The Negro in Chicago - A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
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 examination may be made of the scene of the murder before the body is removed or handled, and while 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 until 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.
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 controlling 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 themselves. 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 movement 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 community. Discriminating against the Negro, or, in other words, failure to give him an opportunity to make an honest livelihood after having induced him to migrate to this section of the country, simply adds to the already far too great number of hoodlums that infest our city.
4. 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 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 subsequently 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 full duty should be dismissed. Grafters and those who allow themselves to be dominated by political 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 police force is also inadequate in numbers, 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 number, and notwithstanding the fact that the pension fund is already taxed to its utmost. The needed funds for this purpose should be provided.
11 … payment of salaries to public officers commensurate with the increased cost of living.
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 politics.
13. The jury also finds that vice of all 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. Political 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 opinion 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 Columbus, and Salvation Army, as well as other similar organizations. …
CHAPTER II
OTHER OUTBREAKS IN ILLINOIS
I. Minor Clashes in and near Chicago
1. CLASHES IN CHICAGO PRECEDING THE RIOT OF 1919
The race riot of 1919 in Chicago was preceded by a long series of more or less serious clashes between whites and Negroes. Some of these are discussed in the section of this report dealing with contacts in recreation. Others are here described to show the development of friction and conflict leading up to the 1919 riot. Two brutal and unprovoked murders of Negroes by gangs of white hoodlums preceded the riot by only a few weeks.
In many of the antecedent clashes a conspicuous part was played by gangs or clubs of white boys and young men. These operations frequently showed organization, and the gangsters were often armed with brass knuckles, clubs, and revolvers.
Some of the earlier clashes, however, did not have their origin in gang activities. For instance, it may be that the resentment by whites of the coming of Negroes into their neighborhood inspired the crowd of boys between twelve and sixteen years of age who, in February, 1917, stoned a four-flat building at 456 West Forty-sixth Street. Two Negro families moved into the two second-floor flats of this building. The next afternoon about 100 boys from nearby schools stoned the building. The two Negroes attempted to remonstrate but were driven back. One of them reached the office of the agent of the building, who notified the police. A patrol wagon responded, but the boys had disappeared. After it had gone the boys reappeared and renewed the stoning. Every window in the upper part of the building was broken. On a second riot call Captain Caughlin