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NEGROES IX CHICAGO. Conditions Out of Which Race Erie-' tion Has Grown. F. Frank Gardiner in New York Times Explotiation of the ne rro in Chica-J go, by politicians is regarded by many, as the chief underlying cause of the! race riots in that city. The bestowal! of political preferment, and the license under which "everything went"i in the Black Belt of the second lar-j gest American city was the inflammable part of the tinder which finally j set the city ablaze. The influx of thousands of negroes, from the south i" the last three years, was a contributing factor. Their arrival in an already congested dis-j trict made expansion necessary.; Steadily the Black Belt, which stietches for five miles thiough the' heart of the densely populatd south' 1- - * Ki.lcr.vrl rmt intn what I sine or ^aitcisu, uuife uui ... -_ . a few years ago was a choice residential district. This continuous encroachment aroused protests and bitter feeling. The advance guard of the colored race which moved into white neighborhoods was the better class of negro families, who sought to escape the steady encroachment of the undesirable element of their own race. They had no desire to antagonize their white neighbors. Their relations had always been friendly. But they were between two fires. Pressing always behind them was the influx of a lawless element of their own race. Few of the newcomers brought negro women with them, and some Chicago observers hold the absence of home life among them partly accountable for the present trouble. Political Power. The second ward in Chicago is the heart of the Black Belt. Eighty per cent, of the voters in this ward are black. White men represented this | ward in the city council until 1915 but now bo.h aldermen are negroes. Two uie'i control most of the negro vote i.i Chicago. They are Congressman Alartin B. Madden of the First Illinois District and George F. Harding,* former alderman, later state senator, and now city controller. It wan the Dalance of power held by the negroes and swung by Harding that gave William Hale Thompson, more widely known as a pro-German than for his kindnesses to negroes, the nomination for mayor of Chicago in the spring of 1915. Harding had represented the second ward in Chicago for several years. He retired anu permitted Oscar De Priest, a negro, to be elected. In return for this favor the negroes swept the mayoralty nomination into Thompson's lap. Thompson won the nomination by a margin of few hundred votes. De Priest became one of the chief floor leaders in the city council for the Thompson administration. His /' public career was cut short by his . indictment in connection with the al' leged collection of tribute in the Black Belt, but he was later acquitted. Another negro succeeded him. Then the second ward negroes grew bolder, demanded both seats in the city council, and got them. In his campaign fot* the nomination ^ and election in 1915 Thompson catered to the negro voters. After his elec ** k . j UUI1 lie icwttiuea many ui iuch icau ers with jobs. So openly did the Thompson crowd treat with the negroes that someb'ody dubbed the city hall "Uncle Tom's Cabin.'' One man caused handbills to be printed, setting forth a complete cast of characters, which included Mayor Thompson and other city hall jobholders, white and black. It got a big laugh, which is. Chicago's usual good natured way of disposing of her problems. Lid off the Black Belt. Thompson had been mayor only a short time when evidence was apparent that there was no lid so far as the Black Belt was concerned. From other sections of the city white men and women of the old underworld, who had experienced some long, lean years flocked to the neighborhood. White men bought saloons and cabarets and pushed negroes to the front as their ostensible owners. Soon the Slack Belt became known as the district where everything "went." All-night cabarets were jammed with whites and blacks until the morning sun streaked the sky over Lake Michigan. In other parts of the city saloons and cabarets closed at 1 a. m., but automobiles lined the curbs for blocks all night in Black Belt, and late comers stood in line for hours outside some of the more notorious "black and tan" cabarets waiting for a chance to get inside. jazz Danas ruiea me air witn syncopated sound, while in the ' cabarets white and blacks intermingled in carousal It was here that the "shimmy" dance is said to have originated. The rattle of dice ard the click of poker chips were seldom stilled in the heart of this district. Gambling was conducted on a business basis, "syndicate'' was formed, and no independent could operate successfully in that district without its approval. These gambling houses were run ir u-nder the name of clubs, but a fat bankroll gained easy admission to them. "Bill" Lewis, noted for years as a gambler, conducted a game in Thirtyfifth street near State street. S obrazen was the conduct of this gambling house that for a long time Lewis did not bother to pull the curtains down, and the games could be watched from the planform of the elevated railroad station near by. Finally, out of seem^ ing consideration for the feelings of (K the police, the shades were drawn. ^ Conditions Generally Known. The newspapers of Chicago repeatedly exposed conditions in the Black Belt. Members of the city council sometimes denounced it. Reformers visited the all night cabarets and wrote long reports about them. Numerous complaints were made to the police. Conditions finally became notorious that the all night cabarets were closed. For a few weeks the Black Belt was comparatively quiet, except for the gambling games, which, were seldom molested. Then came vice in a new form; in the shape of clubs; which were in reality dance halls. These new places' had no liquor licenses, although most of them sold intoxicants, and theyj didn't open their doors until midnight I or 1 . m. They caught the crowdsl which surged out of the cabarets at j the closing hour and held them un i til sunrise. The old Pekin theatre at 2,700! street, for years one of the leading; negro amusement houses in the country, became one of these dance halls. I They were openly conducted for a | long time without being molested, but I early in 1018 the city council passed; an anti-cabaret ordinance which put! a damper for a time on the night life i or me cuy. Last spring, however, the mayoral-1 ty election came around again. May-1 or Thompson was a candidate for reelection and was reelected. The black | Belt did Its duty. When the primary campaign open-1 ed the lid was tossed overboard. He-J sorts which had been closed re-opened. The Black Belt became again the centre of night activities. With the elections over in April and prohibition looming up in the near future, the hearts or the city authorities were softened, and the lid stayed off. In the last few months conditions in the Black Belt have been almost unprecedented. Men who have traveled the country over say tnat .. where in the United States have they witnessed such scenes as they saw in the notorious "black-and-tan" resorts on the south side in Chicago. State Attorney Maclay Hoyne of Chicago a few days ago laid the blame for the race riots at the door of thi politicians, who, he said, taught the negroes disrespect for the law. "The police department" said Mr. Hoyne "has been demoralized to such extent by the politicians, black and white, on the south side that they grt afraid to arrest and prosecute m... wiin poiuicar uacHiug ui ?uu viaim have political influence.'' Others have issued similar warnings from time to time in the last two or three years. Municipal Judge Harry M. Fisher, after sitting for a time in the morals court, where the larger per cent of the offenders were negro men and women said: "My opinion, based on observation in this court, is that crime conditions among colored people are being deliberately fostered by the present city administration. Disorderly cabarets, thieves and depraved women are allowed in the section of the city where colored people live. They have an exprssion, 'the law is around tpnight,' as a warning t* behave, so seldom is the law enforced.' Chicago's Lesson. When Chicago began to come out of the nightmare of rioting last Friday, it is?probable that the smiles which greeted that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" parody had worn off, never to return. The city's roster of dead was 32, of whom 14 were white. The total of injured was given in press dispatches as 300, with the probability that perhaps 200 others had been injured without making any report t? the police and hospital authorities. Governor Dowder, had sent 6,000 troops to guard the city and quell the mnhc imHor tho r*f A Hit ?? 1 V V >J| UilVtVl V MV Uti VVV1VU VI AUJVI Gen. Dickman, and apparently quiet had been restored. For five days the district affected by the rioting hsd been without fresh meats or vegetables. City Controller Harding, who owes his political preferment in large measures to hit, influence in the Black Belt, sent 2,000 bottles of milk into that area and the movement of supplies in that direction was initiated at the same ti.. Negro undertakers began to prepare for the burial of the dead. During the disturbance there had been no funerals in the Black Belt. Presumably Chicago has learned a lesson such as she never drew t. the numerous surveys of negro condl tions in that city, or from warnings. Whether other American cities will take the lesson to heart remains to be seen. Chicago's negr0 population is dif ficult to estimate. The estimates run from 50,000 to 175,000. There is m authentic information of recent d;: on the subject. The United States census taken in 1910 reports a pop,, lation of 44,103 negroes in Chicago. In the last three years however, the increase has been enormous. The colored population has grown more rapidly in proportion to its numbers than any othe rpart of the city's population. Junius B. Wood of The Chicago Daily News, who made an extensive survey of the negro problem in Chicago, estimated the colored population in 1916 at 75,000. The seady influx of thousands of negroes from the south and the continuous spread of the colored section of the city indicates that the population is more tha Ifin.OA of nrosnn t Tf it? o *1 * f ft 1 I * v W|V v Ml, A W IO A UlliltUli population to count. Probably more than 50 percent, are lodgers. Chicago's Black Belt is an average of half a mile wide, although it flares to one and two miles in width at certain points. From Twenty second street it runs south beyond Sixtythird street. South State street is the back-bone. The south side elevated railroad runs through the heart of the district its entire length. The South State street surface car line is patronized almost exclusively by negroes. Most of the other surface car lines connecting the ioop," Chicago's business district with the south side, run through part of the negro district. The eastern edge of the Black Belt is a handsome residential district, on which the negroes have encroached steadily for years. Its western boun is a railroad and industrial district. There are other colored sections in the city, two on the south side and one on the west side, but they are restricted In area. Advantages of Negroes. For years negroes lived in Chicago, without friction and without disturb-j ances of any kind. Leaders of the race held positions of trust. Thousands of them bought homes. Many of themj achieved success as lawyers, physicians, and in business. Their children j went to the public schools with white children. There wars no segregation. Some negroes held public office, botl. elective and appointiv. Twelve negroes have served in th? Illinois state legislature. It has been said that churches probably wield more power among negroes than with any other single class in the United States. Tlw? colored people in Chicago have sixty churches, which had a membership in 1916 of 31,870. Their membership is probably much larger now. They are financially prosperous and most of the larger ones maintain employment agencies. Many of them conduct day nurseries where children are cared for while their uiui uri & ui *v. Chicago has two institutions conducted by colored people for members of their own race, which -are models of their kind. Oneis the Provident Hospital, at 16 West Thirty-sixth street, which has figured prominently in the day's news concerning the rioting. The other is the Wabash Avenue department of the Young Men's Christian Association, at 3,783 South Wabash Avenue conducted exclusively for colored men. The Provident Hospital is the leading institution of its kind in the United States. With the Nathan M. Freer $30,000 home for nurses, the plant represents an investment of $125,000 and is free of debt. Its affairs are conducted exclusively by negroes, and about one-third of the sufferers cared for there are charity patients. Money for the establishment of this institution was given by Philip D. Armour Marshall Field and Geo. M. Pullman, deceased and H. H. Kohlsaat, a retired newspaper publisher. Negro Institutions. The Y. M. C. A. establishment cost $185,000. It has more than 1,500 members, and 150 young men live in its dormitories. The negroes have their own stores and theatres and thai-o ic n hanlt cnnriliptorl hv a neern and patronized almost exclusively by members of his race. Many newspapers are published by and for negroes in Chicago. Some are local but others have national circulation. The Defender, published by R. S. Abbott, has the largest circulation of its kind in the United States. In Chicago, as elsewhere, negro families of the better class have always been ambitious to get into better homes and better surroundings This has been one of the chief cause of complaint. The entrance of colored residents into high-class white neighborhoods has always been met with protests, and sometimes with threats, Sometimes real estate operators wert back of these invasions. Thy hoped to profit by affecting real estate value. A <-tudy of the negro housing problem in Chicago made by the Chicagc School of Civics and Philanthropy re vealed that colored tenants paid disproportionately higher rent for theii apartments, which, as a rule, were ir poorer repair than those of their immigrant neighbors. 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