Great-Migration 15

The Chicago Race Riots
frothy, bloody wake of the Great War

THE revealed many things in our civilization
that shook our faith in God, in Christ, and
in the divine purpose of mankind themselves.
Nowhere was the sickening realization that we
are still animals more vivid and unescapable
than in the city of Chicago during the week of
July 28th, 1919 when the flame of racial antag-
onism resulting from the friction of tens of
thousands of returning white soldiers meeting
tens of thousands of Negro workers firmly in-
trenched in tens of thousands of jobs that the
white soldiers and discharged civilians wanted
Generated on 2015-12-10 21:58 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t6f18w27w
and needed. The placing of millions of men in

the forefront of the national defense and the
unheard of industrial speed to which America
was forced, taxed to the limit every man, woman,
and child of working age, and every pound of
machinery that we possessed. The Golden Age
of industry seemed to have arrived. Unlimited
Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd
markets, unlimited production, unlimited oppor-

tunity for work, unheard of wages. (We are not
discussing unheard of prices at this time.) All
this tapped and drained the American labor res-
ervoir in every state of the Union. The packers
of Chicago turned their dividend-hungry eyes
to our Southern fields where the brawny human
workhorses of Africa were enjoying their more
12
or less carefree lives on the farms, plantations
and in the small towns of the South. The lure
of the city with its fabulous wages and the
accompaning promises of the packers success-
fully started the Negro exodus northward. This
is no condemnation of the packers as such. Any
set of men in the same circumstances would
have done the same.
Conservatively estimated, one hundred thous-

and units of black blood entered the economic
and social arteries of the commonwealth of the
city of Chicago during this period. So long as
the door of opportunity to work swung to in no
man's face these white and black corpuscles cir-
culated freely and without disturbance in the
channels of city life and commercial intercourse.
True, middle class respectability looked askance
as the dark crest surged and swelled over the
imaginary Belt line into the domain formerly
recognized as strictly white. This resulted in
several bombings and individual clashes, but

if the city and country could remove the roots of
the industrial cancer the economic and social re-
lations of the two races would harmonize
smoothly, naturally and the hatred between the
two races would wither like an uprooted weed.
A vicious trinity that is neither sensible or

necessary and one that has reached its highest
degree of influence for evil is unemployed man,
the job, and the private owner of the job. When
this nation was young and sparsely settled the
question of the Negro exploitation and its con-
sequent effect on Northern business made the
fields of the South a battleground where Amer-
13
loans fought and died for what they thought
was justice to the blacks and the best interests
of the nation. That question was not properly
settled then and it will not and cannot ever be
properly settled while the master and servant
relation exists in any form on the face of the
earth. And now the nation is populous and
the machinery of production has increased
to the point when all work people cannot
work all the time at the machines and con-
sume all the produce of their labor and carry
the load of profit, rent and interest that goes
with private ownership and operation of the
great industries and resources of the nation.
The leather blacksnake whip that sang and
writhed over the backs of the slaves of the South
is now cunningly hidden in the refined lash of
modern necessity that is now wielded by the
present day representatives of the slave owners
of the fifties but in our blindness, in our desper-
ation as we are caught in the meshes of an

ever tightening struggle for jobs and existence
we, the white and black workers, see only the
worker who is striving for the same position in
industrial life that we are seeking and miss en-
tirely the sinister Moloch of capital that de-
mands the surplus of the toil of the whites and
the blacks that would mean life, education, and

a successful pursuit of happiness made easily
realizable for both races in America. In a so-
ciety where man worked for mankind and the
mighty engines of modern industry were at the
service of the people and not an unscrupulous
powerful minority race riots would be ridiculous,
unthinkable, impossible.
14
Theories advanced.
POLITICS. A word made filthy and abhor-
rent to decent Americans by the actions of poli-
ticians and admittedly a source of much irrita-
tion and disgust in the hearts of good men and
women of both races. Catering for votes that
disregards principle and puts place and the re-
wards of position above community good is
vicious and the human reptiles who practice it
should be hissed from the society of clean men
of both races. But municipal politicians juggle
with effects only. A municipal government has
nothing whatsoever to do with the social system,
or the schemes of national business that sharply
divide the classes and set them at variance. An
exil managed city government may aggravate
the people, the classes and the races and cause
friction that could be avoided otherwise, but its
influence for good or evil on the national social
structure upon which the nation builds its des-
tiny is nil. Given a just social system and an

average education and the slimly things who
have degraded the fine science of municipal po-
litical economy would be taken by the nape of the
neck, their spoils taken from their pockets and
kicked beyond the limits of human society. Bad
municipal politics aggravate tense situations
but they never determine great policies such as

must settle the American race question.
The Housing Problem.
The inflow of Southern Negroes into Chicago

to fill the needs of the stock yards and other
industries created a scarcity of houses in the
15
Black Belt that naturally forced some members
of the colored race beyond the ^imaginary boun-
daries that have been more or less loosely rec-
ognized by both races. This is a community
question that should have been met with a clean-
cut purpose of justice to all but when the
weights are manipulated by unscrupulous real
estate sharks and designing preachers and poli-
ticians the scales of decision are very much off
their balance. But the housing problem is simp-
ly a by-product of the underlying economic
struggle going on between the workers of the
races and, when aggravated, is mistaken by
some as a material contributing cause of
the race conflict. With the exception of some
black upstarts who are ashamed of the>r color
and wish to get out of any recognized zone, we
believe that the colored population of Chicago
want to work and pay for decent homes and is
sufficiently self-respecting to desire to live and
go their way in the world without intruding
where they are not wanted and the Whites should

show the same fine sense of social discrimination.
The contemptible few who are not satisfied with
the opportunities and surroundings among their
own people will effectually be curbed by the
Negro pride of race and pressure of public opin-
ion. This is not a cause of race riots; it is an
effect that is heightened by the greed of those

who take advantage of a loose municipal situa-
tion in order to turn a profit. The upstanding,
self respecting Negroes want to live by them-
selves; it is up to the city to see that they are
fiven the opportunity.
16
Hoodlums.
The hoodlum element may be reckoned with
in any crisis but it must not be mistaken for
the cause of any great social disturbance. The
vicious hoodlum element can never "start" any-
thing that even the man on the curbstone will
stand for. Under the loosening of ordinary re-
straints that inevitably happens when there is a
social upheaval of any character whatsoever the
"roughnecks" are in the streets, thickening the
difficulties and exasperating decent people on
both sides of any controversy, but to attribute
to this crowd any social power or material in-
flilence is shooting wide of the mark indeed.
During the American, French and English
Revolutions and the Civil War in America this
layer of human degeneracy complicated the
issues involved and made the task of the pro-
gressive forces doubly hard.
While society was shaken by the events of
the above periods unprotected homes, inns and

churches were sacked and the occupants and
those in charge mistreated. But no one attempts
to confuse the purposes of these vandals with
the sacred purpose of these revolutions. Just
so with Chicago. Many superficial thinkers talk
much of "hoodlum elements of both sides" being
to blame. Hoodlum degeneracy never precipa-

tated a social crisis ; it simply feeds on the license
accompanying times of great stress.
17
Racial Antagonisms.
Between the White and Black races nature
has created a physical division that possibly will
never be bridged. Some one has said that "The
E^ast is East and West is West and never the
twain shall meet". With ten-fold emphasis one
could truthfully say, White is White and Black
is Black and never the twain shall meet. But
that does not necessarily follow that the races
must live at daggers drawn or with a smolder-
ing f ued festering under a thin veneer of civilized
hypocrisy. The savage and superstitious theory
that the black race was cursed and put in bojid-
age forever to the whites because poor Ham
looked upon his father in a drunken fit has been
the source of much pernicious thinking for cent-
uries, and should be laughed away along with
a lot of other sanctimonious trickery. Aside
from the generally accepted fact that there is a
natural aversion that makes the amalgamation
of the races impossible and unthinkable, the re-

sults of Black and White crossing show deter-
ioration that, if the races were inclined to prac-
tice it, would finally see this civilization over-
powjj^red and swept away by a race of purer
type. Intermarriage would result in mediocrity
that would plunge us all into the swift down-
ward course that leads to the extinction of all

hybrids.
We wish to submit here a chapter on racial
development from the book "Mankind" by Seth
K. Humphrey. We do not endorse every state-
ment of Mr. Humphrey, we simply insert it here
for the purpose of presenting an interesting
angle of a much discussed problem.
18

Great-Migration 15

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Great-Migration 15

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Great-Migration 15

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Chicago Race Riots

frothy, bloody wake of the Great War

and needed. The placing of millions of men in

markets, unlimited production, unlimited oppor-

Conservatively estimated, one hundred thous-

several bombings and individual clashes, but

A vicious trinity that is neither sensible or

ation as we are caught in the meshes of an

the blacks that would mean life, education, and

tiny is nil. Given a just social system and an

but they never determine great policies such as

The Housing Problem.

The inflow of Southern Negroes into Chicago

where they are not wanted and the Whites should

effect that is heightened by the greed of those

the above periods unprotected homes, inns and

to blame. Hoodlum degeneracy never precipa-

of the races impossible and unthinkable, the re-

ward course that leads to the extinction of all

You might also like