that no single hour or even day can be called the peak of the riot, the height of violence clearly falls within the two-day period Monday, July 28, and Tuesday, July 29.
The change in the nature of the clashes day by day showed an increase in intensity of feeling and greater boldness in action. This development reached its peak on Tuesday. Later came a decline, sporadic outbursts succeeding sustained activity.
Factors influencing growth of the riot.—After the attacks had stopped, about 3:00 a.m. Monday, they did not again assume serious proportions until Monday afternoon, when workers began to return to their homes, and idle men gathered in the streets in greater numbers than during working hours. The Stock Yards laborers are dismissed for the day in shifts. Negroes coming from the Yards at the 3:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., and later shifts were met by white gangs armed with bats and clubs. On Tuesday morning men going to work, both Negro and white, were attacked.
The main areas of violence were thoroughfares and natural highways between the job and the home. On the South Side 76 per cent of all the injuries occurred on such streets. The most turbulent corners were those on State Street between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth, on Cottage Grove Avenue at Sixty-third Street, on Halsted Street at Thirty-fifth and Forty-seventh streets and on Archer Avenue at Thirty-fifth Street. Injuries at these spots were distributed as follows:[6]
| Injuries | Deaths | ||
| State Street— | |||
| at Thirty-first | 7 | ||
| between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth | 2 | ||
| at Thirty-fifth | 9 | 1 | |
| between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-ninth | 19 | 2 | |
| at Thirty-ninth | 3 | ||
| Cottage Grove Avenue— | |||
| at Sixty-third Street | 8 | ||
| Halsted Street— | |||
| at Thirty-fifth | 8 | ||
| at Forty-seventh | 5 | ||
| Archer Avenue— | |||
| at Thirty-fifth Street | 7 | ||
| Streets which suffered most from rioting were— | |||
| State | 61 | 6 | |
| Thirty-fifth | 50 | 5 | |
| Forty-seventh | 32 | 2 | |
| Halsted | 32 | ||
| Thirty-first | 29 | 1 | |
The street-car situation had an effect upon the riot both before the strike and after it. Because of a shortage of labor at the time, the surface-street-car company had put on a number of inexperienced men. This may account for the inefficiency of some crews in handling attacked cars.
An example is the case of Henry Goodman who was killed in an attack on a Thirty-ninth Street car. The car was stopped at Union Avenue by a truck suspiciously stalled across the tracks. White men boarded the car and beat and chased six or eight Negro passengers. When asked under oath to whom the truck directly in front of him belonged and what color it was, the motorman replied, "I couldn't say." When asked what time his car left the end of the line and whether or not he had seen any Negroes hit on the car, he answered, "I didn't pay any attention." The motorman said he made a report of the case, but it could not be found by anyone in the street-car company's office. The conductor of this car had been given orders to warn Negroes that there was rioting in the district through which the car ran. He did not do this. He ignored the truck. No names of witnesses were secured. The motorman was an extra man and had run on 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
