that route only during the day of the attack.
In the case of John Mills, a Negro who was killed as he fled from a Forty-seventh Street car, the motorman left the car while Negroes were being beaten inside it. Neither motorman nor conductor took names of witnesses or attempted to fix a description of the assailants in mind.
When B. F. Hardy, a Negro, was killed on a street car at Forty-sixth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, the motorman and conductor offered no resistance and did not get names or descriptions.
The testimony of the conductor and motorman on a car attacked at Thirty-eighth Street and Ashland Avenue was clear and showed an attempt to get all information possible. They secured names of witnesses. One member of the crew had been in the service of the Chicago Surface Lines for ten years, and the other for twelve years.
The tie-up of the street railways affected the riot situation by forcing laborers to walk, making them more liable to assault in the hostile districts, by keeping many workers from jobs, turning out on the streets hundreds of idle men, and by increasing the use of automobiles.
Tuesday morning two white men were killed while walking to work through the Negro area, and two Negroes were killed while going through the white area.
Curiosity led the idle to the riot zone. One such was asked on the witness stand why he went. "What was I there for? Because I walked there—my own bad luck. I was curious to see how they did it, that is all."
Under cover of legitimate use gangs used motor vehicles for raiding. Witnesses of rioting near Ogden Park said trucks unloaded passengers on Racine Avenue, facilitating the formation of a mob. On Halsted Street crowds of young men rode in trucks shouting they were out to "get the niggers." An automobile load of young men headed off Heywood Thomas, Negro, and shot him, at Taylor and Halsted streets, as he was walking home from work.
Beside daily routine and the street-car situation, the weather undoubtedly had an influence in the progress of the riot. July 27 was hot, 96 degrees, or fourteen points above normal. It was the culmination of a series of days with high temperatures around 95 degrees, which meant that nerves were strained. The warm weather of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday also kept crowds on the streets and sitting on doorsteps until late at night. Innocent people trying to keep cool were injured when automobiles raced through the streets, the occupants firing to right and left. Wednesday night and Thursday it rained. Cool weather followed for the rest of the week.
Gangs and "athletic clubs."—Gangs and their activities were an important factor throughout the riot. But for them it is doubtful if the riot would have gone beyond the first clash. Both organized gangs and those which sprang into existence because of the opportunity afforded seized upon the excuse of the first conflict to engage in lawless acts.
It was no new thing for youthful white and Negro groups to come to violence. For years, as the sections of this report dealing with antecedent clashes and with recreation show, there had been clashes over baseball grounds, swimming-pools in the parks, the right to walk on certain streets, etc.
Gangs whose activities figured so prominently in the riot were all white gangs, or "athletic clubs." Negro hoodlums do not appear to form organized gangs so readily. Judges of the municipal court said that there are no gang organizations among Negroes to compare with those found among young whites.
The Stock Yards district, just west of the main Negro area, is the home of many of these white gangs and clubs; it is designated as District III in the discussion of the riot growth. The state's attorney, as already indicated (see p. 8), referred to the many young offenders who come from this particular district. A police detective sergeant who investigated the riot cases in this district said of this section, "It is a pretty tough neighborhood to try to get any information out there; you can't do it." A policeman on the beat in the district said, "There is the Canaryville bunch in there and the Hamburg bunch. It is a pretty tough hole in there."
There was much evidence and talk of the political "pull" and even leadership of these gangs with reference to their activities in the riot. A member of "Ragen's Colts" just after the riot passed the word that the "coppers" from downtown were looking for club members, but that "there need be no fear of the coppers from the station at the Yards for they were all fixed and told to lay off on club members." During the riot he claimed they were well protected by always having a "cop" ride in one of the automobiles so everything would be "O.K." in case members of the gang were picked up. Another member of the club said he had been "tipped off by the police at the Yards to clean out and keep away from the usual hangouts because investigators were working out of Hoyne's and out of Brundage's offices, and were checking up on the activities of the 'Ragen's' during the riot."
The foreman of the August grand jury which investigated the riot cases said in testifying before the Commission:
The lead we got to investigate the Forty-seventh Street district was from an anonymous letter stating that Ragen had such influence in the Forty-seventh Street police station that these individuals were allowed to go without due process of law.
I didn't believe that was a fact in this particular instance. We did learn that Ragen was a great power in that district and at the time of our investigation we learned that some of the "Ragen's Colts" had broken into the police station and pried open a door of a closet where they had a good deal of evidence in the nature of weapons of prisoners concealed, and they got all of this evidence out of there without the police knowing anything about it.
The station referred to is at Forty-seventh and Halsted streets. Gangs operated for hours up and down Forty-seventh Street, Wells, Princeton, Shields, and Wentworth avenues and Federal Street without hindrance from the police.
CROWDS ARMED WITH BRICKS SEARCHING FOR A NEGRO
WHITES STONING NEGRO TO DEATH
Actual photograph of the killing of a Negro by the mob shown above after chasing him into his home.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE
He was knocked from the stairway by a brick. Two men are here shown hurling bricks at the dying Negro.
A judge of the municipal court said in testimony before the Commission: "They seemed to think they had a sort of protection which entitled them to go out and assault anybody. When the race riots occurred it gave them something to satiate the desire to inflict their evil propensities on others."
Besides shouting as they rode down the streets in trucks that they were out to "get the niggers," they defied the law in other ways. When the militia men came on the scene on the fourth day of the riot, they testified to trouble with these gangsters. One of the colonels testified before the Commission: "They didn't like to be controlled. They would load up heavy trucks with rowdies and try to force through the lines. They'd come tooting their horns and having back pressure explosions like gatling guns."
Some of the "athletic club" gangsters had criminal records. L—— W—— was accused of being one of the leaders of the gang around Forty-seventh and Wells streets. He himself said boastfully, "I have been arrested about fifteen times for 'disorderly' and never was arrested with a knife or a gun." Several witnesses said they had seen him during the riot one night leading the mob and brandishing a razor and the next night waving a gun. He was not arrested. D—— H——, seventeen years old, was identified as being active in the
