" on July 30. This had been a riotous corner for three days,

yet no policemen were at hand. The nearest was a detective sergeant on

Twenty-ninth Street between Federal and State streets. Samuel Banks,

Negro, was shot and killed near the corner of Twenty-seventh and Dearborn

streets on July 30 at 1 1 : 00 p.m., yet Lieutenant Burns, in charge of this district,

testified at the inquest that twelve to fourteen officers were at Twenty-seventh

and Dearborn streets immediately before the shooting.

It was undoubtedly the relatively large number of clashes which the pohce were unable to prevent that led the coroner's jury to recommend that " (6) there should be organization of the force for riot work for the purpose

of controlling rioting in its incipient stages."

The conduct of individual pohcemen received much adverse criticism from the Negroes. This was to be expected in the circumstances, but disregarding

the general prejudice of which white officers were accused, certain cases of

discrimination, abuse, brutahty, indifference, and neglect on the part of

individuals are deserving of examination.

Abusive and brutal treatment was complained of by Horace Jennings,

3422 South Aberdeen Street. He reported to the state's attorney's office that Pohceman G—, of the Grand Crossing Station, approached him, as he lay wounded by a mob attack, with the words, "Where's your gun, you black

of a —— ? You damn niggers are raising hell"; that the officer hit him on the head, and he did not regain consciousness until some time later in the

THE CHICAGO RIOT 39

B urnside Hospital; and he further charged that Gallagher took a purse contain- ing $13 when he searched him.

Three Negroes were rescued by the police from a white mob of twenty-five or thirty men. Scott, one of the Negroes, was taken from the street car on which

all three were riding, by the command of a policeman to "come out of there, you big rusty brute, you. I ought to shoot you," and was given a blow on

the head. According to a witness he was again struck by the policeman

as he was pushed into the patrol wagon. He was subjected to rough treatment at the jail and was kept incommunicado from July 28 to August 4, not being

permitted to notify his wife or an attorney. None of the twenty-five or thirty white rioters was arrested. There was some evidence of fear on the

part of the poKce to arrest rioting whites.

Fear by poHcemen of Negroes is also disclosed. George Crumm, white, 124 East Forty-sixth Street, informed the state's attorney's office that he

was beaten by a Negro mob, got police assistance, and pointed out the rioters,

but the pohce "didn't seem to want to interfere any."

On several occasions policemen left the scene of riots on questionable excuses while the rioting was in progress. Of the three mounted policemen

at Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue who rushed to the spot where a mob was attacking Otterson, two accompanied the automobile of Otterson to the hospital. The mob was not quelled or dispersed. When the house of Wilham O'Deneal, Negro, 4742 Wells Street, was attacked, the pohce took O'Deneal to the station and left the mob to sack and burn his house. At the kilhng of Wilham Dozier, Negro, all three pohce officers who responded to notice of an attack by a white mob of 300 or more, left in the same patrol wagon. The names of witnesses were not taken. It was the custom for all to accompany the wagon, according to Officer McDonough.

Pohtical "pull" exercised with the pohce on behalf of rioters has been

indicated. It was noted that one of "Ragen's Colts" said an officer of the Stock Yards Station "tipped them off" to stay away from their club because Attorney General Brundage's office was out investigating them.

Indifference both to extreme lawlessness during the riot and to the procedure

of the inquest marked the examination of Captain of Police Mullen before the coroner's jury. He was in command of twelve mounted men and between sixty-three and 100 men on foot at Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue when a clash between the police and a Negro mob occurred. While it appears to be the fact that he left just before the heavy firing to telephone from a saloon

one block away, yet the building he was in was struck by bullets. The follow- ing excerpt from the inquest speaks for itself:

Q.: What time did the shooting take place at the building known as the Angelus Building ? What time did that occur ? Was there any shooting at that buUding ?

Mullen: Not that I heard.

40 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Q.: Had there been any shooting done there that evening around .... before you left ?

Mullen: Not to my knowledge. Q.: When was the shooting done, and where were you ? Mullen: What do you mean shooting ?

Three men were killed and many injured at Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue at this time. Firing broke out near-by almost immediately.

Q.: There were some shots fired at Thirty-fifth and State, Captain, at eight that

night, right after the volley was fired, we have absolute evidence.

Mullen: Well, you may have, but I have not.

Yet Captain Mullen was in command of the police who killed two more men and inflicted other wounds when the Negroes ran before the police advance.

Militia.—The rapid growth of the riot both in violence and territorially created such alarm among the authorities and the public that the question of

its control became a matter of paramount concern to the community. Before

twenty-four hours had elapsed requests were made to the local authorities

for the militia. The representations were based on insufliciency of police

forces and were strongly urged before the chief of police.

Chief Garrity steadily refused to ask for troops, in spite of his repeated

statement that the police force was insuSicient. He gave as his reason the belief that inexperienced militiamen would add to the deaths and disorders.

Mayor Thompson supported the chief's refusal until outside pressure compelled

him to ask the governor for aid. On the other hand the chief deputy of police was quoted by State's Attorney Hoyne as having said at the outbreak of the

riot that the police would not be able to handle the situation, and that troops

were needed. In this he was supported by Mr. HoAme. From observation

of conditions on the first three days of the riot, the chief of staff of the troops,

Colonel Ronayne, concluded that the police were insufficient in numbers,

that no improvement was apparent in the general situation, and that therefore

the troops were necessary. He saw no reason, however, for putting the city under martial law. Other military men were of the same opinion.

During all of this time Governor Lowden kept in close touch with the

situation from his quarters at the Blackstone Hotel. When the riot appeared to be subsiding he started to keep an appointment out of town but, on hearing

that there was a renewal of violence, returned to the city on a special train.

When the request was made for the active co-operation of the troops he acted with promptness.

The troops themselves were clearly of high caliber. For the most part

they were in home service during the war and were older men than are ordina- rily found in militia organizations. They "usually came from the higher

type of business men, men of affairs, men that knew how to think," as one of

their commanding officers described them. They were all American-born.

I^;-^^— J-^

NEGROES UNDER PROTECriUX OF POLICE AND MILITLA BUYEXG PRO- VISIONS BROUGHT INTO THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD IN WAGONS

^^^S^^ttM^^:^

THE MILITIA AND NEGROES ON FRIENDLY TERMS

.:*€^^

^' .

'

's^ .r

THE CHICAGO RIOT 41

The militia discipline was of the best. Not a single case of breach of discipline was reported to the regimental commanders. No guardhouse was necessary during the riot, a remarkable commentary on troop conduct.

The militia had been given special drills in the suppression of riots and insurrections for a year and a half previous to this occasion, and were, in the

estimation of their commanding officer, "probably better prepared for riot drill than any troops ever put on duty in the state."

The activities of the militia did not begin as early as many citizens wished. Though troops began to mobilize in the armories on Monday night, July 28, they were not called to actual duty on the streets until 10:30 p.m., Wednesday,

July 30. When called to active duty they were distributed in the areas of conflict. Between 5,000 and 6,000 troops were called out. This number was made up entirely of white troops from the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Infantry, Illinois National Guard, and from the First, Second, Third, and Fourth

Reserve Militia regiments of the mihtia. Colored troops who had composed the Eighth Regiment were not reorganized at that time, and therefore none

participated.

Distribution of troops was determined not by the militia command but by the police, because the city was not under martial law, the civil authority

being merely insufficient, not broken. The Third Infantry covered the territory from Thirty-first to Thirty-eighth streets and from State to Halsted

streets; Eleventh Infantry from Thirty-ninth to Forty-seventh streets, and

from State to Halsted streets; Tenth Infantry from Forty-eighth to Fifty-fifth

streets (later extended to Sixty-third Street by details from the First Infantry),

and from Cottage Grove to Stewart avenues. The First, Fourth, and Ninth Infantry were held in reserve. Detachments responded to calls from the chief

of police in districts outside these areas. Headquarters for the commanding

general and his chief of staff were in the Congress Hotel at the northern bound-

ary of the riot zone.

The orders under which the militia operated did not have the authority of martial law. The purpose of the orders was to effect a thorough co-operation with the police only, and not to take over any duties other than the preservation

of law and order. Except in this respect, civilian routine remained undisturbed.

The method of co-operation put the commanding officer of a regiment in absolute control, within the limits above described, in his district. The police reduced their number to normal requirements by removing their reserves

as soon as the militia moved in. The patrolmen then went about on ordinary duties in the districts. Persons arrested by the militia were turned over to

the police.

Responsibility for the preservation of law and order rested on the regi-

mental commanders. Careful instructions were given troops for preventing

violence : they were to act as soldiers in a gentlemanly manner ; they were fur-

nished with arms to enable them to perform their duties; they were to use the

42 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

arms only when necessary; they were to use bayonet and butt in preference

to firing, but if the situation demanded shooting, they were not to hesitate

to deliver an effective fire. Above all, the formation of mobswas to be prevented

.

The manner in which the miUtia was received by various elements in the

communities where stationed is illimiinating. Police ofi&cers were glad that

the troops came to reheve them. Two policemen on duty with a patrol exclaimed, when they heard the militia had come in force, "Thank God!

We can't stand up under this much longer!" The police at Cottage Grove Avenue said, "We are tickled to death to see you fellows come in; you have never looked so good to us before! " A regimental commander said his organi- zation was "welcomed into the zone, of course, by everybody, and I'd say

especially by the colored people." A similar report came from another regimental commander.

But there was some show of hostihty to the troops. Hoodlums fired on

some detachments when they first came in, and Colonel Bolte reported a

hatred for the troops by "the Hamburg Athletic Club, the Ragen's, and the

Emeralds, and a whole bunch of them over there who didn't like to be con-

trolled!" Volunteer ex-service men with no legal status, but who aided the

police at the time, and deputy sheriffs with overseas training ridiculed the

mihtia with such taunts as, "Tin soldiers!" The effect of this attitude on

the populace necessitated the arrest of some disturbers and the removal of

unauthorized persons from the streets.

It is a singular fact that militia activities were principally against gangs

of hoodlums, and the majority of these gangs were composed of white youths.

Said one commander, "Rowdies of the white population tried to get through

the Hues and had to be arrested." "At one time a heavy truck or two loaded

with white gangsters attempted to break through the militia but was checked."

Plenty of trouble "with the Ragen's and other similar organizations" was

reported by yet another commander.

The mihtia unquestionably prevented mob formations, raids, and "snip-

ing." They checked marauders still in search of prey. In many cases they

prevented the initial moves of lawlessness by taking stations at critical points

long before raiders arrived.

There was a marked contrast between the militia and the poUce. The

troops were under definite orders; commanders had absolute control of their

forces and knew at all times where and how many effectives were available.

Precision and promptness of movement was the rule. Reserves were always

at hand. Disciphne was always good. Only one person, a white man, was

killed by the troops. Whatever other restraining causes contributed, it is

certain that the riot was not revived after the troops were posted.

Most of the troops were withdrawn on August 8.

Volunteers.—Many Negro ex-service men, formerly members of the old Eighth Regiment (Negro) of the lUinois National Guard, donned their uni-

THE CHICAGO RIOT 43

forms, armed, and offered their services to the police and militia. The militia

on duty found that these Negro volunteers had no authority or military status

and consequently ordered them to disband, which they did.

Before the troops were called out, however, a determined effort was made by one Britton, white police reserve, to organize ex-soldiers for volunteer

service. He said as many as thirty-five joined him. They were denied permits to carry weapons but are reported to have done so. It was these men who used an automobile, driven v/ith the mufflers open, to clear the streets.

Evidence of the use of liquor was noticed among these men during their active period. Some were involved in the killing of Samuel Banks, Negro;

some in the robbery of a restaurant and in misdeeds of a minor character.

Following the implication of individuals among them in these crimes, numbers

of the ex-soldiers were arrested by the police, but were released by order of

Chief Garrity on account of the assistance many of them had rendered the department and because of representations of business men who felt that the arrests were unjust.

Deputy sheriffs.—In addition to police, miHtiamen, and volunteers, another group composed of specially recruited deputy sheriffs, appeared in the riot

zone as preservers of the peace. They were sworn in by Sheriff Peters, of Cook County, after citizens had appealed to him, he said, to quell the riot. In regard

to their formation, numbers, orders, and duties, the sheriff had this to say:

I advertised for ex-service men to serve as deputy sheriffs. A thousand or more applied. They were all men who had returned from the war and were out of work. I hired 500 of them, kept them in the army uniforms, and instructed them to shoot

to kiU any disturbers or rioters. The presence of these men and the show of authority thereby made was effective, and the riot was quelled.

Fifteen thousand dollars was spent on this force.

It appears that these deputies came on the scene toward the end of the

riot week and at once fell into disfavor with the militia, whom they ridiculed as "tin soldiers" in much the same manner as did the volunteers. Two regi- mental commanders of mihtia said the special deputies "did not behave in a

very pleasant manner" and "in the majority of instances were no good."

The sheriff was notified to call them in and they soon disappeared. There is no record of organized methods of procedure or of their activities.

Restoration of order.—Long before actual hostihties ceased, and even before the arrival of the militia, various agencies, in addition to the police,

were at work trying to hold lawlessness in check and restore order. Efforts

of citizens of both races helped greatly in bringing about peace. As long as

the rioting was in progress thousands of Negroes were cut off from their employ-

ment. The Stock Yards workers especially were affected, since Negroes Hving east of Wentworth Avenue would have been forced to go to work on

foot through the district in which the worst rioting occurred. The hostilities also cut off the food supply in the main riot areas. The dealers in the "Black

44 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Belt," principally Jewish merchants, became alarmed lest temporary lack

of funds due to the separation from work and wages should lead Negroes to

loot their stores.

On August I, the various packing companies made the unpaid wages of Negro employees available for them by establishing pay stations at the Chicago

Urban League at 3032 Wabash Avenue, the Wabash Avenue Young Men's Christian Association at 3763 Wabash Avenue, the South Side Community Service House at 3201 South Wabash Avenue, and the Binga State Bank, Thirty-eighth and State streets. Approximately 6,000 employees were paid

in this way. Banks within the district made small temporary loans to stranded persons, sometimes without security. The cashier of the Franklin State Bank at Thirty-fifth Street and Michigan Avenue said that he had made loans of more than $200 to Negroes in sums of $2 and $3 on their simple promise

to pay, and that every dollar had been repaid.

All the local newspapers in their editorial columns took a vigorous stand

against disorder, urged the people to be calm and avoid crowds, and were

insistent that those responsible for rioting should be brought to justice. The

Tribune, for example, published editorials under the following captions: " Regain Order and Keep It," " Sane Men and Rioters, " " This Is No Hohday," "The Facts of the Riot," and "Penalties for Rioters." All of these articles

were calm appeals for tolerance, sanity, and dispassionate inquiry for the

facts. The Evening American, in an editorial entitled "This Is Chicago's

Crisis; Keep a Cool Head," said:

Chicago is facing its crisis today.

In one great section of the city law and order for the time being seem to have been

flung to the four winds. White men and colored men are shooting one another down in the streets for no earthly cause except that the color of their faces differs.

These mobs are not representative of whites or blacks. They are the hoodlums

of both races. But the law abiding whites and blacks are innocent victims.

Hotheads and smoking gun barrels have almost wrested the rule from the keepers

of the peace.

It is worse than a calamity, this race rioting. It is a deadly, ghastly scourge, a

dire contagion that is sweeping through a coramunity for no reason except that mob violence is contagious.

It is up to the cool-headed men of Chicago to settle the great difficulty. It is up

to the serious-minded business men of the city to get together and find a solution to a problem which has become so serious.

To meet violence with violence is but making matters worse. Gun toting at a time like this only adds fuel to the fire already raging.

Reason is the solution. It is mightier than the sLx-gun. How it is to be exerted is for the level-headed citizenry to decide, and decide at once.

Hardly an hour passes that more names are not added to the already long list of

slain in the South Side rioting.

There is no time to be lost. Other matters must be put aside for the moment

and a solution reached for Chicago 's greatest problem.

NEGRO STOCK YARDS WORKERS CUT (Jl F I'KOM WORK RECEIVING WAGES Photograph taken at temporarj- pay station cstablishuil at the- V.Al.C.A. by packing companies

BUYIXC; ICE FROM FREIGHT CAR SWITCHED INTO NEGRO RESIDENCE AREA

THE KEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

LENOX AND , ..

iO'jNDATIONS L

THE CHICAGO RIOT 45

Labor unions also took a hand in the efforts toward peace. Unionists of

both races were exhorted to co-operate in bringing about harmonious relations,

and meetings for this purpose were planned by trade-union leaders, as

described in the section of this report dealing with the Negro in industry.

Probably the most effective effort of union labor was the following article

in the New Majority, the organ of the Chicago Federation of Labor, promi- nently displayed:

For White Union Men to Read

Let any white union worker who has ever been on strike where gunmen or machine

gun have been brought in and turned on him and his fellows search his memory and

recall how he felt. In this critical moment let every union man remember the tactics of the boss in a strike when he tries by shooting to terrorize striking workers into

violence to protect themselves.

Well, that is how the Negroes feel. They are panic-stricken over the prospect of

being killed.

A heavy responsibility rests on the white portion of the community to stop assault on Negroes by white men. Violence against them is not the way to solve the

vexed race problem.

This responsibility rests particularly heavy upon the white men and women of organized labor, not because they had anything to do with starting the present

trouble, but because of their advantageous position to help end it. Right now it is

going to be decided whether the colored workers are to continue to come into the

labor movement or whether they are going to feel that they have been abandoned by

it and lose confidence in it.

It is a critical time for Chicago.

It is a critical time for organized labor.

All the influence of the unions should be exerted on the community to protect

colored fellow-workers from the unreasoning frenzy of race prejudice. Indications

of the past have been that organized labor has gone further in eliminating race hatred

than any other class. It is up against the acid test now to show whether this is so.

Various social agencies took steps to help in the emergency and restore

order. The American Red Cross has a branch at Thirty-fifth Street and

Michigan Avenue. As soon as the rioting became serious a special relief

headquarters was established here, and food was distributed to needy families

cut off from work. The Urban League was used as a headquarters for the

distribution of food.

The Urban League had for several years, through its employment bureau,

handled a large proportion of the city's Negro labor supply and was conversant

with difficulties likely to result from the rioting. It made food surveys of

the entire Negro area, printed and distributed thousands of circulars and

dodgers urging Negroes to stay off the streets, refrain from dangerous discus-

sions of the riot, and co-operate with the police in every way to maintain order.

The League sent telegrams to the governor and mayor suggesting plans for

46 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

curbing disorder, organized committees of citizens to aid the authorities in re-

storing order, and served as a bureau of information and medium of commu-

nication between the white and Negro groups during the worst hostihties.

The Young Men's Christian Association was similarly active within the

area of its efforts. Religious bodies, ministers' associations, and individual

ministers exerted their influence over their respective groups by advis-

ing the citizens to "keep cool," "hold their heads," and generally to let

the authorities settle the riot. Negro business men and one Negro alder-

man sent wagons through the streets bearing large signs which advised Negroes not to congregate on streets, engage in arguments, or partici-

pate in any way in the disorders. The signs further stated that people would

be advised when it would be safe to return to work. Other persons went about

speaking on street corners urging co-operation with the police and militia.

Appeals by officials and leading citizens were published in the white and Negro

papers, carrying similar advice. During the riot a committee of citizens

representing forty-eight social, civic, commercial, and professional organiza-

tions met at the Union League Club and petitioned the governor to take

steps to quiet the existing disorder and appoint a commission to study the

situation with a view to preventing a repetition of it. As a result of this appeal

followed by similar urgings by many committees, the present Chicago Commis-

sion on Race Relations was appointed and began its work.

Aftermath of the riot.—Alter the restoration of order community activities

were superficially the same as before the riot, but under the surface there

remained a deepened bitterness of race feeling which spread far beyond the

time and territorial limits of the riot itself.

All the deep-seated causes of friction which had developed so largely

from the failure to work out an adjustment of the increased Negro population

due to the migration were and are still present, undiminished in influence.

Consciousness of racial difference and more or less unconscious fear and distrust

were increased and spread by the riot. Among the whites this was evidenced

by the general belief that Negroes were gathering stores of arms and ammuni-

tion. Among the Negroes a growing race solidarity has been marked. There is

a greater lack of confidence in the white man's law and machinery of protection.

Continued bombings of Negro houses in mixed areas and failure to apprehend

the culprits no doubt strengthen this attitude.

Reports of various Negro gatherings held soon after the riot show this

to be the case. Many Negroes frankly urged their brothers that they must arm themselves and fight if attacked. At one meeting a Negro is reported

to have said:

The recent race riots have done at least one thing for the colored race. In the

past we Negroes have failed to appreciate what solidarity means. We have, on the contrary, been much divided. Since the riot we are getting together and devising

ways and means of protecting our interests. The recent race riots have convinced

THE CHICAGO RIOT 47

us that we must take steps to protect ourselves. Never again will we be found unpre- pared. It is the duty of every man here to provide himself with guns and ammunition. I, myself, have at least one gun and at least enough ammunition to make it useful.

The riot furnished the gang and hoodlum element a chance to indulge in lawlessness. Fear of death and injury may help to hold that element in check. But it cannot be argued that fear of punishment is much of a factor, for very few convictions of rioters were secured.

Quick justice would have been a salutary means of curbing tendencies to riot, according to both the coroner's jury and the grand jury. The coroner's jury said: "One remedy for race rioting is a speedy conviction and punishment of those guilty, regardless of race or color, giving all concerned a fair and

impartial hearing." Its eighth recommendation reads: "Above all, a strict enforcement of the law by public officials, fair and impartial, will do more

than any other agency in restoring the good name of Chicago, and prevent rioting from any cause from again disturbing the peace of our city."

The August, 1919, grand jury said: "This jury feels that in order to allay

further race prejudice and to prevent the re-enactment of shameful crimes

committed during the recent riots, efficient, prompt, and fearless justice on

the part of the judiciary be meted out to the guilty ones, whether they be white

or black."

In a fair consideration of whether swift and impartial justice was meted

out, it must be noted that it was extremely hard to secure evidence sufficient

for successful prosecution. PoHce attention upon arriving at the scene of a

clash was directed more to removing the injured than apprehending the guilty. Where attempts were made to search out the offenders, it was next to impossible to get results on account of the keen race consciousness which

made Negroes disclaim knowledge of Negro culprits and white people deny seeing specific white men act aggressively. Many of the crowds were neighbor- hood gatherings and leaders were often the sons of neighbors.

In most of the riot cases brought before the state's attorney's office the

same difficulty was experienced. Whole blocks of residents were subpoenaed and accurately described the assaults, but failed entirely to recognize any of

the assailants. The grand jury found the same obstacle. The foreman, referring to the kind of testimony brought before that body by Negroes on complaints against whites, said: " . . . . they [the grand jury] usually found

it to be hearsay testimony. Some other individual told them about So-and-So. That a crime had been committted there was no question, but to get at the

root of it was absolutely impossible."

In spite of these difficulties, those familiar with the riot situation believe

that more arrests of active rioters might have been made and more convictions obtained. A study of the riot deaths shows that justice failed to be as swift and sure as the coroner's and grand juries recommended. The blame for this failure is variously placed on the police, state's attorney, judge, or jury.

48 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

according to the prejudice of the one attempting to fix blame, or his connection

with any of these agencies. The fact remains that the punitive results of the legal processes were too negligible to furnish a proper deterrent to future

rioters.

Of the thirty-eight persons whose death constituted the riot's principal

toU— Fifteen met death at the hands of mobs. The coroners' jury recommended

that the members of the unknown mobs be apprehended. None were ever found.

Six were killed under circumstances establishing no criminal responsibility:

three white men were killed by Negroes in self-defense, and three Negroes were shot by policemen in the discharge of their duty.

Four Negroes lost their lives in the Angelus riot. The coroner made no recommendations, and the cases were not carried farther.

Four cases—two Negro and two white^—led to recommendations from the coroner's jury for further investigation of certain persons, but sufficient

evidence was lacking for indictments.

Nine cases resulted in indictments, four of which led to convictions.

Thus in only four cases was criminal responsibility for death fixed and

punishment meted out to the guilty.

Indictments and convictions are divided according to the race of the

persons criminally involved as follows:

"Hil ^^ MILK WAS DISTRIBUTED FOR THE BABIES

PROVISIONS WERE SUPPLIED BY THE RED CROSS TO HUNDREDS OF NEGRO FAMILIES

§6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

part solve the difficulty. We believe voluntary segregation would follow and to a considerable extent remove one cause of unrest.

This is a matter that might well be considered by the Real Estate Board and by

improvement clubs and organizations of property owners in the South Division, and

by the Health Department.

3. In regard to the "athletic clubs": Properly governed and controlled they

should be encouraged and fostered and, when necessary, disciplined.

4. Hoodlumism evokes this comment: Citizens of Chicago, make your hoodlum element amenable to law, break up and destroy hoodlumism as you would a pestilence.

It is our belief that this element can be brought under control of the law, and it must

be done if we are to remove the danger of rioting from any cause. Vicious hoodlum-

ism, entirely aside from race hatred, was present in practically aU of the thirty-eight

killings, known as race riots.

5. We earnestly urge that fathers and mothers teach their children the lesson of remaining at home when rioting occurs, and furthermore, they should be kept

occupied, as idleness and bad association often cause young people to become bad

men and women. 6. One remedy for race rioting is a speedy conviction and punishment of those

guilty, regardless of race or color, giving all concerned a fair and impartial hearing.

7. Tolerance must be practiced between both white and colored in the discussion

of the race problem, practiced in our everyday intercourse, in public conveyances,

and in meetings of all kinds.

8. Our attention was called strikingly to the fact that at the time of race rioting

the arrests made for rioting by the police of colored rioters were far in excess of the

arrests made of white rioters. The failure of the police to arrest impartially at the

time of rioting, whether from insufficient effort or otherwise, was a mistake and had a

tendency to further incite and aggravate the colored population.

9. In cases of murder it is of the utmost importance that expert criminologists

should arrive on the scene at the earliest possible moment, and that a complete exami-

nation may be made of the scene of the murder before the body is removed or handled, and whUe the necessary evidence for conviction may be obtained, which otherwise

may be lost or destroyed. We have found in the riot cases many instances where the removal of bodies by inexperienced men, in some cases police officers, destroyed

valuable evidence.

We heartily concur with Coroner Hoffman as to the fact that Chicago badly needs a permanent murder-investigation squad, which the coroner planned and has so

persistently advocated in the past. We believe that this squad should be equipped with motor vehicles and subject to call at any hour of the day or night. This squad

should consist of six or more trained policemen, working in relays of eight hours, a

photographer, a finger-print expert, a coroner's physician and chemist, the coroner or

deputy coroner, and a state's attorney. In addition thereto, two trained policemen

from the police department precinct wherein the murder occurred, and a representative

of the City News Bureau. This squad should be available for immediate service, and

it should be the duty of the police at the scene of the murder to allow no one to handle

the body or enter premises where murder occurred untU the arrival of the squad.

10. The police force should be enlarged. It is too small to cope with the needs

of Chicago, and under the present living conditions the policeman 's pay is entirely

inadequate and should be substantially increased.

THE CHICAGO RIOT 51

Superannuated and incapacitated members of the police force should be retired

under a proper and satisfactory pension system.

There should be organization of the force for riot work, for the purpose of control-

ling rioting in its incipient stages.

GRAND JURY RECOMMENDATIONS

1. It is reasonable to believe that the colored people, if provided with proper

housing facilities and an area sufficient in extent, would voluntarily segregate them-

selves. The present neighborhood known as the "Black Belt" could, by reasonable

public improvement, assisted by our leading public citizens, be made a decent place

to live in for a much larger population than it now accommodates This move-

ment should enlist the financial and moral support of the industries employing large

numbers of the black race.

2. Facilities for bathing, playgrounds, police protection, better housing and

neighborhood conditions, are matters deserving the earnest attention of the proper

authorities.

3. The employment of the colored people is imperative to the welfare of this com-

munity. Discriminating against the Negro, or, in other words, failure to give him an

opportunity to make an honest livehhood after having induced him to migrate to

this section of the country, simply adds to the already far too great number of hood-

lums that infest our city.

4. This jury feels that in order to aUay further race prejudice and to prevent

the re-enactment of shameful crimes committed during the recent riots, efficient

prompt, and fearless justice on the part of the law-enforcing officers, as well as on

the part of the judiciary, be meted out to the guilty ones, whether they be white or

black.

5 There is a lack of co-operation and harmony among the agencies of law

enforcement, which impairs their efficiency, leads to miscarriages of justice, and wastes

the public funds.

6. The parole law should be amended so that a criminal once paroled and sub-

sequently arrested may not a second time be paroled.

7. The efficiency of the police force would be further greatly increased by the

co-operation of the judiciary in refusing to grant wholesale continuances without

carefully scrutinizing the results thereof when members of the police force are required

to act as witnesses.

8. The police department is in need of a thorough house-cleaning. Every officer,

no matter what his position is, who fails in his fuU duty should be dismissed. Graft-

ers and those who allow themselves to be dominated by pohtical influences, who are

paid to protect the lives and property of our citizens, should be dismissed and punished

to the fullest extent of the law.

9. It is the opinion of this jury that the pohce force is also inadequate in munbers,

and at least one thousand (1,000) officers should be added to the existing force.

10. Policemen who have arrived at the age where their usefulness is a matter

of the past should be pensioned, notwithstanding their present nmnber, and not-

withstanding the fact that the pension fund is already taxed to its utmost. The

needed funds for this purpose should be provided.

II payment of salaries to public officers commensurate with the increased

cost of living.

52 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

12. 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 poUtics.

13. The jury also finds that vice of aU kinds is rampant in the "Black Belt," and

a thorough cleaning up of that district is absolutely essential to the peace and welfare

of the community.

14. Pohtical influence to a large extent is responsible for the brazenness with

which the Chicago bum, pickpocket, and gun and hold-up man operates. It is also

the opinion of the jury that the indeterminate-sentence law frequently operates in a

miscarriage of justice, and it is our opmion that the court should fix the sentence of

offenders at the time of their conviction.

15. Because of the large number of young boys involved in the rioting, the jury

recommends the resumption of the activities of the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of Colum-

bus, and Salvation Army, as well as other similar organizations

CHAPTER IX

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS

The Negro in the United States: "A person of African blood (much or little) about whom men of English descent tell only half the truth, and because of whom they do not act with frankness and sanity either toward the Negro or to one another—in a word, about whom they easily lose their common sense, their usual good judg- ment, and even their powers of accurate observation. The Negro-in-America, there-

fore, is a form of insanity that overtakes white men."

—

The Southerner by Walter

Hines Page.

The Stoic proverb, that "men are tormented by the opinions they have of things rather than by the things themselves,"^ applies as aptly to the relations

between the white and Negro populations as to other of our problems. Because

the "race problem" has been so vaguely stated, so variously explained, and so

little understood, discussions of it and the conduct of whites and Negroes

toward each other usually express feeling rather than intelligence.

The public is guided by patterns of behavior and traditions generally

accepted, whether sound or unsound. False notions, if believed, may control conduct as effectively as true ones. And pre-established notions lose their subtle influence when it appears that their basis is in error.

White persons are generally uninformed on matters affecting Negroes and

race relations. They are forced to rely on partial and frequently inaccurate

information and upon traditional sentiments. This same ignorance applies

to Negroes, though not to the same degree; for they know white people in

their intimate personal and home relations and in connection with their work

in factories and stores. They read their books and papers and often hear their

discussions. Negroes are perhaps more race conscious than whites because

every day they must face situations which remind them of their race. They

are sensitive to moods and antagonisms expressed in words and shown in

manners. Their impressions from the white group are subject to distortion

as are those received by the whites from them. Negroes manifest character-

istics which, though the natural result of their circumstances and experiences,

are yet misunderstood and often resented by the white group. For Negroes

live and think in a state of isolation which is almost complete; and no white

group understands it, or can fully understand it.

The riot of 1919 is an example of the effects of this isolation and misunder-

standing. The accumulated resentments, unchallenged mutual beliefs and

resultant friction, culminated in a surprising calamity and wholesale bloodshed.

' James Harvey Robinson, Mind in the Making.

436

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 437

This chapter, therefore, has a thesis and a purpose. If these behefs, preju- dices and faulty deductions can be made accessible for examination and analysis, many of them will be corrected. If a self-critical attitude toward these prejudices can be stimulated by typical examples, a considerable step will have been taken toward understanding and harmony.

The study of pubHc opinion in race relations attempted by the Commission does not presume to set down definite laws of its working, or to tell all about how it works. The aim is merely to make apparent and objective its place and importance in race relations, to indicate some of the ways in which it has developed; how it expresses itself, how it affects both the white and Negro groups; how, in its present state, it is strengthened, weakened, polluted, or purified by dehberate agencies or even by its own action, and finally how it may be used to reduce, if not to prevent, racial unfriendHness and misunderstanding.

The following plan is employed in presenting this branch of the subject: 1. Behefs regarding Negroes, which greatly influence the conduct of white

persons toward them, are described as they apply in the local environment,

and their origin and background are traced suggestively to their responsible literature and circumstances.

2. Types of sentiment which are variants of these basic beliefs are presented with a view to making them intelligible, and to classifying them according to resolvable factors of misunderstanding.

3. Since personal attitudes and behefs are molded by traditions and heri- tages apart from the exclusive influence of literature, material collected through

intimate inquiry is presented objectively to describe the processes by which they appear to be created and to grow. Rephes to a searching questionnaire on attitudes and opinions express the result of painstaking self-analysis.

4. Negro opinion on these same issues is described and illustrated with a view to making it intelligible. Their views are listed and their interpretations of current white sentiment are explained as far as possible.

5. From the subjective aspect the study then turns to the instruments by which these opinions are formed and perpetuated and the individual attitudes created. The following are deemed the chief agencies: (a) the press, (b) rumors, (c) myths, (d) propaganda. Conscious and unconscious abuse of these instruments of opinion-making is pointed out and explained.

6. Finally, means are suggested by which public opinion may, where it is faulty, correct itself, and employ its own instruments in the creation of wholesome sentiments among Negroes with respect to whites, and among whites with respect to Negroes.

A. OPINIONS OF WHITES AND NEGROES I. BELIEFS CONCERNING NEGROES

Literature concerning Negroes has been written chiefly by southern students facing the problem in its most intense form and usually meeting the most back- ward of Negroes. Negro habits have been objectively explained and standards

438 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

of judgment upon the entire group have usually been deduced therefrom. This

constitutes the bulk of serious hterature on the subject of the Negro; it is gen-

erally used in research into the problem.

In the North as in the South the assumptions regarding the Negro have

their basis in similar sources. The beliefs, in general, are the same, though

held by individuals in varying degrees. Though northerners do not believe so

firmly and with such emotional intensity all that southerners believe about

Negroes, yet they share these beliefs in proportion as they have been influenced

or informed by southerners. It may happen, for example, that in a small

northern town with but a handful of Negroes there is no discernible distinction

in the treatment accorded them. The growth of the colony, however, can

bring to the surface at first almost undiscernible shades of the usual beliefs,

and finally the identical behefs entertained by other communities.

There is, for example, no section of the country in which it is not generally

believed by whites that Negroes are instinctively criminal in inclination. Some

believe that they are crkninal by nature and explain it as a result of heredity;

some feel that it is a combination of heredity and environment; while others

may feel that this inclination is due to environment alone. How, indeed, may

the belief be avoided ? Crime figures on Negroes are consistently unfavorable

to any other conclusion. Students have gone so far as to accept without ques-

tion these figures and proceed to explain that criminal tendency scientifically.

This is also true as to low mentality, sexual immorality, and a long list of

other supposed racial defects.

Below are presented some of the more important beliefs among whites

about Negroes that have become crystallized by years of unchallenged assump-

tion. They divide themselves into two general classes: (i) Prunary beliefs,

or fundamental and firmly established convictions which have, all around, the

deepest effect on the attitude of whites toward Negroes. These are usually

presented as revealed by statistics, authorities, and research. (2) Secondary

beliefs, or the lighter modifications and variants of the supposed attributes of

Negroes included in the more important assumptions.

I. PRIMARY BELIEFS

Mentality.—The chief of these is that the mind of the Negro is distinctly and distinctively inferior to that of the white race, and so are all resulting

functionings of his mind.

This view is held by some to be due to a difference in species, by others to

more recent emergence from primitive life, and by others to be due to back-

wardness in ascending the scale of civilization. For this reason it is variously

assumed as a corollary that the mind of the Negro cannot be improved above a

given level or beyond a given age; that his education should be adapted to his

capacities, that is, he should mainly be taught to use his hands. Thus a teacher

in one of the elementary schools of Chicago finds that "colored children are

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 439

restive and incapable of abstract thought; they must be constantly fed with

novel interests and given things to do with their hands." Accordingly they

are given handicraft instead of arithmetic, and singing instead of grammar.

In seeking the opinion of white trades unionists on the admission of Negroes

to unions in Chicago, the Commission encountered in perhaps the harshest

form the conviction that Negroes were inherently unable to perform tasks that

white men did as a matter of course. A member of the Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Engineers felt that no Negro had, or could ever acquire, intelligence enough

to run an engine. Employers frequently expressed the belief that Negroes

are incapable of performing tasks which require sustained mental application.

This view of their mental weakness appeared in the following statement made before the Commission by a school principal concerning her experience with

Negro children:

So far as books are concerned there are set types of learning which they take

with great difficulty. Last Friday a colored boy came to me and said, "I want to go back to the first grade." We have gotten him in the third grade. He came to me and cried—a great big boy—because he said the work was much too hard for him, and he didn't want to study. His teacher was cross with him and insisted he must get to

work. It is an exception to have a boy so frank. But I don't think the instance is

far from the truth. I have never had a white chUd complain that he was graded too

high and wanted to be put down. Sometimes when they come in, they say to me: "I went to school in the South, and I am in high fifth grade." "How long were you in school in the South?" "Three sessions." Two months, and they are in high fifth grade! I put them into the first or second grade. Sometimes I can't fit them into the smaller grades, and sometimes they resent it, but when they get into the actual school work and find they can't do it, they can't complam. I should

say therefore that there is a certain amount of mental backwardness found in colored children not found in whites.

A teacher in a Chicago public school said: "I believe like Dr. Bruner [direc- tor of Special School, Board of Education] that when a Negro boy grows a mustache his brain stops working."

A teacher inMoseley School said: "The great physical development of the colored person takes away from the mental, while with the whites the reverse

is true. There is proof for this in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes."

Morality.—Another of these primary beliefs is that Negroes are not yet capable of exercising the social restraints which are common to the more civil- ized white persons. Sometimes it is said that they are unmoral rather than

immoral. This view, while charitably explaining supposed innate defects of

character, places them outside the circle of normal members of society. Thus

the assistant principal of a Chicago high school attended by Negroes said:

When it comes to morality, I say colored children are unmoral. They have no more moral sense than a very young white chQd. Along sex lines they don't know that this is wrong and that is wrong—that wrong sense isn't a part of them. Of

440 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

course we say they are immora] and a white child doing the same thing under the same circumstances would be. The colored and white children here don't get mixed up in immorality; they are too well segregated. Not that we segregate them: the whites

keep away from the colored.

This belief appears in statements that there is no family life among Negroes

and but little respect, even in Chicago, for the ordinary decencies; when serious

students of society speak of the promiscuity of colored women and men in sexual as well as social relations; and when social institutions assume the impos-

sibility of locating the real father of children in a Negro family. Much public emphasis is given to the subject of venereal disease among Negroes, and certain deductions regarding this incidence of disease have resulted from comparative

statistics.

Criminality.—The assumption back of most discussions of Negro crime is that there is a constitutional character weakness in Negroes and a consequent

predisposition to sexual crimes, petty stealing, and crimes of violence. Sexual

crimes are alleged and frequently urged in justification of lynching. Popular

judgment takes stealing lightly, because Negroes evidence a marked immatur-

ity and childishness in it. It is supposed that they appropriate little things

and do not commit larger thefts. Crimes of violence are thought to be charac-

teristic of Negroes because crimes involving deliberation and planning require

more brains than Negroes possess.

The president of a branch of the Illinois Federation of Women 's Clubs thus explained the decision of that organization not to discuss the Negro question

in its meetings:

Most of the presidents expressed themselves as against discussion of the Negro

question because as women's names come out as being against the Negroes these

women and others of the club would have to live in fear of Negro men. A woman must be careful not to put herself in a position of causing them to have a grudge against

her, as you know a white woman has to fear a colored man.

A resident in an exclusively white residential district said:

Mother, sister, and I lived here alone and we had a car which we kept in a garage in the back yard. Whenever we came in at night we never used the back door, but always went around front. Several times in walking up the back steps to the porch

we had been frightened by colored men sitting on the steps or lying on the porch, and so we couldn't use that way into the house.

Another white woman, in the course of a discussion of housing indicated this fear of Negro men:

When we came here this was a nice neighborhood. After some years a colored family moved in, then two or three more, and more and more, until you see what we have here now. I tell you the white people right on this street have to be afraid for

their lives.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 441

Another, living on Langley Avenue, near Forty-third Street, said:

I don't hold any conversations with Negroes. It's better to be on the safe side

when you've got grown-up daughters. I worry a good deal about my two daughters as they go and come from work, but they've never had anything happen.

The principal of a Chicago public school was questioned by a visitor con- cerning the attitude of white parents toward the association of their children

with Negro pupils in that school. " The white parents are cautious about stir- ring up trouble," he said, "for they know the emotional tendency of the colored to knife and kill."

Petty thefts by Negroes, especially of food, are regarded as annoying evils

most easily dealt with by a sort of half-serious firmness. A white resident of a district largely inhabited by Negroes said:

A w'hite neighbor keeps chickens in her back yard. She gets the burglar alarm from the hen house sometimes twice in a week, and the running thief is always colored

The colored buy whatever they want; they'U spend their last cent and not worry about the next day. If they want a chicken for dinner and it's $1 a pound, they buy it or steal it.

Physical unattractiveness:—Objections to contact are often attributed to physical laws which, it is said, make the sight or other sensory impression of the Negro unbearably repulsive. This attitude is found in protests against

indiscriminate seating arrangements in street cars. The word "black" has long been associated with evil and ugliness, and it is not always a simple task

to disassociate the idea from impressions given by a black man. Not merely is the color regarded as repulsive, but it is the further belief that Negroes have

a pecuhar and disagreeable body odor. A Christian Science practitioner in Chicago, giving her opinion of Negroes, had an idea that they carried a "musky odor," and were therefore to be avoided. A student at the University of Chicago and a resident of Hyde Park, talking with an investigator, said: "It is conceded that the Negro in Chicago must have some place to live, but to

permit promiscuous distribution through scattered sections of the city would

tend to increase the difficulties rather than mitigate them, partly because a

white man would shrink from having a Negro live near him." In the spring of 19 19 there appeared in one of the Chicago daily papers a

series of articles on the Negro question. In describing the relations between

Negroes and whites in Chicago, the writer said:

A second phase of the situation, and the one that causes more inutile railing than any other, is the crowding into the street cars of colored people. WeU, they must ride on street cars, if only for the reason that most of them live remote from their work. Even the North State Street line, that used to be considered the special conveyance for "the quality," has come to be known as the "African Central." If you can't stomach it, you'll have to walk. They won't.

Living in neighborhoods infrequently visited by Negroes and where, as a general rule, their occupancy is effectively discouraged, some white residents

442 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

occasionally express objections as based on a "natural physical opposition."

Following is a typical statement:

I came here six years ago and there was a very noisy set of white people living in

the apartment house back of mine. Four years ago the landlord put them all out and

rented to colored families. We were all up in arms then; but say, I never had nicer, more quiet, and respectable neighbors. Their children all behave well, and we can't kick. But at the same time, black people aren't what one would pick out to have

around—'I guess it's just because they are black.

Emotionality.—This is commonly regarded as explaining features of con- duct in Negroes, some of which are beautiful in their expression while others

are ugly and dangerous. The supposed Negro gift of song is thus an accepted

attribute of his emotional nature. So with his religious inclination. This

same emotionalism is believed to lead him to drink and is frequently made to account for "his quick, uncalculated crimes of violence." The natural expres-

sion of Negro religious fervor is supposed to be noisy and frenzied. This view

of the Chicago Tribune's special writer is, roughly speaking, the view of thou-

sands of Chicagoans:

I passed grand old stone churches, once the pride of rich and powerful white

congregations, whither I used to be sent as a reporter not so many years ago, to hear some of the premier pulpiteers of this town. They are colored people's churches

now, and beneath the arches, where a sedate gospel once was expounded you hear

today the jubilant yell of the dusky brother who has found grace The service was, indeed, an incident in a three weeks' series of revival meetings

they have been holding at Olivet. The principal performer was the Rev. S. E. J. Watson, a revivalist from Topeka, a big man—mulatto, I should say, or perhaps quadroon—with a powerful voice, a masterly platform style, and enormous ardor. He spoke fluently, used no notes, and demonstrated a free, wide skill in homely imagery, which, however, included no slang nor vulgarities, but was racy of the planta-

tion and the cabin kitchen. His picture of God "opening the front door of this good

old world every morning to let in the sun" was one of the most gorgeous flights in

primitive poetry I ever heard, and his narrative, accompanied by the most vivid

pantomime, of the Roman soldiers lifting up the cross after they had nailed Jesus to it was hardly less than terrifying— it certainly was terrific—in its sweep of passion and its reality of detail.

And so he wrought them to a high emotional state. Many were crying. Then came the direct personal appeal to "the unsaved," the threat of the everlasting fire,

and the "lifting up" again and again of the thought of the all-forgiving, all-saving

Jesus. The soft crying became heavy, convulsive sobbing. One by one the unsaved

who made the surrender to whatever it was that had been holding them back, were

led to the seats near the pulpit. Those who did not surrender promptly were evi- dently in terrible stress, or thought they were. They emitted shrieks that, truly, made my heart stand still, and I would have trembled for the sanity of the poor creatures except that I observed from the comer of my eye that the "saved" in the assemblage took the shrieks with perfect equanimity.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 443

2. SECONDARY BELIEFS

In addition to the primary beliefs there are others supposedly not so serious

or significant in their effects. These are usually modifications of primary

beliefs, and are accepted as a consequence of frequent and almost unvaried

repetition. In this manner these secondary beliefs have edged their way into the popular mind.

George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken in a recent volume, The American Credo, point out fairly striking instances of this tendency of the American mind.

They have compiled a series of 435 commonly accepted behefs covering a wide range. Among these 435 listed American behefs there are some very real ones which involve and include the following popular notions about Negroes:

1. That a Negro's vote may always be readily bought for a dollar. 2. That every colored cook has a lover who never works and that she feeds him

by stealing the best part of every dish she cooks.

3. That every Negro who went to France with the army has a liaison with a white woman and won't look at a colored woman any more.

4. That all male Negroes can sing.

5. That if one hits a Negro on the head with a cobblestone the cobblestone will

break.

6. That all Negroes born south of the Potomac can play the banjo and are excel-

lent dancers.

7. That whenever a Negro is educated he refuses to work and becomes a criminal.

8. That every Negro servant girl spends at least half of her wages on preparations

for taking the kink out of her hair.

9. That all Negro prize fighters marry white women and then afterwards beat them.

10. That all Negroes who show any inteUigence are two-thirds white and the sons of U.S. Senators.

11. That the minute a Negro gets eight dollars he goes to a dentist and has one

of his front teeth filled with gold.

12. That a Negro ball always ends up in a grand free-for-all fight in which several Negroes are mortally slashed with razors.

The most usual of these secondary behefs which figure in the experience of Negroes and whites in Chicago are apparently of southern origin. This is due,

not so much to any deliberate effort of southerners to infiltrate them into northern race relations, as that northerners largely regard as authoritative the

experience of the South which holds almost nine-tenths of the total Negro

population.

Some of the secondary behefs are:

1. That Negroes are lazy; that they are indisposed to, though not incapable of, sustained physical exertion.

2. That they are happy-go-lucky; that their improvidence is demonstrated

in their extravagance, and that their reckless disregard for their welfare is shown

444 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

in a lack of foresight for the essentials of well-being. It is asserted that they

do not purchase homes and do not save their money; that they spend lavishly

for clothes to the neglect of home comforts and the demands even of their

health ; that they work by the day, and before the week is ended confuse book-

keeping by demanding their pay.

3. That they are boisterous. Hilarity in public places and especially in

their own gatherings is thought to be common. They are considered as rude

and coarse in public conveyances and are believed to jostle white passengers

sometimes without thought and sometimes out of pure maliciousness.

4. That they are bumptious; that when a Negro is placed in a position of

unaccustomed authority relative to his group he has an unduly exaggerated

sense of his own importance and makes himself unbearable.

5. That they are overassertive; that constant harping on constitutional

rights is a habit of Negroes, especially of the newer generation; that in their

demands for equal rights and privileges they are egged on by agitators of their

own race and are overinsistent in their demands; that they resent imaginary

insults and are generally supersensitive.

6. That they are lacking in civic consciousness. Absence of community

pride and disregard for conununity welfare are alleged to be the common failing of Negroes. It is pointed out that the "Black Belt" has been allowed to run

down and become the most unattractive spot in the city. To this fact is attrib- uted the tolerance of vice within this region. Negroes generally, it is still

believed, can be bought in elections with money and whiskey. They are

charged with having no pride in the beauty of the city, and with making it

unbeautiful by personal and group habits.

7. That they usually carry razors. Whenever a newspaper reporter is in

doubt he gives a razor as the weapon used. Some time ago a woman was found murdered in a town near Chicago. She had been slashed with a razor, and

the broken blade was left beside her body. The murder was particularly

atrocious, and the murderer left no other clew. Several Negroes were arrested

on suspicion but were released when a white youth confessed the crime. A Negro lawyer said: During the riot a Negro was arrested for having a razor in his pocket. I was his

attorney, and the evidence showed that he always shaved at work. After having

shaved at this particular time, he put his razor in his pocket and forgot it. He started home and was accosted by two officers, who searched him and found the razor. The judge heard the evidence and then whispered to me that he was going to give the fellow ten days because "you know your people do carry razors." He asked me if I thought it aU right and I said that I did not.

8. That they habitually "shoot craps." The Negro's supposed fondness for gambhng is a phase of the beHef concerning his improvidence. It is not unusual for whites, in conversation with any Negro whom they do not know well, when they wish merely to be friendly, to refer to dice. Employers fre-

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 445

quently say that Negroes never keep money because as soon as it is earned it is

thrown away on gambling with dice. The state's attorney believed that the

riot of July, 1919, began over a beach craps game.

Negroes are believed to be flashy in dress, loving brilliant and gaudy colors,

especially vivid red. Again, they are believed by white unionists to be natural

strike breakers with dehberate intentions to undermine white living standards.

Similarly they are believed to be fond of gin. Pauperism among them is

believed to be unduly high, and they are thought to have no home life.

n. BACKGROUND OF PREVAILING BELIEFS CONCERNING NEGROES

Lying back of the current opinions about Negroes is a chain of circumstances

involving the history of divers racial groups over hundreds of years. Slavery

placed a stamp upon Negroes which it will require many more years to erase. Probably there would have been no doubt at all in the minds of Americans

that essential inequalities existed between white and Negro had not their

emancipation developed numerous unsuspected qualities. Thomas Jefferson

is responsible for the observation that "a Negro could scarcely be found who

was capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid."

John C. Calhoun asserted that if a Negro could be found capable of giving the

syntax of a Greek verb he would be disposed to call him human. The Four-

teenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution fixed the Negro 's status

by law, and as soon afterward as his broader contacts with American institu-

tions provided an outlet for more human participation, serious questions con-

cerning his fitness for citizenship were put. The first studies that followed

have been accepted for many years as the standard of judgment. Mentality.—Regarding Negro mentaUty, Dr. Jeffries Wyman, anatomist of

Harvard University, about 1870, said: " It cannot be denied that the Negro and

ourang do afford the point where man and the brute, when the totality of their organization is considered, most nearly approach each other."

As a corollary he adds:

The Negro may be a man and a worker in some secondary sense; he is not a man and a brother in the same full sense in which every Western Aryan is a man and a brother. To me the Negro is repulsive.

The Negro is not yet a man and he is not yet a brother to the white. It will take generations, no man can say how many, to bring him to the level of supreme Caucasian man. He will have to reduce the facial angle and he will have to have a more spacious cranium before he can come into brotherhood with the more advanced species of man-

kind.

Professor A. H. Keane, author of Man Past and Present, at least gave some sanction to the disposition to regard the Negro and Caucasian races as having

nothing in conunon. To quote from his book, pubhshed in 1890:

No historic or scientific reason can be alleged why these races, black or white, should be grouped together under one appellation if by such name it is meant to con-

446 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

vey the idea that the human type can have any sanguinary affihation. In the Negro

groups it is absolutely shown that certain African races, whether born in Africa or

America, give an internal capacity almost identical of 83 cubic inches. It is demon-

strated through monumental, cranial and other testimonials, that the various types of

mankind have ever been permanent; have been independent of all physical influ-

ences for thousands of years.

Dr. J. C. Nott, scientist and author of Types of Mankind said:

It is mind and mind alone which constitutes the proudest prerogative of man,

whose excellence should be measured by his intelligence and virtue. The Negro and

other uninteUectual types have been shown in another chapter to possess heads

much smaller, by actual measurement in cubic inches, than the white races; and

although metaphysicians may dispute about causes which have debased their intel-

lects and precluded their expansion, it cannot be denied that these dark races are,

in this particular, greatly inferior to the others of fairer complexion.

This school of anthropology very clearly belongs to the period of slavery

when it was necessary to rationalize the wishes of persons who, in order to treat

Negroes as if they were mentally different, had first to convince, then justify,

themselves in so doing.

Following them was another type of scientific writers who, while assuming

that Negroes possessed brains, denied that they were like those of white persons

or ever could be.

G. Stanley Hall thought that the Negro's development came to at least

partial standstill at puberty. E. B. Tylor, author of Anthropology, assumed,

from the accounts of European teachers who had taught children of the " lower "

races, that after the age of twelve the colored children fell off and were left

behind by the white children. Odum thought that the Negro child's mental development ended at the age of thirteen. None of these opinions, however,

was the result of experimentation. A. T. Smith, author of A Study of Race Psychology, is responsible for the association and memory study of what he

called a " t3rpical" Negro boy of sixteen years. He discovered that " the Negro

child is psychologically different from the white child, superior in automatic

power but decidedly inferior in the power of abstraction, judgment and analy-

sis." A. McDonald, author of Colored Children—A Psycho-physical Study, gave physical and mental tests in 1899 to ninety-one Negro children and con-

cluded that duhiess in colored children sets in between thirteen and sixteen.

M. J. Mayo, author of The Mental Capacity of the American Negro, in 1913 studied 150 white and 150 colored high-school pupils in the schools of New York, and found the efficiency of colored pupils 76 per cent of that of the white. His

selection included a large number of emigrants from the South, which, he

explained, would increase the quality of the colored group, since only the more

ambitious Negroes would seek to better their conditions by moving North. No account was taken of the defective school system of the South. Phillips made

a study of retardation in the schools of Philadelphia and concluded that the

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 447

course of study was not suited to Negroes, since colored children showed a

greater degree of retardation than the whites.

Charles Carroll's book on the Negro points out by texts drawn from the Bible that the Negro is a beast created with an articulate tongue and hands in

order that he may serve his white master. To bear out this theory Carroll's book says that man has been created in the image of God, but since, as every- one knows, God is not a Negro, it follows that the Negro is not in the image of God; therefore he is not a man.

There is a plain explanation of the origin of these beUefs. The science of anthropology itself has remarkably advanced during the past fifty years.

When Negroes emerged from slavery, ilhterate and unaccustomed to free- dom, it was natural that their condition should be accepted as evidence that

they could neither learn nor absorb the standards of the civilization around

them. But although their illiteracy, for example, has decreased from 98 to

27 per cent, the original beliefs persist.

Morality.—The reputation of Negroes for immorahty is based largely on southern authority and is historically explained by reference to slavery, in which state immorality is asserted to have been common between the master and the woman slave. There are many authorities on this character trait. Perhaps the most pretentious study on this subject is by Howard O. Odum in "Studies in History, Economics and Pubhc Law," Columbia University, 1910. It is called A Study in Race Traits, Tendencies and Prospects. Writing of immorality among Negroes, Odum says:

It has generally been assumed that the Negro is differentiated by a distinct sexual development. It is affirmed that the sex development crowds out the mental growth.

It is affirmed that the period of puberty in boys and girls is marked by special mani- festations of wildness and uncontrol. It is true, too, that the practices of the Negroes

leave httle energy for moral and mental regeneration. Their lives are filled with that which is carnal; their thoughts are most filthy and their morals are generally beyond description. Again, physical developments from childhood are precocious and the sex Hfe begins at a ridiculously early period. But granting these truths, it is doubtful if there is sufficient evidence to warrant such a conclusion. The Negro reveals a strong physical nature; the sex impulse is naturally predominant. But its manifesta- tions are probably no more violent and powerful than are the expressions of other feelings already suggested. The Negro's sensuous enjoyment of eating and drinking and sleeping, relatively speaking, are no less marked than his sexual propensities. Likewise lack of control and extreme manifestations characterize the discharge of other impulses. It is true, again, that the part played by sexual hfe among the Negroes is large for a people; but to state that the Negro is inherently differentiated and hindered by a sexual development out of proportion to other physical quaUties is quite a different proposition. But whether the question here raised is answered in the affirmative or not, it stiU remains that in the practical hfe of the Negro his better impulses are warped and hindered by his unreasonable abuse of sexual hcense. And it is safe to suggest that the Negro need hope for little development of his best quahties until he has learned to regulate and control his animal impulses.

448 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Statistics on illegitimate births and abortions are frequently quoted as

evidence of Negro immorality. It is further asserted, with rarely an attempt

at correction, that these immoral tendencies are responsible for rape and

attempted rape of white women.

Tradition maintains that it is a part of Negro nature to desire a white

woman and similarly a part of his nature to be lacking in those restraints and inhibitions which might control this desire. C. H. McCord, author of The

American Negro as a Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent, said: ''The average

Negro is a child in every essential element of character, exhibiting those charac-

teristics that indicate a tendency to lawless impulse and weak inhibition."

Numerous magazine articles and written studies in the South on this sub-

ject have given weight to this belief through sheer repetition. It is now not

necessary to prove assertions or present an array of instances; they are taken

for granted. Allusions to the "well-known immoral character" of the Negro

or his instinctive tendency to commit sex crimes appear to carry as strong an

impress of certainty as proved conclusions.

Other supposed social characteristics.—Discussions of each of the character- istics mentioned and many others are found in the literature on the subject. It will suffice here to give selections t)^ical of the trend of descriptions to

indicate the manner in which the picture of the Negro in practically every

phase of his life has been set. Of his industrial habits Odum, in the social

study of the Negro, says:

In any discussion of the economic situation this (the question of the eflficiency

of Negro labor) is an important consideration. A portion of the Negroes wander about and seek to get a living as best they can without working for it; they must

necessarily live at the expense of the other Negroes and the whites. The number of

vagrants in every commimity is surprisingly large. They are naturally divided into

several groups; those who never work but wander from place to place, never fixed

and without a home, stealing, begging, and obtaining a living from any source possible.

Such men never work except when forced to do so in little jobs or on the streets or in the chain gang.

Of the Negro's social afifairs he says:

The description of one of these [Negro] dances would be repulsive. The Negroes

have "good times" on such occasions and will go a long distance to attend. The whole

trend of the dance is toward physical excitation; they are without order and the influ-

ence is totally bad.

Of the condition of the Negro's home:

It wiU be seen that there is little orderly home hfe among the Negroes. Health

conditions and daily habits are no better than the arrangement of the house. Some-

times an entire family consisting of father, mother, large and small children occupy

the same rooms. Nor do they ventilate, and especially when any of the inmates are

sick they are loath to let in the fresh air. Physicians testify that three or four often

sleep in a bed together; they do not change clothing before going to bed in many

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 449

cases, and often go for many days without a change of garments. It has been sug- gested that the personal habits of the Negroes are filthy; such is the case. Filth and

uncleanness are everywhere predominant.

Of his religion:

In spite of pretentions and superficiality, there is nothing so real to the Negro as

his religion, although it is a different "reality" from what we commonly expect in reh'gion. The Negro is more excitable in his nature, and yields more readily to excite- ment than does the white man. The more a thing excites him, the more reality it has for him

The criminal instinct appears to overbalance any consciousness which makes for righteousness, and the Negro has little serene consciousness of a clean record;

he is ready to rush at any surprising or suspicious turn of affairs. The Negro does not value his word of honor; he apparently cannot always tell the truth. Only about one

in every ten will keep an important engagement made in seriousness. The Negro's conception of heaven and hell, God and the devil are very distinct.

Heaven is an eternal resting-place where he shall occupy the best place. He sings of his heavenly home in striking contrast to his earthly abode. Perhaps for the reason that the Negroes have little satisfactory home life, they expect to have a perfect home in the next life.

Of his finer emotions:

While it is doubtful if there is enough evidence to warrant a full statement con-

cerning the affections of the Negroes, it is apparently based on the gregarious impulse

and upon a passive sympathy rather than upon individual emotions intellectually

developed. The emotion is rarely of long duration The Negro mother rarely

mourns for her wandering child, or sits up at night waiting for his return or thinking

of him. The father shows httle care except that of losing a laborer from his work.

.... The Negro has no loved ones. Numbers were asked for the names of those whom they considered friends or whom they loved or those who loved them. The question was put in various ways with different subjects, but the returns were the

same But as a rule the Negro is without friendship among his own people.

It may help to comprehend the range of conclusions found in the literature on the subject of Negro traits of character to note the array of descriptive adjec-

tives employed, thus: sensual, lazy, unobservant, shiftless, unresentful, emo-

tional, shallow, patient, amiable, gregarious, expressive, appropriative, child-

ish, religious, unmoral, immoral, ignorant, mentally inferior, criminal, excitable,

imitative, repulsive, poetic, irresponsible, filthy, unintellectual, bumptious,

overassertive, superficial, indecent, dependent, untruthful, musical, ungrate-

ful, loyal, sporty, provincial, anthropomorphic, savage, brutish, happy-go-

lucky, careless, plastic, docile, apish, inferior, cheerful.

Much might be said of influences which have operated to counteract the opinion-making literature as to the utterly hopeless condition of Negroes. The

object of this study, however, is not to attack these conclusions, but merely

to cite them as indicating how certain attitudes detrimental to racial friendli-

ness and understanding have had their rise.

450 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

In academic circles the more balanced opinions of anthropologists are gain-

ing some headway. Franz Boaz, probably the foremost anthropologist in the

United States, in The Mind of Primitive Man, maintains:

Our considerations make it probable that the wide differences between the mani-

festations of the human mind in various stages of culture may be due almost entirely

to the form of individual experience, which is determined by the geographical and

social environment of the individual. It would seem that, in different races, the

organization of the mind is on the whole alike, and that the variations of mind found

in different races do not exceed, perhaps not even reach, the amount of normal indi-

vidual variation in each race. It has been indicated that, notwithstanding this

similarity in the form of individual mental processes, the expression of mental activity

of a community tends to show a characteristic historical development.

This author in an article in the Nation for December, 1920, comments thus

on Lothrop Stoddard's book, The Rising Tide of Color:

Mr. Stoddard's book is one of the long series of publications devoted to the self-

admiration of the white race, which begins with Gobineau and comes down to us

through Chamberlain and, with increasingly passionate appeal, through Madison

Grant to Mr. Stoddard. The newer books of this type try to bolster up their unscien-

tific theories by an amateurish appeal to misunderstood discoveries relating to heredity

and give in this manner a scientific guise to their dogmatic statements which misleads

the public. For this reason the books must be characterized as vicious propaganda,

and gain an attention not warranted by an intrinsic merit in their learning or their

logic.

Each race is exceedingly variable in all of its features, and we find in the white

race, as well as in all other races, all grades of intellectual capacity, from the imbecile

to the man of high intellectual power. It is true that intellectual power is hereditary

in the individual, and that the healthy, the physically and mentally developed indi-

viduals of a race, if they marry among themselves, are hable to have offspring of a

similar excellence; but it is equally true that the inferior mdividuals in a race will

also have inferior offsprmg. If, therefore, it were entirely a question of eugenic

development of humanity, then the aid of the eugenist would be to suppress not the

gifted strains of other races, but rather the inferior strains of our own race. A selec- tion of the intelligent, energetic and highly endowed individuals from all over the

world would not by any means leave the white race as the only survivors, but would

leave an assembly of individuals who would probably represent all the different

races of man now in existence.

Jean Finot, in Race Prejudice, says:

When we go through the list of external differences which appear to divide men, we find Hterally nothing which can authorize their division into superior and inferior

beings, into masters and pariahs. If this division exists in our thought, it only came

there as the result of inexact observations and false opinions drawn from them.

The science of inequality is emphatically a science of white people. It is they who

have invented it and set it going, who have maintained, cherished, and propagated it,

thanks to their observations and their deductions. Deeming themselves greater

than men of other colours, they have elevated into superior quahties all the traits

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 451

which are peculiar to themselves, commencing with the whitness of the skin and the

pKancy of the hair. But nothing proves that these vaunted traits are traits of real

superiority.

W. I. Thomas, in Sex and Society, concludes his discussion of relative

mentality with this statement:

The real variable is the individual, not the race. In the beginning—perhaps as the result of a mutation or series of mutations—a type of brain developed which has remained relatively fixed in aU times and among aU races. This brain will never have

any faculty in addition to what it now possesses, because as a type of structure it is

as fixed as the species itself, and is indeed a mark of species. It is not apparent that

we are greatly in need of another faculty, or that we could make use of it even if by a

chance mutation it should emerge, since with the power of abstraction we are able to

do any class of work we know anything about.

III. TYPES OF SENTIMENTS AND ATTITUDES

In the South the relations between the white and Negro races are

determined by custom as well as law, which, however, permit the close personal

relationships of family servants. In the North, when these relations become

more impersonal and contacts are widened through change of occupation

from domestic service to industry, these close personal ties are weakened.

There is no established rule of conduct binding on whites and Negroes

in their relations with each other; and although traditional beliefs may influence present relations in the North, they do not always dominate

them. So it happens that there are to be found shades of opinion concerning

Negroes varying from deliberate indifference to vituperative abuse of Negroes,

whatever the subject, depending on one's beliefs about them. The selections

of sentiment which follow are examples collected at random over the city

—

through interviews and discussions, from group publications, speeches and

reports. They illustrate the real sentiments that white persons express when

brought into contact with Negroes, or when their opinions are solicited.

I. THE EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND

Hostile sentiment.—The refusal of Policeman Callahan to arrest Stauber, a white youth accused of throwing stones which resulted in the drowning of

Eugene Williams, is regarded as the significant incident precipitating the riot

of 1919 (see p. 4) Callahan was dismissed from the force, but reinstated.

One year later, when questioned by an investigator for the Commission, he

gave his racial philosophy freely in the following remarks:

So far as I can learn the black people have since history began despised the white

people and have always fought them It woiddn't take much to start another

riot, and most of the white people of this district are resolved to make a clean-up this

time If a Negro should say one word back to me or should say a word to a white woman in the park, there is a crowd of young men of the district, mostly ex- service men, who would procure arms and fight shoulder to shoulder with me if trouble should come from the incident.

452 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

The following is from a letter written by a white employee of Albert Pick

& Company: Negroes in street cars refuse to double up with others of their race, but seem

to delight m sitting beside some dainty white girl. The Thirty-fifth Street cars are crowded by low-grade "plantation niggers"

who crowd on at Ashland Avenue via windows and doors, then awkwardly step and

fall over passengers; it is maddening. About this tune girls from Albert Pick & Com- pany, the Magnus Company, and the tailoring estabUshments are crowded together

breast to breast with Negroes. Often he falls asleep and leans on his white seat-

mate's shoulder.

Laws should be urged preventing intermarriage.

Assaults upon white women are frequent, but hushed up by fear of newspaper

pubhcity, and the Negro is thus encouraged m his felony. In cases where a white girl is involved in an assault case by a colored man, the

white woman should be shielded, and her name withheld from the newspapers and

pubUc, before and after the trial. This will prevent race riots.

A movement is now afoot to declare a silent boycott agamst employers of colored

help.

A physician living on Oakwood Boulevard said: "The increasing amount generally of sex immorality is being contributed to by mixing Negroes and

whites in schools and parks."

A teacher in the Felsenthal School said:

The colored people are coming from the South aU the tune, for pohtical purposes.

It's propaganda for the colored man to sit down by the white woman, and not to double

up to make room for the whites. Their papers teU them to do it. I was the only white

person in an empty car one day and a colored man came in and took the seat beside me.

Fear.—From White Americans circulated in Chicago: In the United States Negroes not only vote and hold ofl&ce, but the Negro vote

is the deciding factor in the national elections, and also in many of the northern

cities, and they trade their vote for jobs and ofiices and other privileges. The Negroes

control the great city of Philadelphia, and the press said the Negro delegates at the

Republican Convention in Chicago openly offered to sell their support to the presi-

dential candidate who would pay the most money. Just think this thing over, you

sovereign United States citizens: the Negroes control the elections, and thus your

law-makers, judges, and ojificials; and the Negroes have so much pull and confidence,

that they not only defend their pohtical rights, but they start riots and race wars,

and openly threaten that they are gomg to make the white folks stand around.

Fear and pity.—K resident in the 6600 block on Langley Avenue said:

A colored famUy Hves next door north of me, and you'll be surprised when I tell you that I haven't been able to open my bedroom window on that side to air that room for three years. I couldn't think of unlocking the windows because their window

is so near somebody could easily step across into this house. It's awful to have to

live in such fear of your hfe.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 453

When asked if she considered her neighbors so dangerous as that, she said:

Well, no, the woman seems pretty nice. I see her out in the back yard occasionally and bid her the time of day out of charity. You can't help but pity them, so I am charitable and speak. Where the danger reaUy is, is that you never know who's in their house; they bring such trash to the neighborhood, even if they are good and

decent. How do I know what kind of people this woman next door associates with ? There's awful-looking people sit on the front porch sometimes. Why, I couldn't

sit on my porch on the hottest day because I'd be afraid they would come out any minute. And what white person wiU sit on a porch next door to a porch with black ones on it ? Not me, anyhow, nor you either I hope.

Hostile but resigned.—A resident near Dorchester Avenue and Sixtieth Street said:

I have nothing against the black man as a black man. He comes into my place of business (drug-store) and I seU him. Not many come in, as there aren't a lot of colored people aroimd Sixty-third and Woodlawn or Dorchester. But I don't want to live with niggers any more than you or any other white person does. People

who say, "I Hke the colored people and don't see why others can't get along with them" don't talk practical common sense. Theoretically all this talk is all right, but you get a white man of this sort to come right down and live with a nigger and he won't do it.

Niggers are different from whites and always will be, and that is why white people don't want them around. But the only thing we can do, it seems to me, is make the best of it and hve peaceably with them. The North can never do what the South does—down there it is pure autocracy. I might say like Russia. That might have worked here in the North from the start, but can't be started now, and we wouldn't want such autocracy anyway. They are citizens, and it is up to us to teach them to be good ones. How it can be done I don't know—it will have to come slow, and no one can give a solution offhand. Everybody says, "We don't want the niggers with us." Well, here they are, and we can't do anything. Must let them live where they want to and go to school where they want to, and we don't want to force their right away.

It is not uncommon to find in some circles and with many individuals a resolute indisposition to discuss any phase of the Negro problem. Convictions

regarding the race are so firmly set and hostile that no argument or appeal to fair-mindedness can alter their position.

"Eye Witness," a special writer for the Chicago Tribune, encountered this state of mind in interviewing whites and Negroes for a series of articles on the Negro question which appeared in the Tribune in May, 1919. He character- ized it as insensate and dangerous. His own statement, published May 4, 1919, said:

Among men like pubUcists and administrators of large affairs, who, when they discuss the problems and troubles of their race, are wont to speak in a rational, or at least mannerly way, there was often an unfeeling kind of don't-give-a-damn cry when they talked on this subject that made one wonder how they had managed so

454 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

well in maintaining a human and successful relationship with their white associates

in business and with their employees.

I heard more, far more, insensate language from the lips of white men than of

black men throughout the series of interviews. The horrible part of that, to me,

was that when a white employer more or less accountable for the well-being of colored

workmen, or a publicist entrusted with a pen that forms and directs opinions, had

railed about "these damn niggers" they appeared to think they had said something

rather gallant and decisive, for they woidd smile fatuously and expect acquiescence.

And more terrible than the language was the insensate state of mind such language

betrayed. The only way one could avoid the suspicion that one was Ustening to a

potential lunatic or a desperately stupid person without a human or a community

sense, was to allow much for the vehemence of the American tongue and to concede

that these men don't mean one-tenth of what they say. If they did they would be

fomenters of race wars. 2. SENTIMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS

Sentiment for the ''old family servants.''—A white physician born in the South sa,id:

My father owned slaves. He looked out for them; told them what to do. He loved them and they loved him. I was brought up during and after the war. I had

a "black mammy" and she was devoted to me and I to her; and I played with Negro children. In a way I'm fond of the Negro; I understand him and he imderstands me;

but the bond between us is not as close as it was between my father and his slaves. On the other hand, my children have grown up without black playmates and without

a "black mammy." The attitude of my children is less sjonpathetic toward the Negroes than my own. They don't know each other.

Paternal relationship.—In testimony before the Commission a witness said: The prejudice against the colored people in the South isn't as strong in some

instances as it is in the North. It's a queer thing, but the white man in the South,

and the white woman, too, has a sort of paternal feeUng that he must look after him

and that the colored man's interests are better in his hands than if he is left to drift

for hunself. I don't state that as an actual fact, but I believe it is true. That is

their point of view. They don't hate the colored man. They don't dislike him, but I

should say this, that they won't take hun uito their homes. They don't dislike him,

provided he keeps his place. I beheve the white people of the South think more of

the Negro than the white people of the North,

3. ABSTRACT JUSTICE

A trained nurse of Woodlawn said: I meet colored people only on the cars. There are none anywhere around here,

I believe. I don't know how I would feel if they came to Woodlawn to live. But

they must live, and I hear their quarters are getting too smaU. It seems that Chicago

ought to let them live somewhere. Some people treat Negroes terrible and I think

that is all wrong. Why can't we act respectably toward colored people on the cars and treat them nice on the street ? We surely don't want to be like the people in the South who make colored persons get off the walk when they come along. But

I see white people here almost that bad—can't see a black man live.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 455

The pastor of a church in Woodlawn said:

I have come to no final conclusion as to the best pohcy to pursue in the adjust-

ment of the race problem. I am thinking about it a great deal and am deeply con- cerned over the whole matter. In the present state of popular mind, there is no

doubt but property values are depreciated by the presence of Negro tenants or prop-

erty owners in residential sections. However, if everyone felt as I do, it would not

be so. I mean, provided that the same general social standards were observed by all

nationalities in the city. It would be very fine, it seems to me, to maintain certain

standards in each neighborhood. Why not bring pressure to bear on white landlords and make them keep their property up to a given average standard in the commu- nity, that only such a class of people will rent or buy as are already there ? I am very anxious that the Negro shall be treated fairly. I do not want him to feel that I have stood in the way of his opf)ortunities and his rights.

A professor at the University of Chicago said: The final solution, it seems to me, must come as a result of honest and successful

efforts for mutual vmderstanding between the races. There must be apparent on the part of the white race an attempt to treat the Negro with justice, and I feel sure that he will respond. I do not think the black race, as a race, desires intermarriage more than the white race, yet the assertion to the contrary is much overworked by the white opposition in these neighborhoods.

A minister said: All I want for the Negro is justice—then I think the economic laws will settle

this problem. Let the people interested try justice; they will find it will solve the

race problem faster than any other course, just as it will solve any other problem. Treat the bad Negro just as rough as you treat the bad white man, but acclaim the good Negro after the same manner of your acclamation of the good white man.

4. SENTIMENTS STRONGER THAN RACE PREJUDICE

Class kinship stronger than race.—A Swedish employee in a department store said:

We have quite a number of Negro neighbors where I five, and several black men work with me, and I want to say I think they are just as good as anybody. There are classes of people in every race, and of course there is a rough element among the blacks. Some highbrows try to make out that they are representative, but I think opposition to the Negro in Chicago comes from the "swell" class. I do not have

any different feeUng for them than for the same kind of people in any other race. I thmk race relations will get better in Chicago. The workingman has learned that the Negro will treat him right when he is treated right, and as soon as the other folks find that out, things will be all right.

The secretary of the Cook County Labor Party said

:

I have thought about this problem a good deal, and I think you will find it is the so-caUed middle class that is making aU the trouble. The laboring-man does not care who his neighbor is, so long as he is a good neighbor. I think you can trace most of the racial activities to jealousy on the part of a certain class of American citizens who

4S6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

are not any too wealthy and feel constrained to maintain a sort of fictitious position

in life at the expense of anybody, in this case the Negroes. You will find that the

very well-to-do are not nearly so much aroused over the problem,

A Japanese said: I think it is simply a matter of race prejudice, which of course means first of all

that the color is not acceptable, while, in the second place, they were imported to the

United States as slaves, and thus it always occurs m the American mind that they are a lower class of people. Furthermore, as they were slaves and the American does

not Uke them, they don't have equal opportxmities to educate themselves up to such a

degree which means no more than environment. In the last place, they want to keep

away from them. I think it might be said that they are willing to receive lower

wages, which tends to lower the wage system; thus the American worker suffers a

good deal. In the whole process the Negroes have been kept out of social and political

activities that would have given them a chance to develop. Allow them to have

these activities in the future and they wiU make more rapid progress than they have

even in the past.

General historical comparisons.—A Jewish resident of the West Side said: I beheve that the segregation movement is wrong because it is unjust and because

it is devoid of any principle whatever. It has not risen out of the consideration of

the needs of the colored people, nor out of consideration of real advantages that the

whites might thereby gain. What is back of race prejudice ? Nothing more than

the spirit of superiority and selfishness which moves the aristocrats to move out of a

neighborhood as soon as a few common people move in. This is here too prevalent.

The segregation movement has its parallel in history. Who does not remember the old

Jewish Ghetto of Amsterdam, Frankfort, etc., or the Pale of Russia ? What has this

segregation done for the Jews ? It curtailed their rise, depriving them of an oppor-

tunity to develop, and I foresee the same result in the new segregation movement,

and therefore deem it a great public evil and moral issue.

5. TRADITIONAL SOUTHERN BACKGROUND

A window dresser said: I am from the South, and I am used to seeing the Negro kept in his place. I would

colonize them, every one of them, and make them stay where they are put. I would

colonize them in Africa if I had to do it. There's where they came from and there's

where they belong. Of course, some few northern folks say that they were taken

away against their own wUls, but I say they ought to go back against their own wills.

The woman manager of a tailor shop, Fifty-fifth Street, said: "I am a southerner, and I feel the way they all do about it. I guess you know what I

mean. I think the nigger should stay in his place."

6. GROUP SENTIMENTS

Fear of social censure.—A property owner at Langley Avenue and Fifty- fifth Street said:

"I am not proud to be living on the same street with Negroes, so I never tell my friends—they would say: 'You must move out.' "

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 457

George L. Giles Post of the American Legion is a Negro post with head-

quarters at the South Side Branch of the Community Service. Invitations to a musicale and dramatic entertainment for the benefit of ex-service men were sent to all the local posts bv the Community Service. It was responded to by the adjutant of George L. Giles Post, who received a reply from the executive secretary saying:

I am quite sure you will understand that our sending one to the George L. Giles Post was a slip. Will you kindly let me know if there are other Posts of col- ored men in the city ?

Similar recognition of the force of public opinion may be found in industry. The manager of a large industrial plant, speaking of Negro workmen, said: "I have a feeling that white workers would object to Negroes in any position but

that of common laborers, although I have no basis for this opinion." Another said: ''I have heard whites remark that they wouldn't want to work here if

many colored were employed but none left on that account."

7. ATTITUDES DETERMINED BY CONTACTS

No contacts but a hostile attitude.—A resident at Drexel Avenue and Sixty- fifth Street said:

I don't see many niggers around here; most of them are west of Cottage Grove Avenue. I never had any dealings with them, so can't tell you anything much. I

know I don't want niggers living next door to me, but I can't tell you why. Do you want them next-door neighbors to you ? There are some living down in the next block—two famiUes of them—between Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth, and I guess they are pretty wUd, but I have never seen them. It's just what people tell me. I never had any deaUngs with them.

Generalization from a particular experience.—A teacher in the Wendell Phillips High School said:

You can't trust the best of them. The minute you have your back turned some- thing disappears. They are the worst bunch of little thieves I ever struck. A few weeks ago I had a colored girl helping me fix costumes in my little ofiice. During the hour she was in there I was absent about five minutes. She had hardly got out

of the building before I discovered that a dollar had disappeared out of my purse. I questioned her for thirty minutes next morning, but not a word of confession.

Another time I had small change in the top drawer of my desk. While I was teaching a class, two girls slipped into the office and helped themselves to half of it. I surprised

them when I unexpectedly entered the ofiice to get something. Everything here that isn't tied or watched walks off. It didn't used to be this way before the colored came in so thick ; then I never locked my ofiice, and now I have everything under lock.

The proprietor of a woman's dress shop on Sixty-third Street said:

Little of my trade is colored, possibly 2 per cent. We do not cater to colored trade. We do not want it. If colored people come in, we wUl sell them if they buy quick and get out. Our trade does not care to deal where colored people are also accommodated You will find it pretty hard to be neutral in Chicago. The more I know of niggers, the more I am convinced that there is no good nigger but

458 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

a dead one. I had a colored helper who wanted tips every time he was asked to render

services outside of his recognized regidar duties. I gave him a good salary, $i8 per

week, and yet he was never satisfied, and one day he got hold of the keys to the cash

drawer and ran away with $300.

Exaggerated notion of prosperity.—A physician said: I think that the solution of the race problem can come only by recognition by

white men of the Negroes' potential equahty. They are only fifty years out of

slavery, and in that fifty years they have progressed faster than the white race has

done in a hundred years. The Negro man of forty today is less advanced than the

white man of forty, but I expect his son to be almost on a par with our sons, and his

grandson will be every whit as good. The husband of the colored woman who has

been getting our dinners for us for a number of years is making more killing steers for

Armour than I am. He makes $16 a day. They have $12,000 worth of Liberty bonds. They are sending all of their relatives through high school and declare they

will put them through the University of Chicago. In fact we are compelling the

Negro to get an education, and he cannot help but progress. Colonizing the Negro is

merely making him bitter and postponing the day of settlement. Presently we shall

have with us under such a regime a race of comparative equals very much disgruntled

by the unfair treatment accorded them. I think you will fiuad that practically all

the professional men in this building, at least a very large percentage of them, think

as I do on this subject.

Contact with servants.—A resident of Woodlawn said: Practically my only contact with Negroes is with servants and laundresses.

I have had colored women working for me for many years, and the majority of them

I could not trust outside my sight. By that I don't mean they would steal—they just weren't dependable. It is all wrong for colored children and white children to

be in school together. There should be separate schools, because the two races of

children are as different in everything as in their color.

The interviewing of hundreds of white persons, members of practically

every social class, reveals little information regarding the sources of their

beliefs about Negroes. Some think them instinctive; some hold that their

opinions are a result of observation; some, who make discernible effort to stem

the current of prejudiced views and remain fair, have read the books of Negroes.

But by far the greater number either admit or otherwise give evidence of having

absorbed their views from tradition.

Information by word of mouth, unquestioned statements, uncorrected

accounts, all continue to add credence to any current interpretation of an act

involving Negroes. The fault lies for the most part at the information source.

Fairly to judge the Negro group, or any member thereof, there should be some

unquestioned basis of fact, yet the assumption is common that almost any

Negro can be judged by what has been observed in the conduct of the family

cook or chauffeur, who no more represents the whole or the majority of Negroes

than a white cook or chauffeur can be said to represent the whole or the major-

ity of the white race.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 459

IV. SELF-ANALYSIS BY FIFTEEN WHITE CITIZENS

To secure definite information upon this background twenty representative

white persons were selected at random, and eighteen carefully prepared sug-

gestive questions were put to each of them. The purpose was to draw out the

raw material of their unquahfied opinions on the question of the Negro, and to

ascertain as far as possible the background in their early experiences. The

questions were suggestive in order to compel a disclosure of mental attitudes.

The only qualification in the selection of persons was their probable capacity

for self-analysis and a willingness to answer. The length and difficulty of the

questions put made it necessary to Umit the selection of persons to a few, who

in appreciation of the inquiry, could and would give it a careful study. Fifteen

of these persons entered into the spirit of the inquiry and submitted the results

of their self-scrutiny.

These fifteen include business and professional men and women, none of

whom, however, is actively associated with racial movements. They represent

probably a fair sample of sentiment and at the same time abiUty to analyze

accurately their own feelings and opinions.

The questions put were as follows:

1. Have you formed definite opinions about Negroes? Briefly, what are they?

2. Do Negroes in your opinion possess distinguishing traits of mentaUty or character ?

3. As well as you can remember, on what facts, authorities, information, sources, do

you base your opinions ?

4. What incidents or experiences involving Negroes either in Chicago or elsewhere

stand out in your memory ?

5. As a child, did you have contacts of any kind with Negroes ?

6. Can you recall any early prohibitions of association by word or printed warnings

of any sort, implied prohibitions in institutional or social arrangements ?

7. When were you first conscious of a racial difference?

8. Whom of your friends, acquaintances, favorite authors, scholars, etc., do you regard as best fitted to speak with authority on the question ?

9. Do you ever inquire for information on this subject ? Whom do you ask ? What Negroes do you know whom you would consider leaders among colored people in

Chicago ? in the United States ?

10. Did you ever read a Negro periodical ? What did you think of it ?

11. What subjects of discussion most frequently lead to the Negro?

12. In what circles is this subject most frequently discussed?

13. If it were in your power to make whatever social adjustment you deemed wise,

what disposition would you make of the Negro popxolation ?

14. If Negroes obstinately objected to your plan and you still had power, what would

you do ?

15. What do you think of the following propositions:

a) When you educate Negroes you increase their demands. Either their educa-

tion shoidd be curtailed or modified or their demands granted.

b) Prejudice has its principal basis in fear.

46o THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

c) Isolating groups favors the unhampered development of special group preju-

dices. Do prejudices form a background of conflicts? The greater the isolation, the greater the prejudices and, as would naturally follow, the greater

the chances of conflict.

d) A minority of the population should not expect complete justice at the hands of an overwhelming majority.

Their answers are given separately. The letters used to designate the

different persons are arbitrary.

A— I have rather definite opinions of Negroes. As a class they cannot be depended

upon. They are shiftless and really must be treated like children. I make allowance

for the fact that they have not the years of education back of them.

My opinions are based on visits made to the South and on information obtained from relatives who live in the South as well as from the colored help we have had. As a

child my contact with Negroes began with our Negro house servants, and my first consciousness of a racial difference came while visiting relatives in the South. I know

but two persons who might speak with authority on the race question. They are

Edgar A. Bancroft and Miss Mary McDowell. It is very seldom that I inquire for

information on this subject. People whom I know are not interested in the problem. The only Negroes whom I know are my present colored help and those who have

worked for me. I don't know whom to consider leaders among the colored people either in Chicago or in the United States. Concerning the Negro periodicals, I

have occasionally read copies of one of their newspapers which bore out my opinion of their simple minds. Discussion of domestic help and of newspaper articles about

Negroes and sociological conditions most frequently lead to the discussion of the Negro

in my circle. If it were in my power to do so, I would segregate Negroes as to Uving quarters and do aU possible to help them educate and help themselves.

Concerning proposition (o) I agree that if you educate Negroes, you increase their

demands, but I also beheve that as they become educated, greater demands will arise

in their own groups. In my opinion prejudice has its principal basis in the fact that one can't depend

upon Negroes.

I do not believe that it is necessarily true that a minority of the population should

not expect complete justice at the hands of the majority if the proper appeal is made.

B— I have more or less definite opinions about Negroes. I believe that as a race they

are entitled to more leniency and consideration than we woidd give to adidt whites

because as a race they are not as mature as whites. I think it is unfortunate that we

have such a race question to deal with, but we ought to meet it squarely and insist

that under the law Negroes are entitled to equal protection and equal consideration.

I do not beheve in any attempt at social equality because the antipathy between

whites and Negroes is so acute that such attempt would not only break down itself

but it would lead to serious race difficulties. I think the Negro race has as much right

to protect its race purity as the white race. I believe Negro women are entitled to the same protection from white men that we demand on behalf of white women against

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 461

black men. I believe Negroes should have decent housing conditions, proper social

outlets and opportunities to earn a living at the same wages paid white men for the

same class and character of work. They should share equally in the benefits of gov-

ernment, with particular reference to schools, bathing-beaches playgrounds, parks,

etc. They should be protected against exploitation by employers, property owners,

merchants, etc.

I do think Negroes possess distinguishing traits of both mentality and character.

For many years now I have come into more or less personal contact with Negroes.

I have been in contact with them in public schools, in colleges, in politics and in civic

work. I cannot say that any particular incidents or experiences stand out in my

memory.

My opinions are based upon my personal observation, personal contacts with Negroes and discussions with other white persons having independent contacts. As a

child I had practically no real contact of any kind with Negroes. I don't recall now

any Negro children in any of my primary grades, and while there were Negroes in my

native city, they were few and in a neighborhood far removed from my own home.

I imagine that I was first conscious of a racial difference when I first saw a Negro.

I don't recall any early prohibition against association with Negroes although I

do recall clearly that the attitude of my family and associates, generally, was not one

of approval. Negroes were regarded as an inferior race, and I think as a child I

gathered the. impression that contact with them was to be avoided. My feeling is that if in normal circumstances I had been thrown into more or less contact with

Negroes, prohibition against association, except where absolutely necessary, would

have been forthcoming.

I have never formally asked for information on the subject, but I have discussed

the matter with a good many people and have given thought to it. I know a good

many Negroes, not only in Chicago but outside, but I don't know many of them

intimately. Among the leaders of the Negroes in Chicago are Dr. Bentley, Dr.

George C. Hall, Edward H. Morris, Edward H. Wright, Louis B. Anderson, Oscar

De Priest. In the United States, since the death of Booker T. Washington, I imagine

that two of the outstanding men are Mr. Moton and Professor Du Bois.

I am a subscriber to the Crisis. In general my feeling is that the tendency of this

periodical is to stimulate and foster race feeling among the Negroes. I don't say this

critically. It may be the best thing to do, considering aU the circumstances, and

anything that will make for growth in self-respect, character and initiative on the

part of the Negroes is to be commended even if, at the same time, race spirit is fostered

and developed.

Generally speaking, I find that discussion most frequently leads to the Negroes

when there are questions of lynching, race riots, crimes or disturbances in which

Negroes are involved. It also comes up in connection with public schools, churches,

parks and public transportation systems. I had it arise recently in connection with

the Naval Academy at Annapolis. My experience is that this subject is most fre- quently discussed among those interested in social problems.

I used to think that the Negro question might be best solved if the Negroes would

be colonized in some favorable spot in Africa under an American protectorate until

they were capable of self-government. I realize, however, that no such scheme ought

to be attempted if the Negroes obstinately objected, and in that event I would see to

462 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

it, if I had the power, that they were protected from exploitation, were given a square

deal and had the equal protection of the laws. They should have schools adequate to their needs and average living conditions.

I believe the Negro race should be educated, but I believe at the same time that

the most solid foundation for the race is education in accordance with the ideas of the

late Booker T. Washington as I understand those ideas. While I think this type of

education will mean more for the race in the long run I believe at the same time that

individual Negroes should have an opportunity fully to develop individual capacities.

I think there is an element of fear in the prejudice of Negroes, but I don't think this

is the chief element. I think the real basis for this prejudice is a racial antipathy that

is instinctive and fundamental in the white race. I imagine that in individual cases

where this prejudice does not exist it is not because it was not there originally, but

because it has been overcome by reason and education. It isn't unlikely that this

prejudice is in the main grounded upon an instinct in the white race to keep its strain

pure and strong.

It seems to me that it isn't isolation so much as it is contact that favors the devel- opment of race prejudice. If the Negroes had never been brought out of Africa, we

wouldn't feel the prejudice that we do. Or, if they were restricted to one or two

southern states, prejudice in other parts of the country would rapidly disappear.

A community that has no Negro problem is relatively free from prejudice. It is when the two races come into contact that prejudices run riot and race conflicts result.

My own opinion is that if you should scatter the Negro population throughout Chi- cago and its suburbs and put one or two Negro families in every block, race preju-

dice would increase enormously.

A minority of the population will not get complete justice at the hands of an overwhelming majority. But this is true of all minorities, whether racial, political,

or religious. AU we can do is to keep working for an approximation to ideal justice. A minority has the right to demand, and a majority should be willing to grant, sub- stantial justice and that is all that can be expected in the present state of civilization.

C— My opinion is that we must cling to the ideal of Lincoln—the right of every

human being to equality in the real sense of the term. I have found, however, that

Negroes are dull and sensitive. These opinions are based upon observation at Tus-

kegee and in this school—[the Lewis Institute]. Among my outstanding experiences is a visit made to Tuskegee and meeting Booker T. Washington. The visit showed

great hope for the Negro. As a child I had no contact aside from living in the same

city with them.

It has always been considered unwise in the circles in which I moved for whites

and blacks to associate socially. I first became conscious of a race difference when a

very small child—about three years of age. Booker T. Washington, Cable, Dunbar, southerners and northerners who have

traveled in the South are probably best fitted to speak for Negroes. I do inquire of

both Negroes and whites for information. The only Negroes I know are working

people. Robert Jackson, alderman, and Ed. Green, lawyer. Booker T. Washing-

ton's successor. I have read one Negro paper. It was insistent in a very fair way on

the political rights of the Negro. Good. Lynchings, lying, stealing, and the attack-

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 463

ing of little girls are the subject of discussion that most frequently lead to the Negro,

and these occur principally among men who have seen Negroes socially and women who have hired them.

As a solution I would colonize them in Africa, and if they objected I would use

all peaceable means to force them to go.

Regarding the propositions: Their education should be increased and the demands

produced by education met.

Prejudice has its basis in race repxilsion. Unless the isolation is African coloniza-

tion, there will be grqup prejudices.

Every man or group should demand and get complete justice.

D— I assume that it is a fact recognized by science that Negroes are so different from

whites that the two races cannot be amalgamated. This fact interposes a barrier to

social relationships. I share in the general dislike of Negroes as neighbors or traveling

companions on the street cars. The white race is responsible for the existence of the

Negro problem in America, and must submit patiently to the penalty for many years to come. Lincoln's second inaugural is the best expression of this thought. The

Negro race is extraordinarily docile and easy to handle. If surrounded by good living

conditions and given a proper education they would be good citizens. The progress of

their race since slavery, considering their many handicaps, has been very creditable. The prejudice against them is probably the most deep-seated of all American preju-

dices, and must be reckoned with as one of the great factois in the problem.

In my opinion they are characterized by distinctly inferior mentahty, deficient moral sense, shiftlessness, good nature, and a happy disposition. I have in mind no

special facts, authorities or sources of information on which I base my opinions. I do, however, recognize the bearing of Christianity on the problem, and find it impos-

sible to formulate a viewpoint which I can reconcile with the demands of Christianity.

We had a Negro family chauffeur some years ago who misconducted himself so seriously as to have caused a very considerable increase in the family prejudice against

the race. If he had been an Irish man our prejudice against him would not have extended to his race. As a child I had no contacts with Negroes, excepting one or two

fellow-pupils in public schools of whom I saw very little, and a few servants in the neighborhood who were of the old-fashioned type, of pleasant memory.

I can recall no early prohibitions of association with Negroes. There were so

few in my neighborhood that they constituted no real problem. As to implied pro- hibitions, I suppose I understood at a very early age the existing social difference,

although I remember no instances of this.

I cannot remember when I first became conscious of a racial difference, but I

assume it was at a very early age.

I do not know that I can cite any friends, acquaintances, favorite authors or

scholars well fitted to speak with authority on the question. Lincoln's views always

seemed true to me, while I have not been so favorably impressed by southern writers.

Every southerner I have ever met, no matter how reasonable on other subjects,

seemed to be incapable of looking at this question with an open mind. His confidence

that he knew all about the Negro and the problem seemed absolute, and therefore he

was not in position to learn. I occasionally inquire for information on this subject.

464 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Naturally most of the men of whom I have made inquiries have been white, as I come

in contact with very few Negroes. I have, however, talked with Negroes who have

expressed their willingness to be segregated if the segregation was complete enough

to rid their district of all whites, and give them fair living conditions. I cannot say

that I know any Negroes, although there are a few with whom I have sufficient

acquaintance to talk with them occasionally. As to their leaders in Chicago, I have

assumed that their political leaders and their ministers were their leaders, the minis-

ters having a larger place of leadership than ministers among white people. I used

to come in contact occasionally with colored lawyers who were capable men, and I

beheve leaders of their race, and I understand that there is a colored physician, whose

name I cannot recall, who is the real leader of the best Negroes in Chicago. Nationally

I could not name any since the death of Booker Washington, whom I very much

admired, excepting Du Bois whom I have heard speak, and with whose views I do not sympathize. I do not remember ever reading a Negro periodical.

As I Uve on the South Side the subject of discussion most frequently leading to

the Negro is their encroachment on white residence districts. Two years ago my church was given up to a colored congregation, and the church into which we were

transferred is seriously threatened by the same invasion. Property interests in a

large part of the South Side bring up the question, as does the unpleasantness of

meeting them on the street cars. I do not hear serious constructive discussion in

any circle. The invasion is deplored in all circles, social, business, church and

others.

I woidd not undertake to make any social adjustment on my present information, except segregation of the Negroes in a part of the South Side, and this only if it had

the approval of their own leaders. I do not approve of "Jim Crow" street cars for

Chicago, although I would not insist on their abandonment in southern cities where

they are already used, and I would not favor any radical change if the better

Negroes obstinately objected.

I believe in educating Negroes, even though I am not sure to what it will lead. I hope that as the race progresses the prejudice against it will be modified. Still this

prejudice is so very great that I think it would be foolish for the Negroes ever to seek

a high station through demands. Probably many of their demands should be granted,

but they will make greater progress by reckoning with the prejudice, and continuing

their present conciliatory attitude.

I do not believe that prejudice is based on fear. There is, of course, a well-

founded fear of many individual Negroes, but I do not believe that the white race

is conscious of any fear of the Negro race as such. I think the prejudice is based on the

relative inferiority of the Negro race.

As a general proposition this is doubtless true that isolation fosters prejudice.

As applied to Negroes, however, it is doubtful whether it would produce more con-

flict than the present system. I would feel more hopeful of the overcoming of the

prejudice through more intimate contact with Negroes if the difference between Negroes

and white men were not so fundamental. As an abstract proposition the despotism of a majority cannot be justified. I

would say it is a very bad doctrine to spread among a majority, but has in it a certain

amount of practical truth which the minority would do well to bear in mind.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 465

E— Negroes do possess distinguishing traits of mentality and character. My opinions

are based upon my personal observation. As I knew the Negro in the South he was inclined to be indolent, shiftless and

lacking in a high sense of honesty, though religious. His disposition is a happy one,

and often his good wiU is shown in many ways of gratitude and faithfulness. These traits I have seen expressed in service as servants, in the cotton fields, in their homes,

and on town streets. In Chicago, when the Negro has long been a resident here, having larger advantages in education and employment, I find the colored man honest in business and other transactions, diUgent at work, and inoffensive, but

firmly standing for his citizenship rights, and wanting to live peaceably. My Chicago experience has been principally as a physician visiting in Negro homes.

When a boy I worked in the cotton fields with Negroes, and I attended some of their reUgious meetings for the sake of amusement. It was a social law in the South

that we must not eat at the same table with Negroes, and we were not to sit with colored people when riding on street cars or on trains. However, if a Negro was

driver of a horse and buggy, the most beautiful and refined woman might sit on the same seat with the colored driver. White people visiting a colored church were given

seats to themselves, usually front seats. Colored children could not attend white

schools. At the age of six when I first saw Negroes, I became conscious of a race

difference.

I regard Rev. John R. Hayworth as fitted to advise on the question. I have

sought information from about twenty-five Negroes when in their midst as their

physician. I am acquainted with at least a dozen Negro families but can give the names of only three. I consider Alderman De Priest, Mr. Lucas and Colonel Jackson leading colored men; Dr. George Hall is also well known. I have never read a

Negro periodical.

In Chicago the subject of imdesirable neighbors leads to the discussion of Negroes

in our neighborhood improvement clubs.

Believing that both black and white people prefer to live separately, I would make agreeable provision for separate locations in which each might live and in so doing

abide by the wish of the majority and enforce its dictates. The Negro should be given the advantage of education, cvilture and good employ-

ment. We should expect to grant him better living conditions on account of such advantages.

Prejudice against the Negro has its principal basis in not understanding him, as

well as fear and an inborn dishke for people of another race.

There never seemed to be any conflicts in the South because the whites and

blacks occupied separate parts of towns. Colored people in the South seem to prefer

to live in communities to themselves, because a bond of sympathy holds them together.

It is better for a minority to bear an injustice than for an overwhelming majority

to bear an injustice.

F— Negroes should have the same rights as we.

I know of no distinguishing traits.

466 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

My opinion is based largely on reading, as I never lived in the South. I had no early contacts. There were few Negroes near, and none in my schools. As au- thorities I would mention Professor Du Bois, Fannie B. Williams, Professor Graham Taylor. I know an able colored woman, a member of the Chicago Woman's

Club and women who have worked in our home.

Occasionally I read a Negro periodical.

The discussion of lynchings and riots at home and church lead most frequently to

the Negro.

Our schools, trades and professions should be opened to Negroes and they be

permitted to take care of themselves. Let them follow their own bent so long as it

injures no one else.

Of course, when you educate Negroes you increase their demands. Grant their

demands.

Egotism and the jealousy that we whites are better are the basis of prejudice.

It is true that a minority has no right to expect complete justice from the majority,

if Negroes reason from experience; but the colored race probably has ideahsts who

hope for better future treatment.

G— The trouble is with the whites; selfishness and pride have caused the situation

and the regulation of the Negro according to faulty concepts of right will always fail.

The Stock Yards riots gave proof of equaUty in passion, cowardliness, and unfairness

between blacks and whites.

Negroes lag in evolution through hinderment. They may put reason above

emotion as they develop mentally, as do cultured whites, but a better evolution may

bring trained intuition from crude emotion.

My opinions are based upon short trips South, residence in Louisville and northern contacts, plus general reading.

My only contacts are on the streets. Children's talk and the term "Nigger" just called my attention to a race differ-

ence.

I know a few highly educated Negro pastors. I never read Negro papers. The

subject of interracial marriage leads to the discussion of the Negro.

As a solution they should be distributed without boundaries, among whites, as to

residence, occupation and society. They would not object ; it is what they fight for—

equaUty.

Negro faults are the result of retarded mental growth. Why further retard them ? The problem ceases to be as their mental level rises. Prejudice is the result of selfish-

ness in whites. Your third proposition is absolutely true.

Injustice to the minority by the majority is unconstitutional, un-Christian and

unwise.

H— My opinion is that the Negro is entitled to hfe, hberty, and the pursuit of happi-

ness as well as the white. The very fact that his skin is differently colored than mine

is no reason why he should not be free to develop himself mentally, morally, and physi-

cally the same as I do. Observation is basis of my opinion. No contacts or warn-

ings as a child. No friends particularly familiar with question.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 467

I have given this matter some little consideration, and have discussed it with

some Negroes as well as many white men. It is my opinion that the consensus of

opinion among Negroes to whom I have talked is that they have no particular desire

to mix sociaUy with the white man, but that they do feel they should be given oppor-

tunity for development along those lines for which they are best fitted. I am not

acquainted particularly with any of the leaders in this movement anywhere.

I read no Negro periodical. Racial equaUty is the subject that leads to the Negro.

In all circles where general subjects are usually discussed the question of the

Negro arises.

Until the white man is ready to give the Negro a square deal, I would suggest

that he be segregated, and given every opportunity for development possible under

such segregation. If they objected I would insist upon majority rule.

Nothing is gained by keeping the Negro ignorant, any more than would be gained

by keeping the white man ignorant. Education of all of our races will bring about

the world's salvation.

Prejudice among white women has its basis in fear but not particularly among

men. This is partly due to the publicity given to all acts against women by Negroes,

in my judgment The history of the world has proved that most of the races on earth tend to group

themselves, which is the natural thing, because of the community of interest.

Until the Golden Rule is accepted unanimously majority rule will continue to

be the hiunan law and under our present world political arrangements, it seems to

be about as fair as any arrangement could be.

I— The Negro seems to me to be evolutionally handicapped, but possesses the

quahties of children—imitativeness, affection, loyalty, receptiveness, lack of responsi-

bility, carelessness, improvidence. They also seem to me to lack racial pride, for

which their history in this country may well account. There are fine Negroes and

those who are as worthless as "poor white trash." To judge them all by either the

best or the worst would be manifestly unfair. I feel that they have, as a race, never

had a fair chance for their finest development.

I have lived among them and practiced medicine in their famihes for ten years.

The most tender, loving service, beyond monetary recompense, of one Negro

woman who worked in my family for ten years. Her intimate, gentle, faithful

services to members of my family in health and sickness will always endear her to

us and make us more conscious of the possibilities of members of that race.

The community in which I was raised had so few Negroes that there was no occa-

sion for contacts or prohibitions to association. I suppose as a boy I first became

conscious of race difference.

I have discussed this question with intelligent Negroes, have heard some fine

sermons by Negro preachers, and am somewhat familiar with the writings of Booker T.

Washington and Du Bois. I do not read their periodicals.

Mention of the servant cited in a foregoing question, newspaper accounts of

lynchings, house-bombings most frequently lead to discussion of Negroes among our

personal friends.

468 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

I feel that Negroes would be happier if segregated in neighborhoods which allowed

contact with the dominant race. I feel that they are as unhappy to be isolated among whites as the whites would be to be isolated among Negroes. I feel they should have the right to live imder decent conditions, with those things which make life livable and enjoyable. Probably part of my unwiUingness to have them for neighbors lies in the fear of undesirable neighbors (bad citizens), in the fear of property depreciation

which would follow, and because of the lack of interests in common that make for neighborly intercourse. I suppose I am as inconsistent as others in this, for in my heart I have no prejudice of which I am aware, yet I believe I am infected with the universal indefinite prejudice, if I could but analyze it thoroughly.

Their education should not be curtailed, but enlarged. Their demands should

be granted if not incompatible with the common good. It is probably true that prejudice is based on fear, a result of the abuse of female

slaves by the whites in slavery time, and the resultant desire on the part of a few Negroes engendered during the reconstruction period by the carpet-baggers, to have social equality. I have discussed this subject of "social equality" with intelligent,

fine Negroes, and believe they meant what they said when they assured me that among decent Negroes there is no more desire for this than there is among the white people. I feel that it is a bugaboo, useful in increasing fear and prejudice against

the Negro.

By segregation, I did not mean isolation, but the natural grouping together of Negroes under wholesome conditions, but which permitted their contact through

employment, through meetings for the common good, with the dominant race. Even a minority has the right to expect and demand justice in opportunity

to develop industrial, social and spiritual growth. I recognize that education of

both whites and blacks is necessary to overcome fear and prejudice and make this possible.

J- My opinion, which is still open to conviction, is that the Negro race overlaps

the white race throughout the bulk of the frequency curves of distribution of

intelligence of the two races; but the average of the Negro race is probably lower

than that of the white race, and among the extreme varieties the Negroes probably go lower and the whites higher than the similar varieties of the other race. This

refers to distribution of inherent capacity. But I believe that many of them are modifiable and differ only in their average distribution from similar qualities in whites.

Also that certain distinguishing traits may be so adjusted to the circumstances under which Negroes are educated and employed as to be distinctly advantageous, both to

themselves and to society.

Aside from my conversation with southerners, I have made a special study of the Negro problem in connection with my undergraduate work, and again at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. I am familiar with a number of worth-while sources which can be listed on request. I lived for four winters in St. Louis, where I saw a great

many Negroes, but knew none. Some excitement was caused there by an instructor inviting a mulatto school principal to address our sociology class. There was no

protest here in Evanston. I also passed through the South, and stopped twice at

New Orleans.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 469

As a child in Portland, Oregon, I had two Negro nurses. At the age of perhaps seven or eight years, one of my nurses returned for a visit, and I was teased by com- panions for kissing her. That was my first consciousness of a racial diflference.

My authorities and sources of importance are the N.A.A.C.P., Urban League, the Race Relations Commission, and certain Negroes. I might also mention the two Spingarns and Mr. Roger Baldwin. I know C. S. Johnson, T. Arnold Hill and the colored members of the Commission, together with the union leaders whom I heard. W. E. B. Du Bois, Haynes, Dr. Roman, J. W. Johnson, T. A. Hill, I regard as leaders among the Negroes.

I read the Crisis, and occasional newspapers. The Crisis is good except the fiction ; the newspapers are rather poor.

Race relations, mob action, venereal disease, and housing questions lead to dis- cussion of the Negro.

As a solution I suggest equal facilities, spontaneous segregation, spontaneous co-operation in common interest, education in matters of sex. In this program there would be no compulsion involved—unless possibly upon the whites.

Their education should be modified and their demands granted so far as they can be harmonized with the general good.

The main question involved in prejudice seems to me whether it is an interest or an instinct. If it is an interest then changes in social organization may with com- parative ease abate the fear and the prejudice. If it is an instinct then we can only deal with it by repression and sublimation of a more deeply psychological character.

I question whether the prejudice is greater the greater the isolation. The word isolation should be analyzed into physical or economic on the one hand, and psycho- logical on the other.

Plato asked, "What is justice?" The answer can never be final, and one's concept of it is usually colored by interest. A sociological definition of justice is in terms of harmony or harmonization of interests. Complete harmony never does exist, else we should have no thought and no progress, but harmonization of interests can be a continuous process, and is not irreconcilable with the existence of minorities and majorities.

K— I have formed no definite opinions about Negroes. I am inclined to the opinion

that generally the balance is found on the side of the white races. In general I believe they possess distinguishing traits of mentality and character. I find it very difficult, however, to define my opinion regarding this.

When I was in high school in Petersburg, Illinois, from 1895 to 1898, the school had an attendance of about forty. There were two Negroes, a boy and a girl. The boy's name was John Caddie. I have the impression now that they both acted as though they were out of place. I found John a likeable boy. I think all of the mem- bers of the school liked him. I particularly liked him, so paid considerable attention

to him, to which John reacted in a decided manner. He never forgot it. I do not Uke to shake hands with Negroes. I avoid it whenever I can, but I never had any hesitancy in shaking hands with John. After finishing school, I went to college and

John went to work. His work was some sort of manual labor. From time to time when I went back to Petersburg I saw John, always spoke to him, shook hands with him and talked to him. John appreciated this very much and acted as though he

470 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

regarded it a condescension on my part. I am not aware that I feel toward any- other Negro as I feel toward John Gaddie.

I was first conscious of a racial difference when I first knew the Negro, which was

when I was about fifteen years of age. In the small town of Petersburg (about 3,000

inhabitants) the Negroes there, as here in Chicago, lived in a segregated district.

There were no clashes between the Negro and the whites but the racial difference was

obvious enough.

I know very few Negroes. I know too little to be in a position to consider anyone

as a leader among the colored people in Chicago or the United States. I never read a

Negro periodical. The subjects most frequently leading to the discussion of the

Negro are riots, housing problems, certain industrial problems, and, here in Chicago,

politics.

The fact that the Negroes obstinately objected quite logically would not inter-

fere with making any adjustment which seemed "wise." The social adjustment

which seemed "wise" would have to be based on the possibility of objection on the

part of the Negro. If the leaders were obstinate, some other solution would have to

be worked out, but if the leaders saw that it was wise and for the best interest of the

masses I would insist that the plan be tried out.

I do not comprehend what is meant by "demand." It may mean ambition for

social standing in the sense of intermingling with the whites. It may mean other

things. No matter what it means, I am not impressed, if the statement is true, that it is any reason for not educating the Negro. I am not impressed that it becomes necessary either to curtail or modify the Negro's education or to grant their demands

whatever they may be. I do not think it true that prejudice has its basis in fear.

So far as I am famihar with it there is naturally a very high degree of segregation of the Negro as to living quarters everywhere. I am not aware that the segregation which we now find of habitation brings about the development of special group preju-

dices. Undoubtedly, if there are or were such prejudices they would form the back-

ground of conflicts. It doesn't seem to me to follow that the greater the isolation the greater the prejudice.

There never is complete justice; but if a minority may not expect justice at the

hands of an overwhelming majority it can expect no justice at all. The justice, if it

comes at all, will be at the hands of an overwhelming majority. Theoretically, in this

country aU are entitled to justice. I know no reason why this should not be true in

a practical sense. Furthermore, I see no reason why a minority may not only expect but demand, at the hands of an overwhelming majority, justice. It seems to me that if the overvi'helming majority hoped to prosper, it would see to it that justice was dis-

pensed to the minority. I do not find myself ready to place the Negro on an equal

basis with the white in every respect, that is, socially and otherwise. I do not regard

the failure to so place the Negroes as injustice to them.

L— In general, I like the Negro, but I lament his presence in this country in large

numbers. I have never heard a solution of the Negro problem. Their distinguishing

traits are ignorance, good nature, mental weakness, and physical strength.

I have never heard of good argimients for extensive isolation.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 471

M— I have a strong prejudice, but it is undefined. For instance, the hair of Negroes

always holds a peculiar fascination, but under no consideration could I touch it, but

there was always a great curiosity about it. I was undecided whether or not I should shake hands or in any way touch a colored skin, but I am quite sure I would never do it from choice. The everyday contacts on street cars are the only personal ex- periences I have had. The fascination of watching them is constant.

When I was about two years old a family moved into the village bringing with them an old colored nurse. She was too old to work, and my childish remembrance is that she always sat in the corner near the fireplace with a pipe in her mouth. I

did not know that the Negro could do anything else. When I was about five years old a Negro came to the village and opened a barber

shop. I remember my father telling mother about the Negro and how he took the three small children down to see "Snowball" as a matter of curiosity. My reaction was that the Negro was not a person such as I was accustomed to seeing, although

there was no feeling of classing him as an animal.

The third contact came when I was half-grown. My father was prominent in politics and on election day the table was kept set so that anyone sent from the polls

could have a meal. By some chance a Negro was sent and ate. After he had gone I remember seeing my mother take the plate and other dishes out in the yard and scour them with brick dust, evidently with an idea that something had rubbed off.

My information is largely taken from the books of Booker T. Washington. I admired Dunbar's poems when they were current in the newspapers and [magazines.

I have not seen any of them for many years but remember vividly, "When the Bread Won't Raise." I was naturally familiar with Uncle Tom's Cabin, both as a book and

a play in Civil War days. I do not consciously seek for information on the subject of Negroes and do not personally know any Negroes. Outside of the names which appear in the press I do not know of any Negro leaders and could not be sure of correct information as to those who are well known.

I have never seen a Negro periodical and have so rarely heard Negroes dis-

cussed that no conclusions can be given. The Negro is rarely a topic of conversation

in my circle. As a solution they might be nationalized if possible, somewhere and somehow,

like the Japs. Liberia is a failure largely because of white leadership and policy.

Some portion of the earth should be set aside where the Negroes can be a nation,

perhaps in Africa. They have a right to work out their own problems in their own ways. All Negroes should be educated as highly as possible. They have a right to it

because they are Americans. If demands follow this education, it is right they should

be granted.

There is no personal fear of Negroes as a basis of my prejudice. I agree with the third proposition as to isolation.

Majority's injustice to minority is always true in politics, religion, everyday

dealings. Is not peculiar to relations between white and colored.

N— My views are more impressions than opinions. I have a distinct aversion to close

association with Negroes generally. On the other hand I have a distinct liking for

472 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

particular Negroes whom I have been thrown with. Aside from the more educated ones, they seem to me to be of a sluggish mentality and of somewhat low moral character. They seem to have more of the animal in them. I am not sure that this is not an impression rather than an opinion.

I have no basis for my views except my own experience and what I have read in papers and periodicals.

I had two Negro classmates in college; I saw a good deal of Negroes as a boy;

and I have known Negroes, some well educated, since I came to Chicago from the

law school.

Although my contacts were largely casual, I particularly remember one very old Negro man whom I regarded as a sort of patriarch and of whom I was a little bit

afraid. Then I recall vividly my impression of the filth and sordidness of "darky- town" in the small city in which I lived as a boy. I was never forbidden, so far as I

can remember, to associate with Negroes. In public school there was no separation

of the races. As a small boy, it seems to me my playmates in school were partly Negroes. Of course the Negroes, as is usual, lived in a separate part of the city.

I should say that this seemed to me then to be a natural and necessary arrangement.

Negroes were black and we were white. That was about all there was to it.

Very early I became race conscious, I should say along about the fourth or fifth

grade in school, perhaps even before.

I regard as authorities on the question teachers or officers of Fisk University,

Tuskegee Institute, those who have to do with criminals; employers of Negroes;

persons who have dealt with Negroes as a class as well as individually. Booker T.

Washington's writmgs should be an authority.

I have made very few inquiries for information. I know few Negroes in Chicago.

Those that I do know are of the better educated type. Some of them, I think, have

been at Fisk University. I do not know the leaders in the city, nor do I know the

leaders in the country; but I should say they are the heads of the great Negro uni-

versities and colleges, Uke Fisk, Tuskegee, Lincoln Institute. Booker Washington

was, of course, a leader. I do not know who his successors are.

So far as I know, I have seen only one Negro periodical, some years ago. The

article I read in it I happened to be interested in because I was dealing with the sub-

ject of it, and it was undoubtedly a prejudiced article founded on misinformation and

a rather wilfvd disregard of facts. As I recall the paper as a whole its main motive and

purpose was an apparent hatred of the white race. I realize that this is not enough

to base an opinion on.

The discussion of labor, politics, especially questions connected with southern

politics, almost any question relating to the South, education, home missions, living

conditions, the servant problem, crime, most frequently lead to the Negro.

It would hardly be feasible to send Negroes out of the country as a whole; they are

needed in the industrial world, and it would not be a Christian act to deport them.

Nor does it seem right or practicable or just to segregate them entirely. They need

education and the help that comes from association with those who are further along

in the polite amenities. On the other hand, unless they are somewhat segregated

racial troubles are sure to arise when a Negro tries to settle, say, in the same block with

upper class whites. I am not sure that it might not be a good plan if one or two of the southern states could be turned over to the Negroes, but if this is done they should

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 473

be allowed to govern themselves and should be protected from exploitation from un- scrupulous whites.

It seems to me that race prejudice is not based principally on fear, but rather on a natural aversion or shrinking from a man of another color. It is almost as elemental as fear. We fear any uneducated, ignorant and brutal man, whether he be white, red, black or yellow. We have an aversion, as I have said, to close association with any man of another color, even though he be educated. I do not know whether this aversion is curable by any method or not.

I am incHned to agree with the third proposition, and I suppose the fourth propo- sition is regrettably true.

The outstanding feature in the answers to the queries: "Have you formed definite opinions about Negroes?" and "Do Negroes, in your opinion, possess distinguishing traits of mentality or character ?" is the great variation in

opinions. As a race they are "shiftless," "childish," "docile," " evolutionarily

handicapped," "undependable," "some of them good," "they have as a mass a lower level of inherent capacity," "disliked in the mass," "liked as

individuals," "entitled to the same leniency and consideration as whites,"

"entitled to the same rights as whites," "lacking in racial pride," "loyal,"

"imitative," "affectionate," "improvident."

The feelings toward Negroes are as varied. There is aversion to close association, a distinct disHke, a desire that Negroes should have equal rights

and privileges, a desire that they should have the same rights, a feeling that Negroes have been mistreated and exploited, a feeling that selfishness and pride

of white persons have caused the present racial situation, and a conviction that

present behavior toward the Negro is faulty and wrong. Lincoln is twice

mentioned but with different meanings. The trend of sentiment, while unfa- vorable toward Negroes, maintains some sort of ideal. Although childish,

they "must be trained," "although we dislike their presence, we must submit to our penalty for years to come," etc. Some are not sure of their opinions. Some call them impressions or regret a lack of knowledge. A general summing up would show a desire to be fair in spite of unfavorable opinions.

The questions regarding the disposition they would make of Negroes if they could entirely control the situation were put to get views uninfluenced by considerations of present practicability. The play of circumstances, opinion, ethical considerations, and difficulties were excluded from consideration. The trend of replies was toward segregation, even to the extent of colonization in

Africa. There were curious anomalies, like segregation without Jim Crow and segregation for the Negro 's own happiness. Others would distribute them without boundaries throughout the social system. When segregation is gener- ally mentioned it is conditioned on the consent of Negroes.

Interesting answers are made on propositions (a), (b), (c), and (d), covering education, prejudice, isolation, and justice. In spite of unforeseen danger, it

is pretty generally agreed that Negroes should be educated, even though their

474 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

demands are thus increased. There is less agreement on granting demands.

The analysis of prejudice brought a wide variety of opinions. Repulsion,

natural aversion, social equality and the sex complex, selfishness of whites,

egotism and inborn dislike, as well as fear, are accredited as forming the basis

of prejudice.

The problem of isolation was essentially a problem of segregation. Strange

to say, although the trend of some was toward isolation, there was a majority

beUef that isolation would increase conflict and friction. The ethical problem

developed in general the opinion that there does exist a disparity between what

is and what should be.

The unwisdom of an unjust course of social conduct is recognized, but is

for the most part held to be warranted by the pecuHar difficulty of present rela-

tions. Here, probably as nowhere else, the problem was compared with other

general problems not involving race.

The experiences on which opinions are based divide into definite classes:

1. Experiences in the South.

2. Experiences with individual Negro servants.

3. Experiences with individual Negroes of intelligence.

4. General observation.

The actual basis of opinions as stated by the persons themselves provides

an interesting question.

The question concerning early childhood experiences was put to draw out,

if possible, impressions unconsciously insinuated or consciously obtained but

perhaps discounted and forgotten through subsequent years of intermittent

relations. It was successful in bringing to light incidents of striking signifi-

cance. The answers, indeed, show striking elements in the heritage of racial

consciousness. Impressions gained in early life require many facts to unsettle

or remove.

Most important in considering the trustworthiness of information sources

are the replies to the question: "Whom of your friends, acquaintances, favorite authors, scholars, etc., do you regard best fitted to speak with authority on the

question?" There are mentioned seven Negroes and ten white persons. Of

the four local Negroes mentioned, two might be regarded as well informed;

one has been out of public life for fifteen years, and the other, although by no

means an authority, probably could provide interesting information. Of the

Negro national figures, Washington, Du Bois, and Dunbar are mentioned, Washington three times, Dunbar and Du Bois once. Booker T. Washington died in 1915. Paul Laurence Dunbar, the poet, died in 1906. Practically all

of the white persons mentioned have been at some time connected with move-

ments to improve conditions among Negroes. George W. Cable wrote for

the most part stories of the Creole South.

It is strange, though, that in answering the question, "Who are the Negro

leaders?" so many gave the names of politicians, who are not the real leaders

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 475

of Negroes. About half of those who answered had never read a Negro periodical, and half of those who had read them considered their influence pernicious.

V. PUBLIC OPINION AS EXPRESSED BY NEGROES

The practice of "keeping the Negro in his place" or any modification of it

in northern communities has isolated Negroes from all other members of the

community. Though in the midst of an advanced social system and sur-

rounded by cultural influences, they have hardly been more than exposed to

them. Of full and free participation they know little. The pressure of the dominant white group in practically every ordinary experience has kept the

attention and interests of Negroes centered upon themselves, and made them

race conscious. Their thinking on general questions is controlled by their

race interests. The opinions of Negroes, therefore, are in large measure a

negative product.

It is probably for this reason that most of their expressions of opinion take

the form of protest. This same enforced self-interest warps these opinions,

giving exaggerated values to the unconsidered views of the larger group, increas-

ing sensitiveness to slights, and keeping Negroes forever on the defensive.

Extreme expressions, unintelligible to those outside the Negro group, are a

natural result of this isolation. The processes of thought by which these opin-

ions are reached are, by virtue of this very isolation, concealed from outsiders.

Negroes by their words alone may often be judged as radical, pernicious, or fanatic. Without the background of their experiences it is no more possible

for their views to be completely understood than for Negroes to understand

the confessed prejudices of white persons, or even their ordinary feelings toward

Negroes.

Negroes know more of the habits of action and thought of the white group

than white people know of similar habits in the Negro group. For Negroes

read the whites ' books and papers, hear them talk, and sometimes see them in

the intimacy of their homes. But this one-sided and partial understanding

serves only to make the behavior of the whites more keenly felt. Until these

differences, long held as taboo, are thoroughly understood and calmly faced,

there is small chance of satisfactory relations.

The opinions of Negroes on this question are as various as the white opin-

ions of the Negro. Their response may reflect the sentiment of the larger group; it may take a conciliatory turn, or, it may be exclusively self-centered in disregard, if indeed not in defiance, of the white group. The rapid growth

of the Garvey movement^ is a good example of this last type of opinion. There

is harmony of opinion on ultimates, but on programs, processes, and methods

there are differences among Negroes that reach the intensity of abusive conflicts.

No Negro is willing to admit that he belongs to a different and lower species, or that his race is constitutionally weak in character. All Negroes hope for an

I See p. 493.

476 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

adjustment by virtue of which they will be freely granted the privileges of

ordinary citizens. They are conscious, however, of an opposition in the tradi-

tions of the country and actually meet it daily. Conflict arises from opinions

as to methods of combating and overcoming the opposition with the greatest

gain and smallest loss to themselves.

Thus we come to hear of different schools of thought among Negroes.

Booker T. Washington is contrasted with W. E. B. Du Bois, and Du Bois is contrasted with Owen, Peyton, and Colson, and they, in turn are contrasted

with Garvey. Among individual Negroes opinion is determined by experience

as well as tradition. The Negro house-servant does not feel toward white

persons as does a Negro common laborer. The independent professional man

holds an opinion essentially different from the social worker. Yet they are all

governed by those trends of sentiment protective of the Negro group, and in

crises either act upon them or suffer the group's censure.

An instance of the strength of Negro group opinion appeared in a tragic by-product of the Chicago riot. A Negro prominent in local poUtical and social circles was sought out as a leader, and asked for an interview by a reporter of

the Chicago Tribune during the riot. In the published interview he was

reported as saying: "This is a white man's country, and Negroes had better

behave or they will get what rights they have taken away." This aroused

a sohd Negro sentiment against him; his Hfe was threatened; for several

weeks he had to have police protection; he was finally ostracized; and in less

than a year he died. His friends asserted that he was slanderously misquoted,

and that his death was due largely to the resulting criticism.

The more balanced opinions may be found among Negroes who have developed a defensive philosophy. Race pride and racial solidarity have sprung

from this necessity. The term radical is used to characterize Negroes whose

views and preachments are in advocacy of changes which to the general white

public appear undesirable. It will be observed that most of the so-called

radicals are southern Negroes now living in the North. They know by experi-

ence the meaning of oppression. Contrasts with them are sharper and the

desire for change is more insistent, because they can appreciate differences.

Frequently this "radicaUsm" is no more than a matter of interpretation by

white persons and possibly an oversuspicion. For example, Attorney-General

A. Mitchell Palmer, in his report on the investigations of his department,

referred to the bitter protests of Negro pubhcations against lynching and dis-

franchisement as radical and incendiary documents. This report is headed,

"RadicaKsm and Sedition among the Negroes as Reflected in Their Publica-

tions." It reads in part as foUows:

There can no longer be any question of a well-concerted movement among a

certain class of Negro leaders of thought and action to constitute themselves a deter-

mined and persistent source of a radical opposition to the government, and to the

established rule of law and order.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 477

Among the more salient points to be noted in the present attitude of the Negro leaders are, first, the ill-governed reaction toward race rioting; second, the threat of

retaliatory measures in connection with lynching; third, the more openly expressed

demand for social equality, in which demand the sex problem is not infrequently included; fourth, the identification of the Negro with such radical organizations as

the I.W.W. and an outspoken advocacy of the Bolsheviki or Soviet doctrines; fifth,

the political stand assumed toward the present federal administration, the South in

general, and incidentally, toward the peace treaty and the League of Nations. Under-

lying these more sahent viewpoints is the increasingly emphasized feeling of a race

consciousness in many of these publications always antagonistic to the white race and openly, defiantly assertive of its own equality and even superiority. When it is borne in mind that this boast finds its most frequent expression in the pages of those journals

whose editors are men of education, and in at least one instance, by men holding degrees conferred by Harvard University, it may be seen that the boast is not to be dismissed lightly as the ignorant vaporing of untrained minds. Neither is the influ-

ence of the Negro press in general to be reckoned with lightly. The Negro World for October 18, 1919, states that "there are a dozen Negro papers with a circulation

of over 20,000, and scores with smaller circulation. There are half a dozen magazines

with a large circulation and other magazines with a smaller circulation, and there are

easily over fifty writers who can write interesting editorials and special articles, written in fine, pure English, with a background of scholarship behind them." Notwith-

standing the clumsiness of expression of this particular assertion, the claim is not an

idle one. It may be added that in several instances the Negro magazines are expensive in manufacture, being on coated paper throughout, well-printed, and giving evidence

of the possession of ample funds.

In all the discussions of the recent race riots there is reflected the note of pride

that the Negro has foimd himself, that he has "fought back," that never again will

he tamely submit to violence or intimidation. The sense of oppression finds increas-

ingly bitter expression. Defiance and insolently race-centered condemnation of the

white race is to be met with in every issue of the more radical publications, and this

one in moderateness of denunciation carries its own threat. The Negro is "seeing

red," and it is the prime object of the leading publications to induce a like quality of

vision upon the part of their readers. A few of them deny this, notwithstanding the evidence of their work. Others of them openly admit the fact. The number of

restrained and conservative publications is relatively negligible, and even some of

these .... have indulged in most intemperate utterance, though it would be unfair not to state that certain papers—I can think of no magazines—maintain an attitude of well-balanced sanity

The Messenger for October is significant for one thing above all others. In it for

the first time a Negro publication comes out openly for sex equality.^

It is the sentiment briefly sketched in the foregoing pages that summons

attention. What are Negroes actually thinking ? How are they being affected by what the general public is thinking ? What do they want ? Against what are their protests directed ? What kinds of group sentiments are being devel-

* The Messenger is pronounced in its stand for woman suffrage.

478 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

oped and how significant are they as to subsequent relations between the two groups?

This report merely sets out examples of those views in the hope of showing

the beliefs that control the conduct of Negroes in Chicago.

I. RACE PROBLEMS

Criticism of Negro leaders.—A Negro attorney said

:

I have read numerous articles written by prominent colored men on the subject of Negroes moving North, and I have heard many of them speak. But few of them, in my opinion, will bear rigid criticism. They are wanting in genuine expression of true conditions. Those writers and orators who have some personal motive for their expression do not necessarily speak with absolute frankness.

A Negro worker said: Our leaders are not interested enough in the welfare of the race. As soon as

they reach some little place of fame they try to get off to themselves.

Contacts as basis for respect.—A Negro professional man said

:

When in school in Oberlin my professor in debating and oratory was so prejudiced that he would not let the other colored boy and me be on teams together. We asked him repeatedly, but he always refused. We decided to work on a debate for all there was in it and compel him to recognize the fact that we could measure up to the other

members of the class. When we finished he praised our work in the highest terms. After that he began to take an interest in me and finally told me that he did not know anything about Negroes and just felt that there was nothing worth while in them.

He tried to persuade me to teach, and when I left he gave me one of the best letters of recommendation that I have ever seen. That shows what contact can do.

Not a race problem.—A Negro business man said: There is no race problem; if the white people would only do as they would be

done by we would not have need of commissions to better conditions. This won't

be done, but an easier plan is to enforce the law. The laws are good enough but they

are not enforced. Riots grow out of hate, jealousy, envy, and prejudice. When a man becomes a contented citizen there will be little chance of causing him to fight anyone. Give us those things that are due us—law, protection, and equal rights— then we will become contented citizens.

For better race relations in Chicago.—A Negro alderman said

:

1. Pass a vagrancy law that will take the idle, shiftless and intolerant hoodlum

off the streets. Put the burden of proof on the one so arrested.

2. Close aU vicious poolrooms and dens of vice, and permit no boy under nineteen

years of age to enter poolrooms.

3. Forbid loitering on the street corners, especially transfer points.

4. Prohibit vicious and race-antagonizing campaign speeches on the streets of

the city and in pubhc halls. Races must not be arrayed against each other.

5. Make more rigid the habeas corpus act, tighten up on the parole and probation laws and enforcement of the truancy law.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 479

6. Stop the newspapers from referring to the territory occupied by the colored

people as the "Black Belt."

7. Inciting and inflammatory headlines in the newspapers must be stopped.

8. Open the gates of employment to all races in our public utilities, such as

street-car and elevated-road service, Chicago Telephone Co. exchanges, Peoples

Gas Light & Coke Co., and the Commonwealth Edison Co. 9. Better housing for the colored people and improvement of the district in

which a vast majority of them reside by turning certain streets into boulevards,

building small parks and playgrounds, and let the city or South Park Commissioners

build a bathing-beach equal to any other for the benefit and comfort of all races along

the water front, between Twenty-ninth and Thirty-ninth streets. This without

lines or thought of segregation and for the benefit of a neglected part of our tax-

paying community.

10. Apprehend and convict the bomb throwers by placing in command of our

police-stations ofiicers who will do their duty and place patrolmen on duty who will

not sympathize with this lawless element of our citizenry. Greater still, insist that

the state's attorney do his full duty in prosecuting the people who are responsible

for inciting these criminal acts.

11. Safeguard the rights of all races in our pubUc parks and on the pubUc high-

ways.

12. Give us a man's chance in the field of labor, and we will prove that we are

no burden to any other race of people.

2. THE EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND

An old settler.—The sentiment presented below is probably the unpolished feeling of a Negro who was born in Chicago before the fire of 187 1, and has

lived here since. His grandfather owned the property where the post-ofiice

now stands. He was at one time a member of the Central Y.M.C.A. (white). For two and a half years he was assistant bookkeeper in a white bank in Mem-

phis, Tennessee. He said

:

Prejudice has been on the increase in Chicago since 1893. Southerners came to

the World's Exposition and many of them remained. They brought their prejudices

with them. On the cars they would order colored people to get up and give their

seats to them. This resulted in fights, and when the cases were taken to court colored

people won as many cases as whites. I took my grandmother to the fair and on the street car I had an altercation with a white southerner who called her "Auntie."

He tried to hit me, and I got out my gun to shoot him. A Columbian guard and detective grabbed me. When the case was called I was discharged.

Hyde Park is a nest of prejudice. These southerners moved out there. Southern

clubs are estabUshed throughout the country. They get northemized and want

straight-haired mulatto maids for their mistresses and call them typists. The south-

em white boys get jobs on newspapers in the North and work for nothing in order that they may write articles and editorials against Negroes and spread the doctrine of

the South.

A good many years ago colored people Uved in good homes and the Irish Uved in shanties. They used to call them "flannel mouth," "mick," and "shanty Irish."

48o THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

It used to be that only colored men of light complexion could secure jobs as porters on certain railroads. In 1908 the Archbishop of the Diocese of the Catholic Church

issued an edict that white commimicants should not worship at the Thirty-sixth and

Dearborn streets church. The whites still go there, however. The very fact that the G.A.R. invited the Confederate veterans to march in the same parade on Memorial

Day goes to show that prejudice against Negroes is increasing. They are combining. These southern societies in Chicago which foster race prejudice should be exposed.

Ahyssinians.—During the summer of 1920 a group of self-styled " Abyssini- ans," in a spectacular demonstration,' killed two white men and seriously wounded two Negroes, one of whom was a policeman. Neither whites nor Negroes could give any further explanation of the affair than that it was an

ignorant outburst of fanatics. Although the demonstration was announced

as part of a membership drive in a "Back to Africa Movement," there was a

definite racial sentiment in the appeals to unlettered Negroes. This sentiment

was calculated to solidify the fanatic group, while, at the same time, by its

anti-social dogma, it placed this group in opposition to the safety and well-

being of the community. Meetings and speeches and anti-racial dogma,

founded upon unusual interpretations of the Bible, gave their sentiments a reli-

gious fervor and a racial aim. Thus these sentiments grew, uncorrected by

outsiders, and finally expressed themselves in criminal but significant conduct.

The significance of these sentiments is apparent in the attitude of a sympathizer

with the movement, expressed to one of the Commission 's investigators several

weeks before the outbreak made the movement unpopular. He is a shopkeeper, and most of his trade is among Negroes. His business with whites is wholly

with wholesale dealers. In his treatment of those who came into his store during the interview he was rude and discourteous. He said:

I am a radical. I despise and hate the white man. They will always be against the Ethiopian. I do not want to be called Negro, colored, or "nigger." Either term

is an insult to me or to you. Our rightful name is Ethiopian. White men stole the black man from Africa and counseled with each other as to what to do with him and what to call him, for when the Negro learned that he was the first civilized human on earth he would rise up and rebel against the white man. To keep him from doing this it was decided to call him Negro after the Niger River in Africa. This was to

keep him from having that knowledge by the Bible, for his right name was Ethiopian. This was done so we could always be ruled by the white man. I will call your atten- tion to the Bible. There is not one word of evil against the Children of Israel and

Ethiopia written in it. Ethiopia came out of Israel and God said they are his people and he will be their God. He also says after the 300 years of punishment he will never go by [desert] Israel again and will be with him for ever and ever. We find by the Bible that he, the Ethiopian, is the only child of God.

The three hundred years of punishment are up, and this is the year of deliverance. It started in 1619 when we were stolen from Africa and made slaves. God is taking care of the black man. Some great destruction will take place, but God's chosen

I See p. 59.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 481

people will be all right. White passers-by from other neighborhoods are the only people who trouble us. They will call you insulting names or try to annoy you in a hundred little ways. The white people in the neighborhood are all right. Two white men ran down an old pet rooster of mine this morning. They were on a motor-cycle and picked him up, carried him off, paying no heed to me, as I ran two blocks after them.

Ready for trouble.—A Negro ex-soldier said: I went to war, served eight months in France; I was married, but I didn't claim

exemption. I wanted to go, but I might as well have stayed here for all the good it has done me No, that ain't so, I'm glad I went. I done my part and I'm going to fight right here till Uncle Sam does his. I can shoot as good as the next one, and nobody better start anything. I ain't looking for trouble, but if it comes my way I ain't dodging.

Agitation and discussion.—A Negro lawyer said: Agitation by the press, both white and colored, does nothing but create dissension.

The religious and political leaders have gone from one extreme to the other. Formerly the Negroes were cringing and ingratiating when dealing with the whites. Now they are trying to be radical in order to gain notoriety. There is nothing to be gained in

either being servile or radical. I have had indignities heaped upon me by the white man. Why, my mother was ill when a white man in Georgia took every bit of our furniture from us, puUing the bed from under her. She screamed with pain each time

they moved the bed, but they left her on the floor. I swore that I would kill that man and for many years held hatred against him. Now I know it is wrong and only hope that he has learned better.

A Negro and a mob.—How does a Negro feel when he is being hunted or chased by a mob ? Few persons are able to analyze their emotions under such stress. It happens, however, that a Negro university student fell victim to the

sportive brutality of a gang of white men in a clash in September, 1920, and after being chased and hunted for five hours and a half in an unfriendly neigh-

borhood escaped uninjured. He recounted his experience in an effort at a purely objective study of his emotions.

While at work in a plant just outside Chicago he became ill and was forced

to leave early. Unaware that a riot was in progress, he left a street car to transfer in a hostile neighborhood. As he neared the corner one of a group of about twenty young white men yelled: "There's a nigger! Let's get him!" He boarded a car to escape them. They pulled off the trolley and started into the car after him. His story follows:

The motorman opened the door, and before they knew it I jumped out and ran up Fifty-first Street as fast as my feet could carry me. Gaining about thirty yards on them was a decided advantage, for one of them saw me and with the shout "There he goes!" the gang started after me. One, two, three, blocks went past in rapid succes-

sion. They came on shouting, "Stop him! Stop him!" I ran on the sidewalk and someone tried to trip me, but fortunately I anticipated his intentions and jumped into the road. As I neared the next street intersection, a husky, fair-haired fellow weighing about 180 pounds came lunging at me. I have never thought so quickly in all my

482 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

life as then, I believe. Three things flashed into my mind—to stop suddenly and let him pass me and then go on; to try to trip him by dropping in front of him; or to keep

running and give him a good football straight arm. The first two I figured would stop

me, and the gang would be that much nearer, so I decided to rely on the last. These

thoughts flashed through my mind as I ran about ten steps. As we came together, I left my feet, and putting all my weight and strength into a lunge, shot my right hand at his chin. It landed squarely and by a half-turn the fair-haired would-be

tackier went flying to the road on his face.

That was some satisfaction, but it took a lot of my strength, for by this time I was beginning to feel weak. But determination kept me at it, and I ran on. Then

I came to a corner where a drug-store was open and a woman standing outside. I

slowed down and asked her to let me go in there, that a gang was chasing me; but she

said I would not be safe there, so I turned off Fifty-first Street and ran down the side

street. Here the road had been freshly oiled and I nearly took a "header" as I

stepped in the first pool, but fortunately no accident happened. My strength was fast faihng; the suggestion came into my mind to stop and give up or try to fight it out with the two or three who were still chasing me, but this would never do, as the

odds were too great, so I kept on. My legs began to wobble, my breath came harder, and my heart seemed to be pounding like a big pump, while the man nearest me began to creep up on me. It was then that an old athletic maxim came into my mind

—

"He's feeUng as tired as you." Besides, I thought, perhaps he smokes and boozes

and his wind is worse than mine. Often in the last hundred yards of a quarter-mile

that thought of my opponent's condition had brought forth the last efforts necessary for the final spurt. There was more than a medal at stake this time, so I stuck, and

in a few strides more they gave up the chase. One block further on, when I had made

sure that no one was following me on the other side of the street, I slowed down to walk and regained my breath. Soon I found myself on Forty-sixth Street just west of Halsted where the street is blind, so I climbed up on the railroad tracks and

walked along them. But I imagined that in crossing a lighted street I could be seen

from below and got down off the tracks, intending to cross a field and take a chance

on the street. But this had to be abandoned, for as I looked over the prospect from

the shadow of a fence I saw an automobile held up at the point of a revolver in the

hands of one member of a gang while they searched the car apparently looking for

colored men.

This is no place for a minister's son, I thought, and crept back behind a fence

and lay down among some weeds. Lying there as quietly as could be I reflected on

how close I had come to a severe beating or the possible loss of my life. Fear, which had caused me to run, now gave place to anger, and a desire to fight, if I could fight with a square deal. I remembered that as I looked the gang over at Fifty-first and

Ashland I figured I could handle any of them individually with the possible

exception of two, but the whole gang of blood-thirsty hoodlums was too much. Anger

gave place to hatred and a desire for revenge, and I thought if ever I caught a green-

buttoned "Ragen's Colt" on the South Side east of State that one of us would get a

licking. But reason showed me such would be folly and would only lead to reprisals

and some other innocent individual getting a licking on my account. I knew all "Ragen's" were not rowdies, for I had met some who were pretty decent fellows, but

some others—ye gods!

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 483

My problem was to get home and to avoid meeting hostile elements. Tempo- rarily I was safe in hiding, but I could not stay there after daybreak. So I decided to

wait a couple of hours and then try to pass through "No Man's Land"—Halsted to Wentworth. I figured the time to be about 1 1 : 30 and so decided to wait until i :30 or 2:00 A.M., before coming out of cover. Shots rang out intermittently; the sky

became illumined; the fire bells rang, and I imagined riot and arson held sway as of

the previous year. It is remarkable how the imagination runs wild under such conditions.

Then the injustice of the whole thing overwhelmed me—emotions ran riot. Had the ten months I spent in France been all in vain ? Were those little white crosses over the dead bodies of those dark-skinned boys lying in Flanders fields for naught ?

Was democracy merely a hollow sentiment ? What had I done to deserve such treatment ? I lay there experiencing all the emotions I imagined the innocent victim

of a southern mob must feel when being hunted for some supposed crime. Was this what I had given up my Canadian citizenship for, to become an American citizen and soldier ? Was the risk of life in a country where such hatred existed worth while ? Must a Negro always suffer merely because of the color of his skin? "There's a Nigger; let's get him!" Those words rang in my ears—I shall never forget them.

Psychologists claim that it is in the face of overwhelming forces that man is prone to turn to the Supreme Being. I was no longer afraid, only filled with righteous indig-

nation and a desire to get out of danger. But mingled emotions shook me, and a

flood of tears burst forth. In the midst of it I found myself praying fervently to

God against the injustice of it all, for strength and help to go through safely, and

thanks for my dehverance from the gang which had chased me. Then relief came from all these pent-up feelings with the determination to get up and try to go through

—

and to fight, if necessary. I began to speculate on means. A freight train came along, and the impulse came to jump on it and ride out of town until the trouble was

over, but the knowledge of only 15 cents carfare in my pocket compelled the rejection of this idea. I thought of phoning to a friend to come and get me in his car, but this was futile, for where could I find a phone and be safe in that neighborhood ?

Some clothes on a hne in a yard across the field offered a disguise, but even dressed

as a woman I'd need a hat, and that idea had to be abandoned. With resources at an end, I picked up four rocks for ammunition and started out.

For four blocks I glided from shadow to shadow, through alleys. A couple of dogs nearly "spilled the beans" when they barked just as an automobile came down the

street. I dove for cover until the car had disappeared and then emerged. At Forty-

ninth Street and Union Avenue I climbed up on the railroad tracks and cautiously

walked along them in the darkness. All of a sudden a block ahead appeared what

seemed to be about ten men standing on the tracks, so I dropped to the ground and

made a pair of binoculars out of my hands. For what seemed hke five minutes I watched these forms then decided they were uprights on a bridge and went on. Imagi-

nation and fear can play tricks, and this was one of them.

Finally I found myself at Thirty-seventh and Stewart streets, having been

walking northeast instead of east as I thought. I chmbed down to the street and

walked through back lanes until I saw the Sox ball park. All was quiet, so I came

out and crossed Wentworth Avenue. At State and Thirty-seventh I saw two colored

fellows waiting for a car and ran up to them. Putting my hands on their shoulders

484 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

I said, "Gee! I'm glad to see a dark skin." Then I related my experience. They assured me the "fun" was all over, and I was thankful. It was twenty-five minutes to four, just five and a half hours after I had started for home from work. A white man came along, and my first impulse was to jump on him and beat him up. But again reason told me he was not responsible for the actions of a gang of rowdies, and he was as innocent as I had been when set upon.

Is such an experience easily forgotten ? Recent events would prove to the con-

trary. I vowed that morning never to let the sun set on me west of Wentworth Avenue, and never to go into that section unprotected, even in daytime. On a recent Sunday the papers came out with an "Extra" about 11 :oo p.m., annoimcing a "Big South Side Fight." I went to the door and hailed a boy. Just then an auto-

mobile with men standing on the running-board came around the corner. The possi- bility of another riot flashed through my mind and without looking at the paper I snapped off the hght, closed the door, and prepared for trouble if it came my way. But the " Fight " had been a gunman's war. This is just indicative of the caution such an experience develops. It is not a fear, but a wariness in uncertainty.

3. DEFENSIVE POLICIES

To stimulate group morale and solidify the sentiments of Negroes for uni- fied opposition to what they regard as oppressive measures of white people,

many tactics are employed. The most common of these is that of interpret- ing the aims and ambitions of Negroes to white persons and of defending

themselves generally against criticism. A selection of types of this "defen- sive" sentiment is given.

A Negro attorney said: The only way to gain favorable public opinion is to create favorable press notices.

A certain amount of agitation is necessary on the part of colored papers to educate the race as to what it is entitled to. The American white race has been very success- ful in its propaganda that colored people are not entitled to certain things. This

has caused many Negroes to believe that they are not as good as the white people. The press can be a source of evil or of good. It depends upon the point of view.

The difficulty hes in the fact that the white press has the wrong attitude, usually. A great deal of harm is done by paid workers who will give interviews that will sustain the viewpoint of the papers. Others desirous of newspaper notoriety are guilty of the

same offense. Usually those interviewed are not capable of giving exact opinions and

viewpoints. Those capable of doing justice to the situation are not sought by reporters. During the time when there is more calm and people are in a position to give thoughtful consideration to the question, no effort is made to find out the attitude of substantial citizens. If this were done the papers would get somewhere.

A letter from a Negro thanking the editor of a northern paper for a fair editorial said:

The colored citizens realize fully the extent to which propaganda is spread against them in the average newspaper under the guise of news, and when they find someone who knows that too, and who is strong enough to help, as is the [newspaper], they thank him with all the strength of their hearts, although their Hps may remain mute.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 485

Negro sentiment regarding racial news in the white press.—A Negro weekly paper said:

Whatever be the cause or the motive there is apparently a well organized plan to

discredit the race in America and to bring estrangement between fellow Americans.

A short-sighted .... press is contributing to this estrangement by playing upon the passions of the undiscriminating and thoughtlessly by its glaring and sensational

headings, emphasizing rumours of alleged crimes by Negroes.

Flattery as a means of promoting tolerance.—A popular Negro orator said: I think that the great trouble with us already is that we have allowed the white

people to settle too many things for us. The nation gave you constitutional freedom, but no man can make you truly free except you yourself. The white man hates nothing worse than a coward, and the American white man is the most remarkable human being the world ever knew. He is God's superman. As white and black have one destiny beneath the Stars and Stripes, so have we the common duties of citizenship

Woodrow Wilson is my leader. What he commands me to do I shall do. Where he commands me to go I shall go. I had naught of Ul wUl toward Von Bernsdorf until Wilson pointed him out as a national menace. Whom Woodrow Wilson cannot receive into fellowship, I cannot receive.

A Negro resident of Chicago for fourteen years, formerly of Louisiana, said:

I went to Wilson's last inauguration in Washington and tried to talk to the

President. I got in the gate, but the guard would not let me go farther without a pass. I went into every place that men were allowed to enter and found no "Jim- Crowing " in any public place. The nearest approach to it was in the printing depart- ment of the government. There were several colored girls all working at the same table. In other departments I had seen white and colored together. I went into

every washroom on every floor of one building and must have washed my hands twenty times.

Negroes, real Americans.—^A letter from a Negro workman to Governor Lowden said:

Why is it that intelligent colored people, the real Americans and the most humble and purest nation that ever trod the soil of America since they have been here—we have never thrown any bombs; we have never written a black-hand letter and what disgrace and shameful things we do it was learned to us by our foreparents' masters down south because they taught them to steal and murder and do all other most disgraceful things. We have never bombed any white people's homes, but I cannot see into it why it is that all nations such as the Pohsh, Japan, Chinaman, Mexican, German and Russ and now you see what they have done to this country; they have done everything to overthrow this Government and have got the I.W.W. and the

Red. Where have we done such dirty deeds ? We have enriched this soil of America with our blood in every war for this country and then cannot live where we want to as an American citizen. We even shed our blood in France to save someone else money and their homes, and the thanks we got when we come back was a big race

486 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

riot which I do believe was started by southern white men to put a disgrace on the

North because the North do not lynch and burn as they do. Of course I know you

cannot do anything by yourself. But if you can get enough men who have got a

backbone to protect the ones who have always protected them this outrage could

be stopped. I read a piece in the Herald-Examiner that it would be a riot here;

that has poisoned the minds of so many people. So now I hope you will try to stop

such trouble.

Defensive philosophy; silence does not mean contentment.—A Negro educator said:

Many white men of high intellectual ability and keen discernment have mistaken the Negro silence for contentment, his facial expression for satisfaction at prevailing

conditions, and his songs and jovial air for happiness. But not always so. These

are his methods of bearing his troubles and keeping his soul sweet under seeming

wrongs. In the absence of a spokesman or means of communication with the whites

over imagined grievances, he has brightened his countenance, smiled and sung to

give ease to his mind. In the midst of it all he is unable to harmonize the teachings

of the Bible which the white Christian placed in his hands with the practices of daily

life. He finds it difficult to harmonize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and his faith is put to the test in that "Providence" which enslaved his ancestors,

corrupted his blood and placed upon him stigmas more damaging than to be a leper

or convict by making his color a badge of infamy and his preordained social position

at the bottom of human society. So firmly has his status been fixed by this "Provi-

dence" that neither moral worth, fidelity to trust, love of home, loyalty to country

or faith in God can raise him to human recognition.

Votes for Negroes.—The Crisis for January, 1921, said: The astonishing thing about the Bourbon South is its intellectual bankruptcy

when it comes to the Negro. It continually assumes that the Negro is a fool. Some

Negroes are fools, but the proportion among them is steadily decreasing, while that

among the Bourbons seems to increase. When the average white Southerner faces the problem of racial contact he has absolutely nothing to offer except what he

offered in 1861, namely: the Will of God, Force and Bloodshed, and, "The best friend

in the world to the Negro is the Southern white man—the only one who truly loves him." We quote from our ever-delightful friend, the editor of the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.

The tragedy of the situation is that this man beUeves what he says. He knows absolutely just the "place" for which God made "niggers"; but to support this sin-

cere belief he spreads falsehoods. He says that the woman suffrage party by its

secret machinations "probably" caused the blood shed in the Florida elections!

He threatens murder for black men who want to vote, and ahnost weeps over the mis- guided Negroes who have left the Empire State of lynching and gone to Chicago.

There seems to be in this man's mind absolutely no conception of the tremendous,

increasing, unswerving development of the Negro. To him all aspiration, unrest,

and complaints of black folk are conspiracies of whites. For the blacks he has no

program, no vision, except that they stay where they have always been, growing more

content with "Jim-Crow" cars, lynching and disfranchisement.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 487

It is inconceivable to the mentality of this section of the white South that such a

program is absolutely impossible. That if, in the end, the price we must pay for aspiration to modern manhood is death, and death in the most horrible form of public torture and burning like that in Florida, if to live we must die, then the South will have us to kill. Any man who does not prefer death to slavery is not worth free- dom

The black man must vote. Every Southerner with brains knows this. The Negro is awaiting his enfranchisement with greater patience than the South has any

right to expect. But he will not wait forever. If he sees gathering signs of sanity

—

a willingness to let the intelligent and thrifty vote, an honest effort to establish law

and order and overthrow the rule of the mob, a desire to substitute honest industrial

conditions in place of the organized and entrenched theft of black wealth upon which

southern industry is based today—such a program, tardy and slow and inadequate though it be, may count on the infinite patience and long suffering of Ethiopia.

4. RACE CONSCIOUSNESS

Ancient Order of Ethiopian Princes:^

To My Kinsmen.—In a broad sense, the words "Negro" and "Nigger" have no historical significance. They are used synonymously in the white man's dictionary. "Negro" is a pure Spanish word meaning "black." The word "Negro," therefore, may be descriptive of a race, but not the name of it. In reality "Negro" is an alias, or nickname appHed to us originally, in much the same contemptuous spirit as the black boy is called "Rastus" or "Sambo."

The white man writes his history for us to study, makes his scenario with his heroes and heroines for us to admire, and supplies our newspapers. Through these instru- mentalities he almost entirely controls our thought.

Remember that "a word is the sign of an idea." The kind of an "idea" that the "sign" stands for depends upon our teaching. If we associate a word, then, with a noble or degraded idea, we have been taught to do so.

You can easily prove this by experimenting with certain words for yourself. After repeating each word tell what your idea is and what you see: (i) Roman,

(2) Paradise, (3) Statesmen, (4) General. Is the idea or picture you get degraded ? No. The White Press, history, reel and teacher have taken care of that.

Now take the following words: (i) Lynched, (2) Jim Crow, (3) Disfranchised, (4) Negro.

What is the result? The words "Lynched," "Jim Crow," "Disfranchised," are the signs of degraded ideas. Moreover, "Negro" is very apt to creep into each one of the three mind pictures and conversely one of the three into the "Negro" mind picture.

Do you imderstand ? Now why is that ? That is what Ethiopic culture teaches, through the "Ancient Order of Ethiopian Princes."

If we beheve that we come from nowhere and have no history but that of a slave, our substance will be the charity of our oppressors, and our future handicapped by doubts and fears.

Ancient history knows no "Negro," but ancient history does know Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Change a family's name and in a generation you cannot tell whether

'Prospectus issued in 192 1.

488 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

its foreparents were rogues or saints. It is the same with a race. You cannot trace

your ancestors through the name "Negro."

Take away our birthright, our ancient honorable name, "Ethiopian" and you

have stopped the very fountain of our inspiration. If we are "Negroes" we are by

the same dictionary also, "Niggers." The moment we reaUze, however, that we are

"Ethiopians," we can see the beams from the lamps of Ethiopian culture lighting a

pathway down the shadowy ages, and the fires of ambition are rekindled in our hearts,

because we know that we came from the builders of temples and founders of civili-

zation.

Study this.

Contrasts of North and South.—^An investigator's report on home conditions of retarded children said:

The mother is eager to learn, and constantly talks of wanting to attend night

school if the opportunity ever offers itself. She is eager for her girl to complete her

education and wants her to take a business course so she will be independent. "A white man can take everything from the colored man but his learning," Mrs.

said repeatedly.

In coming to Chicago she wasn't sure what she would find, but she had heard

that colored people had a show here. She brought her child here to give her one.

Chicago seems like heaven to her now when she thinks of what she had been through

in the South.

When the investigator asked her about the church to which she belonged she said: "Olivet. I goes every Sunday and Wednesday nights to prayer meeting just to

thank God that he let me live to go to a place of worship like that, a place where my people worship and ain't pestered by the white men."

The Chicago riot provoked probably the first full expressions of sentiment

from Negroes in their own press. Underlying them are attitudes toward pres-

ent race relations. There is a strong note of resentment, and the announce-

ment of the birth of a "New Negro." The war is credited with bringing about this change. More than 250,000

young Negroes, the pick of the race in health and intelligence, had returned

to the United States, presumably with changed ideas, and perhaps with grow-

ing cynicism as to promises of fair treatment. Perhaps for the first time in

American history the Negro group fought in the 191 9 riot as a body against

mob violence. The idea that these disorders are a result of active opposition

to distasteful practices is prominent in practically every Negro discussion.

"The Negro race is facing about" is a familiar statement. Said one Negro

newspaper:

It is the utter ignoring of the Negro in the community life that is responsible for

these outbreaks. The controlling whites were absolutely out of touch with the

Negroes, and the races came together in a quarrel and there was no means by which

the trouble could be settled.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 489

A monthly magazine, the Favorite, said: If the white man thmks that the rights, privileges and ordinary pursuits of the

Negro can now be annulled at this stage of the world's affairs, he certainly has " another

thought coming." This Washington revolt is only the "handwriting on the wall."

Don't squeeze the Negro too hard; if you do you squeeze him to the bursting point.

The young Negro of today is far different from his foreparents, and will not be con-

tent with anything less than a fair deal.

The New York American said:

The dangerous enemy of his race is the colored man that advocates force as a

remedy. There is such a thing as being outnumbered beyond any hope.

A Negro newspaper replied: There is such a thing, too, as a noble preference of death to a hfe of slavery. Do

Hearst and Arthur Brisbane think the sentiment of "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" belongs exclusively to a white skin?

A poem in the Crusader and republished in the Messenger and several other periodicals, carries this same idea:

If We Must Die If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While around us bark the mad and himgry dogs Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die—oh, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain ; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead

!

Oh, kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave.

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave ?

Like men we'U face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but—fighting back!

—Claude McKay

Defensive measures justified.—The general belief among Negroes is that resistance to violence is justified. Some view this display of counterviolence

as simply defensive measures, some as retaliation, which in substance means

the same.

The Washington Eagle, a Negro newspaper, commenting on the beginning

of the Washington riot, said:

Notwithstanding the fact that these mobs, increasing in number and in violence

each evening, were allowed to harass law-abiding colored citizens for three consecu-

490 THE NEGRO INf^CHICAGO

tive evenings, the colored citizens showed no signs of revenge or retaHation. But

when the situation became so terrible that colored citizens could endure it no longer

they rose up almost as one man, and, adhering to the first law of human nature, which

says that self-preservation is the first law of nature, they armed themselves "to the

teeth," to use the phrase of one of the local newspapers. It was only when they

showed this disposition to fight back that the riot ceased.

The Messenger, a Negro magazine, said:

The world knows not that the new Negroes are determined to observe the primal

law of self-preservation whenever civil laws break down; to assist the authorities

to preserve order and prevent themselves and famihes from being murdered in cold

blood. Surely, no one can easily object to this new and laudable determination.

Opinions of Negroes regarding the conduct of the police.—Negro condemna- tion of the police seems general. From a large selection of comments two are

given. The Favorite said:

History proves that nearly all race riots are started by white policemen. East

St. Louis, Houston and Washington, D.C., have had terrible cataclysms provoked by

white bluecoats who in nine cases out of ten carry their prejudices with them whenever

they enter black belts. Instead of acting in behalf of law and order white policemen

usually act in behalf of some passion that tells them Negroes are convenient brutes.

For the safety of the twenty-five thousand colored and ten thousand whites in the

Second Ward of Chicago we ask that every white patrohnan in the district be replaced

by a colored bluecoat. Chicago must not be added to the list of American cities cut

off from civilization by race riots, and it is up to Mayor WUliam Hale Thompson

and Chief Garrity to see that the honor of that city is preserved.

The Washington Eagle thought most of the trouble was due to the over-

bearing attitude of the police. It said:

Bishop CottreU, wiring from Holly Springs, Miss., wants the President to call a

conference of representatives of both races to consider the matter of mob law. We doubt if the President will take the trouble to do anything of the kind: while he is

thinking it over the poHce in every place had better be instructed to have more

respect for the rights and feelings of the Afro-American people. Most of the trouble

is to be found in the insolent and overbearing attitude of the police.

Negro opinions regarding white newspapers.—It is asserted by numerous Negro papers that certain white papers spurred the rioters to greater lawless-

ness in the Washington outbreak, and in some cases settled the date and place

of assembly for attacking parties. The Afro-American quoted from the Wash-

ington Post an excerpt headed "Mobilizing for Tonight," and reading:

It was learned that a mobilization of every available service man stationed in or near Washington or on leave here has been ordered for tomorrow evening near the

Knights of Columbus hut on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Seventh and Eighth

streets. The hour of assembly is 9 o'clock and the purpose is a "cleanup" that will

cause the events of the last two evenings to pale into insignificance. Whether ofi&cial

cognizance of this assemblage and its intent will bring about its forestalling cannot be

told.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 491

The Afro-American added:

Commenting on this article Secretary Shillady of the National Association

declares: "In view of the fact that the 'mobiUzation' announced by the Washington

Post had not been ordered by any authority, military or civil, does not the passage

show intent by the Washington Post to bring about such mobilization?"

Another Negro paper in Washington carried the criticism farther:

Editorials are supposed to concern those topics that are most important to the

commimity in which they are written. No one can deny the importance of the race riots that disgraced the name of fair America's Capital during the present week;

yet two of the leading daily papers of the city found everything to fill their editorial

columns but the proper attempts to discourage mob violence and a disposition to

place the blame where it justly belongs. The rioting, in itself, was a deplorable dis-

grace, but a greater disgrace is that the daily newspapers should have encouraged the

rioting by the glaring, ugly headlines that they gave it, rather than discourage the

riots in editorials.

The National Defender and Sun replied to an editorial of the Chicago

Tribune:

In a recent edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which calls itself the world's

greatest newspaper, in discussing the recent race riot in Chicago, it had this to say:

"Can the two races continue to hve in peace in Chicago without segregation? We have for some time criticized the South for its treatment of its black citizens. We believe since the race riot in Chicago that segregation, separate cars, will be the only

cure to prevent race riots in the future." We are very much surprised at the state- ment of the Chicago Tribune. Does the world's greatest newspaper forget that

Atlanta, Ga., Memphis, Tenn., Arkansas and Texas, had great race riots, and

that all of the above-named states have their Jim Crow laws and segregated

district ?

The New York Age had this to say:

So much clamor and bad blood have been aroused by the repeated charge of

assaults attempted upon women in the city of Washington, that more than ordinary

significance attaches to a news item found tucked away in an inconspicuous position

on an inside page of the Washington Times. It was headed: "Woman Now Denies She Was Attacked," and read as follows: "The case of an alleged attack on Mrs.

Minnie Franklin, 1361 K. Street Southeast, by two Negroes near Fifteenth and H.

Sts., Northeast, Thursday night, was closed last night when according to detectives,

the woman said the story was a fabrication. Several headquarters detectives ques-

tioned the woman yesterday and then went over the ground where the alleged attack

was supposed to have occurred, but could find no evidence of a struggle."

This reported case of "assault" had "scare" headhnes at the time it was sup-

posed to have occurred, and it looked as if the daily papers were trying to provoke

another riot. Later, by the admission of the accuser, the police and the press, the

charge was shown to be groundless. Time and again these charges of assaults have

been shown to be "faked," and the most credulous should be brought to see the

necessity of searching investigation before pronouncing the accused guilty. Hysteria,

492 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

by newspaper suggestion, may be at the foundation of many a case of reported "assault."

Charges of southern propaganda in the North.—A wide distinction has been made by Negro observers between the Washington and Chicago riots, the for- mer being called a typical southern, and the latter a typical northern, riot.

Reasons for this are given in the different forms of incentive to rioting. The

Washington reasons were largely sentimental and bore a striking resemblance

to the Atlanta riot about 1906. Reports of attacks on white women, played up

in the newspapers, were sufficient to set the current going. The sentiment

of the South is said to have been behind this outbreak. Said the Chicago

Defender:

It is easy to see that the southern white man is at the bottom of race riots in the northern cities to which we have migrated in recent years It is idle to suppose that the black man was the only migrator from the South; every northern community is practically overrun with southern whites of both sexes. In many of the northern cities a majority of the white women employed as clerks and saleswomen in depart- ment stores, telephone operators and other fields of industry are from the South.

In every place where men are utilized, including pubUc officials, judges and prosecut- ing attorneys, some of them are also from the South.

Remedies.—The Chicago Defender said: To emphasize the fact that no self-respecting citizen had anything to do with the

disgraceful affairs recently witnessed here and in Washington, thousands of circulars

have been distributed by our people and to our people filled with good, wholesome

advice as to being good, law-abiding citizens. Our only salvation lies in harmony,

and both elements must come to understand that each is necessary to the other,

and that with all pulling together, democracy for America will no longer be a theory,

but a reality.

The foregoing examples of sentiment by no means cover the varieties of

Negro opinion. They are merely illustrative of different types. The peculiari-

ties of group behavior which appear to be the attributes of the Negro group

would doubtless show themselves in any other groups similarly placed in the

social scale. There would at the same time be no more likelihood of their

being understood. Situations develop which appear to the uninitiated white

observer strange and even dangerous. That they do represent very definite

and calculated programs of action within certain circles of the Negro group may be illustrated by a few examples.

At a garment manufacturer 's plant thirty colored girls were employed in

a separate unit. When a white girl was employed, the colored girls walked out. They explained that when they first began work in a plant employing

white girls a precedent for this action was given. If white girls were too proud

to work with colored girls, then colored girls should be too proud to work with

white girls. It required much effort on the part of the Urban League to correct their viewpoints.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 493

A short time ago there was considerable agitation among certain groups of Negroes over the appointment of a Negro principal for one of the elementary

schools. His appointment was strongly opposed by Negroes. Although this

may have seemed inexplicable to white people, the action was not wholly illogi-

cal from the viewpoint of Negroes. The school in question, near the Negro

residential area, had an attendance of about 70 per cent Negro children.

Negroes reasoned thus: If a Negro principal were appointed the white teachers

would eventually resign or for one reason or another be transferred; the white

parents then would withdraw their children because there would be no white

teachers, and so the first step would be accomplished toward segregation of

Negroes in the public schools. It was segregation that was opposed, although

the advancement of one of their number must be sacrificed.

Marcus Garvey, a West Indian Negro, with a remarkable genius for organi-

zation, four years ago began a venture on a commercial basis and developed it

into a definite racial movement. He conceived the notion of establishing trade

relations with Africa, and accordingly organized a steamship line. It was a

large undertaking. There were few large Negro investors, and if money was to

be raised it had to come in numerous small amounts rather than in a few large

ones. Again, if commercial relations were to be established, there must be

intelligent Negroes at the African end. The effort grew into another "Back

to Africa" movement. To increase interest it was necessary to campaign

actively, using appeals calculated to arouse the great mass of Negroes. This

Garvey did with such success that his "Back to Africa" slogans created a far

larger movement than his original commercial proposition. The Universal

Negro Improvement Association attracted more interest and members. The

Negro World, a newspaper with a constant and powerful appeal to racial

pride, racial solidarity, and racial independence, is the organ of the movement.

During the summer of 1920 a great convention was held. A provisional presi- dent of the Black Republic was elected, and was acclaimed the recognized

leader of the black people of the world. The women were organized into

"Black Cross" nurses and it was planned to establish a "Black House" in

Washington. The movement has been widened to include the black peoples of

the British colonies and Africa. An alliance of sympathy has been declared

with peoples similarly disadvantaged. Thus Ireland's contention for home

rule is supported, in spite of the supposed general hostility between the Negroes

and the Irish in the United States. The movement is credited with 4,000,000

followers in different parts of the world.

VI. OPINIONS or FIFTEEN NEGROES ON DEFINITE RACIAL PROBLEMS

What are Negroes thinking ? Few white persons know the intimate reac-

tions of Negroes to problems which they face daily. Yet it is obvious that the

conduct of Negroes in practically every phase of life is determined by these

very sentiments, which for the white world remain a closed book.

494 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

It was with this in mind that a series of questions was put to seventeen

Negroes whose intelligence and pubhc-mindedness qualified them for critical

self-analysis as well as dispassionate examination of racial issues as they affect

the minds, behavior, and policies of Negroes as a group. Ten of these Negroes

lived in Chicago and represented an ordinary type of the intelligent Negro.

Five of them lived outside of Chicago. Included in this latter number were

two Negroes whose writings have been widely read and who may be said to exercise some influence over the thinking of Negroes.

The fifteen whose repUes are presented here included business men, phy-

sicians, ministers, school teachers, lawyers, and social workers. Two were women.

ARE RACE RELATIONS IMPROVING ?

Question: Putting aside for the moment the question of right and wrong and the

iniquity of the causes back of present relations, do you believe that the

relations are becoming better or worse, or are they at a standstill ?

Answers:

1. Better, decidedly better. If it becomes unprofitable to lynch Negroes, or

unprofitable to shoot them up in riots, they will probably more and more be

let alone. The riots in Chicago and Washington mean that not only Negroes

will lose their lives. They also indicate to me that the Negro feels that his back is more and more to the wall, and he is bestirring himself. So long as

he is satisfied, his case is hopeless. When he begins to force respect he will usher in the dawn of a new day. Again there is an increasing number of

evidences that white people are waking up to the conditions. Negroes feel

that some of the "Study Groups" are ineffective, but the fact remains that

at one time the race question was not deemed worthy of study except

by Negroes. When all is said, I would rather be living in 1920 than in

1870.

2. The relations are becoming worse. Relatively speaking, race relations

in America have not kept pace with progress in many fields along other lines.

The great desideratum is that the Negro change his point of view.

3. The present relations between the races seem more tense than formerly.

This is due to the fact that Negroes have developed within the past few years

a greater race consciousness, a great race respect. The immigration from

the South which permitted him to enter into the industrial life of the North

with very few hindrances, to partake of its civic life without an ever-constant

reminder of race, was one of the main factors in increasing race consciousness

and race respect. Another factor was the treatment as equals and fellow

human beings of the Negro soldiers by the French soldiery and people.

These things have caused the Negro to demand the respect which he is entitled

to as a man and the privileges due him as a citizen. The whites at the present

time still object to giving him these. This causes friction. I believe, how-

ever, that it will be lessened as soon as the whites realize that these demands

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 495

of the Negro will not be withdrawn but wiU continue to be made with greater

insistence.

4. Better.

5. Much was gained through the war. However, at the present time things seem to be at a standstill.

6. Racial relations between all races were never more acute nor more keenly-

felt and resented than during the present day.

7. Conditions, I believe, are getting a little better.

8. I don't believe that consideration of right and wrong influences fundamental

reactions. One's conception of advantage and disadvantage determines

the character of every act. I believe that all social relations are in a state

of flux and that with the improvement of mankind which is coming with the

evolution of a sense of higher values there wiU be an improvement in human relationships.

9. Race relations on the whole are growing worse instead of better, and they are

crystallizing in the wrong direction. The whites are adjusting their con-

science to their conduct, and are consciously or unconsciously justifying viola-

tion of the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Sermon on the Mount,

the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States

at the behest of race prejudice.

10. They are becoming distinctly worse as each year solidifies the hatred and

crystallizes the opinions of the whites which immediately subsequent to the

CivU War were in a chaotic state. 11. The last year or so has shown that riots are more quickly started. In our

opinion race relations are likely to get much worse, especially if the present flood of European immigration continues. But getting worse to become

better is much like a boU which, after it gathers and breaks, leaves the body in a healthier condition. Negroes are becoming more and more determined

to enjoy their constitutional rights.

12. I am in doubt. 13. I am an optimist. I beUeve relations are becoming better.

OPINIONS ON SOLUTION

Question: Do you believe that money and the acquisition of wealth make an appreci- able difference in the degree of respect in which Negroes are held by their

white neighbors, or in the treatment they receive ?

Economic Progress*

496 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Answers:

1. Yes, money and wealth are the root of all good and evil. In North Carolina,

a rich Negro, McCary, who, it was alleged, had been caught in intimate rela-

tions with a leading white woman, was sued for money damages instead of

being lynched. Money and wealth must be widely diffused enough to make an appreciable difference, however; isolated cases of wealth ordinarily en-

gender friction and hatred.

2. No, because I personally know many who are highly respected and kindly treated in their communities though in very humble circumstances.

3. I believe that money or wealth causes more respect to be accorded within

white people's hearts, but it is more likely to increase racial feeling than to

lessen it. The element of jealousy among poorer whites probably gives rise

to such statements as keeping the Negro in his place. The whites of better

circumstances merely use these existing feelings to gain their own selfish ends.

4. Yes, and no. Money is power. The power over a man's subsistence is the power over his wiU. The individual who has money is sought because he is

in a position to confer advantages. He is likewise hated because he 'can inflict pain. Were race prejudice logical and based upon reason and not

hysteria, the procurement of money and the consequent demonstration of

basic equality would improve conditions. However, the majority of persons

do not think but are exploited. Religious dogmas and racial antipathies

being useful adjuncts in the process are sufficient to outweigh material

or rational considerations.

5. Absolutely.

6. The possession of money causes whites to accord the Negro more respect and

better treatment if the particular Negro can intelligently handle his affluent

situation so as to demand such.

7. I think that money and the acquisition of wealth make an appreciable

difference in the degree of respect in which Negroes are held by their white

neighbors; not that the prejudice against the race is reduced considerably

or possibly to any extent, but because men worship dollars, and if they are possessed by Negroes, Negroes faU in for additional respect as the holders

of wealth.

8. I believe that the acquisition of wealth causes marked increase in respect,

provided that a fairly large group of Negroes in that community respectively

are the possessors; but for merely one or two persons to acquire wealth in a

community is not likely to inspire respect. It may cause its opposite. I assume, of course, that a fair inteUigence was necessary to secure the wealth.

g. InteUigence and wealth are necessary to the self-respect of the Negro. I

doubt not that in many instances they would increase racial friction for the time being; but the time must come and is now near at hand, when the white

race must recognize that the whole is greater than any of its parts. A com- munity like Chicago, for instance, cannot be intelligent if the Negro is igno-

rant; it cannot be competent if the Negro is inefficient; it cannot be virtuous

if the Negro is vicious; it cannot be healthy if the Negro is diseased. Intelli-

gence and wealth will not of themselves solve the race problem, but the

problem cannot be solved without intelligence and wealth.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 497

lO.

II.

Money and wealth do make a difference in the amount of respect accorded

to individuals, as they lessen the causes for class antagonism. The white

man accords esteem to those who are able to secure good clothing, decent

homes, education, and indulge in what are considered luxuries. These things,

too, increase the respect the Negro has for himself and make him demand

respect from others. The treatment accorded him is not likely to be changed

as his advancement tends to increase hatred among the whites whom he

rises above, and a desire not to treat him as an equal among those whose

level he reaches.

Money, commerce, rule the world. The average white man is happiest when

he sees the Negro down. But if the Negro has money he is willing to con-

ceal his prejudice and trade with him. Money, in the possession of no matter

whom, commands fear, which is the nearest most human beings get to having

respect for others. While one rich Negro in a town, in most instances,

would receive pretty much the same treatment as other Negroes, yet a

hundred rich Negroes in that same town would certainly make a big differ-

ence. Apply this ratio to the nation. A rich Negro, even in Georgia or

Mississippi, certainly has a far pleasanter lot than a poor white.

Yes.

Yes, it does for white people. To quote a friend, "It is easy for anybody to

be respectful and courteous to a million dollars." This is especially true of

Americans.

Question: Do you believe that if Negroes were loo per cent literate it would make

any great difference in race relations ? Are general and higher education

likely to widen the breach between Negroes and white persons, increase intol-

erance, resentment, sensitiveness to insults, or can a quieted process of ad-

justment or complete fusion of interests be expected ?

12.

13-

Educational Progress*

Per cent literate Colleges and normal schools Students in public schools

Teachers in all schools

Property for higher education. . . .

.

Annual expenditures for education

.

Raised by Negroes

i866

498 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

2. I conceive that literacy in itself is a cure for nothing except illiteracy. One-

hundred-per-cent literate Negroes without proper use of their literacy may even make matters worse. General and higher education may be expected to make matters better only if there is general and higher education among

whites and the education on both sides is of the right kind. In America, at

present, education, where it touches race lines, appears to be more propaganda

than education. It is reported that some histories of reconstruction taught to

Negroes by the state in parts of the United States emphasize and detaU their

shortcomings and omit their virtues. Obviously such education is educa-

tion for mistrust, unrest, conflict. It educates the races apart, and its logical

consequence is conflict. I am ready to answer, then, that general and higher education which emphasizes likeness and passes over without undue atten-

tion unlikeness, education which aims to have men live in harmony and co-

operation and does not aim to array classes against classes and races against

races by omissions and emphasis, may be expected to better our race relations

in the United States provided it finds lodgment in the school systems of both

races.

3. If 10,000,000 literate Negroes were environed with 100,000,000 white men,

the majority of whom were below their cultural level, the dominant minds among the whites would arouse ethnic antagonisms as an economic weapon

to be used in promoting their selfish ends. I believe that there is not a

single force, ethical, religious, or of any type, sufiiciently powerful to cause

an individual to forego what he believes to be his highest advantage, and the

appeal to group instincts is the easiest method of securing mass action.

4. If Negroes were 100 per cent literate they would certainly be more sensitive

to insults and more resentful. I should expect a great increase in racial

differences, unless those Negroes imbibed a tendency to non-resistance.

That, however, is far from likely. With universal literacy, a larger acquaint-

ance with current events and conditions, Negroes could immeasurably

improve their living conditions, but their contacts with the whites would be

far more unpleasant.

5. One hundred per cent literacy among Negroes would make a huge difference.

In the long run it would lessen the breach between Negroes and white persons,

for Negroes would strive for equality. The most essential thing is to produce

a change in the mental equipment of the Negro. The white man's mind will

take care of itself. What is needed is a more balanced and equal meeting

of the minds. But there would be bloodshed at the beginning.

6. Resentment and sensitiveness to insults will increase on the part of Negroes

as they grow in intelligence, but as their spirits rebel more insistently and

positively against insults, it cannot help but have its effect upon white men

who ignorantly mistreat them, and if the respect growing out of love does not

follow, the respect growing out of tolerance, as in the case of the Jews in

America, wiU ensue and result in recognition of equal intelligence and culture.

7. Literacy must be 100 per cent on both sides to bring about a "complete fusion

of interests" or a "quieted process of adjustment." Intelligent Negroes

among uneducated whites would aggravate the situation.

8. If Negroes were 100 per cent literate they would command more respect,

because men always command more respect when they are intelligent.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 499

9. I believe in education first, last, and always as a leveller and as a bulwark of defense. There is no race prejudice among broadly cultured people. Art knows no such distinctions.

10. (a) Yes. (b) Not, if at the same time the education of the whites is broadened and made more general, (c) Better education of both races will facilitate a fusion of interests, beginning probably in economic relations.

11. It would make them much more bitter, for (a) the Negro would be more sensitive to injustice and have more of the combative spirit which literacy usually gives, and (b) whites would be more jealous and anxious to show the Negro his place. I believe that such an intensification of the struggle is desirable and necessary, as I don't believe that the brilliant ideas necessary for solution of the race problem can come other than as the children of the most intense and bitter racial conflict. Of course it would defeat its purpose if

such a conflict were bloody, as then we would have a long period of the nauseating burden such as America suffers with today, viz.: the North attempting to reconcile the South.

12. Literacy will make a difference also in race relations. The difference will increase in degree as literacy advances beyond the mere ability to read and write to a wider participation in every field of educational or intellectual

endeavor. As far as I have been able to observe, the breach between whites and Negroes is widened as Negroes advance in education and culture. The educated Negro rarely comes in contact with the white man as a menial or laborer—the only point of contact which the great majority of white people want. He wiE respect the Negro teacher, lawyer, doctor, or business man who knows his work thoroughly and can do as well as he. He is not likely, however, to find any reason to co-operate with this class of Negroes, and the Negroes do seek such co-operation.

13. (o) Yes. (b) In slavery times whites made it a crime to teach Negroes to read. That desire, in up-to-date garb, remains in the breast of most whites today. To many white persons a Negro of superior talent and refinement is a more detestable production than the most pronounced rogue. Most white persons, even of the best quality, are secretly displeased at a Negro of

this type. They were brought up to regard Negroes as being below them, and the sight is a blow to their vanity, (c) A dollar talks much more sweetly than Emerson or Shakespeare and even Christ to most men, therefore a process of adjustment or complete fusion of interests will be effected chiefly

through trade relationship, not esthetics.

Question: If unrestricted suffrage were given Negroes throughout the United States,

would matters be helped ? Answers:

1. Equal suffrage between the races in some parts of the country would doubt- less precipitate a temporary disturbance, but it is not thinkable that under

democratic institutions any group or class can be permanently or for a long while refused equal participation in the government under which they

live and by which they are controlled. Shall we do evil that good may come ? 2. Every appreciable increase in power among Negroes will be met with jeal-

ousy and repression by the whites. Unrestricted suffrage does not mean much when people have guns at the polls and dare other people to vote. Its

500 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

inception would mean acute racial trouble, I think, but if the Negroes used

the same means and methods to register their vote as the whites do to keep

them from registering it, and kept it up long enough, ultimately conditions

would be very much improved where Negroes constitute about half the popu- lation of a unit.

3. Yes. Even though Negroes might not vote intelligently at the outset, they

would tend to vote for their own welfare. The Negro does not feel whole- heartedly that he is a part of the American people. But with the vote

he would be in a better position to work for common ends- Though voting for the capitalist parties would not mean much to the Negro, a vote for the money barons is better than no vote at all.

4. Unrestricted suffrage is a right as well as a privilege. It is essential for

building up the sense of responsibility and loyalty among any group of people

in a democracy founded on the ideals of the Declaration of Independence

and the Constitution.

5. Yes, the ballot is a protection which the Negro now is intelligent enough to

use and keep. In the present segregated condition of the Negro, the ballot

has a genuine property value. Police protection, better lighted and better

paved streets, I am convinced, must come to him through the ballot or else he does not get them.

6. Unrestricted Negro suffrage would help a great deal in securing for Negroes

the things it is possible to secure through the use of the ballot. Political

parties, as well as the Negro himself, would realize the power of Negro suffrage

and would doubtless be inclined to cater to that vote. The exercise of such

unlimited suffrage is likely to increase for a time the tenseness in race relations,

as the whites would not readQy give up the domination they have secured.

The agitation in Ohio and in the Middle West over the exercise by the

Negro of his suffrage shows how clearly the white man fears the power of the ballot when used by the Negro.

7. Other things remaining the same, it would not.

8. Not necessarily by that fact alone. The ultimate value of the right of suffrage

is conditioned by the intelligence with which that right is used.

9. This goes without saying. In Chicago, Negroes exercise considerable

influence in the city administration, because of their strong political power.

The same is true of New York and Cleveland. Apply this to the nation. 10. Yes.

11. Yes, if we had a third party with racial cohesion.

12. Suffrage to be effective must be taken and not conferred. "Who would be free, himself must strike the blow." A man has no right that he can't pro- tect and defend.

Question: How about religion as a solvent of racial difl&culties and differences ?

Religious Progress*

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 501 Answers:

1. Religion, if it ever becomes a vital force in the everyday affairs of people, will be one of the greatest forces in solving race difficulties. At the present time its influence is practically nil. The average church is still calling worn- out theology religion; those which have adopted a more modem and practical view of religion are too few to exert any influence in race problems.

2. Religion per se, to my mind, has failed, but Christianity, the spirit mani- fested by Jesus Christ in his life and which he commanded his followers to imitate, if adopted in its vital truth and simplicity by all professing Chris- tians, could solve all the difficulties.

3. Religion might be helpful in solving racial difficulties if it were tried—but it has not been very largely tried yet.

4. Religion as a solvent of racial difficulties is necessary, but both groups will

need to practice it to the same degree.

5. The religion of America, or of any other country, is merely an index to the national character. Religion expresses itself in the church, and the church is a capitalistic institution. Expressed religion in America, because its

pecuniary existence largely depends upon the rank and file of the people who support it, will not rise above the prejudices and folkways of that rank and file. Religion will not solve many racial difficulties or differences.

6. Religion hardly touches the deeper motivations. It may regulate details, but usually the priest-craft succeeds by sophistry, emphasis or omission in avoiding certain fundamental issues in their religious exhortations. It

often appears that the preacher is retained to idealize the crassness of the

world, and unpleasant things are simply taboo. He must look to his salary. 7. It has no utility. It had no utility in the world war and so a fortiori could

have no utility in our race problem where more bitter issues are involved. 8. Unfortunately religion has little sanction over the social conduct where

interest and passions are involved. This was too sadly manifested in the world war. It is to be hoped, however, that there may arise a moral and spiritual renaissance under whose sanction religion may exercise controlling influence over the frictional relations among men.

9. Very much overestimated is religion as a solvent of racial differences. Neither Negroes nor whites have enough confidence in it to put it into practical appli- cation. No one thing will bring about the Negro's real emancipation. The fight must be carried on in every sphere where prejudice has vitiated relations.

10. Religion has failed to solve the racial difficulties and differences in America because its principles have never been practiced by the people. Religion has remained a beautiful theory. If the religious principles were practiced

there would be no racial difficulties.

11. Utterly valueless. The average individual cannot think. He lives only in the concrete. Material advantages outweigh philosophical benefits. Deprive religion of the moving force of fear which its exponents engender, and it will entirely cease to be dynamic.

12. The religion of Christ will prove a solvent if men ever give it a trial. 13. Religion, in our opinion, has never settled any question. Nothing else con-

tains so much the germs of strife. Mankind, throughout the ages, has never been able to agree on it. The history of Europe, Asia and Northern Africa is one long record of warring religions.

502 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

SOCIAL ADJUSTMENTS

Question: What are some of the most pronounced mental complexes experienced in adjusting your personal desires and expectations to the present social system ?

Answers:

1. A constant haunting feeling when in the presence of white persons that they desire to shun me because of my color; that they are eager to use me to further their ends under the guise of piety or patronizing the " good-feeling-toward-

your-people" attitude. I suffer from time to time an acute embarrassment

because of uncouth conduct in the presence of white persons on the part

of uncultured Negroes. Such conduct embarrasses me generally, but the presence of white persons who are supposed to be inimical seems to be the dominant element in the situation.

2. The most pronounced mental complex which I experience in adjusting my desires and expectations to the present social system is not the "inferiority

complex " with which most Negroes are charged by the whites. I desire all

that the social system affords; but as to expectation it is necessary for me to use auto-hypnotism to make myself expect it in order that I can present to the white man the front of optimism, the necessary air of expectancy to secure success. The shocks and disappointments which a Negro must constantly

experience tend to get him in the attitude of expecting nothing.

3. I can't describe the mental complexes, but some are caused by situations such

as these: I go to the library to get a book, and I am told that I must sit in a seat among dusty shelves of newspaper files at a table marked "For colored people"; in order to see a play I have to sit in the gallery. I submit to that

and when I get to the theater, I am told that no seats are reserved for colored people. I go to a lecture by the Hon. Mr. So and So (white) and he discusses

the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, creating much enthusi- asm among the unthinking and some of the thinking. Then the next morning I take up the paper of which the same gentleman is the editor, and read a

sneering editorial on the race question, and so on.

4. Personally, I am able to impersonalize my relation to the situation, and experience no mental perplexities. I try to preserve a rational attitude in an

irrational environment and objectify cruelty, injustice and wrong. I know that I as an individual am not Jim Crowed, or disfranchised or socially iso- lated; it is the race to which I belong. My only perplexity is how to remove these racial, not personal, disqualifications.

5. Determination to fulfill my personal desires in spite of the present social system; a loss of respect for the white man's sense of justice.

6. The arrogance of the poor ignorant white man and the snobbishness of the middle class. This is the stumbling-block for the future of our race to

overcome,

7. Trying to get white persons, as employers, etc., to accept me as a man first of all, then to judge me on my merits, irrespective of my color. Trying to attain to the same degree of success and liberty of any other man of my training and experience in spite of the world in which I live.

8. Amused and almost cynical tolerance. A desire to reap the greatest possible advantages from the system, without permitting my intelligence to admit that it is right because it is personally advantageous.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 503

9. My desires are never adjusted to the present "social system"; they are con- stantly out of harmony with the practices of our so-called democracy, as these practices relate to the Negro.

10. If this question means what I think it does, space will not permit an intelli- gent answer.

11. A hyper-sensitiveness in regard to the subject Negro; a tendency to see racial antagonism as a motive of conduct in every act of white persons when perhaps it is sometimes absent; a hesitancy about entering public places or

approaching individuals for fear of rebuff or insult; a withdrawal into a Negro

world in which almost every thought and act are colored by a racial aspect before a humanitarian one, are some of the mental complexes experienced in

a greater or less degree by almost every colored person.

Question: Do you believe that Negroes are prejudiced against white persons ? Answers:

1. Some are, but the prejudice is due to nurture rather than to nature. 2. Prejudice means pre-judgment. Negroes come into the world to find most

white persons disliking them. They grow up in an atmosphere where they find whites ready to insult them because of the color Nature saw fit to give

them. Therefore, knowledge, not prejudice, causes Negroes to dislike whites.

Human beings, and even dumb animals, love only those who love them. The average Negro is, however, quick to drop this defensive attitude when he

meets a fair-minded white person. Perhaps too easily, as he is often taken

advantage of by shrewd whites disguised as friends.

3. I do not believe that Negroes are inherently prejudiced against the white

race. Personally, I have absolutely no such prejudice. I do not believe

that the white race is inherently prejudiced against the Negro, but that it is

wholly a feeling stimulated by social opinion which can be modified and con-

trolled. I put in evidence the facts: First, when social pressure is removed,

white women marry Negro men, and white men marry Negro women. Second, the superior always shows prejudice against the inferior, whether

superiority is claimed on basis of wealth, culture, birth, or position. The

prejudices of inferior against superior is never so pronounced as that of

superior against inferior. Natural antipathy is mutually reciprocal. Third,

some white persons are less influenced by it than others. Fourth, race

antagonism as such is scarcely discernible where Latin civilization and the

Catholic religion are in control. Fifth, it does not exist in the Mohammedan dispensation. Sixth, the experience of thousands of Negro soldiers in

France proves its comparative absence. Seventh, race prejudice seems to be

principally the vice of the Teuton and the Anglo-Saxon, which must be sub-

ject to ultimate control. It will not be quite so strong among Germans as it was before the war.

4. I do not beUeve that Negroes as a race are prejudiced against white people,

although I am conscious of an increasing prejudice against white people on the part of many individual Negroes, especially educated colored women who live in the South and resent keenly the indiscriminate approaches of white men.

5. Many Negroes are cynical of all the professions of white men. They often express their hatred of white people openly. I think, however, that feeling

is more prevalent among the yovmger Negroes than among the older ones.

S04 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

6. Many pretend to be. Most of them are not. 7. Yes, 98 per cent of them are.

8. Not as individuals. They are affected by the spirit of mass hostility to dis- similar masses based upon the desire to appropriate and retain advantages. Racial prejudices are the products of the will of dominant individuals evoking

responses from weaker intelligences and serving the purpose of the dominat-

ing mind.

9. If so, to a very slight extent. What feeling most Negroes have is created almost solely to offset the prejudice and antagonism of the whites. The preju- dice of the whites I might describe as primary; that of the colored, secondary.

10. Yes; too much so among some groups.

1 1

.

Negroes in most cases are very much prejudiced against whites. 12. Yes. The difference lies in the degree. Prejudice is artificial. It is learned.

The white boy and girl have been "taught" more prejudice than the Negro. Negroes seldom teach prejudice outright. When they learn it, it is inescap- able. America is a school, I fear, at present where even the most backward

learns something of prejudice whether he will it or not.

13

.

I believe there is a strong prejudice against white persons. This antipathy is,

I believe, not based on racial unlikeness, but on resentment because of cruel

treatment as an inferior.

Question: Are you ever conscious of a feeling of racial inferiority or even the desire

to compensate for a supposed inferiority ?

Answers:

1. I attribute inferiority and superiority alike to individuals, not race. I have

every confidence that my race is capable of producing as great men, and pro- portionately as many of them, as any other race under the sun. I trace to environment the responsibility for not releasing their energy upon construc-

tive work, but concentrating it upon gaining a living or a chance to gain a living. Many times I feel the desire to compensate for a supposed inferiority, because I believe in nailing a lie wherever possible.

2. I never have a feeling of racial inferiority or a desire to compensate for a

supposed inferiority (with reservations). I am usually cognizant of the fact that most white people consider the Negro an inferior. This often causes the

bristles to rise on my back. 3. Personally, at no moment of our lives. The Negro is really superior in

stamina. His race is progressing, while the whites appear to be standing still.

The white race has had seven thousand years or more of education and civili- zation, yet in this prosperous republic today the average white person is

comparatively poor and possesses little education. The Negro, in spite of the oppressive handicap due to color, is progressing along aU lines, com-

mercial, professional and artistic.

4. I am never conscious of racial inferiority, but I am a firm believer in the theory that any human being will be whatever his environment and his heredity will make of him, regardless of the color of his skin or the form of his skull. One in considering this point of view should be sure not to confuse the words "inferiority" and "inequality."

.^. No.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 505

6. I feel no desire to apologize to the world because I am a colored woman; I had to be of some race, and here I am.

7. No. I believe that accidents of environment determine relative positions.

8. Decidedly no ! I believe absolutely in my own worth as a man and as a Negro and defer only to wider experience, knowledge, or skill, whether possessed

by white persons or Negroes.

9. No!

10. No.

11. I never have a feeling of racial inferiority or a desire to compensate for a

supposed inferiority.

12. Personally, I am absolutely unconscious of any feeling of racial inferiority. I recognize the control of social forces and influences which may seem too strong to be overcome at present. I simply suffer it to be so now.

13. I have never felt any racial inferiority, though always when thrown in school work or business with white people the desire to do my work as well or better than they is very strong. This desire comes primarily from a desire

to show that the Negro is not inferior in his ability.

NEGRO PROBLEMS

Question: Do you believe that there should be recognized leaders of Negroes ? Are there such persons whom you regard as qualified for leadership ? Discuss their merits and demerits.

Answers:

1. As long as the dominant power treats with us as with Negroes rather than as with American citizens, there will be need of recognized leaders; but these

leaders should be chosen by the Negroes themselves, not chosen and imposed

by others.

2. Yes and no. Theoretically and ultimately, no. Practically and immedi-

ately, yes. In any clearly differentiated group the spokesman should come from and grow out of conditions within the group. In a community in which there were cultural and not ethnic divisions there would be no need for Negro

leaders. What was good for the hive would be for the good of each bee. However, in a community in which color is a target, defensive alliances under

the best possible leadership are a sine qua non. I am too close to the problem to have sufficient perspective to attempt the discussion of personalities.

3. Logically, no. Practically, under present conditions it is imperative to have

Negro leaders. Where people do not read much, do not study much, they are incapable of doing much thinking. Better a bad leader under such circumstances than no leader at ail. The very clashes between rival leaders with their several points of view force the rank and file to attend to condi-

tions and compare conflicting views. This often marks the beginning of

interests in striving to improve conditions. The merits of leaders are con- sidered in another place.

4. I do not think that it will be possible, or advisable, to attempt to appoint or

elect leaders for Negroes. Naturally men and women of exceptional powers will be recognized by those of less developed powers as leaders of thought in various connections in their several localities.

5o6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

5. There should be no recognized leaders of Negroes except those who are selected from groups or bodies of Negroes—selected by them for a particular purpose or a particular cause. I do not believe in Negro leadership secured

by members of the white race and then handed to our group as a leader with-

out first having had the endorsement of the Negroes themselves.

6. Yes. Emmet Scott, Dr. Du Bois and Mr. Grimke, Mr. Scott has great executive ability. Dr. Du Bois is a great philosopher and an ardent race rights advocate. Mr. Grimke a scholar and wise counsellor. This combina-

tion as Leaders' Council would, in my opinion, conserve our best interests. Mr. Scott is too much of an opportunist for an ideal leader, Dr. Du Bois is too radical at times, Mr. Grimke is too much of an intellectual recluse.

7. There shovdd be recognized leaders of Negroes, recognized by Negroes because

of their merits in their particular fields of endeavor. There are Negroes

qualified for such leadership today, but their afiiliations with organizations

largely or partly supported by philanthropic whites negative their usefulness.

8. I believe every community should develop its own leadership. A great deal of our present leadership is too largely clerical and political and therefore not

free, broad, and independent. We need a leadership which is free, courage- ous, and which possesses a program and definite objective.

9. I do not approve self-appointed leadership or leadership bestowed by white

friends because they can command funds. If there are to be leaders, they should be chosen by selection so that there can be "solemn referendum."

With this qualification, there are a large number of Negroes whom I would vote for as leaders. The trouble now is that our so-called leaders are not responsible to those whom they are supposed to represent.

10. There should not be; as soon as one appears, destructive influences are

brought to bear upon him both from within and without, making of him

within a short period an extremely artificial and useless guide, but who is followed, nevertheless, by Negroes blindly to their own great injury.

11. I believe firmly in the capacity of the race for self-leadership. Any people can govern themselves better than an outsider is apt to govern them, unless

the alien is willing to become naturalized in the group he aspires to lead.

The white race at present is unable or unwilling to become naturalized in the

Negro group.

12. The basis of Negro leadership should rest on the ability to develop within

the masses a desire and the power to obtain better homes, education and their

privileges as citizens without belittling themselves or adopting the toadying

attitude. Any individual who is striving in a community to secure these things for his people should be considered a leader. The mere ability to

write a book, edit a magazine, or publicly express the cause of the Negro is

not a sufficient qualification for leadership even though it does bring national

prominence.

13. (a) Under the circumstances, yes. (b) Useless to discuss this. People

usually choose as their leaders those who express most strongly prevailing

sentiments, (c) The followers are their own judges of merit and demerit.

Question: What, in your opinion, are some of the greatest mistakes of prominent

Negroes in their policies or stand on racial issues ?

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS S©?

1. Most are honest, I think, but emphasize too much some one pet solution,

such as " Get Property," "Industrial Education," etc. Many are insincere,

usmg their influence to feather their own nests, letting the race go hang.

An intolerance among Negroes themselves for those among their number

who have different opinions as to the wisest courses in arriving at the better

conditions which they equally are trying to bring about. Some characteris-

tics possessed by most of the so-called leaders may be summed as foUows:

Don't bother and leave all in the hands of God.

Overestimation of the Negroes' present attainments, eulogies instead of

information.

Oratory of denunciation only, raising prejudice against whites but

offering no course of action or thought leading to improvement either of

Negroes personally or individually, or as a race.

A disinclination to teU the blunt truth when interracial conferences offer

the opportunity for an exchange of views.

2. The greatest mistake that leaders usuaUy make is that of faUing to study the

problems towards the solution of which they are working. They also are

not willing to co-operate with leaders along other lines.

3. Selfishness and lack of moral backbone in the face of possible financial loss.

4. To accept that there is a purely racial psychology. And to think, act, or

accept as a Negro and not as a man.

5. (o) Compromising attitude; (b) depending on support of white people finan-

ciaUy and morally; (c) failure to co-operate freely with all cases among the

Negroes themselves.

6. Lack of absolute frankness with white people about mind and feeUng of

Negroes; lack of absolute frankness with Negroes about their own short-

comings and faUure. I believe that many men are overcoming this weakness.

7. Short-sightedness. They seem not to look ahead and see the consequence

of their arrangements and concessions. Most of them, because of the manner

of their selections, are unacquamted with history, sociology, etc. They see

the present, not even the present generation. They faU into advices and

concessions today which prove a noose tomorrow. There is lack of poise.

Often they seem to know nothing of a means. There is no intermediate

ground ; it simply is or it is not. This absolutism mevitably leads to trouble.

This of course does not apply to all of our leaders.

8 The greatest mistakes of prominent Negroes in their stands: A statesman is

supposed to be the fusion of two necessary elements: (i) the theorist, such

as we have in our coUege professors and most of our writers; and (2) the

practical politician who can get things done. The main fault with most of

our prominent Negroes in their policies and behaviour is that they never

accomplish this fusion; all faU very definitely into either group one or group

two, and either group by itself is helpless.

9 The greatest mistake of prominent Negroes, in my judgment, is that they pay

too great a deference to the attitude of the white race rather than to the

inherent demands of humanity. Jesus refused to defer to the arrogance of

Mate, although he exercised the power of life or death.

5o8 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

lo. Faulty perspective due to improper training; failure to grasp the economic

significance of race prejudice; and a tendency to preach the doctrine of non-

resistance when they get rich and fat. The younger crop of Negroes, armed

with modern scientific education are remedying the first two. Time will

show whether they will prove more unselfish.

DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY

Question: If it may be assumed that there are conditions which are intolerable, or, at least, a constant source of irritation to Negroes, it is to be expected that

some defensive philosophy is necessary to give poise, dignity, and self-

respect. What is your philosophy? What basic philosophical considera- tions, even if not crystalUzed into dogma, support your outlook on life, or

that of Negroes of your acquaintance and general point of view ?

Answers:

1. I believe racial solidarity, as I conceive it, to be the defensive philosophy of

many Negroes. My own philosophy, if I have one, is summed up in the belief that potentially the Negro has the same qualities making for success

and usefulness as any other group. AU he needs is an even break. I believe in an offensive program to teach pride in their achievements and prepare

themselves for keen, hard competition all along the line. I believe in

attacking the indifference and ignorance of white people which is largely the

basis of prejudice, by educating them to respect and believe in the self-

defending, non-favor-asking, justice-demanding Negro.

2. My philosophy rests upon two propositions. The first is borrowed from the Latin "I am a man; nothing human is foreign to me." The second is: A man is entirely the product of his environment. (Heredity is the sum of our former environments.) Given, then, an essential equality in aU men,

temporary advantages are the results of environment. Self-preservation

and its corollary, the desire for the preservation of species, are fundamental

traits, and the Israelites, killing those who said Sibboleth and not Shib- boleth, have their protot5^e in those who make non-conformity in hair, color, speech or culture, a crime and inferiority stamp. It seems rational

to suppose, however, that man may evolve sufficient mentality, and far enough away from the brute, to make differences in culture and not physical characteristics the basis of distinctions. Until then the pursuit of pleasure

and advantage is the proper aim of life.

3. The Negro maintains his self-respect and dignity in the face of intolerable conditions because of his natural optimism and his hope for and belief in

the approach of a better day. I teach my children that they should not seek companionship with any other children who reluctantly associate with them, not that my children should consider themselves in any way inferior or unequal, but that they should be possessed of too much personal pride to wish association with those who would not be pleasant and agreeable.

4. My philosophy is a pessimistic one. There is often a sense of hopelessness. To live in the white group makes it incumbent on me to overcome many presumptions on their part. On the other hand, to create mutual under- standabUity is a phase of aggressive conduct I follow. To conduct one's

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 509

self in a more socially acceptable way, viz., to do a certain thing better than

any member of the dominant group, is another excellent mode of enhancing

social values. But the best way of all is to assume an offensive attack, and

place the white group or individual on the defensive at all times. This can

be accomplished only by a superior type of mind.

5. Never submit passively to unnecessary indignities. Keep alive the spirit

of protest against all injustice from black or white. I am just as good or at least my right to decent treatment is as good as that of any other man. I am what I think and do, not what some other person does to me or thinks about me.

6. My experience with the segregation tendency has taught me to look down upon the system. It bristles with contradictions, being foolishly fastidious,

fanatically unreasonable, and usually carried out by the uncultured element.

Moreover, the promoters of the system are not ready to discuss the matter;

it is simply taboo. The immoral forays of members of this super-sensitive

"superior race" coupled with criminal economical advantages maintained by

intimidation aside from being tragic lends a subtle hypocrisy which does not

escape even the casual observer. Add to this the hysteria of the thing and

you have a medley of the ludicrous hypocritical, illogical, and hysterical.

Any man then who is honest and self-respecting easily comes to feel himself superior to the promoters of the institutions. One moves among these

conditions with a feeling probably not unlike that of Socrates among the

Athenians, although, if he chances to be a man of color, with far less freedom of conduct and speech.

7. My philosophy would be that by our conduct as a group we will be able to disprove the principles upon which the white man's intolerance is based; we

should assert our rights and use propaganda to change the white man's point

of view civically, morally and in the economic world.

8. I am firmly convinced that a dignified friendly attitude towards the white race is the wisest course for the Negro: education, industry, and good man-

ners will win for us more real tolerance and consideration than continued,

agitation and bitterness. Truth and justice will demand fair play in time,

and sentiment must be molded by appeal to intelligence and finer sentiments

through undisputable facts.

9. Cultivate a wholesome discontent with untoward conditions and use every

lawful means to improve these conditions, so that it may not be said that we are satisfied with unjust discriminations. "The talent for misery is the

fulcrum of progress."

SEGREGATION AND RACIAL SOLIDARITY

Question: What, to your mind, is the distinction, either in point of view or definite

racial aim, between segregation and "racial solidarity"?

Answers:

I. Segregation impHes coercion by the dominant group. Racial solidarity

implies certain subjective tendencies of like-mindedness. Racial solidarity

may be enhanced by segregation but it thrives best if its causes have their roots in the wUl to progress rather than the will to exist amidst oppression.

Sio THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

Though segregation may aid the tendency toward racial solidarity, neither segregation nor racial solidarity are to be advised in a modem civilization. Racial solidarity for protective reasons with strong limitations (never legal)

may be advisable today in America. 2. The definite racial aim of segregation is to prevent the contact of races physi-

cally; to prevent Negroes from living with the whites in their neighborhoods

and vice versa; to keep themselves separate as a group, thus making segrega-

tion of schools and other institutions a natural sequence. Whereas, the aim of

racial solidarity is to focus the financial, economic, political and social

strength of the group for the purpose of meeting the attacks of the white

race as well as for the solution of group problems; for example, solid

financial strength would mean Negro business houses of every description,

banks, etc. ; it would mean that the race as a unit would withdraw its patron-

age and support from any institution or business that discriminated against

members of their group; they would boycott as a unit any brand of goods

made by a firm dealing unjustly with colored patrons, etc. It means that

politically the group would throw its strength to the party whose principles

are in harmony with the welfare of the Negro.

3. Segregation presupposes a force from without which seeks to compel those

of the same race or nationality or religious belief to remain among themselves,

separated from those of another group supposedly superior. Grouping

together either for purposes of living or of religious worship or for other pur-

poses, with the idea of developing a group or race consciousness and thus to

develop "pride of race," presupposes a force from within—that is a conscious desire of the people themselves to develop the latent powers within their

own group through intensive application.

4. Negroes tend to flock together as do members of other racial groups. I do

not regard this as segregation. When an effort is made from without to group them together, which carries along with it restrictions of movement, residence

or activity, we have segregation. Racial solidarity seems to me to be the conscious or unconscious reaction to segregation. It is a doctrine of revolt.

5. Segregation means to me regulation of racial contacts by law or force between white and colored people. Racial solidarity is a natural development of

massing because of race congeniality.

6. Segregation and racial solidarity differ fundamentally and essentially in

the motive prompting the individual act to be discussed. Segregation is

the forcing apart of any group into a less favorable environment in order that

advantage or position may accrue to those in authority. Race solidarity repre- sents the active part in the same role, and is the effort of individuals to utilize

similarity of aims or of situation as the basis of an offensive or defensive alliance

.

7. Racial segregation is harmful as a social aim. Racial segregation is the

result of the attempt of a more powerful group to impose its ideas of racial

inferiority upon a weaker group. The weaker group in its attempt to defeat

this program rightly adopts racial solidarity as a definite aim in order to

strengthen itself both to resist discrimination which usually follows segrega-

tion and to attack the vicious and narrow-minded motives of proponents of

racial segregation.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 511

8. Voluntary segregation is a step, consciously or unconsciously taken, toward

racial solidarity.

9. It seems to me that segregation and racial solidarity differ in that the latter is merely a mental attitude whereas the former, though it includes a certain

mental attitude, is chiefly characterized by a sort of hysterical physical

separation. Racial solidarity obviously can exist among groups separated by considerable distance, as among Jews. When the mental attitude is not, or is felt not to be, adequate to effect the desired separation among races, then a sort of hysteria ensues and separation is one of the forms in which this

hysteria expresses itself. On the whole we may have reason to doubt its efficacy, for it bears a relation to race solidarity akin to that which legal

restraint bears to moral restraint.

It seems probable that both racial solidarity and segregation aim at

the same thing. Segregation, it seems to me, in the long run must prove a

poor means to the end, and it would not require a very imaginative person

to think that in its crass forms it may destroy the very end it aims to achieve by creating a prejudice of a violent and consuming sort.

10. The term "segregation" in current discussion connotes legal compulsion, whereas "racial solidarity" implies voluntary union of the colored group

under the compulsion of internal feeling or social influences.

11. Segregation, either voluntary or forced, is purely an objective situation, a

setting apart in a definite location from one's feUows. Racial solidarity is

subjective and is the feeling of cohesion between persons of the same race.

Segregation is undoubtedly a factor in intensifying this feeling of the con-

sciousness of kind.

12. The distinction between segregation and "racial solidarity" is in a point of

view, viz.: racial solidarity concerns the interior of the Negro, his psychosis,

as to its inclusion of a cohesive spirit; segregation concerns the exterior of the

Negro, is looking at the situation from the viewpoint of the whites and relates

to the barriers opposed by the whites to his unlimited expansion. Voluntary

segregation may seem to point to the mind and viewpoint of the Negro rather than the whites, but voluntary segregation does not become a practical

problem until the whites attempt to use it as a precedent, in which case it

becomes after all a matter of the viewpoint of the whites.

13. It would appear that there is a very fundamental difference between segrega-

tion and racial solidarity as the terms are now used in the United States relative to the Negro. By racial solidarity it is generally understood that there is some sort of a physical separation which has been decreed by a law,

as for example: the various residential segregation laws enacted some years

ago and the segregation laws relative to the separation of races in public

conveyances, etc. Racial solidarity, it may be said, is largely volitional, whereas segregation, as the term now is generally used, has back of it an enacted law or the idea of having an enacted law.

A still more fundamental distinction is that racial solidarity does not turn upon the receiving of benefits from privileges or things that are for all

the public; segregation, on the other hand, has to do almost exclusively with

the restriction of privileges relating to the free use of things that are for

512 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

all the public, as for example, the free use of public conveyances, public

places, the establishing of residences, etc.

14. Segregation aims to herd Negroes together in order that they may be cheated of the rights of citizenship the more easily. Racial solidarity urges Negroes

to get together in order that they may fight segregation the more effectively. "National solidarity" is, to our thinking, a far better weapon. Negroes

should endeavor to find out those whites who are their friends and ask them to join in the fight for the enforcement of the Constitution.

Question: A large number of Negroes are in agreement on the matter of separate colored churches with colored pastors, and, more recently, colored bishops.

Yet this is an argument used by many exponents of the segregation idea, both whole and partial, for other separate institutions. Candidly, what is

your opinion on the subject ?

Answers:

1. Separate churches, etc., are but a part of the system of segregation inherent

in the social fabric of America. This question is therefore not fundamental

or basic enough. As a matter of logic and sociological analysis, since I do not favor legal or customary segregation, I cannot favor separate churches,

which are but a reflex of enforced segregation. Therefore I do not favor

other separate institutions. Yet, I at all times favor free assemblage and

organization whatever the social system is or may be. If separate institu- tions are "desired" by the group and this "want" is not cramped by such considerations as factors like American public opinion, then separate insti-

tutions are in order. The test is the free and unimpaired development of the group.

2. The "colored " church is itself an anomaly. The very idea is logically ridicu- lous. From the practical standpoint it is the result of the un-Christian attitude of churches which preceded it and largely brought it into being.

If I had to join a church now, I hope I should decide according to the doc-

trines and tenets rather than according to the race of the pastor and communi-

cants. If any consideration should guide me rather than the doctrines, it would be to go where I could do the most good.

3. The idea of using the fact of the Negro's preference for his own church, governed by its own ministry, as a reason for segregation not only is absurd but is a weak reason for the manifestation of race prejudice. That Negroes

prefer to be together in religious worship is a well-established fact; that they

wish their church to be governed by their own ministers and bishops is equally

well established; that such desire is natural and human, one must admit; but

that this perfectly normal desire should become a reason for forcing upon the

Negro other separate institutions is not justifiable. There is a fine distinction

between the performance of one's religious rites and the activities necessary

to maintain and foster these (which becomes social in character), and the

business arrangements of getting an education, being conveyed somewhere,

buying a meal, or paying to hear a world-famed artist. The former is part

of one's private life and as such is a matter of choice and should be confined

to those who are closest to him by race and spiritual conception. The latter

are affairs of business wherein one wishes something and pays for it; and as

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 513

long as he has the necessary greenback, expects to be accorded the rights and

courtesies given any citizen of the city or state. The French, the Italian,

nearly every nationality, have their own churches, their own ministers, and worship in their own tongue. But no one ever hears anything about segregat- ing the Frenchman or the Italian for that reason.

4. The latter plan, racial solidarity, is not at all inconsistent with the spirit of

democracy even when it means the development of separate colored churches

or the appointment of colored bishops for colored churches in the denomina-

tions where the color line is not so sharply drawn.

5. In my opinion, the Negroes as a whole are not in harmony and agreement on colored churches as such. It is a condition that has been pushed upon them;

a means to the end. If Negroes were treated just as any other member of a white church, and given the same opportunity to advance to positions of

honor within the church, ministers, priests, bishops, etc., regardless of color,

there would be no Negro churches.

6. It is this universal spirit which causes Negroes to desire Negro churches

and Negro bishops, because the dominant minds can more easily secure

advantages when in an environment in which they conform to the majority

pattern and are not parts of a clearly differentiated minority.

7. Separate colored churches in some degree are necessary in order to build up

racial solidarity as described above. In other words, a strong defensive many times makes for an effective offensive.

8. Separate colored churches have never seemed to me to be necessary.

9. I am convinced that a limited race separation is not only desirable but unavoidable. There is a wide stretch of possibilities between absolute segre-

gation and unlimited social communication. To argue that because Negroes have and want ministers and teachers of their own color, therefore they should

want absolute segregation, strikes me as a bit absurd. There are at least two justifications: it may be thought that the Negro ministers and teachers understand our racial aspirations better and can better impart instructions

leading to a realization of them.

[o. Wherever Negroes find themselves segregated in schools and churches by

choice or control, they should have teachers, preachers and overseers of their

own race. Long distance leadership is neither desirable nor effective. This

leadership will acquire requisite efficiency by survival of the fittest.

[I. The motivation of any separate institutions should be the basis of its approval

or disapproval. If Negroes of their own volition develop Negro churches,

banks, clubs, stores or other organizations as a means of developing enter-

prise or initiative, or for providing better opportunities of work for young men and women of our race, I am in accord with such separation. If, however, such separation is forced on (hem especially in public places, such as hotels,

restaurants, theaters and railroads, a separation which sets the Negro apart

from the general public, I believe it should be condemned and fought against.

t2. It is argued that if many of our leading Negroes agree upon the expediency of complete racial separation in church life, they are inconsistent in not

applying it to all matters concerning the Negro. The answer to this is as

follows: The highest end of the Negro is the same as that of the man of any

514 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

other race, viz.: complete self-expression and development of his indi-

viduality; in deciding upon what he shall accept or reject in any case this

must be his guiding principle; between being a nonentity in the "white"

church and partially expressing himself in a Negro church, he naturally

chooses the latter, choosing it not as the summun bonum, but solely as the lesser of two evils ; between having the Negro officers in the world war and

having Negro officers who are trained in a separate camp, he considers

the latter less injurious. But give the Negro a choice between a separate

church where only partial self-expression can be possible, and a "white"

church which would give him full opportunity for individual expression,

and he would not hestitate a moment in choosing such a "white" church.

13. Separate colored churches, colored pastors and colored bishops represent

more or less a voluntary action of colored people and are indicative of racial

solidarity in just the same way as Jewish churches having Jewish rabbis

represent Jewish solidarity.

14. As a slave the Negro was welcome to worship at the white church. As a

citizen he is not. The white church is a semi-public institution, being more

social than religious in its tone. Since Negroes are not wanted, their only

recourse is to have their own churches. And if their own churches, why a white pastor or bishop, when Negro preachers quite as competent can be

found ? OPINION-MAKING

Question: On what instruments ordinarily responsible for the making of public opinion do you rely for your opinions? With what reservations do you

accept what you read in the white press ? To what degree are you influenced

by the opinions of colored persons ?

Answers:

1. Of course I read daily papers, magazines and books and attend lectures and

seek every possible means to learn the trend of thought and philosophy of

life as it develops throughout civilization. However, whenever the Negro

question is treated, I always approach with suspicion the arguments pre-

sented by white people. I always read expressions forecasting the approach

of democracy with the knowledge that but few white writers and speakers

think of the colored races in their utterances. The colored newspapers are

much more fair than the whites, but even they, at times, are inclined to

bias.

2. Magazines, colored and white papers, public speakers. I accept with great

reservation what I read in the white press. I am influenced to a small degree by the opinions of the colored papers.

3. The daily papers, the Nation, the New Republic, the Crisis, the Messenger, the Literary Digest, the Socialist Review, the colored papers, and other

scattered organs from here, there and everywhere. The dependence I put

upon these white papers is hard to state in words. If in a white paper I

see something favorable to the Negro on a question of fact, I take it at face

value. On questions of opinion, I draw my own conclusions from my own study and experience, wherever possible. Likewise in a colored paper I

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 515

take at face value on a question of fact anything favorable to the white view.

Otherwise I draw my own conclusions. (a) Daily papers, lectures and magazines, (b) Always with reservations on

any subject, especially on race records, (c) Not very much outside of a few

good magazines.

Every article in white or Negro press is read with the idea that the bias of

the writer must be discounted and that the conclusions cannot be accepted,

but that one's conclusions must be made from the aggregate of the facts

gleaned from every available source bearing upon the subject under

discussion.

Leading New York newspapers: Herald, Times, World, Tribune, Call. Leading American monthlies: World's Work, American, Metropolitan.

Leading American weeklies: Nation, New Republic, Freeman. Leading American quarterlies: Yale Review, American Journal of Soci-

ology, Non-Partisan Review.

Leading New York Negro weeklies: New York Age, Negro World. Leading Negro monthlies: Messenger and Crisis.

I read all these papers with great reservations as to their truth and good

judgment.

Newspapers, magazines, legislative action, personal contacts. The white

press will always justify suspicion and the traditional grain of salt with

reference to its news concerning Negroes. White news reporters know

too few actual facts about Negroes and are too hemmed about by traditional

prejudices to be reliable news gatherers in this field. Colored newspapers

are, in my opinion, becoming increasingly more reliable in their expression of the thoughts and mind of Negroes, although many times they suffer from

the same disease with reference to white people which besets white re-

porters.

History and observation. I habitually question unfavorable comment,

because the prejudice and the training of the writers must be considered.

Colored papers, unless paid to do otherwise, are more likely to exaggerate

reports favorable to the Negro. Therefore some reservations must be

made on account of the prejudice and the lack of training of many of the

writers.

I believe that the information I get from the instruments ordinarily responsible

for pubhc opinion influences my opinion but little at any particular moment. I seem to have a theory of present-day tendencies in American institutions

with reference to the Negro, and I accept items from these instruments merely

as confirmations or negations of my opinions. Usually the negations are so few and far between that I can look upon them as sports or the "exception

that proves the rule." Perhaps the Crisis figures most prominently in form-

ing my opinion. At least when my opinion is formed, I am unable to account for it by any small number of books, or other publications. I read regularly

the New York Age, the Negro World, and from time to time many other Negro

newspapers; I read the Crisis, the Messenger, the Century, Review of Reviews,

World's Work, Outlook, Independent, and various scientific articles bearing on

5i6 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

the Negro and such reviews of an even larger number of articles as appear in

the Psychological Bulletin and similar publications from time to time.

Nearly always when I read, the white press items concerning the Negro

are looked upon as carefully selected and shaped for propaganda. By a careful and studied system of emphasis and omission such items can be

made to prove most any point. There are exceptions, such as the Inde- pendent editorials, etc. Colored newspapers influence my opinion little directly. The items of real news are accepted at face value, there being no appeal, and these are referred to a more or less stable theory of the situation.

The theory changes so gradually that I am unable to tell what items exert the greatest influence.

g. I read the dailies and the Crisis, Messenger and Amsterdam News. I accept

what all of them say with great reservation, though I naturally give more

credence to report of Negro topics in Negro papers than in white papers.

ID. I regret to say that the Christian church and the religious press, which should

be the chief reliance in shaping public opinion in the moral direction, are

all but negligible factors. More race prejudice will be shown in Chicago in the churches on next Sunday morning than in the schools on the following

Monday. Religion failing, the chief reliance for the present must be upon

the secular agencies such as science, politics, trade, business and the public

press and platform. The Negro himself must shape and direct righteous public opinion. Moral reform comes through the public, who feel the need of it. The Negro press is greatly hampered by restrictive and controlling influences, but on the whole it is, perhaps, the most righteous voice in

America now crying in the wilderness. 1 1

.

I rely on books, magazines and newspapers for facts on which to base opinions.

With the exception of a few weeklies, and a few radical newspapers and maga-

zines, I believe the white press is hostile towards the Negro. Whatever I

read concerning him, in the daily papers especially, I take with a grain of salt.

In matters of race problems the Negro papers usually present the facts of the

case fairly. I am inclined to accept their views about such matters. Their opinions about other phases of life, in which race is not predominant concern,

I take also with a grain of salt or not at all.

12. Personally we rely on facts, not opinions. Hardly anything in the white press regarding Negroes is to be believed. It rarely, if ever, mentions

good about Negroes. The white press is the chief instrument used for foster- ing the exploitations of Negroes. Most of the news is cooked and doctored to fan race hatred. A few white editors would perhaps write more fairly were they free. Personally very little. Nearly every Negro newspaper that we know, though, aims sincerely to benefit Negroes. While the judgment of

the Negro editor is often at fault, his heart is honest. It is infinitely

safer for Negroes to accept the judgment of a Negro editor than that of

a white one.

Question: Specifically what constitutes the offensiveness in the manner in which the subject "Negro" is handled in some of the local white papers and what sensi- tive spots do these methods of handling touch ?

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 5i7

Answers:

1. There is a suggestion of inferiority and degradation in the usual handling

of the subject "Negro" by the local white papers; they generally use the

subject in connection with something evil or unlovely; seldom discussed

with credit or praise. This affects race honor, race pride, and race love.

2. Withholding the titles Miss and Mrs. from the names of colored women.

Crime headlines, parading Negro crime and criminals.

Printing misstatements of facts but not the denials of them.

Continual suggestions of "proper limitations upon Negro activity"

along lines innocent where other races are concerned.

A patronizing attitude toward the Negro and his activities.

3. I detest the use of the word "Negro " as it is spelled with a smaU n. I shrink

from the feminine "Negress." "A colored American" is not distasteful to

me at any time.

4. The realization that an inferior man whose face is white can, by appealing to

white racial consciousness, outstrip his superior by the utilization of mass

cohesion. My feeling is one of thwarted ambition rather than offended sensi-

bilities.

5. Spelling of "Negro" with a small n.

Negro caricatures—always a joke and easily handled.

The Negro as criminal is the general view.

Nothing said about the Negro on the progressive side.

Negro naturally inferior. I need only refer to the Harding episode.

6. The assumption that all Negroes are intellectually and moraUy inferior. The

impUcation that certain crimes are peculiar to the Negro. The application

of opprobrious epithets, so common in some papers. The statement that

the race is satisfied with the treatment it receives in public places.

7. Undue prominence and emphasis upon the social aspect of news which is

purely personal. Evident failure to obtain or give expression to the Negro

point of view.

8. The tendency in my community to connect the Negro in public print with

some offensive or boorish or irresponsibly humorous incident is the most

annoying use of the word "Negro." By careful emphasis and omissions, the

word "Negro" comes to be associated with irresponsible, apish, or silly con-

duct on the one hand or criminality on the other.

9. Among the other things I take offense at the way the local white papers cannot

report crimes committed by Negroes without a big headline, often on the

front page, stating that "Brutal Negro Commits Outrage"; I object to the

use of the word "Negress," to spelling Negro with a small n; and particularly

I object to the sins of omission of these newspapers in that they never attempt

any news which may construct better relations, e.g., such as could be obtained

if they secured on their reportorial staff an intelligent Negro who knew the

needs and aspirations of his people. My sensitiveness upon this results from

two things: (i) it wounds my self-respect, and (2) I hate to see race struggle

consciously and effectively fomented by the powerful press.

5i8 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO

10. The white race as a whole seems to disregard the just sensibilities of the Negro

race, and does not scruple to use offensive terms and epithets which would be

violently resented by any other group of American citizens. I have no objec-

tion to the term Negro used in a descriptive sense for the entire racial group.

11. The word Negro is still printed in many papers with a small n. A general attitude to ridicule Negroes is sometimes evident. Recently a baby contest

was held in New York in which there were entered several Negro babes;

some of them took prizes. One paper spoke of them as "dusky belles."

Very often when a colored woman is mentioned in the papers it is written in

this manner: "Katherine Jones, a negress." The recent discussion of

Senator Harding's lineage showed that most of the papers considered it a

"vile and contemptuous slander"; the possession of Negro blood seemed to

be a polluting element which could only mean degradation.

12. The word Negro is wrong, altogether. Prejudice is the only reason for its

use. Capitalizing might help, but does it modify the treatment ?

The editor of the Crisis, whose opinions are read by millions of Negroes,

was one of the five Negroes living outside of Chicago to whom the foregoing

questions were put. He sensed in them an insidious attempt to make Negroes

confess that they preferred ill treatment, riots, segregation by proscription,

and Negro Ghettos. Acting upon this conviction, he warned the Negroes of

the country to watch the white members of this Commission. The article is

given as it appeared in the January 1921 issue of the Crisis:

Chicago

We would advise our Chicago friends to watch narrowly the work and forthcom- ing report of the Interracial Commission appointed by the Governor of Illinois after

the late riot. The Commission consists of colored men who apparently have a much

too complacent trust in their white friends; of white men who are too busy to know;

and of enemies of the Negro race who under the guise of impartiality and good will

are pushing insidiously but unswervingly a program of racial segregation. They

have, for instance, sent a "questionnaire" to prominent colored men, consisting of

fifteen questions, which with all their surface frankness and innocence seek to betray

black folk by means of the logical dilemma of "segregation" and racial "solidarity."

By subtle suggestion these queries say: If you believe in colored churches, why not

in colored ghettos? Does not Negro advancement increase anti-Negro hatred?

Are not Negroes prejudiced against whites ? Are not the mistakes of Negro leaders

manifest ? And so on. Indeed, if a professed enemy of black folk and their progress had set out to start

a controversy so as to divide the Negroes and their friends in counsel and throw the

whole burden of such hasty outbreaks of race hate as the East St. Louis, Washington,

and Chicago riots upon them, he would have framed just such a questionnaire as

has been sent out by this Commission.

PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS 519

Does not Negro advancement in

crease anti-Negro hatred ?

The Crisis' view of the questions is presented in the following contrast:

The Questionnaire The "Crisis" Version

What, to your mind, is the distinc- If you beheve in colored churches,

tion, either in point of view or definite why not in colored ghettos ?

racial aim, between segregation and

"racial sohdarity"?

A large number of Negroes are in agreement in the matter of separate

colored churches with colored pastors,

and, more recently, colored bishops.

Yet this is an argument used by many exponents of the segregation idea, both

whole and partial, for other separate

institutions. Candidly, what is your

opinion on this subject?

Do you believe that if Negroes were 100 per cent literate it would make any

great difference in race relations? Are

general and higher education likely to

widen the breach between Negroes and

white persons, increase intolerance, re-

sentment, sensitiveness to insults, or can

a quieted process of adjustment or com-

plete fusion of interests be expected ?

Do you believe Negroes are preju- diced against white persons ?

Do you beheve there should be recog- nized leaders of Negroes? Are there

such persons whom you regard as quali- fied for leadership ? Discuss their merits

and demerits.

What in your opinion, are some of

the greatest mistakes of prominent

Negroes in their poUcies or stand on

racial issues?

At the time of this article the Commission had made no report of its findings

whatever, and there was no possible basis for the accusation of bias. When

a Negro living in Chicago explained that the questionnaire was prepared by a

Negro member of the Commission's staff, the editor of the Crisis replied that

"whoever framed the questionnaire of which I speak in the Crisis or advised

its framing had a bias against Negroes. Of that I have not the slightest

doubt, and what I was doing was simply to warn the public of this bias."

Are not Negroes prejudiced against

white persons ?

Are not the mistakes of Negro leaders

manifest ?