in the white mob were made.]
The testimony further showed that there were 150 white men in the mob grouped in front of 1021, and four of the men were stoning the house at the time Emma Jackson fired into their midst.
Only one gun was found and no stores of ammunition, instead of "a formidable arsenal," or a "barricade" or "an arsenal for Negro rioters," or "two revolvers, two rifles, an axe, several knives, and several hundred rounds of ammunition, including 38 and 48 [sic] calibre cartridges … piled up near the window from which the Negroes had been shooting." The one gun was hidden in a niche in the skylight.
Following are examples of rumors current during the riot and disseminated by the press and by word of mouth, grouped on the basis of the emotions which they aroused—vengeful animosity, fear, anger, and horror:
Daily News, July 30. Subheadline: "Alderman Jos. McDonough Tells How He Was Shot at on South Side Visit. Says Enough Ammunition in Section to Last for Years of Guerrilla Warfare":
[Note.—The reference in the headline to the large amount of ammunition is repeated in the text, but not elaborated or explained.]
An alderman in an account of his adventures says the Mayor contemplates opening up 35th and 47th streets in order that colored people might get to their work. He thinks this would be most unwise for, he states, "They are armed and the white people are not. We must defend ourselves if the city authorities won't protect us." Continuing his story, he describes bombs going off, "I saw white men and women running through the streets dragging children by the hands and carrying babies in their arms. Frightened white men told me the police captains had just rushed through the district crying, 'For God's sake, arm. They are coming, we cannot hold them.'"
WRECKED HOUSE OF A NEGRO FAMILY IN RIOT ZONE
NEGROES AND WHITES LEAVING THE STOCK YARDS
The point here is not whether the alderman was correctly quoted, but the effect on the public of such statements attributed to him. There is no record in any of the riot testimony in the coroner's office or in the state's attorney's office of any bombs exploded during the riot, nor of police captains warning white people to arm, nor of any fear on the part of whites of a Negro invasion. In the Berger Odman case before the coroner's jury there is a statement that a police sergeant warned the Negroes of Ogden Park to arm and to shoot at the feet of rioters if they attempted to invade the few blocks marked off for Negroes by the police.
Herald-Examiner, July 28. Subheadline: "Negroes Have Arms":
A man whose name is withheld reported to the Herald-Examiner that Negroes had more than 2,000 Springfield rifles and an adequate supply of soft-nosed bullets. R. R. Jackson, alderman from the second ward, brands the story as untrue.
This statement is not substantiated.
Herald-Examiner, July 29:
Several thousand men stoned the old Eighth Regiment Armory in the heart of the riot zone, doors were burst in, and hundreds of guns with ammunition taken by the mob. Police rushed to the scene firing into the mob and finally drove it from the armory. According to reports more than 50 persons were shot or otherwise injured.
Refutation of this statement is found in the testimony of Police Captain Mullen before the coroner's jury in the Eugene Williams case:
I received a rumor that the soldiers [referring to Negro soldiers of the Eighth Regiment] had gone over to the armory for the sole purpose of breaking in and getting rifles. I dispatched two patrol wagons full of men; after arriving there, we found out they had been there and broke some windows, but they found out there were no weapons in there.
Another type of fear-provoking rumor current in street crowds reported the force and the aggressive plans of the opposing race. Some of these rumors, current among Negro crowds, were to the effect that a white mob was gathering on Wentworth Avenue ready to break into the "Black Belt"; that a white mob was waiting to break through at Sixtieth and Ada streets; that a white mob was ready to advance upon Twenty-seventh and Dearborn streets. The first of these rumors had its effect upon the inception of the Angelus riot, and the second so aroused the fears of Negroes that when a white mob led by young white boys did step over the "dead-line" boundaries established by the police, guns were immediately turned upon them, and one of the invaders was killed. Of the third rumor, Police Lieutenant Burns said:
… an old colored man came to me … and said that the colored people on Dearborn Street in the 2800 block were moving out in fear of a white mob coming from across the tracks from across Wentworth Avenue. … On the southwest corner of Twenty-eighth and Dearborn I found a number of colored men standing in front of a building there. They had pieces of brick and stone in their pockets and were peering around the corner west on Twenty-eighth Street apparently in great fear.
Among the whites fear was not so prevalent. A fear-producing rumor was revealed, however, in the examination of two deputy sheriffs who fired on a Negro. The deputies had heard that Negroes were going to burn up or blow up factories in the district which they were patrolling. When a dark form was seen in an alley, panic seized both deputies, and they emptied their revolvers at an innocent Negro who lived in the adjoining house.
Chief among the anger-provoking rumors were tales of injury done to women of the race circulating the rumor. The similarity of the stories and their persistence shows extraordinary credulity on the part of the public. For the most horrible of these rumors, telling of the brutal killing of a woman and baby (sometimes the story is told of a Negro woman, sometimes of a white) there was no foundation in fact. The story was circulated not only by the newspapers of both races, but was current always in the crowds on the streets. Here is the story as told in the white press:
Chicago Tribune, July 29:
There is an account of "two desperate revolver battles fought by the police with colored men alleged to have killed two white women and a white child."
It is reported that policemen saw two Negroes knock down a woman and child and kick them. The Negroes ran before the police could reach them.
Herald-Examiner, July 29:
Two white women, one of them with a baby in her arms, were attacked and wounded by Negro mobs firing on street cars. …
A colored woman with a baby in her arms was reported at the Deering Police Station, according to this item, to have been attacked by a mob of more than 100 white men. When the mob finally fled before the approach of a squad of police both the woman and child were lying in the street beaten to death, "it is said."
Daily News, July 29:
Another man is held at the Stock Yards station charged with the murder of a white woman in West 47th Street and Wentworth. …
The Negroes, four in number, were arrested at East 39th and Cottage Grove Avenue, this afternoon by the detective. They are believed to be the ones who seriously wounded Mrs. Margaret Kelley, white woman, at W. 47th and Wentworth. She was shot in the back and may die. The names of those under arrest were not given out.
[Note.—"Murder" changed to "seriously injured" in the main story. Mrs. Mary Kelly was shot in the arm according to the police report and not in the back.]
The men arrested for the shooting were Henry Harris and Scott Brown,
