Chapter X · PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS—Continued B. INSTRUMENTS OF OPINION MAKING (continued 2)

In cases of lynchings and such things from the South, the Associated Press often has used twenty-five or fifty words and just let it pass with the mere fact. Where we have covered crime in full, big cases, very often it has been upon the demand of the members of the organizations.

News concerning Negroes is handled just the same as any news of any nationality. We use the words, "Negro" and "colored." And it is always the desire of the Associated Press and the attempt of the Associated Press not only not to injure any person but to show the proper respect to all religions, races, and all classes of society. It makes no difference whether we would capitalize the word "Negro" or not. Our copy goes to the newspaper and, as Mr. Lawson says, they follow their own ideas in that....

In all of our services we attempt to suppress news that we think might stir up race relations involving Japanese, Mexicans, Negroes, or any others, and we follow the lead of newspapers.

Question: What is the extent to which news from these members of the Associated Press is verified when it comes from regions or localities where there may be prejudice?

Mr. Cutter: Wherever there is any question of the news or wherever there are two sides, as in the labor question, we send a staff man out from headquarters who makes his reputation and that of the Associated Press upon covering both sides of the story equally. He knows very readily that if he doesn't cover that with thorough fairness, he is going to hear from it later from one side or the other.

Chicago American.—Mr. William H. Curley, managing editor of the Chicago American, gave the following information:

Of course as to accuracy, we check that up the same as we do any item. We find out where the item came from; if it is a police item we find out who is responsible for it and send reporters immediately to cover it and rely upon them for accuracy regarding the report.

Question: Let me ask whether you do that with the same care and precision that you do in the case of a white man that is involved.

Mr. Curley: Absolutely.

Question: That is no insinuation against the newspapers, but, for instance, it is said that in the courts, if a man is a colored man he doesn't have the same thoughtful care that a man has if he is a white man.

Mr. Curley: A good many items, of course, come from the City Press that supplies all the newspapers. If it is a matter that is trivial, of course a newspaper won't send a special reporter but relies upon the City Press for accuracy. In a crime story we eliminate the word "Negro" unless there is some reason for it. We don't use any of the terms, "darky," "nigger," "coon," "shine," "wench," or "negress."

Question: Do you get news unsolicited regarding Negroes any more than other persons?

Mr. Curley: We don't take any news that comes in over the telephone without checking it.

Question: Regarding items coming from the South, is there any particular care or checking used to see whether they are true stories, trustworthy or not?

Mr. Curley: You have to take that as it comes because that is your news service. In other words, they are supposed to use their care down there the same as we do here. We have to rely on that.

Chicago Daily News.—

Mr. Lawson: Sources of information are the same as in the case of other news, and in addition matter originally in Negroes' own publications, bulletins of welfare organizations, etc. Generally speaking, it may be said that more news on this subject comes from outside sources such as telephone tips and correspondence than from members of the staff. Perhaps 10 per cent comes from the Associated Press. This is an arbitrary estimate. The same methods are used to determine the accuracy of news concerning the Negroes that are used under other circumstances. The Daily News does not publish any news except after determining its accuracy to the best of its ability. No special reporter may be said to be assigned to news of Negroes, but owing to his special study of the conditions in Chicago, however, Carl Sandburg is on occasion called into consultation or assigned a topic for investigation. I may say that years ago the Negro poet Dunbar was a reporter on the News.

Negro news is received from the Associated Press in the same manner as other news. It is not often re-written, and then only when the subject-matter is local to Chicago. Headlines are written to conform to the text of the article. The Daily News is in touch with very reliable and well-informed Negroes in whom, because of long experience, it has confidence. It obtains information from them and seeks their viewpoint on serious matters. We regard items describing constructive work by the Negroes or items indicating their advancement as better news than articles indicating degradation or criminality on their part. The Daily News endeavors to appeal to all readers alike.

Chicago Tribune.—The following is taken from the replies in the questionnaire returned by Mr. Joseph M. Patterson, editor of the Chicago Tribune:

The sources of Negro news are the same as sources of other news. Some comes from the staff; some from the City News Bureau. Some of the local news concerning Negroes comes from reporters. No news of any consequence is received by telephone or correspondence. The Associated Press treats it on the same basis as other news. To insure accuracy the usual methods of inquiry are employed. However, most of this news comes from responsible news bureaus. Articles are re-written but only for condensation. During the threatened race riot the aid of leading Negro newspapers was sought to check information on serious matters. Each item is judged on its merits.

4. THE NEGRO PRESS

Among the considerations which have been urged by Negroes as making necessary the establishment of the Negro press are:

1. The indifference of white newspapers to the Negro group, their emphasis on the unfortunately spectacular, and the consequent loss of items of interest among Negroes throughout the country.

2. The importance of developing the morale of the Negro group, creating a solidarity of interest and purpose for measures of defense, correcting the impressions created by general opinion, and centering the attention of Negroes upon themselves and their destiny. There has never been sufficient capital for the adequate development of the Negro press. The purpose, however, has been served of collecting items of interest from all sections of the country, although they lack the facilities of so efficient an agency as the Associated Press.

For a time practically all of the northern Negro newspapers fell under the condemnation of the United States Attorney-General's office.[91] They were accused of radicalism and incitation to violence. Frequent criticisms of the Negro press declare it dangerous to the interests of cordial race relations. Ex-President Taft in the Philadelphia Ledger said: "The editors of the colored press should be reasoned with to cease publishing articles, however true, having inciting effect."

Commenting on criticisms of this kind, Isaac Fisher, editor of the Fisk University News, said:

Since the Washington and Chicago riots, the colored newspapers have been bitterly arraigned in some quarters for being responsible for race hatred. But the singular part of the indictment is that these papers are not accused of "falsifying" the record, but of stating the grounds of the Negro's resentment; and there is growing up a school of thought which argues that the colored papers should refrain from publishing as news any facts, even though true, which serve to increase the bitterness of the colored people against the white people. The comments made by those who charge the Negro press with being the cause of race antagonism are unanimous in interpreting as "incendiary" all statements of facts whose bare recital makes the Negro discontented with present conditions.

It should also be noted that the charge of inciting to race hatred is laid against the Negro press specifically for the period which has followed the end of the late war; whereas the charge of inciting white people to wrath against the Negro is an old one which has been repeated again and again during the past thirty years.

But, while the Negro press is not as old as the white press and cannot possibly be charged with having "been on the job" quite so long, it is true, nevertheless, that some of its members have cast all prudence to the winds since the signing of the armistice, and have entered a mad race with the most "yellow" of yellow white journals in vitriolic race attacks, in this case upon all white people, in the attempt to meet the "yellow" white press more than half way.

Whatever the relative degree of culpability, "yellow" journalism is as reprehensible when supported by a part of the Negro press as it is when upheld by a part of the white press. The Negro might just as well learn now the lesson which the white man must learn if he would save the civilization which he has been laboring so long to perfect, i.e., that one's color and race do not excuse wrongdoing. If it is wrong for a white newspaper to make white people hate colored people, how can it be right for a Negro newspaper to make colored people hate white people?

A. CLASSIFICATION OF ARTICLES

The news items in Negro papers show a bias in reporting the opposite of that of many white papers. They emphasize the Negro's view, frequently to the point of distorting fact. If anything, they might be said to provide a compensatory interpretation of the news. The three Negro newspapers selected for study mentioned and briefly characterized in the foregoing pages will show a classification of news items appearing during a forty-week period.

In addition to general news items concerning Negroes, the Defender gave one page to sporting news, one page to theatrical news, two pages to personal news items sent in by correspondents in other cities, and one page to local personal items. On its editorial page two and one-half columns each week were devoted to health articles by Dr. Wilberforce Williams.

The Whip gave one page to sports, one to theatrical news and organization articles, one to out-of-town personal news items and one to local personal items. Its editorial page devoted one column to "Legal Hints to Women," one-half column to "Health Hints," one column to "Legal Catechism," and two columns to editorials from other papers.

The Searchlight gave one page to theatrical, local personal news, and church notes. The editorial page contained two half-columns each week by "The Man about Town."

TABLE XXXIII

Subjects "Defender" "Whip" "Searchlight"

Local Articles

Crime 53 46 42

Racial clashes 6 — 1

Education 2 9 11

Business 4 26 14

General news not involving race issues 5 66 65

Vice 14 8 10

Bombing 5 10 10

Politics 26 60 61

Social work 6 9 17

Public meetings 2 16 13

Religion 7 18 34

Science 2 5 4

Negro progress 2 — 17

Negro soldiers — 6 —

Courts 4 24 2

Discrimination 3 9 1

Race contacts — — —

Lynchings — — —

Industrial relations 8 10 1

Philanthropy — 2 —

Personal 9 — 34

Jim Crow 1 1 3

General local welfare 2 11 3

Art — 3 1

General race relations — 22 1

Local Space

Crime 586 497 669

Racial clashes 42 156 16

Education 21 52 46

Discrimination 23 62 101

Business 58 199 187

General news not involving race issues 23 555 441

Vice 112 89 201

Bombing 50 121 98

Politics 512 741 893

Social work 24 41 110

Public meetings 84 130 66

Religion 59 238 257

Science 59 30 46

Negro soldiers — 57 48

Courts 19 130 9

Race contacts — 116 —

Industrial relations 72 400 13

Philanthropy — — —

Personal 113 45 176

Jim Crow 6 8 98

Art — 12 2

General local welfare 35 78 13

General race relations — 273 156

South 7 105 152

Africa 4 — —

Migration — — —

Out-of-Town Articles

Crime 282 152 32

Racial clashes 19 18 4

Education 54 42 74

Business 31 10 14

General news not involving race issues 81 104 138

Vice 31 3 —

Bombing — — 2

Politics 27 46 85

Social work 12 6 42

Public meetings 14 12 8

Religion 36 23 —

Science — 4 —

Negro progress 28 — 40

Negro soldiers 11 11 33

Courts 15 24 15

Discrimination 30 21 10

Race contacts 9 3 3

Lynchings 32 54 32

Industrial relations 8 16 22

Philanthropy 11 4 2

Personal 105 9 5

Jim Crow 6 6 2

Art 1 7 5

General race relations 15 60 44

South 38 50 5

Africa 1 12 4

Migration 2 3 5

Out-of-Town Space

Crime 1,082 833 191

Racial clashes 136 148 43

Education 174 223 421

Business 112 40 73

General news not involving race issues 216 434 538

Vice 154 7 —

Bombing — — 5

Politics 132 233 365

Social work 40 41 164

Public meetings 103 76 35

Negro progress 82 244 198

Soldiers 50 46 153

Courts 120 108 66

Discrimination 145 13 49

Race contacts 44 32 13

Lynchings 239 407 215

Industrial relations 29 67 119

Philanthropy 32 21 11

Personal 213 48 20

Jim Crow 36 21 13

Art 2 22 19

General race relations 124 382 308

South 202 42 69

Africa 21 55 18

Migration 6 8 26

Note.—A much smaller period for study for Negro papers is necessary since practically all items appearing contain some reference to race.

TABLE XXXIV

Subjects "Defender" "Whip" "Searchlight"

Article Space Article Space Article Space

General race relations 12 137 39 525 53 868

Propaganda 3 60 3 65 1 6

Constructive suggestions 11 168 15 306 5 92

Criticism of leaders 3 30 10 185 5 31

Criticisms of white persons or organizations 6 101 6 83 4 59

Political propaganda 30 398 10 154 17 251

Discrimination 7 65 — — 5 36

Industry 5 39 4 65 6 39

Education — — 3 35 5 53

South 5 68 5 96 6 52

Negro progress 5 57 9 265 14 111

General news, etc. 3 42 12 174 9 83

Housing — — — — 1 6

Miscellaneous 3 39 — — — —

Provoked by incidents inimicable to Negroes 1 9 1 15 — —

Crime publicity.—Sensational news was featured in each of the papers, especially cases in which whites and Negroes were involved. The intention appeared to be to present the Negro's side of the story. A measurement of news interest on different types of crime articles is possible in Table XXXV with space in inches.

TABLE XXXV

Local and Out-of-Town Crimes Combined

Negro Newspapers Crimes Involving Only Negroes Crimes Involving Negro v.White Crimes Involving Whites v. Negroes Crimes Involving Only Whites

No. of Articles Space No. of Articles Space No. of Articles Space No. of Articles Space

Defender 233 1,032 90 467 55 260 4 31

Whip 75 495 70 440 44 350 8 44

Searchlight 26 121 37 440 11 67 1 2

The method of presentation of articles revealed the strongest characteristic of Negro journalism. In this connection a random selection of headlines is interesting:

CRIMES INVOLVING WHITE ASSAILANTS AND NEGRO VICTIMS

"Free White Woman Who Killed Attorney"

"Threatens Mother and Babes with Axe"

"Bowman Milk Driver Brutally Assaults Woman"

"Crime of Postmaster Starts Serious Trouble"

"Commits Suicide to Escape Mob"

"Baby Girl Assaulted by White Farm Hand"

"Maid Is Robbed by White 'Iceman'"

"Stepped on Man's Foot in Street Car; Shot"

"Wouldn't Say 'Mister'; Is Beaten to Death"

"Kills White Man for Girl's Honor"

"Convict White Man on Rape Charge"

"Protects Wife's Honor; Slain by Land-Owner"

"White Tenants Kick on Living in Same Building with Owner"

"White Woman Confesses Lies on Colored Men"

"Kills Negro Minister for Stepping on His Foot"

"White Confectioner Arrested for Refusing to Serve Trotter"

"To Pay $750 for Attack on Negro Woman"

"White Girl Robs Father's Bank; Elopes with Negro Taken in Rooming House; Half of Stolen Wealth Recovered"

"Two Boys Shot; Crowd Blames White Man"

CRIMES INVOLVING NEGRO ASSAILANTS AND WHITE VICTIMS

"Laundryman Stabbed in Controversy over Price"

"Boy Pupil Rebels at Scolding; Shoots Teacher"

"Slayer Captured, Tried, Hanged, in 24 Hours"

"Quarrel over Price of Cotton; Farmer Is Shot"

"Hold Three for Murder of White Infantryman"

"Haunted by Man's Face He Killed; Surrenders"

CRIMES INVOLVING ONLY NEGROES

"Woman Who Took a Life to Die Herself"

"Mother Kills Self and Babe with Gas"

"Wife Slayer Must Serve 20-Year Term"

"Raids on Homes Net Pullman Goods"

"Woman Dynamites Jail to Free Her Lover"

"Bullet Strikes Brass Chain, Man's Life Saved"

"Girl to Die on Gallows; Slew Rival"

"Cost Girl Her Life to Stop Love Affair"

Definite differences of news value were noted, between articles appearing in Negro papers and those in white papers on the same topics. The items, for the most part, carried a specific appeal. Where the item was of general interest and appeared in both white and Negro papers, the facts usually corresponded.

The difference again lies in emphasis and prominence. Headlines for the same news, as shown in white and Negro papers, follow:

WHITE NEWSPAPERS NEGRO NEWSPAPERS

"Jim Crow Law Is Upheld by U.S. High Court" [Chicago Tribune,April 20, 1920] "Highest Court Upholds Jim Crow Law. Separate Cars for White and Colored People Declared Legal in Kentucky" [Chicago Searchlight,April 24, 1920]

"Miscegnation is O.K.'d in New Constitution. Negroes Given All the Rights of Whites" [Chicago Tribune, Nov. 6, 1920] "Morris Gets Civil Rights into Constitution. Victory for Race Won at Springfield" [Chicago Whip, July 10, 1920]

"Phillips High School for Colored Pupils, Principal Suggests" [Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1920] "Jim-Crow School Scheme Exposes Attempt to Inaugurate Separate Schools in Chicago—Discovered and Opposed" [Chicago Searchlight,July 31, 1920]

"Accuse Perrine of Color Line Ruling. Principal of Wendell Phillips Openly Attacked by Public Who Saw Children Jim Crowed at Commencement; Ask His Removal; Ministers Feared as Betrayers" [Chicago Defender, July 3, 1920]

Group control.—Although the Negro population does not rely upon the Negro press for authentic general news it does rely upon it for news concerning Negroes. The Chicago Whip devotes two columns of the paper to a section called "Under the Lash of the Whip," the "You Know 'Em, Editor," and "Nosey Knows." Persons who become offensive to the principles supported by the Whip are put "Under the Lash." "Nosey Knows" and the "You Know 'Em, Editor" attempt to hold individual conduct of Negroes to conventional standards by the threat of semi-publicity, for example:

You know those new "loop hounds." I know them because they go to the loop for the purpose of visiting—no object of buying anything. Well, tell them it's alright to go to the loop, but they don't have to attract everybody's attention for blocks around with their loud talk, using their ignorant, non-sensical expressions. And should they get hungry while down there and feel like having lunch, don't stand outside the door of a restaurant with a surprised look on their faces—just tell them to walk right in, in an orderly and sensible manner and order what they want. They don't have to slip in like thieves.

You know the restaurants where those household insects known as flies are very prevalent. I know you know them, because they are all along State Street, Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth. Well, if you don't mind, kindly tell some of those proprietors that there is a way of ridding their places of such nuisances.

You probably don't know that lady who resides in a prominent building in the vicinity of Thirty-first Street and Indiana Avenue, and who tried to enveigle a young girl on the street car to her flat by telling her that she could meet some high class doctors and lawyers there. Well, you may not know her now, but if you watch the columns of the Whip you will know her because she is gradually working her way to the penitentiary by the route of the seduction law. Everybody will know her then.

The Searchlight carries a column by "The Man about Town" which is similar in character. Two examples of its criticism of Negro conduct were:

The gang that hangs around the "pillars of knowledge" in the county building every day at noon is becoming so obnoxious that they are attracting the attention of everybody who enters the building.

Politicians from every section of the city crowd there and shoot off their "hot air" in a loud tone of voice. They seem to think that the future of the country depends on what they say or do.

They have become so bold in their actions they have begun to stop some of our race women and engage them in conversation around that historic spot.

Now boys, cut out that "rough stuff" and take a walk around the block at noon and let the fresh air blow on your beautiful carcass; if you don't the sheriff will ask you to do so, or he may take some of you fellows to the North Side. Don't make yourself a nuisance around the city hall and county building. Hear me, boys.

Another thing that is very disgusting is the arrogance of the girl waitresses in some of these race restaurants. Instead of striving to please the patrons they act as though they were doing you a personal favor to serve you, and when you are through with your meal you must thank them for so doing and leave a piece of money at the cash stand for them. If you don't do that the very next time you go into that restaurant the waiter will not want to wait on you. The poor proprietor of the place, if he or she is one of the "brothers" or "sisters," is almost helpless in the matter because if he opens his mouth to one of these so-called waitresses about the mistreatment of their guests he is minus a waiter. Go down in the loop and see how the other folks attend to business and treat patrons. Awake, folks, from your slumber; you are fast asleep. Do you hear me?

A fight on vice in the Second Ward was begun by the Searchlight and finally given strong emphasis by the local daily papers.

B. NEGRO NEWSPAPER POLICY

Although Negroes for their general news depend upon the white press, with its superior facilities, they look to the Negro press for full and specific news covering the activities of Negroes. The editorial columns, as well as the arrangement of news items and writing of headlines, are aimed at building up the morale of the Negro group. Frequently an attempt is made to get these papers into the hands of whites to acquaint them with the Negro's point of view.

A conference was held by the Commission with several Negro newspaper men. The Negro press was represented by R. S. Abbott, editor and publisher of the Chicago Defender; Nahum D. Brascher, editor-in-chief, and Claude Barnett, director of the Associated Negro Press; Willis N. Huggins, editor of the Upreach Magazine; and R. E. Parker, editor of the Chicago Advocate.

Mr. Brascher, of the Associated Negro Press, said:

The colored newspapers have recently gotten up to the point where most of us are proud to have them seen in the hands of our white friends and it is only through them that they can really get our viewpoint. We cannot hope to have the daily newspapers give our viewpoint and the aspirations and struggles that we are making, and some of the things that we are suffering. I am very much interested in having the editorial feeling of the newspaper get to the white people. Sometimes they may be termed as radical. I found in recent months that some of the weekly papers published in the South are saying things editorially that I would question about saying even here in Chicago, and, as we say in common parlance, getting away with it. I have in mind now one particular instance. In Houston, Texas, week before last, the entire circulation list of the Houston Informer was stolen out of its office. The theft was attributed to the new organization of the Ku Klux Klan. The daily papers of Houston came out condemning that move, and also condemning the idea of the Ku Klux Klan, and this young man has an editorial in last week's issue that is one of the strongest I have ever seen on the matter, backed probably by some of the strong things that have been said in the daily papers.

Now if we could have people of Chicago know just how the sentiment is changing in the South in favor of a square deal and mutual toleration, we could soon get to a point where there'd be no fear on either side of working out our salvation, you might say, along co-operative lines.

Another instance concerned the Plain Dealer in Birmingham, Ala. The Ku Klux Klan paraded the streets of that city about three weeks ago and in an editorial this paper came out and stated that if that was done to frighten the colored people, they had to do something different, because whenever they began to terrorize and came down into the neighborhood where colored people lived somebody there would be ready to meet them. That is a pretty strong statement for Birmingham, and they got away with it.

The Chicago Defender gives the greatest amount of space to criminal news of a sensational type in the field of racial happenings. It is a great favorite in the South with Negroes because it publishes news condemning the practices of the South in terms forbidden to southern Negro journals. Of a circulation of 185,000, two-thirds of which is outside of Chicago, it was largely responsible for stimulating the migration to the North.

The term "Negro" is used occasionally in the Defender. Its policy is to use the term "race" man, where it is necessary to distinguish Negro from other groups. Adopting the opposite policy from the white papers, it places "white" after persons not Negroes to mark the distinction. Concerning this, Mr. R. S. Abbott, editor of the Defender, said:

We use that as a bridge, as you might say, which we intend to blow up pretty soon. We are leading the people away from the word "Negro," especially in our papers. And in cases where white men are well known in the country we never even put "white" after their names. We never put "colored" after a colored man's name in this city.

The Defender's editorials are as a rule carefully written, balanced, and critical, at times in contrast with the popular appeal of the news articles. The Whip's editorials usually are on some aspect of the general race problem in the United States. They are characterized by strong pronouncements of the views of Negroes and violent criticism of practices alleged to be inimicable to Negroes. An editorial from each of the papers will indicate the trends of interests. The first is from the Defender:

Just between Ourselves

Character is what we are; reputation is what other people think we are. We get only the respect we demand; no more, no less. One of the greatest barriers to our progress is the individual who attempts to curry the favor of the whites by whom he is employed by openly humiliating and insulting others of his same flesh and blood. Because sections of this country reek with color prejudice, must we lend a helping hand to those who foster segregation, discrimination and "Jim Crowism" in general? And yet that is just what many are doing.

In the railroad service as waiters and porters we have a monopoly, and those whose runs require them to cross the Mason and Dixon line are often confronted with situations that require good common sense in handling. In many states the law requires the blacks and the whites to be separated on transportation lines, dining-rooms, places of amusement, etc. There is no question as to whether these laws are just or unjust. They are at least temporary laws and must be obeyed. But there is something mentally wrong with the porter or the waiter who lends himself to such measures, whether under orders from his superiors or not.

Admitting that to disobey such orders means the loss of a job, there are other jobs that pay a better wage where a man does not have to sacrifice his principles to hold. What other group of people in the world have those that could be induced at any price to place their heel on the neck of even the humblest member of their race? Are we less human, less interested in the welfare of our race than they? Are we still puppets, still chattels, still ignorant of the fact that as we respect ourselves, so others will respect us? This matter is put squarely up to you, Mr. Porter; to you, Mr. Waiter. Will you play the part of a man and refuse to humiliate your people? Will you cease playing the part of a spy? Will you singly and collectively tender your resignation to employers who require you to "Jim Crow" one of your own? If you will do these things there is only one thing that can happen—a speedy repeal of the offensive legislation.

Recently a young woman who was able to "pass" entered the Washington (D.C.) railroad station café and was given a seat at a table with several other ladies. Soon there entered two refined, well-dressed, unmistakably colored, young women who took seats at an unoccupied table. Immediately a colored waiter rushed over to them and after a few minutes of whispered conversation the embarrassed patrons followed the waiter to a far corner of the café, where semi-screened off they were permitted to dine. So enraged was the first young woman that she boldly went to the desk where stood the white higher-ups and several waiters, and gave them a curtain lecture they doubtless will not soon forget, not failing to tell them her own nationality. This incident happened in Washington, the seat of our government, where the doctrine of democracy is preached but not practiced.

Things worth having are worth fighting for. We must make sacrifices. If it is the policy of certain business places to discriminate let us not be a party to the discrimination. Let it be firmly fixed in the mind that we are a vital part of this nation's life, that we are a necessary "evil," that our places cannot and will not be filled with whites, no matter how drastic is our stand, providing we have right on our side, which we undoubtedly have in this instance. This heart to heart talk applies to those engaged in other lines of endeavor as well as it does to those who follow railroading. Many who run barber shops, for instance, display the sign, "For whites only." If we did not realize that these evils are the direct result of ignorance and lack of racial pride, it would indeed be discouraging. But, truly, we are still a child race. We must not be flattered by the tales of our marvelous advance during the last fifty years into dropping our oars and resting on our laurels, for we have barely started up the hill called success. When we have reached the first milestone on our journey—racial solidarity—the rest of the way will be comparatively easy. Success has come to the Jew and to the Japanese because they are clannish. Black isn't a bad shade; let's make it popular in complexions as well as in clothes.

This is from the Whip:

Who's Afraid?

If the white races of the world are so sure of their inborn and inherent supremacy, if they are so sure that they are the salt of the earth and the born rulers of human kind, it appears to us as strange indeed that they should fear that their glory will be usurped, their power depreciated, and their world-wide domination seriously challenged.

As a general rule, the giant does not fear the pigmy, neither does man, the acme of civilization, fear that his civilization will be eclipsed by a new order of apes. Should the tribes and clans of the highest developed gorillas seek to overrun the accomplishments of humanity, no one would say, "Beware of monkey domination." Man, according to his own concepts, is only a little lower than the angels and the monkey just a little lower than himself. The white races claim that their darker brothers are lower in the graduated scale of their own making than themselves, yet they cry out, "Beware of the Yellow Peril and behold the Black Plague."

If the white races possess the keys to knowledge and the passwords to progress as well as the elixirs of strength, why should they fear danger of "Black domination" and "Yellow dictation"? The white man, even through the maze of his own conceit and out of the trance of his self-hypnotism, sees that "he and his heirs" shall not forever inherit the face of the earth.

The black and yellow races are breaking the white man's monopoly of organized brain and wealth. The white man sees this and in his own bigotry knows that these people are not his inferiors in latent abilities. He knows that the same fire of genius burns in the breasts of the black and yellow races as did in the dark and mediaeval ages. He knows that black and yellow men can unravel the mysteries of nature and the intricacies of science. He knows that creative and constructive ability has been beaten down by his might but yet it lives. The white races know that their present achievements are small in comparison with those which will be accomplished. It is feared that in the future, not in the mediate or immediate, but not far distant nevertheless, that the sleeping giant will awaken, shake off the listlessness of a thousand years and put into action again the powerful dynamo of his great reign and shake the world again.

We do not object to the cry of "Beware of the Yellow Peril and behold the Black Plague." It is the involuntary shriek of danger which is a part of man's reaction. White people know that they are not superior to the dark races. They know that the raillery about dark people being innately and inherently inferior is nothing more than the outcropping of race prejudice, color hatred and ignoble fear. They fear that should they lose the power of might and brute force, and equal opportunities are gained by the dark people, that they will be dethroned and surpassed. For this reason they warn of the unfitness and undesirability of their darker brothers. They ruthlessly declare that Japanese, East Indians and Negroes are not their equals and justify all of their tyranny upon this foolish subterfuge.

We are tired of subterfuge and evasiveness. If the white man wishes to maintain his power at the expense of the dark people of the world, let him cease his prattlings about charity, human kindness and benevolence. Let him admit that he is afraid of the rising tide of color and fear shakes his entire system. Let the world know that the cry of inferiority and unfitness is not conscientious and that apprehension clouds the brow of white humanity.

An editorial in the Searchlight read:

Cleaning Up the "Black Belt"

"Death Corner" has a local reputation which bespeaks an abominable state of affairs. Nice respectable persons dare not visit it unless heavily escorted. The "East Side" in New York provokes a shiver by the very sound of the name. The "Black Belt" carries the same dark background of hovering evil. One is expected to regard black belts as isolated plague-spots full of lurking pitfalls for unsuspecting innocents. It is spoken of as "that Black Belt down there." Little girls go there and go wrong and you never hear of them again. When trouble is threatened in the city the police force is dumped into it with clubs and pistols and rifles, patrol wagons, flivvers and ambulances. For you can never tell what is likely to break out in a place with so many mysterious corners and vicious characters. When the morals of the city come under scrutiny the crusaders send up a howl of helplessness for the rampant vices in that "Black Belt down there." The entire city believes it to be a bad place. The neglect of it is a standing disgrace to the city, and yet the only means of cleaning it up and bringing it up to the standard of the community as a whole discovered so far is by keeping the handful of white persons out of it. The protests against the mixed cafés, by far the loudest and most severe, seem to represent the sole spirit and motive of the effort. No attention is paid to the iron circle tightening around this section and making it practically impossible for Negroes to move out. No attention is paid to the rundown schools in the district. No one is interested in providing recreation facilities for the thousands of colored children growing up in the streets. No one of these reformers and critics has suggested that a branch of the public library be made convenient. The Juvenile Protective Association, an association whose purpose is to prevent criminality, walks around the district and speaks about it as disparagingly as the rest. The old Committee of Fifteen had no representative there to detect the out-cropping of vicious places. It had been thus for the eight years of its existence. And yet epithets are hurled at the district, and it is called bad names and the city turns up its nose and goes on.

C. NEGRO NEWS SOURCES

Negro newspapers are published weekly because they cannot compete with the daily papers in providing any part of the public with news from day to day.

For out-of-town news, the news letters of correspondents and accounts of incidents by specially designated representatives make up a large portion of the reports. All the papers have the service of a clipping bureau. Items in local papers are noted and, when practicable, the newspapers telegraph to some responsible person in town to send a full account of the incident. Traveling men from Chicago and friends of the paper scattered throughout the country also contribute to the news supply. News letters containing personal items are still continued in the Defender and are said to be responsible for the first extension of its circulation. The Defender and the Whip have small staffs of reporters to cover local news. The objects of the Associated Negro Press were thus outlined by Mr. Barnett, a representative of that organization:

It is an organization of affiliated newspapers. We serve eighty-nine newspapers throughout the country, the total circulation of these papers as given to us for advertising purposes running a little in excess of 400,000....

We handle items only that are of national importance because we are a national news service. We gather all out of town items that we are able to gather for the same reason, if they are of national importance. As a news service we would not take any purely local item in Chicago unless it would interest readers in every section of the country. We also get service from a clipping bureau.

It all relates to the interests of the colored people. If there is anything which affects the country at large, which also has either an indirect or a direct influence upon our group, we feature it, but as a rule most of the news which we gather is about things which particularly affect colored people.

II. RUMOR

Rumors which significantly affect race relations consist largely of unfounded tales, incorrectly deduced conclusions, or partial statements of fact with significant content added by the narrator, all of which are given easy and irresponsible circulation by a credulous public during the excitement of a clash. Examples of this type of irritating untruth were found in the Chicago riot.

The number of Negroes killed during the riot (twenty-three Negroes and fifteen whites) has been magnified in popular accounts beyond all reasonable limits of credibility. It is popularly believed that more persons were killed than official records indicate. The exaggeration has not been confined to reports involving Negroes. For example, there was a report in circulation that more than seventy-five white policemen were killed during the riot. The rumor was traced to the half-jesting remark of a policeman that, as a member of a benefit organization, he had paid death dues on a number of policemen greater than the total deaths of the riot as popularly estimated at the time. This number was placed at seventy-five. The director of the Civic Bureau of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, writing to a friend in Chicago, asked for authentic information concerning the number of Negroes killed during the riot. He sought the information because, he said, the industrial editor of the Outlook had told him that police officers said that "more than 2,000 Negroes were killed in the race riot," and that a certain labor report placed the number at 1,700. Suspecting that even the latter number was too large, although the police mentioned 10,000 wounded and killed, he wrote for information.

1. AN IMPRESSION STUDY

A special impression study was made with a class of forty-nine students in the University of Chicago, to measure the effect upon them of word-of-mouth rumor, gossip, and newspaper stories concerning the 1919 riot. Specific questions were asked concerning their understanding as to the number of whites and Negroes killed and their source of information. The students ranged in age from twenty to twenty-five years. Each was asked to indicate in the order of their influence upon him the sources of information which gave him his understanding of the magnitude of the riot. The following is a compilation from their statements.

Ten were out of the city at the time and got their information chiefly through newspapers published elsewhere. Their average opinion of the number killed was fifty-five. Thirteen were informed chiefly by second-hand stories quoting relatives who were in Chicago, policemen interviewed, and others, and their general impression of the number killed averaged 209. Thirty-three got their information from newspapers both in and out of the city, and their average impression of the number killed was 115. Twenty-four of those who were residing in Chicago got their information chiefly from newspapers published in the city, and their average impression was that 131 were killed.

A point of interest in comparison is that those who were out of town and read out-of-town newspapers believed seventy-three were killed, while those who got their information through local publications thought 131 were killed. One young woman made this interesting comment:

I think a very conservative estimate of the number killed would be about 450 or 500. My first source of information, newspapers. My father also told me of the affair and he is a medical director of an insurance company and therefore was in a more or less good position to know.

A young man said:

There were at least 200 people killed in the race riot. Sources of information: a policeman who was stationed at Forty-seventh Street and Wentworth, my own direct observations, and conversations with people who live in the Black Belt.

Another young man said:

About 200 were killed. Chief source of information a review of Carl Sandburg's pamphlet, and newspaper stories.

Another young woman thought that about 150 were killed. She said that her father maintained an office at Forty-third Street and St. Lawrence Avenue, which is in the Negro district. Another said:

If I remember correctly, about forty black and white people were killed and several hundred wounded, and there was a loss of several thousand dollars worth of property by fire. The chief information that impressed me was personal experiences. I witnessed one mob of 2,000 whites take a Negro on the West Side and burn him to death. The newspaper gave me my information of atrocities on both sides.

Another stated that he believed the number killed in the race riot in Chicago was about 275, and continued:

I base my guess on reports of the newspapers, i.e., the dailies of the city and particularly one weekly paper which in my opinion is entirely unbiased in such matters, the Weekly Socialist. I personally saw four Negroes lynched and shot to death.

It might be expected that a fairly balanced type of impression would come from university students. The effect of rumor stands out from the examination of this highly selected group. In exaggeration the word-of-mouth rumors led, followed by rumors circulated by newspapers and alleged first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses.

Rumors from policemen and relatives placed the average number of persons killed at 209, the largest average of the lot. This is significant when taken with the reports given in the foregoing pages which emanated from policemen. Undoubtedly their experiences were of such a nature as to make exaggeration easy and plausible. They were living in conditions far from normal, and their impressions were greatly magnified by the stress and the excitement of events. The out-of-town students were less affected by word-of-mouth rumor, and consequently their impressions showed the smallest average of persons killed.

Personal experiences show more vividly than anything else the unreliability of much of the testimony from observation that gives such frequent rise to rumor. One student said he saw a mob of 2,000 whites take a Negro on the West Side and burn him to death. Records show that only one Negro was killed on the West Side (Joseph Lovings). He was shot and stabbed many times, but not burned.[92] Another student "personally saw four Negroes lynched and shot to death." No Negroes were lynched in the riot.

2. THE BUBBLY CREEK RUMOR

A persistent rumor during the riot served to provide an explanation of the unaccounted deaths of the riot. It had plausibility and soon was accepted and even repeated on the floor of Congress in Washington as a fact. Bubbly Creek is a small branch of the Chicago River extending to the Stock Yards. Into it flows a great deal of waste from the slaughter houses. The surface of the water is thick with the scum of decomposed substances, hair, and trash. Bodies could be thrown into it and remain undetected for a long time. A rumor became current that bodies of riot victims were thrown into this stream. It became so persistent that efforts were actually made to discover them. Even when no bodies were found, the rumor did not weaken. Examples of how it cropped up in various ways are given:

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. [A juror in the coroner's inquest.]

I heard the story that 100 men had been taken out of Bubbly Creek. They used a net and a seine to drag them out. [A. L. Williams, attorney, before the coroner's jury.]

There is a story that was repeated on the floor of Congress that numerous colored people were caught down there [at the Stock Yards] and thrown in Bubbly Creek, and their bodies never recovered. A congressman from our district down there, representing our Stock Yards district, told me that on the floor of Congress it was recently stated that a man with a dumb-bell in his hand stood there at the big rock entrance of Exchange Avenue and knocked a half-dozen of these colored men on the heads as they passed through that rock door there. [A juror in the coroner's inquest.]

I hear they dragged two or three bodies out of Bubbly Creek. [A witness before the coroner's jury.]

A meat curer in the 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 come in the yards, but personally I never got any positive evidence that there was any people who was found there."

The Chicago Daily News of July 29, 1919, printed the subheading: "Four Bodies in Bubbly Creek." The article did not give details, but said: "Bodies of four colored men were taken today from Bubbly Creek in the Stock Yards district, it is reported."

In its final report the coroner's jury made a conclusive statement regarding the Bubbly Creek rumor which stamped it as pure rumor.[93]

3. RIOT RUMORS

The state of mind produced by rumors is manifest in other experiences of riot. The following is an example:

At Forty-fourth Street and Grand Boulevard, a corner on which the only Negro family in the block lived at the time of the riot, an elderly white man clad in a worn dressing-gown, carpet slippers, and a skull cap, excitedly rushed from his house to the curb and shouted to a crowd: "They're giving ammunition away to the niggers at the Eighth Regiment Armory!" The crowd became excited and finally threatened the house of the Negro family. A cry went up, "Hang the niggers! The niggers in the house are firing at every white man that passes!" The police searched the house and found an 1894 model rifle, ammunition, that would not fit, and a decorated sword. The six Negroes in the house were taken to the police station.

During the riot a white man was caught crawling beneath a house in which Negroes lived. In his pocket was found a bottle of kerosene. He confessed that his mission was arson and justified his intended act by repeating a rumor then current that Negroes had set fire to the houses of whites back of the Yards.

One Negro said that a mob of white men knocked a colored woman down, cut her up frightfully, and then took her baby and dashed its brains out on the street-car tracks. He was of fair complexion and could easily be taken for white. He said:

I came upon the mob as they were laughing and shouting. Why I could have torn every one of the white cusses in a thousand pieces. Just think, they stood there laughing and shouting over what they had done. Why every drop of blood in my body boiled and at that moment I swore to God in heaven that I'd kill some white man if I swung for it.

This report was not substantiated by wide and thorough inquiry by the Commission.

Rumor in the East St. Louis riot.—Under "Myths," hereinafter discussed, are given stereotyped sex stories circulated to produce antagonistic sentiment toward Negroes. Many rumors, however, which had no relation to sex crimes were circulated at the time of the East St. Louis riot. The following example taken from the testimony before one of the boards of inquiry pictures the effective use at East St. Louis of a rumor concerning an imaginary smallpox epidemic:

Mr. Tower: Other statements I heard were that people feared an epidemic of smallpox; that the County Hospital had been burdened for months with an average of thirty cases of smallpox.... The whole County became fearful. You could hear the same discussions away from East St. Louis. People were inflamed, and their feelings were directed against the big employers of East St. Louis feeling that they were responsible for the great influx of Negroes.

4. RUMORS PREDICTING RIOTS

Rumors that persist usually have some plausibility. The series which follows contains elements of possible truth. Rumors predicting race riots in Chicago centered about fixed dates on which excitement often existed each year. Thus July 4, a holiday celebrated with fireworks and noise in which shots would not be noticed, was the date set in popular expectation for the Chicago riot that broke out almost three weeks later. Signs had been posted in Washington Park to the effect that Negroes would be driven out of the park on that date.

All this expectation undoubtedly caused preparation for trouble. It is conceivable that this preparation at least accentuated the violence of the riot which began on July 27.

Hallowe'en night, when ruffians could mask and take reprisals with less fear of identification or detection than ordinarily, was the next date in popular expectation. An official report to Washington by a governmental agency on "Radicalism among Negroes," carried the rumor thus:

... A report was received at this office to the effect that an uprising of Negroes in Chicago has been planned for the night of October 31, 1919. This report came in a somewhat vague form, through children attending schools located in the colored districts. The Negroes were aroused over a report to the effect that the white residents of a certain South Side district were planning to drive out all colored inhabitants. The police were informed of the situation.

No riot occurred at or near that date.

May 1, 1920, was next rumored as the date when a riot would start surpassing in violence any that had yet occurred. Labor parades were planned in Chicago for May 1, 1920. It is also moving day, many residence leases then expiring. Thousands of Negroes, it was widely said, would be told to leave Hyde Park. Negroes, it was further said, had no intention of leaving and would oppose ejection even with force. This rumor was taken up and circulated by responsible authorities. As early as April 20, 1920, this article appeared in the Herald-Examiner:

U.S. Sees Race Riots Here May 1

Warning that race riots may occur in the South Side Negro districts May 1 was sent yesterday to John H. Alcock, first deputy superintendent of police, by the army intelligence department. The exact nature of the warning could not be learned and no information could be obtained as to the supposed source of the predicted trouble, but it is expected to arise when Negro families move into new homes in white sections of the South Side.

Numerous bombings have given strength to the belief that more trouble may develop this summer. Official notice to the police department is said to have been made by E. J. Rowens of the army intelligence staff.

No comment on the warning could be obtained from Chief of Police John J. Garrity or Superintendent Alcock. Capt. Michael Gallery of the Deering St. Station said that he believed such reports were absurd.

"I have been all through the Negro section of my district today," said Capt. Gallery. "All is serene and the Negroes are happy. I do not believe that there will be any trouble this summer."

Capt. Thomas Caughlin of the Cottage Grove Ave. Station in whose district the riots started last summer, said he was always prepared and on the lookout for trouble in his territory.

An inquiry based upon this "May 1" rumor came to the Commission. The manager of a West Side restaurant told the Commission that a Negro girl in his employ had asked him whether it would be safe for her to come to work on that day. Her sister had been warned in a friendly way by white fellow-waitresses in a downtown restaurant that she should not risk coming to work that day, "because there is going to be a race riot."

On May 1, as was to have been expected, thousands of persons were armed and ready for the anticipated clash.

No riots occurred. The report was later denied by the Army Intelligence Department.

Labor Day, 1920, was next set. Rumors flying fast were picked up by agents from the state's attorney's office. Reports by these agents from day to day show the persistence of the rumor. For example:

The U.S. Club which had planned to hold a meeting August 28, did not hold the meeting because they expected another race riot on Labor Day.

On August 28, Negroes in the barber shop on —— State Street were carrying guns. Many went to Gary and Hammond to stock up against Labor Day but found that hardware dealers would not sell.

On August 29 little else was talked about in the Black Belt outside the coming riot on Labor Day. The statement of Garrity [chief of police] that an extra cordon of police would patrol the Black Belt was taken as confirmation of the rumor August 20.

An averted clash.—Seeley Street on the West Side is a district where Negroes infrequently go. On the night of May 1, one of the dates scheduled in rumors and reports for a race riot in Chicago, the daughter of a pressroom foreman was returning home at night. As she passed an alley a man grabbed her by the arm and attempted to drag her into the alley. She managed to struggle away and ran home, reporting the incident incoherently to her father. Immediately he armed himself and went out looking for the assailant.

Near the alley where the incident occurred, a lone Negro was standing dressed in overalls. Across the street was a clubroom in which were a number of white men. When he saw the Negro his first impulse was to shoot. The Negro, however, gave no indication of being hunted, but reached into his pocket, looked at his watch, and continued to stand there.

It occurred to the father that he had not learned from the girl whether it was a white man or a Negro who had attempted to attack her. He went back home and asked, and she said it was a white man.

5. RUMORS CONCERNING NEGRO RADICALS

During the country-wide excitement over radicals caused by the activities of the Department of Justice in the fall of 1919, the Chicago office of the United States Army Intelligence Bureau sent to Washington reports concerning Negro organizations. These reports were founded upon scarcely anything more than suspicion due to lack of information and acquaintance with the Negro group. One section of a report made in October, 1919, read:

A convention of the colored organization known as the National Urban League was held in Detroit on October 15, 1919, at which Eugene Kinkle Jones, Negro agitator, presided. Mr. Jones has his headquarters at 127 East 23rd Street, New York City. Wm. D. Haywood was invited to speak at this convention.

The National Urban League is an organization of responsible Negroes and whites, with branches in thirty-one cities. It numbers among its executive officers L. Hollingsworth Wood, A. S. Frizzell, Robert R. Moton, Mrs. Julius Rosenwald, George W. Seligman, and Mrs. Booker T. Washington. Its avowed purposes are:

1. Try to show social welfare agencies the advantage of co-operation.

2. Secure and train social workers.

3. Protect women and children from unscrupulous persons.

4. Fit workers for work.

5. Help to secure playgrounds and other clean places of amusement.

6. Organize boys' and girls' clubs and neighborhood unions.

7. Help with probation oversight of delinquents.

8. Maintain a country home for convalescent women.

9. Investigate conditions of city life as a basis for practical work.

Concerning the reference to William D. Haywood and E. K. Jones, this statement was received by the Commission from E. K. Jones:

The National Urban League did hold its annual convention in Detroit, October 15, 1919. William D. Haywood was not invited to speak at this convention. Judging from the reference to Haywood the term "Negro agitator" as applied to myself connotes a most violently radical strain in whatever methods I might be using to bring about better conditions for the Negro.

Throughout my ten years' connection with the League, I have sought by courageous but practical methods to bring to the Negro an opportunity in American life and have urged Negroes to measure up in every way along lines of efficiency and be satisfied with nothing but a square deal and equal opportunity in our national life.

I have never suggested violence of any kind as a means toward this end, nor, in fact, has the idea ever arisen in my mind that this would be an effective means of attaining this end.

From the same Intelligence Bureau report this statement is taken: "Another recent report states that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with offices at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, is planning to flood the colored districts with I.W.W. literature."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a reputable organization of whites and Negroes numbering among its executive officers Hon. Moorfield Storey, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Arthur E. Spingarn, Oswald Garrison Villard, Mary White Ovington, and Dr. Charles E. Bentley. It has no relation with the I.W.W. and has never planned any distribution of I.W.W. literature.

6. RUMOR WITHIN THE NEGRO GROUP

The Chicago Advocate, a Negro paper of an irresponsible, sensational type, published under large headlines a report of a run on the Lincoln State Bank. The reason alleged was indignation over the refusal of the white officials of the bank to lend money on Negro property in Hyde Park. The bank officials were accused of discrimination in favor of an organization of men in Hyde Park who were making every effort to keep Negroes segregated within the "Black Belt." The Pyramid Building and Loan Association was said to have requested the loan. Since nearly 90 per cent of the depositors of the bank were supposed to be Negroes, the act was considered an insulting disloyalty to Negroes who supported the institution.

A number of Negroes, believing that their savings were in danger, rushed to the bank. Soon there was an actual run, and for several days long lines of depositors passed through the bank and carried away their savings. More than $243,000 was withdrawn. The report proved to be without foundation, and the three largest and most influential Negro newspapers aided in restoring normal business relations. The president of the bank charged the head of the Building and Loan Association and the editor of the newspaper that published the story with responsibility for this rumor.

7. RUMORS OF ATROCITIES

Of the type of rumor which has had effect upon the sentiments of Negroes concerning the Chicago riot, the following quotations from a pamphlet entitled The Chicago Race Riots, by Austin D. N. Sutton, a Negro, provide a good example:

In an investigation made personally by me, beginning about five o'clock Wednesday afternoon, July 30, until far into the evening, visiting the districts from Forty-seventh Street, East to Indiana Avenue, West to Wentworth Avenue, South to Fifty-fifth Street, I found a little short street between Forty-eighth and Fifth Avenue called Swan Street, that is not easily located, and very little known by the general public. Eye-witnesses said that men, women and children were being attacked and killed and thrown into the sewer, and no account of their whereabouts has ever been given.

I found about twenty refugees who had been run away from their homes on Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth and Fifth Avenue, also Wentworth and Princeton avenues. Their homes had been burned, and they were made to flee for their lives. I have the names and addresses of more than one hundred cases investigated, one more horrible case, where a young colored boy was gasolined and burned after having been killed and where colored women in the Stock Yards district were attacked and their breasts cut off. These things were perpetrated by the whites upon peaceful law-abiding blacks, some of whom had been residents for twenty-seven years in that neighborhood.

Thorough inquiries were made by the Commission into these alleged atrocities, and no evidence was found to show that anyone was "gasolined and burned" during the riot or that any colored women's breasts were cut off.

8. RUMORS AND THE MIGRATION

The rumors in circulation in the South at the beginning of the migration of Negroes to the North were responsible for the presence in Chicago of many who heard them. It is hard to conceive how the tale that the Germans were on their way through Texas to take the southern states could have been believed, yet it is reported that this extravagant rumor was taken seriously in some quarters.

On the outskirts of Meridian, Mississippi, a band of gypsies was encamped. The rumor gained circulation that the Indians were coming back to retake their land, lost many years ago. Further it was declared that the United States government was beginning a scheme to transport all the Negroes from the South to break up the Black Belt. Passed from mouth to mouth unrestrainedly, the tale became an established verity for many Negroes.

It was declared on the word of honor of "one in a position to know" that the packing-houses in Chicago needed and would get 50,000 Negro workers before the end of 1917. One explanation of the belief that the South was overrun with labor agents is the fact that Negroes at the South saw in every stranger a man from the North looking for laborers and their families. If he denied it, they thought that he was concealing his identity from the police, and if he said nothing, his silence was regarded as affirmation.

Hundreds of disappointments of prospective migrants were traced to the rumor that a train would leave on a certain date, sometimes after the presence of a stranger in town; they would come to the station prepared to leave, and when no agent appeared, would purchase their own tickets to the North. Wages and privileges in the North were greatly exaggerated. Some men, on being questioned, supposed that it was possible for any common laborer to earn $10 a day and that $50 a week was not unusual. The strength of this belief was remarked by several social agencies in Chicago which attempted to supply migrants with work. The actual wages paid, though much in excess of what they had been receiving, were disappointing. Similarly in the matter of privilege and "rights," it was later discovered by the migrants that unbounded liberty was not to be found in the North. Many cases of grotesque misconduct of newly arrived migrants in Chicago, against which more sober-minded Negroes preached, possibly had root in exaggerated reports of "freedom and privilege" in the North which had reached the South.[94]

III. MYTHS

There arise among groups of people various stories with little or no basis in fact, which, through repetition and unvaried association with the same persons or incidents, come to be regarded as true. These stories, when they persist through years and even through generations, are myths. They are usually the response to a prejudice or a desire.

In general they have some plausible and apparent justification. In turn they lend stability not only to the beliefs out of which they were born, but to themselves. Frequently they are the result of the assumption that because two things happen at the same time they are connected by the relationship of cause and effect. So long as these stories are uncorrected they hold and exercise a marked degree of control over personal conduct.

Myths are important in any consideration of the instruments of opinion-making. Fernand von Langenhove, a Belgian scientist associated with the Solvay Institute for Sociological Study at Brussels, has made probably the first researches in this field. He took as his material the reports spread in Germany by German soldiers concerning the Belgian priests. These myths, for the most part unfounded, began to spread and eventually were taken up by German authorities and given the stamp of official sanction. The reports were investigated and found to be false and libelous by German authorities themselves. The method by which these myths arose is thus described in his book The Growth of a Legend:

Hardly had the German armies entered Belgium when strange rumors began to circulate. They spread from place to place. They were reproduced by the press and they soon permeated the whole of Germany.... Public credulity accepted these stories. The highest powers in the state welcomed them without hesitation and indorsed them with their authority. Even the Emperor echoed them and, taking them for a text, advanced in the famous telegram of September 8, 1914, addressed to the President of the United States, the most terrible accusations against the Belgian people and clergy.

... It was the German army which, as we have seen, constituted the chief breeding ground for legendary stories. These were disseminated with great rapidity among the troops; the liaison officers, the dispatch riders, the food convoys, the victualling posts assured the diffusion of them....

Submitted to the test of the German military inquiry these stories are shown to be without foundation. Received from the front and narrated by a soldier who professes to have been an eye witness, they are nevertheless clothed in the public view with special authority. Welcomed without control by the press, the stories recounted in letters from the front appear, however, in the eyes of the readers of a paper clothed with a new authority—that which attaches to printed matter. They lose in the columns of a paper their individual and particular character.... The statements thus obtain a substance and an objectivity of which they would otherwise be devoid. Mixed with authentic news, they are accepted by the public without mistrust. Is not their appearance in the paper a guaranty of accuracy?...

All these pseudo-historical publications are, however, only one aspect of the abundant literary production of the Great War....

So one finds in this literature of the lower classes the principal legendary episodes of which we have studied the origin and followed the development; accommodated to a fiction, woven into a web of intrigue, they have undergone new transformations; they have lost every indication of their source; they are transposed in the new circumstances imagined for them; they have usually been dissociated from the circumstances which individualize them and fix their time and place.

The evolution of myths concerning Negroes shows a striking resemblance to these mentioned by von Langenhove. In this category would fall the myths concerning Negro mentality, or the closing of the frontal sutures at the age of fourteen; the "rape myth," or the belief that some character weakness and inordinate sexual virility in Negroes make them rapists by nature; and the "insurrection myth," or the recurrent assertion and belief that Negroes are plotting the downfall of the government. These are general in their acceptance. They illustrate the tendency of authors observed by Langenhove in his study "to incorporate new ideas with the complex old ones and show that they are not surprising and that all earlier facts tend to prove it." The efforts of some recent writers on the Negro question may be noted.

In 1895 R. M. Bache[95] made one of the first experimental studies of the relative mentality of the white, Negro, and Indian races. His study was based on only ten Negroes. He began with an assumption of the inferiority of Negroes and was satisfied that he had proved it. In his tests the whites were slowest in reacting to the visual, auditory, and electrical stimulation, the Indians were quickest, and the Negroes about midway between. He deduced from this that the whites were superior, the Indians next, and the Negroes the lowest of the group. The Negroes he explained were slower than the Indians because they were of mixed white and Negro blood and had inherited the effects of slavery, while the Indians' mode of life compelled them to rely upon quick movement. Therefore he said the Indian was of a higher race than the Negro. Dr. Vogt, a German anthropologist, is responsible for the statement: "On examining the brain of a Negro I find a remarkable resemblance between the ape and the Negro, especially with reference to the development of the temporal lobe." He made this deduction from the examination of the skull of one Hottentot Negro woman.

A. T. Smith made association and memory tests and concluded[96] that the Negro child was psychologically different from the white child in power of abstraction, judgment, and analysis. He took a single Negro boy as typical.

For the purpose of studying myths pertinent to this inquiry instances were taken from the testimony in race riots, both in East St. Louis and Chicago. The excerpts which follow illustrate the tendency of myths to create and give currency to rumors:

NEGROES SECRETING ARMS

I returned in about an hour and learned from Col. Tripp that it had been reported that Negroes were forming and had large quantities of arms and ammunition at a saloon on the northeasterly corner of Nineteenth and Market Avenue; at the time the small detachment of troops remaining at the City Hall was loaded into an auto truck and Col. Tripp, Lieut. Col. Clayton, Chief of Police Ransom Payne and myself, in my automobile proceeded to the saloon and pool-room located at the northeasterly corner of Nineteenth Street and Market Avenue, where it was reported there were large stores of ammunition and arms.

We accompanied Col. Tripp into the building and found perhaps fifteen or eighteen Negro men; Col. Tripp ordered them to surrender arms and there being no ready compliance with the order, he thereupon ordered them searched and found one man who had a number of loaded shot-gun shells. [Testimony by Thomas L. Fekete, Jr., city attorney of East St. Louis, at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]

NEGROES PLANNING ATTACK

Question: Now what happened Tuesday?

Answer: Well, Tuesday I spent most of my time in the City Hall except when we would be sent out on false alarms, calls from the different parts of the city. That was practically all of our work there then. There was no rioting on Tuesday, but they continued calling from different parts of the city that Negroes were forming and ready to attack, and we would send men, whenever they were available, out with squads, two squads of men to investigate, but invariably it was a false alarm. [Testimony by Major Wm. Klauser at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]

CONCEALING ARMS FOR INSURRECTION

We then searched the building, particularly the dwelling quarters above these rooms, for arms which it had been alleged Dr. L. N. Bundy had stored at this place. We found that Dr. Bundy had sent two cartons of his property to this place for safe-keeping and on opening the cartons, we discovered that they contained no firearms or ammunition, but contained automobile supplies and some stationery. [Testimony by Col. S. O. Tripp at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]

NEGROES ARMING AND PLANNING AN ATTACK

Then we commenced to get reports from different parts of the city that Negroes were arming, getting ready to attack. One of the persistent rumors was there were two hundred Negroes armed around Sixty and Bond streets some place there. That rumor was so persistent that Col. Tripp ordered me to take Company B down and investigate it and the police sent one policeman along to show us the way and show us the place where it was supposed to be. We got down there within probably three blocks of the place and the policeman told us we better not get too close without forming a line of skirmishers, which I did. I divided the company into two platoons. One platoon under the Company commander and the other under the first lieutenant, and we combed that district all through. The policeman deserted us as soon as we started out and we were all left alone. We combed all over for an hour or probably more.

Question: Who was the commander of Company B?

Answer: Captain Eaton. We did not find a single thing except two Negroes who just came out of a house. We searched them and they were armed and we arrested them. We brought these back with us when we came perhaps an hour or an hour and a half later.

Question: Is there anything else that night?

Answer: Yes, it was not very long until we got rumors that at about 27th and 28th and Tudor that the Negroes and whites were in a pitched battle. That is about two miles I think southeast, and they asked me to go out and look into the situation and take a squad of men with me ... we got to Eighteenth and Bond and we were perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead of the truck and we were fired upon. We stopped the car and Brown returned the fire. We could see smoke coming from a vacant lot and by that time the truck came up and we formed a line of skirmishers and went through and could not find a single thing.

The Chief of Police was advised, on rumor, that Negroes were forming in the Black Belt for the purpose of marching on the whites. In response to this rumor, the witness [Col. S. O. Tripp], the Acting Mayor [Fekete], and the military officials left for the seat of the purported mobilization of Negroes, but found that the report was untrue. The record shows that during this temporary departure of authorities, military and civil, acts of lawlessness were being exerted against Negroes in other sections of the city. [Testimony by Major Wm. Klauser at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]

ARMED AND MASSED ATTACKS BY NEGROES

... As we got to 27th and Tudor I found a first lieutenant of the Missouri National Guard there. I afterwards found out his name was Crawley. He had one soldier with him. He called him his orderly. I think his name was Murphy. There they were perhaps a dozen young men, about eighteen or twenty, armed with rifles and were lined up at 28th Street there under trees, that is behind trees, at least it looked that way in the night, and perhaps a half a block more north it looked to me two houses were burning; it was a big fire; they were burning, and they claimed that the Negroes had been firing at them and they were returning the fire, and I guess that is where the report came from. He advised me that it was a little dangerous work up there and that we had better form a few men, form a line of skirmishers, and I sent one bunch to the east side of the fire to see what we could find in there. So I did that. I gave Capt. Easterday a bunch of men, one detachment, and Lieut. Brown another, one on each side, and then Lieut. Crawley and one private went right through the center of it, right next to the place seemed deserted and we could not find anybody and we waited for the other detachments to come out and they did not find anything and I walked around, it seemed on the west side of the block, between 27th and 28th Streets, and I saw a couple of fellows sticking their heads up over the fence, the fence of an old two story brick building, and I hollered. I thought perhaps it was Lieut. Crawley and waited for him and we found a bunch of Negroes in there, perhaps twenty-five of them. Lieut. Crawley and myself lined them up and searched them and there was not a Negro who had any arms or ammunition, and we asked if there were any more in the house, and they said this private came in and already had three of us. So Lieut. Crawley said if I guard the ones outside he would go inside and run the rest out, so in the neighborhood of one hundred fifty or two hundred came out, men, women and children and we searched all of them but did not find anything on them. [Testimony by Thomas L. Fekete, city attorney at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]

1. THE RAPE MYTH

It is the common belief among whites that Negroes are rapists by nature. In this belief are involved the "fear obsession" of Negro men, held by many white women, fear of the "social equality" bugaboo, condonings of lynchings, and repressive social restriction as well as attempts at legislative restraints. The persistency of these assertions and this belief point to an interesting peculiarity of popular opinion.[97] There have been cases of rape involving Negroes, but they have contributed no such preponderance as would justify the wholesale charge against the Negro race. The tendency is to stress Negro sex offenses as though they alone constituted almost the whole of revolting crime. The usual proportion of white sex offenses is lost in the general statistics of crime. In the South, where it was first persistently asserted that Negro men have an abnormal tendency to sexual crimes, each crime, or attempted crime, and in many cases even suspected crime, of this sort has registered itself in a lynching.

In the twenty-year period between 1883 and 1903 there were lynched in the South 1,985 Negroes. Rape was assigned as the cause in 675 cases. In 1,310 cases other causes were given. James Welden Johnson, field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has prepared figures on lynchings and sex offenses charged to Negroes which point out the misrepresentation in easy but persistent charges and the unquestioning acceptance of them by the public. He says:

Whenever the Negro protests against lynching, nearly all southern newspapers and a great many northern newspapers call upon him to deprecate the crime which leads to lynching. The authentic statistics on lynching prove the falsehood on which this propaganda is based. In the past thirty-five years fifty Negro women have been lynched. In the twelve-month period, August, 1918-August, 1919 [when the statement was prepared] five Negro women were lynched.

LYNCHINGS

Years Lynchings Number Charged with Rape

1914-18[98] 264 28

1883-1903 1,985 675

When the Congressional Committee on Immigration in 1911 made its study of crime in the United States, an investigation was made of 2,262 cases in the New York Court of General Sessions, and in that investigation it was found that the percentage for the crime of rape was lower for Negroes than for either the foreign-born whites or native whites.

NEW YORK COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS

[99]

1911 Rape

Native-born whites .8 per cent

Foreign-born whites 1.8 per cent

Negroes .5 per cent

Contrast these records, bad as they may appear, with the records for New York County, which is only a part of New York City, and we find that in this one county in the single year of 1917, 230 persons were indicted for rape. Of this number, 37 were indicted for rape in the first degree.

INDICTMENTS AND LYNCHINGS FOR RAPE

Place Year Crime Number

Number indicted by Grand Jury, New York County 1917 Rape 230

Number of whites indicted by Grand Jury, New York County 1917 Rape in first degree 37

Number of Negroes indicted by Grand Jury, New York County 1917 Rape in first degree 0

Number of Negroes lynched in entire United States {1914} {1918} Charged with rape 28

That is, in just a part of New York City the number of persons indicted for rape in the first degree was nine more than the total number of Negroes lynched on the charge of rape in the entire United States during the period 1914-1918. Among these thirty-seven persons indicted by the New York County Grand Jury, there was not a single Negro. The evidence required by the Grand Jury of New York County to indict a person charged with rape must be more conclusive than the evidence required by a mob to lynch a Negro accused of rape.

In Chicago the statistics of sex offenses tell a significant story. Chicago judges in the criminal courts were questioned by the Commission on their experience to test the foundation of this belief. Their replies were practically unanimous. Some of them are given:

Judge Pam: You talk about sex cases. Whether you call them rape cases or crimes against children, I have more serious rape cases against white than I have against colored people. The most serious case I had was about ten days ago, and I sentenced the man to life imprisonment. I never had such a case involving a Negro.

Commissioner: We read a great deal in the papers about rape in the South. How does the colored man stand on that matter in comparison to the white man?

Judge Thompson: Practically the same.

Commissioner: You spoke about crimes involving sex. What is your experience with regard to whether they are committed more often by colored persons than whites?

Judge Trude: I don't think in Chicago they are committed more by Negroes than whites.

Judge Thompson: In my work with the criminal court I was astounded at the large number of crimes involving the sexual abuse of children, but I remember no case in which a colored defendant was charged with that crime. Almost all other races were represented, but I don't remember one colored man charged with the abuse of a child.... I tried many of those cases, but never tried a colored man for that offense. I would say the majority of them were slavic or German; practically no Scandinavian.

Dr. Adler, State Criminologist: We had the same thing here in Chicago of a colored man sent to the penitentiary on a charge of attempted rape or something of that sort, where the identification was made by a child of six or eight years who picked him out in a crowd under suspicion. No such evidence ought to be accepted. We are perfectly sure, and everybody else agrees that such evidence is not sufficient to warrant the action.

2. THE SEX MYTH

East St. Louis riot.—The records of the Congressional Investigating Committee contain much evidence of the use of this myth in fomenting riots. Edward F. Mason, representing the interests of labor, gave a vivid account of the report that Negro men had committed vicious acts of assault against white girls in the East St. Louis streets. He stated further that 200 white women were among the 1,200 persons present at the meeting on the night of May 28, just prior to the riot, and that "we brought these girls along to see if we couldn't teach—we wanted to wake him [the mayor] up. He was in a trance. He couldn't see the thing like we did."

Alois Towers emphasized in his testimony the sentiment among the whites of East St. Louis just prior to the outbreak:

Mr. Chairman, yesterday I made the statement that the great influx of Negroes was responsible for the riot. I want to try and show some of the feelings that developed after this great influx of Negroes. It was a terrible feeling in the air. Everyone felt that something terrible was going to happen. On the street comers, wherever you went, you heard expressions against the Negro. You heard that the Negro was driving the white man out of the locality—by moving into the white neighborhood—that the whites were being forced out of their localities. Stories were afloat on the streets and on the street cars of the worst kind that would inflame the feelings. For instance, I heard one story so persistently that I commenced to think later on there might be some truth in it. First I thought it was just originated by some who might want to inflame the feelings of the people. I heard stories of this kind and I heard it no less than a dozen times on the streets of East St. Louis, that Negroes had made the boast that they were invited to East St. Louis; that great numbers of white people were taken away for war purposes; and that there would be lots of white women for the Negroes in East St. Louis.... The whole country became fearful. You could hear the same discussions away from East St. Louis. People were inflamed and their feelings were directed against big employers of East St. Louis, feeling that they were responsible for the great influx of Negroes.

Of actual assaults against white women there was found no evidence. Testimony by the mayor before the Military Committee investigating the conduct of soldiers adds substantiation to this fact:

Q.: Now did you hear of any other complaints of these colored men from any source as to their conduct and behavior when they first came here other than being imported here to work in large numbers?

A.: Yes sir.

Q.: What do you know about it?

A.: Some complaints that they were sticking up people, holding up people at night time, and various other police violations.

Q.: Now were these complaints verified by the records, or otherwise?

A.: I think they were, they were arrested and locked up, got trial and punishment, the usual procedure of the Police Department and Courts.

Q.: You keep in pretty close touch with these Police Court Proceedings?

A.: Yes sir.

Q.: So you would say that there were more colored people arrested and convicted for such offenses as you mentioned than there were four or two years ago?

A.: I have not made that comparison, but I would think so.

Q.: Any other offenses except larceny and robbery?

A.: No.

Q.: Any sex outrages?

A.: No.

Q.: No complaints or prosecutions that white women were outraged by colored men?

A.: No sir.

[Board of Inquiry, East St. Louis, Ill.]

Washington riot.—The Washington race riot was precipitated by reports of alleged attacks upon white women by Negroes. These reports were featured in the daily newspapers with large front-page headlines, and suggestions were made that probable lynchings would follow the capture of the Negroes. The series of reported assaults totaled seven. In each it was claimed that a Negro had assaulted a white woman. When the fury and excitement of the riot had subsided and the facts were sifted, it was found that of the seven assaults reported, four were assaults upon colored women. Three of the alleged criminals arrested and held for assault were white men, and at least two of the white men were prosecuted for assaults upon colored women. It further developed that three of the assaults were supposed to have been committed by a suspect who at the time of the riots was under arrest.

Waukegan riot.—A story with the implication that a sex issue was involved was the significant feature of the riot between marines from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, aided by citizens of Waukegan, and the Negro residents of Waukegan. It is entirely likely that the outburst was wholly precipitated by the entirely false report that "Mrs. Blazier, the wife of Lieutenant Blazier," was "attacked" by Negro boys.[100] Lieutenant Blazier, it developed, was unmarried and had no woman occupant in the car.

Chicago riot.—The most atrocious murder of the Chicago riot of 1919 was precipitated by a report involving an Italian girl. The story circulated that she had been killed by a Negro. Joseph Lovings, an innocent Negro, chanced into the neighborhood on a bicycle. He was set upon and murdered. The coroner found fourteen bullet wounds, many stab wounds, contusion of the head, and fractures of the skull bones and of the limbs. The report proved a myth, for no girl was killed by anyone during the riot. The Negro killed was innocent of any injury, and if a girl was injured it had not been learned by whom the injury was inflicted. There had been no previous rioting on the West Side, where the murder was committed, and no further clashes followed it. The usual report of the burning of the Negro which followed an assault was also circulated, and this was false and unfounded.

In the frenzy of the rioting in Chicago a report gained circulation that white women were being attacked by Negroes. Some reports picked up by newspapers asserted that women were being shot as the riot grew. The Chicago American during the riot pertinently made a plea for cool-headedness and intelligence in receiving reports. In an editorial it thus importuned the citizenry:

Don't circulate wild stories that tend to infuriate respectable citizens, both white and black. They are trying to suppress the hoodlums who have been responsible for all the rioting.

Don't believe every infuriating report you hear, and don't repeat them to others more credulous than yourself.

Depend on the American to tell you what happened just as accurately as careful, intelligent reporting will permit.

The most notable instance of inflammatory faking was observed in one newspaper (not the American) yesterday afternoon. It ran across its front page in big type the heading: "Women Shot as Riots Grow." It was based on an incoherent, unsubstantiated rumor which later investigation proved has no foundation.

The same information was received by the Evening American from the detective bureau, where the report was received. The American published a few lines announcing that the police had received such reports. Men were rushed out, but the report could not be verified, and this newspaper withdrew further publication of the unverified report.

At Chicago Heights a race riot was reported on August 7, 1920. It was said in the press that a Negro motor-cyclist had run down a Hungarian boy. The actual report circulated was that a Negro had struck an Italian girl. The latter report was not true; the first one, contrary to press reports, did not start a riot. In fact, there was no riot.

In the racial clash of September 20, 1920, the sex myth again arose.[101] Immediately after one of the Negroes had struck Barrett down, the trio ran. Few persons actually knew what had occurred. Excitement waxed high when the wild report flew about that a Negro had attacked a white woman. A mob of several thousand men, women, and children formed to storm the church in which they had sought refuge.

An investigator from the Commission, sent out immediately after the clash, picked up traces of this myth in the sentiments of white residents of the neighborhood.

There was a story which everyone in the neighborhood seemed to know concerning trouble on the street-car lines between Negroes and whites. A middle-aged Irish woman on Union Avenue, who had been with the crowd at the church, gave the following account of it: "Not long ago, a Negro knocked a white woman off the cars. It never appeared in the papers. I never go on the cars where they [Negroes] are. You couldn't get me to go on a State Street car line."

A barber at Forty-fifth Street and Emerald Avenue said:

There was some trouble the Saturday before Labor Day. A Negro gave the conductor a dollar bill, and the conductor said he hadn't change and told him to get off the car. As he was getting off, he knocked against a white woman, and seven men in an automobile who were right behind the car saw him and chased him. They brought him up to the alley right across the street, beat him up, and cut up his head something awful.

IV. PROPAGANDA

Both whites and Negroes have recognized the value of propaganda as an instrument of opinion-making. Both employ it, sometimes openly, sometimes insidiously. Its effects may be unmistakably observed in much of the literature about the Negro. It is the purpose here to give attention to certain forms of propaganda now in circulation, with a view to defining roughly their place in the manufacture of sentiment on the race question in Chicago. In spite of similarity it would be obviously unfair to lump all sorts of propaganda, good and bad, under one general classification. It is possible, however, to classify different types from the examples which came to the attention of the Commission, as follows: (1) educational, (2) radical and revolutionary, (3) malicious, (4) defensive.