There is one trait, and I might say only one, that I take off

my hat to the southern "Cracker" for, and that is his respect

and high regard for women. While he hasn't any for the other

fellow's [the Negro's] wives and daughters, yet he respects

his own. We must set a good example for him and respect all

women, regardless of race, color, or creed. Then you will win

the admiration of all civilized people. Men who do not respect

and honor their women are not worthy of citizenship. Do you

get me, brother?

White men have become much incensed when they have given seats to white

women, and Negro men, not realizing what had happened, took the seats.

The timekeeper at a large industrial plant said:

I was on an East Chicago Whiting car. Six Negro workmen were

standing. The car was full about one-third with Negroes. A

man got up to let a white woman sit down. A Negro, seeing the

seat vacated, sat down before the woman had a chance to get

to it. The man who had proffered the seat became indignant,

cursed the Negro, yanked him out of his seat, and proceeded

to beat him up. The Negro drew out a knife. About this time,

it became a general race clash. One of the Negro workmen had

a gun: he pulled it out of his pocket and cleaned out the car.

The following incidents were reported by two white investigators:

I was on a Cottage Grove Avenue car at 5:30 P.M. The car was

crowded, about one-third colored people. A young, well-dressed

colored boy of about twenty was standing in the aisle beside

a white man and a white woman. The seat directly in front of

this colored boy was vacated, and the white man made a move

to seize it, but the boy by holding his arm on the back of

the seat barred the white man's way and stepped aside to allow

the woman to sit down. The woman nodded her thanks to the boy,

and the white man went on reading his paper.

* * * * *

I was on an eastbound Oak Park elevated train at about 10:30

A.M. Several Pullman porters got on at Campbell Avenue and had

to stand, as did several white women and men. As the crowd

began to thin out, I noticed that the white men were apt to

drop into a vacant seat themselves, while the Negro porters

were careful to wait until the women sat down before they took

advantage of any vacant seats.

A white woman in the Hyde Park district said to one of the investigators:

On the street cars I would rather ride with Negro gentlemen

than with many of our so-called white gentlemen. A Negro man

who has the slightest training is courteous and genuinely so.

My children use the street car every day to go to the Hyde Park

High School, and it's not the Negro men on the street cars

I hate to think of; it's the cheap white men. A very rough

element of whites congregate every night on Lake Park near

Fifty-first Street--hoodlums that the colored people living

there must fear.

No case of attempted familiarity by a Negro man toward a white woman on

the street cars was reported to the Commission. Cases were reported,

however, of accidental contacts between Negro men and white women

which might easily have been misunderstood, but which seemed to the

investigator, a white woman, to be due to the clumsiness of southern

rural Negroes in crowded cars. Two such cases follow:

I was on a Madison car going west. A number of Negroes got on

at the Northwestern Station. The car was crowded, and I felt

someone in the aisle leaning heavily against my shoulder. I

was very much annoyed and glanced up. I saw that the man was

a Negro about twenty years old. He was with a girl, obviously

his sister, who was also standing in the aisle. They both had

childlike faces, and I could see that he was quite unaware

that he was leaning against me. I didn't say anything, as the

car was really crowded.

* * * * *

I was in the aisle seat of an Illinois Central suburban car

about 5:00 P.M., waiting for the train to start. A Negro man

standing in the aisle next to me suddenly leaned against my

shoulder so hard that it hurt. I looked up at him resentfully

but he didn't notice me. He looked as though he had been picked

up in a little western town and dumped down in a city for the

first time. He had a wide western hat on, and his face was

lean and weatherbeaten. I take it he was about fifty years

old. He was in animated conversation with a woman in a seat

behind me. This woman had many bundles. Apparently they wanted

to find seats together. Soon another man joined them who had

been scouting for seats in the car ahead, and they all set out

together for another car. They were so concentrated on this

problem of getting a seat that they didn't know there was anyone

else in the car. They lunged down the aisle knocking against

people as they went along, but no one paid any particular

attention to them.

Another case of accidental contact, showing an attitude of suspicion on

the part of a white woman, was reported by a Negro Y.M.C.A. secretary:

I was on a street car going west through the "Loop" on Madison

Street. A colored man, apparently a workman, was sitting across

the aisle from me, looking out of the window, with his left

arm stretched along the back of the seat. A white woman came

in, glanced at the vacant seat beside me, and sat down beside

the colored man across the aisle. He looked around and saw

the woman sitting in the seat, and apparently was confused. He

attempted to remove his arm, and in doing so his arm brushed

across the woman's shoulder. She got right up and exclaimed:

"How dare you put your arm around me?" The man looked at her

dumbly, his face the picture of excitement and wonder. I said

to the lady, "I was watching this man and he was honestly

trying to remove his arm from the back of the seat. I think

he was more surprised to find you there than anything else,

and the whole thing was sheer accident." She wanted to know

what I had to do with it, and I simply said I wouldn't like

to see a matter of that kind misunderstood. She resumed her

seat beside the colored man and nothing further happened.

Many cases of improper advances by white men toward Negro women were

reported to the Commission by Negro women, well known to the Commission,

whose character is beyond question. The following are typical:

Going south on a State Street car to Fifty-third Street, I

noticed a man in the aisle staring at me. He kept moving down

nearer and nearer to my seat and sat down in front of me. He

handed me a note written on a scrap of newspaper. I opened it

because I was curious to know what his motive was. He was a

young man, in his twenties, and well dressed. He had written

down his name and telephone number and the words: "Call me

for a date."

* * * * *

I remember one man especially, because I used to ride downtown

on the same car he took every morning. The first time I ever

saw him, he stared at me a great deal and when I got off the

car, he got off too. As he got off he said to me, "Don't take

that car, wait for the other one." I noticed then that he

went over to the corner and took a car going in the opposite

direction from mine. I saw him lots of times after that, and

he always got just as close as he could and stared. I always

arranged it so that he could not sit next to me.

* * * * *

I was on the elevated with a friend the other day. We were

sitting on end seats. A man got up to give a white woman his

seat and then came over and stood close to us. He stood with

his legs against my friend's knees, until she jerked around

and sat facing me. Then he tried standing close to me. He had

me so hedged in I could hardly move, and I had to make a very

abrupt movement to get away. He moved on after a while.

What may be done to prevent misunderstanding and check in its incipiency

trouble which might easily and suddenly become serious, is illustrated

in the action of a white woman, a resident of the Chicago Commons Social

Settlement:

One evening, soon after the race riot in July, 1919, I was

riding on a State Street car, going south from Grand Avenue. I

had only ridden a block, when there was a general stir in the

car, a young woman fainted, and I learned that the conductor

had been struck and his cap knocked off. Word went around

the car that a "nigger" did it. Ugly remarks were being made

and I feared there would be trouble. I stepped to the back of

the car and asked two colored women if they knew who struck

the conductor. One said, "He looked like a colored man," the

other said, "I don't know." Then I asked the conductor, in a

voice loud enough so that the rest of the car could hear me,

whether it was a white or a black man that struck him and why.

He said: "It was a white man. I wouldn't let him bring his

big drum on the platform, it was too crowded." Having learned

this, I turned to two young couples who were still showing

much feeling and said, "A white man struck the conductor."

The whole car then quieted down, and there was no more feeling.

Most of the difficulties in transportation contacts reported and generally

complained of seem to have centered around the first blundering efforts

of migrants to adjust themselves to northern city life. The efforts of

agencies interested in assisting this adjustment, together with the Negro

press, and the intimate criticisms and suggestion for proper conduct

of Chicago Negroes, have smoothed down many of the roughnesses of the

migrants, and as a result friction from contact in transportation seems

to have lessened materially.

E. CONTACTS IN OTHER RELATIONS

Here are included:

I. Contacts in public places, such as restaurants, department stores,

theaters, and personal-service places.

II. "Black and tan" resorts, which present a much-criticized association

because of the vicious elements of whites and Negroes in contact there.

III. Cultural contacts which indicate associations on a purely

intellectual basis.

IV. Contacts in co-operative efforts for race betterment, which includes

most of the social organizations working among Negroes.

I. CONTACTS IN PUBLIC PLACES

On the street, in public conveyances, stores, restaurants, and commercial

places of amusement, contacts of races and nationalities are unavoidable

and have not the supervision that is common in schools or even public

amusement places.

Where large numbers of Negroes live there are theaters, restaurants,

stores, barber shops, and personal-service places, which are used by

Negroes in the proportion in which they predominate in the population

of the area. In any or all of these places, however, white persons are

served.

The business district along State Street between Twenty-sixth and

Forty-seventh, and on the car-line cross-streets, is maintained partly

by, and largely for, the Negro residents in the general neighborhood.

Since, however, about 50 per cent of the population is white, there are

personal-service places which are used almost exclusively by whites.

Barber shops are wholly exclusive, and several restaurants attempt to

make themselves so. For example:

At Thirty-first Street and Indiana Avenue, in the heart of

the Negro residence area, a restaurant proprietor maintains

an L-shaped establishment. Fronting on Thirty-first Street is

a neatly arranged and well-kept dining-room, with tables for

ladies, and a lunch counter with white waiters. Fronting on

Indiana Avenue is a narrow, dark dining-room, with a counter

served by colored waitresses. It is not kept neatly, and is not

so well supplied. Both dining-rooms are served from the kitchen

in the corner of the L, and patrons in either dining-room would

never suspect that there were two dining-rooms with connection

through this kitchen. At the time of the investigation, the

dining-rooms had different names.

Negroes entering the Indiana Avenue dining-room are given

prompt service. If they enter the Thirty-first Street room

they are given indifferent service, are required to wait long

and the service given them is reluctant and discourteous.

At another restaurant in the same neighborhood, similar means

are used to discourage Negro patronage. Sometimes in addition

to long waiting and discourtesy, food is spoiled. For example,

egg shells are placed in egg orders, and salt is poured into

the food.

In the districts where whites predominate, the measures taken to exclude

Negroes are very definite. In a lunchroom near Forty-third Street and

Vincennes Avenue, a well-educated, well-appearing young Negro had the

following experience:

I went into the restaurant about two o'clock June 13, and sat

about four seats from the front at a counter. After about ten

minutes the waiter came and asked me to move to a seat at the

rear of the counter. I asked him why and he told me he could not

serve me where I was sitting. He said the management reserved

the right to seat its guests, and pointed to a sign on the

wall bearing that notice. I asked him if he could not serve

me just as well where I was sitting as on the rear counter.

He said maybe he could, but it was a rule of the house not

to, and he would not. I left without being served.

Another Negro experience in a lunchroom on Forty-third Street near the

Elevated is thus described: "Service given was very poor. When protest

was made, the police were called and the young man was arrested for

disorderly conduct. The case was dismissed."

Fifty-ninth and Halsted streets: "Service refused in a Swedish café. No

witnesses."

Near Berwyn and Broadway (North Side): "Service refused, and investigator

ordered out."

In the "Loop," experiences are widely varied. In all of the following

cases, carefully selected investigators were sent and asked to report in

detail what happened. It is possible to gather large numbers of personal

experiences, from any group of Negroes, but as the facts cannot be

verified they have not been used. These instances usually go unnoticed

by all but the participants, except where the parties offended may secure

witnesses among the guests present, which is difficult.

At a large, popular, general restaurant on Randolph Street, two women

investigators had this typical experience showing how a manager can

refuse service, and still attempt to keep within the law:

Entered about 7:30 P.M. The restaurant was well filled; I

counted only six vacant tables. A woman head waitress took

us through the main dining-room to the annex, where another

head waitress preceded us down the length of the room to a

corner table in the rear. There was a vacant table on either

side of us. We waited almost a half hour, with no attention,

until a couple was seated at the next table. When the waitress

brought water to them she also brought water to us. She took

the orders for both tables. Mrs. H---- ordered steak, salad and

tea. I ordered chicken salad and tea. Steak and potatoes were

served to the next table in about ten minutes. The waitress

came to me and said the chef said he was out of chicken. I

ordered steak. After another long period of waiting, she came

back and said, "The chef says he is out of small steaks." I

asked, "What have you?" She said she would go and see. She did

not return, but after about fifteen minutes a man came to our

table, put his hands on it, leaned down and said, "Do you want

to see me?" Although I suspected he was the manager, he had not

said so, and I replied, "Who are you? I don't know anything

about you. No, we don't want to see you." He then said, "I

am the manager. What do you want?" "I came to be served with

dinner." He replied, "We have nothing to serve you." I asked,

"Why, what is the reason?" He replied "There is no reason; we

haven't anything to serve you." He was evidently cautious to

keep within the letter of the law, but was determined that we

should not be served. He would give no reason, simply repeating

his former statement. We left without further discussion, and

without being served.

Mrs. T---- says the waitress was courteous, and evidently

regretful of the embarrassment of repeated refusal to serve.

None of the patrons sitting near made any protest at their

presence. It has been her experience that patrons, waitresses,

ushers in theaters rarely show any hesitancy in accepting the

presence of colored people who are orderly and self-respecting.

Almost invariably the disagreeable incidents happen through

the management, or through the carrying out of orders.

An interview with the manager of this restaurant was willingly given

to a white investigator who later visited the place, and questions were

answered freely and carefully. He said he had a number of Negro friends

and appreciated the differences in them, as he did in whites. The main

points in a long discussion of restaurant management in general, and

the particular problem with reference to serving Negroes, he summed up

as follows:

In the past five years, only one Negro has been served in this

restaurant. She came in with a southern family as maid to a

small child. The family was told that she could be served at a

table with them, or in a side room, but could not be served at

an adjoining table, even with the child. After some discussion,

the maid ate at one end of a long table with the child, while

the family sat at the other end.

At the time of the recent instance, when the two Negro women

came in, the manager was not in the restaurant. From what he

was told of the incident, he thinks he should have asked them

to come to the office, and explained the situation to them.

He had no doubt they would have understood, as he has always

found intelligent Negroes readily responsive to the things

which might be injurious to their relations with whites.

Before he was manager, a man brought in two Negroes, seemingly

to get a basis for a suit and damages. The manager offered to

serve them in a side room, but refused service in the main

dining-room. They left without being served, and nothing

further was heard from them.

In former years he had seen dishes broken in the presence of

Negroes after being used in high-grade restaurants where their

patronage was not wanted.

Barring Negroes was not personal, he said. A successful

restaurant must watch closely the desires of its patrons, and

not allow anything to interfere with smooth running. Complaints

are made after each appearance of Negroes. He did not know

what he would do if Negroes insisted on being served, but was

firm that no Negro could be served in the main dining-rooms.

He would vary procedure to suit the circumstances.

The following case, illustrative of the witnesses and testimony necessary

to a court decision, was tried before Judge Adams, and damages of $100

with costs were awarded:

In August, 1920, Miss Lillian Beale, Negro secretary to Miss

Amelia Sears, white, superintendent of the United Charities,

went as the guest of her employer to a candy shop and lunch

room on Michigan Avenue. They seated themselves and remained

for two hours without service. During this time several

friends of Miss Sears came in, were served and left, all of

them commenting on the apparently deliberate oversight of the

party. They remained for some time and left. Suit was brought

against the company, supported by Miss Sears and her friends.

At the first hearing it was stated that the waitress was ill at

a hospital in Cincinnati. The judge, however, was insistent,

and she was produced. When placed on the stand she admitted,

contrary to the expectations of the management, that she had

been ordered by the management not to serve any colored persons

at any time. Miss Beale was awarded and collected damages of

$100 and costs.

Eight months later, in July, 1921, a test was made of the same restaurant.

Two Negro women went together to the restaurant, and a white woman

observer went along to watch what might happen. Their reports agree and

are as follows:

Time, one o'clock. Restaurant 50 per cent filled. Mrs. L----

and Mrs. S---- came in and seated themselves at a table for

two near the center of the room. Waitress followed usual

routine of bringing water, taking order, etc. Service of a

table d'hôte luncheon was prompt and courteous. No inattention

was observed, nor any disturbance on part of neighbors. Two

white women came in and seated themselves at the next table,

though there were several others vacant.

Two other Negro women and a white observer were sent to another restaurant

operating under the same firm name. It was reported by the white observer

as follows:

Restaurant two thirds filled--12 o'clock. Mostly women patrons,

though a fair number of men alone, and of couples use this

restaurant. Mrs. T---- and her friend came in through the long

passage by the candy counter, and crossed to a table for two

in the middle of the room. The manager, who is a young woman

of considerable poise and ability, came at once and gave them

water, took their order, and later served them. Two young

white women at an adjoining table moved, but it may have been

because they were sitting with strangers and preferred a table

for two. After finishing my lunch, I joined Mrs. T---- and

her friend, and the manager kept us under observation, but

nothing was said.

In a subsequent interview with the manager at the general office of this

chain of tea rooms cautiously worded replies were made to questions,

with constant reiteration of the statement, "But you know we must serve

them." In general it was said:

Negro patrons are infrequent, and there has been no noticeable

increase. After many cases, complaint is made by white patrons,

either in person or by letter, to the effect that if the tea

room caters to Negroes, the white patrons will no longer use

it. They had never known of a case of objectionable conduct

but whites simply objected to their presence.

No instructions were given waitresses, but each case was

handled by the head waitress as it occurred. Some girls made no

objections to waiting on Negroes, and some refused to do it,

but each attitude is individual, and not from instructions.

No question that Negro patronage would hurt any high-grade

place, as white patrons would be likely to leave. Rights did

not enter into the problem--simply a matter of profitable

business.

Interviews with managers of tea rooms in department stores brought out

uniformity of attitude and of practice, as is shown in the following

reports:

The manager of one tea room is a young woman of considerable

experience. She was emphatic in saying that Negroes were not

wanted, and that every effort would be made to discourage

their coming. Considerable personal feeling was manifested in

her statements.

Not enough Negroes can afford to pay the prices in high-grade

restaurants to make them a real problem, and stray cases

are handled as they appear. The effort was made to make them

feel uncomfortable so they would not return. Slow service,

indifferent attention were given, but there was no overcharging,

and no spoiling of food.

Had never observed any objectionable conduct. Objections of

white patrons was only reason. Especially difficult in summer,

when many southern white people come to Chicago as a summer

resort.

Waitresses are largely young married women with spare time.

Manager finds them more unwilling than regular waitresses to

give service to Negroes.

At another tea room practically the same statements were made, and the

following instance was given: "Last winter a telephone reservation was

made for a large luncheon party--about forty. When the group arrived,

it was a club of colored women. Screens were placed around the tables,

and luncheon served. A rule was then made and enforced that no telephone

reservations would be made."

Following are reports from investigators seeking to learn at which

restaurants, tea rooms, and lunch counters, service would be given to

Negroes:

We had been shopping down town, and went into ----'s on State

Street to get a light lunch. There were vacant tables and

we sat down. No one came to wait on us. After waiting until

several persons who had come in after us had been served, I

went to one of the men who appeared to be the manager, and

asked him why we were not served. He did not respond very

cordially, but sent a girl. We ordered several dishes from

the card, and were told that they were "just out." Although

orders were being served, the girl stated that they were "just

out" of everything we ordered. To cover our embarrassment,

we practically begged her to serve us cups of chocolate. She

gave us the chocolate and our check; we paid it and left.

* * * * *

Mrs. T---- and Mrs. -- were served promptly and without incident

in a well-known candy store in the shopping district on State

Street. Mrs. T---- says that for many years this place has been

known for its courtesy to colored people. Soon after it was

opened, about World's Fair year, Mrs. ----, a Negro woman, was

refused service by a waitress. She reported the fact to the

owner, who investigated, and finding her statement correct,

discharged the waitress. He made the rule that every patron

was entitled to prompt, courteous service, and that discharge

would follow any justified complaint. Although the store

has been under other management for many years, later adding

light luncheons to candy and soft drinks, the tradition has

continued. Mrs. T---- says neither waitress nor patrons paid

any attention to the serving of two colored women.

This case, involving three races, was reported from one of the Chinese

restaurants on South Wabash Avenue:

About 7:00 P.M. we entered a Chinese restaurant. There were

three or four white couples eating in the main dining-room,

and two in booths. A Japanese waiter ushered us toward the

furthest booth at the rear of the room. "I prefer sitting in

the main dining-room," I said. He replied, "I can't serve you

here." "Why?" "These seats are reserved. I will serve you in

there [pointing to the booth] but not out here." We left.

One of the largest chains of cafeterias in Chicago is noted for the

fairness of its treatment of Negroes, but even here there are exceptions.

One of the Commission's staff observed two incidents within a short time

in the same cafeteria of this system and reported them as follows:

Just in line before me was a small, quiet, well-dressed

colored woman. She passed the checker, carried her tray to an

unoccupied table, and then counted her check. She took her

tray back to the checker, and made complaint of overcharge.

The checker did not recount, or explain, simply saying, "That

is our price." The woman went back to her table, ate, paid,

and went out without further protest.

A few nights later, I noticed two young, well-mannered colored

girls at a nearby table. As I went out I met the manager and

said to him, "Do many Negroes come here to eat?" He said,

"No, occasionally they come in, but they don't come back more

than once, or at most twice." "How do you manage it?" "Well,

under the law, we can't refuse to let them eat, but we can

charge them any price we like. The first time we charge them

enough to keep them from coming back. Then if they persist

and come again, as soon as they go down the line, I see to

it that something is put in their food which makes it taste

bad--salt or Epsom salts. They never come back after that."

After a pause he added, "You know we are within the law. We

can't have them coming here--it would ruin our trade."

In the inexpensive restaurants on the edge of the "Loop," various

practices are followed, as indicated by the following reports:

Miss B. S. met a friend and went into the ---- Cafeteria on

Lake Street, near State, upstairs. They were served, but the

waiter put screens around their table while they were eating.

* * * * *

In May, 1921, I went to a lunchroom on Van Buren Street to

get a lunch at noon. Six or seven men were at the counter,

and were served as fast as they came in. Finally all seats

were filled and three waiters were doing nothing, so I asked

to be served. The waiter pretended not to hear me, then said

roughly, "What do you want?" I said, "I do not know until I

get a bill of fare." He pitched it at me and I asked for some

baked beans. He stuck his head through the chef's window and

gave my order. He brought me a plate on which were fourteen

beans, and one small roll. I asked for a glass of water and he

brought me a half-glass. I asked for butter (which had been

served with two rolls to white patrons) and he said it would

cost me a nickel. He said with emphasis, "It will cost _you_

a nickel." I said, "You give me the butter, and then watch me

and see if I pay for it." I asked for some pie and he gave me

a piece about half the size he was serving the others. Then

he said again, "Remember that butter will cost you a nickel

extra." I said, "I won't pay it." He said, "You will pay for

that dinner before you eat a bite of it." I said, "No chance,

because I am not going to pay you at all, either before or

after I eat. After I have finished I will pay the cashier at

the desk." He looked at me hard and I kept on eating. Then he

threw me down a check for 25 cents. I said, "Brother, you are

wrong. My bill is only 20 cents. Your menu says beans are 15

cents and pie is 5 cents, and you gave me only one roll when

to all of the others you served two." He said again, "I told

you your butter would cost you a nickel." I said, "Now, you

watch me right close when I go out and see if I pay for it."

I told the cashier that my check called for 25 cents when it

should be 20, "beans 15, pie 5, and if you can make 25 out of

that all right." She said, "You know I have to collect what

the check calls for, or else make good myself." I told her

I appreciated her position but would not pay 25 cents for a

20-cent lunch. Then my waiter stepped up with an iron tap in

his hand, and said, "I told you that butter would cost you a

nickel, and now you pay it or else----." I said, I will "else,"

and laid down twenty cents and walked out. At the door he gave

me a push but did not strike me.

The white proprietor of a drug-store in a residence neighborhood

volunteered this story to a member of the Commission's staff:

Several years ago, there was a fine old colored man who used

to come in frequently to buy drugs, supplies, etc. One day he

came in with his wife, sat down at one of the little tables,

and asked for soda water. My clerk refused to serve them, and

the idea occurred to me that I would serve them myself in such

a way that there would be no possibility that they would ever

come back. I compounded a vile concoction and served it to

them. They tasted it, paid for it, thanked me, and went out

without making any complaint. I have never got over feeling

mean about it. I not only humiliated them, and insulted them,

but I cheated them out of their money.

An instance of unusual absence of friction in contacts under conditions

which might be expected to produce it was given by a white woman who

visited a restaurant patronized by many whites and Negroes:

In talking with Mr. O---- he asked me, "Would you consider it

possible that you would voluntarily go into a restaurant and

eat your lunch where you might have a Negro sitting on the

next stool, or perhaps one on either side of you at a table?"

I answered promptly, "No, I can't imagine it." He said, "A year

ago I wouldn't have imagined such a thing possible myself, but

now I do it quite frequently. There is a restaurant across the

street from my office, right here in the heart of the Negro

district, which a few years ago was a very good one, with

regular table service, excellent food, and all the rest. Last

year it was changed into a sort of a cafeteria, with a lunch

counter down one side, and some tables. You get your knife

and fork, go to the serving counter, and a man gives you on a

plate whatever you order. The other day I found myself between

two colored men, and took a good look at the restaurant. There

is absolutely no disturbance, or even consciousness of any

reason for disturbance."

Today I decided I would try it myself. The restaurant has no

frills; it is simply an eating-place. I chose a corner seat

at a table, because I could see all over the room. As I sat

down, a courteous arm reached across the table to shove back

the used dishes. I looked up to say "thank you," and found a

good-looking young colored man opposite. No further attention

was paid to me, nor was there any consciousness in his face,

other than courtesy. In a few minutes, two young white truck

drivers took the other places at my table. They were in working

jeans, and except that the color was blue instead of khaki,

looked just like the young soldiers in transport service who

used to come into my canteen in France. At the next table was

a quietly dressed young colored girl eating her lunch in a

business-like way. A young white father brought in his little

daughter. At the long lunch counter were neighborhood business

men, white and colored, some professional men, each taking

whatever stool happened to be vacant. Occasionally a truck

driver or roughly dressed working man came in. Even the white

dandy, immaculate in linen and with a cane hooked over his

arm, took his cup of coffee to the counter and sat between a

laborer and a business man.

In theaters, as in restaurants, there are petty evasions of the law,

disagreeable encounters, and small but insistent snobberies. A colored

investigator reported the result of a test of the purchase of tickets

for a play which had had a long run, as follows:

On July 5 I went down to the ---- theater and asked the ticket

seller if I could get two seats for Thursday or Friday night

between the third and ninth rows, center. She hunted out two

seats in the ninth row for Thursday. I said, "If you have them

I would prefer them for Friday." I asked the price, paid her,

and she thanked me.

Friday, I went to the theater, and handed the doorman my

tickets. He tore off the coupons, and directed me to the

main-floor door. The lady usher seated us three rows from

the back on the aisle. I counted and found that I was in the

seventeenth row. I went to the usher and said, "I beg your

pardon, but you seated me in the wrong place." She took the

coupons, said, "Wait a second," and started out with them. I

followed to see that she did not exchange my coupons. She went

to the lobby and talked with the manager. He looked at me and

said, "Well, seat them; there is nothing else to do now." She

went back, gave my coupons to another usher, who asked her

if I was to be seated in the seats the coupons called for.

She answered, "I guess so." Then we were shown to the correct

seats. There was no protest from those around us.

The manager of this theater was later interviewed. He had been in Chicago

only a few months and was not at all interested in the general question

of race relations, but was decided in his opinion that the attendance

of Negroes in any high-class theater was not desirable. His views were

about as follows:

Not many Negroes buy seats down stairs. Usually the ticket

seller gives them tickets in the balcony or gallery and on the

side aisles. Usually had complaints from white patrons if they

found a Negro seated near them, especially if there were ladies

in the party. It was not that the conduct of the Negroes was

objectionable, but their mere presence was objectionable. If

Negroes present tickets for the best main-floor seats, ushers

try to put them in less conspicuous places. If they insist on

taking their seats as shown on tickets, nothing can be done.

If white patrons object, every effort is made to change their

seats. Usual objection is offensive odor and proximity.

In making the study of theaters, certain tests were established. A Negro

would ask at the box-office for seats on the main floor within certain

rows and on the aisle. In the preceding report it will be noted that

seats were sold readily, but some difficulty was found in using them.

In the next report, conditions were reversed:

Mr. J----, Negro, asked for tickets, and was told that there

was nothing on the main floor further in front than the

twenty-third row. Miss H----, white, who was standing by him

as he made the request, and heard the answer, moved up to

the window and was immediately and without any remark, sold

tickets in the seventeenth row on the aisle.

These tickets were presented by Mr. and Mrs. S----, Negroes. They report:

We arrived at 8:15, five minutes before the opening of the

performance. The ticket taker tore off our stubs and returned

them to us without any hesitancy. The ushers, who were women,

glanced at the seat numbers and directed us to our seats,

which were in a very conspicuous location on the first floor.

They were in the seventeenth row, on the aisle. The people

around us, even the ones immediately next to us, were not in

the least concerned at our presence. The treatment accorded

us in general could not have been surpassed.

A different report comes from another "Loop" theater, which has always

been rather conservative in the standard of plays which it presents:

My husband and I wished to see a play at ---- Theater, and

bought seats several days in advance that we might have a

choice. When we were shown to our seats, however, we were

surprised to find that our tickets called for seats in the

gallery, and in a corner which did not afford a view, and

made them more than undesirable. We noticed that there were

several vacant seats in the balcony, also on the first floor.

My husband went to the box office and tried to exchange the

seats. The ticket seller refused to make the exchange and also

became insulting in his remarks to us. Afterwards we made the

attempt to secure seats on the first floor of this same theater

several days in advance of the performance which we wished to

attend. We were told there were no seats on the first floor

which we could get.

A contrasting experience follows:

On Tuesday I went to the ---- Theater, and applied for two

tickets on the main floor, center aisle, between the third and

eleventh rows. The ticket seller stated politely that he had

two tickets in the ninth row on the left. When we attended the

performance, nothing unusual occurred. Other patrons made no

comment, and in no way could we observe any objection made to

our presence. There were no other Negroes at the performance.

Reports of investigators indicate that the managers of movies are

convinced that their main floors, at least, should be guarded against

Negroes. In most of the commercial amusement places, Negroes seldom have

difficulty if they are willing to sit in the balcony, though attempts

are frequently made to seat them on the aisles next to the walls, even

when there are center seats empty. It is rare that any report is obtained

of objections by white patrons to the actual presence of Negroes when

they are well-mannered, well-dressed, and appreciative auditors.

As a rule movie theaters do not sell reserved seats, general admission

entitling any patron to any seat in the house. But the following detailed

report of the experience of two intelligent, well-dressed, quiet-mannered

Negro women at a new movie theater on State Street is typical:

Purchased tickets, and entered the large lobby which extends

across the front of the house. From this lobby there are closed

doors at the entrance of several aisles, so that patrons are

directed by ushers to different aisles, supposedly wherever

there are vacant seats. We followed directions, and went to

the extreme left of the lobby. We opened the door, and the

usher in charge of this aisle started down toward the front

to show us seats. We saw at once that the narrow section of

seats next to the wall was empty except for one colored woman

sitting about the middle of the section. Instead of following

the usher down the aisle, and taking seats indicated to the

right of this section, we turned through a row of empty seats

on the left-hand section, and sat next to a woman in the aisle

seat. This put us two rows from the rear in a side middle

section, instead of in the section which seemed to be reserved

for colored patrons, next to the wall. As the usher returned

to his station he said, "We have some lovely seats in the

balcony; wouldn't you prefer sitting there?" He was courteous,

and I thanked him, telling him that we were quite satisfied

with the seats we had taken.

Later, seeing two vacant seats further front in the center

section which gave us a much better view we decided to take

them and see what would happen. As we rose, the usher tried to

block us by putting his hands on the back of the seat in front,

and saying, "I am sorry that you can't take those seats." I

brushed by him and took one of the seats. He tried the same

thing with Mrs. H----, and she also brushed by and joined me.

There were scattered vacant seats both in the section we left

and the one to which we moved. We remained until the end of

the show without embarrassment.

The manager of this theater has had many years of experience in Chicago,

and was quite willing to discuss race contacts. Nothing in his words

would indicate any strong prejudice against Negroes, even when expressing

his conviction that they should keep to places intended especially for

them. He said, in substance:

Not many Negroes buy tickets--perhaps ten or a dozen a day.

An effort is made to seat them in one section of the house,

preferably the balcony, to which they are directed by ushers.

Reason is the complaint by white patrons who object to sitting

next to them for an hour, or hour and a half. Offensive odor

reason usually given. White patrons often complain to manager

as they go out if Negro has been sitting near them.

Conduct of Negroes is not often objectionable--runs about

the same as all patrons. Occasionally one tries to "start

something." Recently two Negroes came to manager in crowded

lobby after they had attended the show and objected to their

seats on the balcony to which they had been sent by ushers,

saying there were vacant seats on the main floor. Wanted to

know why they were discriminated against. Manager did not want

an argument in the presence of other patrons, and told them

that as they had seen the show, heard the music, and shared

everything with other patrons, he did not see they had any real

cause for complaint. Called attention to the notice printed

on almost every theater ticket in some form or other to the

effect that the management reserves the right to revoke the

license granted in the sale of the ticket, by refunding the

money paid.

The same two women bought tickets the next day and attended a movie in

an older and very popular "Loop" theater. They reported that they had

no difficulty of any kind.

On a test made of a new and popular movie theater in an outlying section

the investigator reported:

There were four of us in the party on June 5. We were told

by the usher that there were no seats on the first floor, and

that we would find seats in the first balcony. I think he was

right, for there were white people also sent to the balcony. We

were ushered in promptly, but another usher met us and said,

"Right on up to the second balcony." We said we preferred

seats in the first balcony, and walked by him. He went and

got two more ushers and stood in front of us to prevent us

from going into the first balcony, insisting that there were

no seats there. One of the young ladies stepped around the

usher, and saw three vacant seats. She called them to the

attention of the usher, and he then said he meant there were

no seats for four. Two of our party took those seats, and the

other two waited about twenty minutes till they could get the

seats they wanted. After getting into the first balcony, we

saw vacant seats in at least four rows, two, three, and four

seats together into which we might quietly have gone had the

usher been courteous.

On June 18, 1920, a well-known Negro employed in the City Hall was denied

admission to a movie theater at Halsted and Sixty-third streets. There

is a small but long-established Negro colony about a mile west of this

location.

In business places of various kinds, contacts are determined largely

by the kind of service offered. Department-store managers questioned

by investigators concerning their Negro patronage and the use of Negro

girls as clerks, stated that the public had definite preferences, and

probably would not willingly tolerate Negroes either as patrons or as

clerks. In stores selling general merchandise, courteous treatment is,

as a rule, accorded to Negro patrons, although there are occasional

annoying incidents. The attitude then taken is determined by the standing

and influence of the Negroes discriminated against. For instance:

At one of the largest department stores, two Negro women,

both school teachers, were refused service in the basement

shoe department. The clerks refused to fit shoes for them. A

Negro alderman became interested in this case, and because of

refusal of service, canceled his account.

The wife of a prominent Negro attorney went into a State Street

candy store and was flatly refused service. Her husband brought

suit and got damages.

Miss V---- was refused service at a large State Street

department store by one of the clerks. The manager was

interviewed and the clerk reprimanded and transferred. On the

second visit, Miss V---- received attention.

In residence areas which are largely white, certain stores practice a

peculiar subversion of the law in the effort to regulate contacts. A

Negro resident of Woodlawn stated that his seven-year-old daughter had

gone to the store to purchase goods for a costume to wear at a school

entertainment. She was given material for which she had not asked, which

she did not want, and for which she was overcharged. Frightened at the

manners of the clerk, she took it. When it was returned, the clerk was

extremely abusive, and told her that colored people were not wanted in

the store. The little girl had, according to her parents, made a mistake

in entering the store. Her parents were acquainted with the attitude of

the management and avoided the place. In the following reports, there is

evident the sense of injustice felt by both whites and Negroes concerned

in the contacts:

Miss S. T---- wrote a prominent musical college and made

arrangements for taking the summer normal-training courses.

Her tuition fee was accepted, and the classes arranged. On her

arrival, the manager received the balance of her money for the

entire course, but told her the classes she wanted were full,

and she would have to take private lessons with another teacher.

The teacher of the desired classes told her the manager had

not been frank, and that he feared the objection of southern

white girls in the classes. Miss T---- made repeated attempts

to get into the classes, but each time was told to apply again.

This she did until it was too late to catch up with her back

work. Other pupils were given prompt admission to the classes.

Two investigators were instructed to go to a public restroom in a large

office building on State Street where there are many small shops selling

women's wearing apparel. Their experience follows:

On July 6, at one P.M. with Mrs. H----, I visited the public

restroom in the ---- building. It is on the eleventh floor,

on the main hall, and the door to the suite of rooms stood

open. On one side of the entrance hall there is a small room

used for a shoe-shining, with a Negro in attendance. Next on

the same side is a large lavatory. Facing the outside door

is the entrance to the restroom proper, which is large enough

for ten or fifteen women, and is fitted up with wicker chairs,

lounge, table, etc.

As we were about to enter the restroom, the woman in charge

stood with her arm across the door, and said, "You are not

to go in there; you may go into the lavatory." We asked why,

and she said, "Those are the orders of the office." We went

into the restroom, and she did not offer any opposition, but

a little later came to us and said, "You are not allowed in

here. You will have to see the manager."

I asked the attendant for the manager's name and room number,

which she gave me. I related the incident to him. He told

me that the attendant had informed me correctly, that the

eleventh-floor restroom was reserved for "white folks" and that

"colored folks" were not allowed to use it. They could use a

restroom on the nineteenth floor set aside for colored employees

of the building, and for any "colored folks" who might come

into the building. He said it was one of the "iron-clad rules

of the man who owned the building," and that "the attendant

had it down in black and white."

Difficulties of this sort which confront Negroes and the efforts by

Negroes to share equal treatment in public accommodations as well as the

experiences met with when cases reach the courts were commented upon by

Judge Cook, of the municipal court, in testimony before the Commission.

He said:

During the earlier part of 1918 I sat in what was known as

the criminal jury branch. That is the branch to which were

assigned all criminal cases in the municipal court where the

defendants demanded a trial by jury and were not tried at the

police station. Among them were cases involving violations of

what is known as the civil-rights law, where a colored man had

a druggist or the proprietor of a moving picture or legitimate

theater arrested for refusing to serve him soda water or

refreshments at the drug store or to furnish him admission by

ticket at a movie or legitimate theater, or if he did furnish

him admission by selling him a ticket, limiting the ticket

which he would sell to some undesirable portion of the house

or to the gallery and not to the main floor, claiming that

the theater was crowded downstairs and that there were no seats.

I suppose I tried during the early part of 1918 and the summer

of 1919 probably a half-dozen of those civil-rights cases. In

every one of them that I tried, there was virtually a clear

case against the defendant. The jury in every instance was

practically a white jury, or may have had one or two colored

men. Notwithstanding that I gave very positive and clear

instructions as to what the law was--to wit, that they were

entitled to equal rights and privileges in public places and

that if the jury believed from the evidence that the plaintiff

was not accorded such right, there was a violation of the

law and the defendant should be punished, and after elaborate

argument by counsel for both the prosecution and the defendant

(and by parenthesis I may say in all of these cases the state's

attorney prosecuted vigorously), the jury, notwithstanding the

plain evidence and the instructions of the court, went out and

in about such time as it would take them to sign the verdict

and return to court, would bring in a verdict of "Not Guilty."

Of course in the criminal court in a case of that kind, the

jury is the judge of both the law and the fact. Therefore,

I was not in a position to grant a new trial. The white jury

simply say that law was not the law in Illinois or they would

not convict under such circumstances, and having once acquitted

the man the court and the state were without any remedy. Now

I have always thought that was unjust.

It was his opinion that those Negroes who did bring cases into court made

a mistake in prosecuting them from a criminal standpoint. It seemed to

be, in his opinion, hopeless for Negroes to assert their rights through

the criminal courts.

Another judge of long experience in the Chicago courts expressed the view

that few Negroes brought in cases involving discrimination. He thought

that especially the better class of Negroes would not bring them because

of the unpleasantness involved and because the damages obtained in most

cases would not pay the attorney's charges. "Most Negroes," he said, "have

found out by experience what the actual feeling is and act accordingly,

trying to avoid unpleasant experiences as much as possible. Although

there would be no trouble in getting a verdict in any clear case, the

amount obtained would not compensate for the trouble involved." He did

not believe that any jury would convict a white defendant on a criminal

charge of discrimination. A prominent Negro attorney, who formerly held

a responsible state office, in giving his general experience said:

In cases involving only Negroes on each side, both judges

and juries will act squarely between them; in cases involving

white defendants and Negro plaintiffs, the tendency is to give

considerably less credibility or weight to Negro testimony;

in cases involving Negro defendants and white plaintiffs, the

tendency is to give more weight to white testimony.

He stated further that in discrimination cases, where the law had been

clearly violated, there was usually no difficulty in getting a verdict

and damages for $25 and up, but that he did not care much about handling

such cases and Negroes did not care to push them, because they were

unpleasant and expensive.

II. "BLACK AND TAN" RESORTS

The intimate association of Negroes and whites in the cabarets of the

South Side has occasioned frequent and heated protests. Negro men are

there seen with white women and white men with Negro women. Although

mixed couples constitute somewhat less than 10 per cent of the patronage,

this mingling is used to characterize all of the association there.

These resorts, with their liquor selling and coarse and vulgar dancing,

are highly dangerous to morals and established law and order, and a

nuisance to the neighborhoods in which they are located. They are used as

amusement places, both by white couples living in other sections of the

city and by Negro couples who live near them. In fact, although many of

the resorts are patronized by an equal number of whites and Negroes, the

actual mixed couples are few. The habitués of these resorts are usually

of an irresponsible type of pleasure seekers, and frequently they are

vicious and immoral. Newspapers and several of the civic agencies have

violently criticized these places as a menace, but in their attacks the

emphasis has usually been shifted from the menace to morals to that of

arousing sentiment against the mingling of races. The police on numbers

of occasions have been urged to close the places in which this form of

association took place. In most cases they have not done so, stating

as their reason that, although mingling was undesirable, there was no

law prohibiting such contacts, and that evidence of violations of such

laws as those concerning liquor selling or decency would be necessary

to warrant their closing.

During 1920 the Negro press began a series of attacks on violations

of law and against the immoral resorts in the Negro residence areas,

including the so-called "black and tan" cabarets, some of which were the

most notorious violators. This was followed by similar attacks from the

white local newspapers. The emphasis in the white papers, however, was

on the race mingling. An extract from one of the articles in a white

paper is given:

"LID" A JOKE AS PEKIN SHIMMIES DEFIANCE OF LAW

LIQUOR, SIRENS, JAZZ, RACE RAINBOW RIOT IN CAFÉ

"Lawless liquor," sensuous "shimmy," solicitous sirens,

wrangling waiters, all the tints of the racial rainbow, black

and tan and white, dancing, drinking, singing, early Sunday

morning at the Pekin café, 2700 South State Street....

"BLACK AND TAN AND WHITE"

The crowd began to arrive. In came a mighty black man with

two white girls. A scarred white man entered with three girls,

two young and painted, the other merely painted.

Two well dressed youths hopped up the stairs with two

timid girls. Seven young men--they looked like back o' the

Yards--came with two women, one heavy footed, the other laughing

hysterically.

Two fur-coated "high yaller" girls romped up with a slender

white man. An attorney gazed happily on the party through horn

rimmed glasses. The waiters called, shouted, whistled when

each party arrived--a full table meant big tips.

At one o'clock the place was crowded. Meanwhile a syncopating

colored man had been vamping cotton field blues on the piano. A

brown girl sang.... All the tables were filled at two o'clock,

black men with white girls, white men with yellow girls, old,

young, all filled with the abandon brought about by illicit

whisky and liquor music.... The Pekin is again the Pekin of

years ago. Only more so.

The reply of a Negro newspaper to the series of articles in the white

press on these resorts expresses the reactions of Negroes to this view:

BLACK AND TANS AND RACE RIOTS

It is an established conviction that the so-called

"intermingling of races" in the cabarets of the South Side

is a fruitful source of riots. To those whose minds are bent

in this belief, the fact that no riot has ever yet started in

one of them is of little importance. Men believe, as a rule,

most readily what they earnestly wish to believe. It matters

little how absurd the proposition, if it expresses a desire

they will make of it an everlasting verity even though it costs

them the kingdom of heaven. And so it happens that we are told

that the Abyssinians burned a flag and almost precipitated

a race riot because they happened be to standing in front of

the Entertainers' Café where Negroes and white persons dance

on the same floor and occasionally together.

To carry further these deductions the United Cigar Store also

should be closed because one of the fanatics shot into it and

killed a white man. The connection of both of these places

with the incident is just about the same, if not a little

worse for the cigar store.

The fury back of complaints like that, for instance, of one

Mr. Farwell of the Law and Order League invites suspicion. In

all seriousness what is this crime of association for which

Mr. Farwell would have these places closed? If demoralization

of character is more certain in mixed places or liquor sold

more openly can it be urged that race contact is responsible?

It cannot. The sore point is the contact. These places are

located in the most densely populated Negro neighborhoods.

Attendance is voluntary and so is whatever amount of association

that follows. There is no manhandling of white innocents to

force them into the society of Negroes. Neither do Negroes

go snooping around the high lights of the West or North sides

seeking white companionship. But that is not the point. When

this antipathy is analyzed it becomes apparent that there is a

well defined intention to prove that any relationship varying

too sharply from the master and servant type is wrong. It

is the yelp of tribal jealousy. It is the gaunt denial of a

fallacious orthodoxy which proclaims that certain instincts

will keep certain persons eternally apart. It is that complex

of emotion into which all discussions of race relations resolve

themselves.

The resentment of Negroes at the poorly veiled thrusts is

perfectly justifiable. However unwholesome to morals these

places may be they refuse to join in the chorus of hate against

amusement places just because they put no restraints upon their

associations. They feel that they are human and at liberty to

seek pleasure if they so desire where contacts are mutually

agreeable. Those who do not care for this contact will stay

away. Because a white woman will dance with a colored man or a

white man with a colored woman there is no argument that a riot

will follow. Persons who dance together are not so likely to

fight as persons who stand at a distance and call each other

bad names.

Rationally considered there is no ground for these contentions.

They are insulting. If danger is ahead for the city when the

Irish and Italians visit the same places of amusement or the

Swedes and Lithuanians, then some thought will be given by

Negroes to eliminating their dangers. There is no point to

calling the patrol because Mr. Farwell and the News think it

complicates the race question.

This paper condemned all of these places because they were

nuisances to the neighborhood--the blacks, the black and tans

and the whites--it did not by this condemnation imply that

color affects morals.

III. CULTURAL CONTACTS

Contacts of whites and Negroes in institutions of learning, general

cultural agencies, and meetings ordinarily involve no friction and are

frequently directly beneficial to race relations. Many Negroes visit and

use the public libraries. In fact, instances of objections on the part

of the public in this institution appear to be extremely few. In the

reading-rooms Negroes sit where they wish, and no objections to their

presence are noted. At a branch library on Oakwood Boulevard over 70

per cent of the patronage is of Negroes, and, the director says, very

cordial relations exist. The civil-service system has made a number of

Negroes eligible for positions in the direct public-service branches of

the city government. No apparent difficulties or objections have resulted.

The University of Chicago and Northwestern University have for many years

had Negro students. There were in 1921 more than sixty at the University

of Chicago, and, although many southern white students attend, there

have been no conspicuous difficulties resulting from the associations. On

the contrary, certain individual Negroes have been very popular with the

student body. During the 1920 football season two Negroes were members

of the football squad, and for several years the favorite of the "track"

was Binga Dismond, a Negro runner.

There is no Negro member of the City Club or of the Woman's City

Club, although the question of admitting Negroes has occasionally been

discussed. The Chicago Woman's Club has two Negro members, one for more

than fifteen years. Negroes, however, have been welcomed to meetings

and in some instances have themselves held meetings there.

A few white churches have several Negro members, usually of long standing.

There are instances of white churches accepting particular Negro members,

with some apprehension that they might bring friends. The Catholic and

Christian Science churches welcome the presence of Negroes at their

services. There is no Christian Science church exclusively for Negroes,

and several hundred Negroes attend the various services of this church.

Many of the more definitely intellectual agencies like the Chicago

Ethical Society, the Chicago Rational Society, and the Sunday Evening

Club have regular Negro attendance. At the Chicago Rational Society one

of the young hostesses is a Negro.

In these forms of contact it is seldom, if ever, that Negroes are

discourteously received. This may be due to the relatively high class

of whites and Negroes who share these associations.

IV. CONTACTS IN CO-OPERATIVE EFFORTS FOR RACE BETTERMENT

Most of the important social organizations and agencies of the city

which aim definitely at the improvement of the Negro group have mixed

boards of control and supervision. The philanthropy, business ability,

and influence of white members is combined with the influence of Negro

members and their intelligent understanding of their own group problems.

The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian

Association, the Chicago Urban League, Community Service, the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Inter-racial

Committee organized by the Chicago Woman's Club are examples of this

form of joint effort. The sentiments of both groups in contact may

be discussed and, on the basis of represented group conditions and

sentiments, programs are formulated and carried out. This association

and exchange of sentiment provide a means of breaking down the isolation

between the groups and at the same time offer a means of extending the

representative thought of Negroes through their white associates to

circles in which contacts are either prohibited or restricted by custom

and tradition.

CHAPTER VII

CRIME AND VICIOUS ENVIRONMENT

The crime rate of Negroes is so largely controlled by a tangle of

predisposing circumstances that it is hardly possible to isolate

and measure its factors. The most important element is the general

lawlessness, crime, and vice in the whole population, irrespective of

race.

I. GENERAL CRIME SITUATION

During 1919 there were 330 homicides in Chicago. In 1920, in addition

to 162 murders, 559 persons were slain by automobiles, largely through

carelessness. According to the Chicago Crime Commission's report for

1920 there are 10,000 professional criminals in Chicago, and the annual

loss from larcenies, robberies, and burglaries aggregates $12,000,000.

Chicago pays a higher rate for burglary insurance than any other American

city.

Crime conditions in Chicago are even worse than is indicated by these

figures, which are based on incomplete police records. In 1919 the police

records showed 1,731 burglaries or persons arrested for burglaries,

while _Bulletin No. 9_ of the Chicago Crime Commission reported 5,509

burglaries during the first eleven months. During the same period the

police records showed 1,975 robberies or persons arrested for robbery,

while the Crime Commission bulletin listed 2,470 robberies. This bulletin

says:

An investigation in August, 1919, to determine whether all

crimes were being reported from the Eleventh Precinct and the

Englewood precinct showed that in forty instances burglaries

and robberies committed during the ninety days preceding had

not been reported. A detailed statement of these offenses

was prepared giving the victim's names, addresses, date and

amount of loss, and presented to the general superintendent

of police. The list was checked by the departmental inspector

and found correct.

Another investigation by the Crime Commission showed that in one month

a certain police captain reported only thirty-seven of the 141 criminal

complaints made to him for his district.

In his book, _Crime in America and the Police_, Raymond B. Fosdick wrote

(1920):

London in 1916, with a population of seven and a quarter

million, had nine premeditated murders. Chicago, one-third the

size of London, in the same period had 105, _nearly twelve

times London's total_. In 1916 Chicago with its 2,500,000

people had twenty more murders than the whole of England and

Wales with their 38,000,000. The Chicago murders during the

year totalled one more than London during the five-year period,

1910-14 inclusive.

In 1917 Chicago had ten more murders than the whole of England

and Wales, and four more murders than all England, Wales,

and Scotland. In 1918 Chicago had fourteen more murders than

England and Wales, and in 1919 the number of murders in Chicago

was almost exactly six times the number committed in London.

Chicago in 1916 had 532 more burglaries than London; in 1917,

3,459 more; in 1918, 866 more, and in 1919, 2,146 more. In

1918, for example, Chicago had twenty-two robberies for every

robbery in London, and fourteen robberies for every robbery

in England and Wales.

Chicago's arrests for 1917 exceeded London's by 61,874.

Thefts of automobiles reported in 1919: New York, 5,527, Chicago

4,316.... London, 290, Liverpool, 10. Comparative statistics

as to the number of automobiles in English and American cities

are impossible to obtain.

It is apparent that this reign of violence and lawlessness must have a

potent effect upon the crime rate of Negroes in Chicago.

II. PREVALENT IMPRESSIONS REGARDING NEGRO CRIME

In its inquiry the Commission met the following current beliefs among

whites in regard to the Negro criminal:

That the Negro is more prone than the white to commit sex crimes,

particularly rape; that he commits a disproportionate number of crimes

involving felonious cuttings and slashings; that the recent migrant

from the South is more likely to offend than the Negro who has resided

longer in the North; and that Negroes willingly tolerate vice and vicious

conditions in the midst of their residence districts. These and similar

impressions are compared with the facts as found by the Commission.

III. CRIMINAL STATISTICS

In its effort to secure information regarding Negro crime the Commission

sought the only available records kept of all crimes--the police records,

especially the annual report of the Department of Police. On examination

these records were found to be of questionable value for any accurate

presentation of Negro crime, or, in fact, of general crime. In 1913 the

City Council Committee on Crime made a study of crimes in Chicago and

encountered the same difficulty. Says the report of this Committee: "The

police and criminal judicial statistics in Chicago are wholly incomplete

and are not even assembled or published by any authority." Further

commenting on this inadequacy, it says:

Unfortunately, there is in Illinois no central bureau of

criminal statistics through which statistics from the police

department, the courts, the jails, prisons, and the probation

department are collected and correlated. A state bureau of

criminal statistics does exist on our statute books, for, by

a law approved June 11, 1912, the State Charities Commission

was directed to establish such a bureau with the secretary of

the Commission as director in charge. This proposed bureau was

charged with the duty of collecting and publishing annually

the statistics of Illinois relating to crime, and all courts

of Illinois, police magistrates, justices of the peace, clerks

of all courts of record, sheriffs, keepers of all places

of detention for crime or misdemeanors or violations of the

criminal statutes are to "furnish said bureau annually such

information on request as it may require in compiling such

statistics." Up to the present time, however, owing chiefly

to the fact that no appropriation has been made to cover

the expenses of this work, no steps have been taken by the

executive secretary of the Commission towards putting this law

into effect. Moreover, there has never been in Chicago any

attempt at an annual "stock-taking" in which the statistics

furnished by the various departments and agencies dealing with

the problem of crime might be brought together and examined

with the hope of determining how far the problem is being

adequately met.

Because there has been no systematic handling of criminal statistics,

no method has been developed for accurately measuring the prevalence of

crime. The Crime Commission expressed its difficulty here in this manner:

It is very important to note that the number of arrests is

not synonymous with number of crimes, among others reasons

because (1) a large number of persons may be arrested for

complicity in a single crime; (2) many innocent persons are

arrested through misapprehension and later discharged; and

(3) the vast majority of arrests are for petty offenses that

are not serious enough to be called "crimes" at all. Some

consideration should be given to the question of "new crime."

When laws are passed creating new offenses, there may be an

increase in arrests without any corresponding increase in

criminality. As a matter of fact, however, the new offenses

are chiefly those involving misdemeanors and violations of

ordinances. New felonies are rarely created. In Chicago the

police classification does, however, include two new offenses

improperly classed as felonies, "contributing to delinquency"

and "pandering."

To the difficulties experienced by the City Council Crime Committee in

determining the extent of general crime may be added the even greater

difficulty of comparing the crime record of Negroes with that of other

racial groups. The sources of the police statistics are the bookings by

the desk sergeant in the police station. These are taken from arrest slip

notations made by police-station desk sergeants, before whom persons

arrested are brought. The ability of these desk sergeants correctly

to ascertain the prisoner's race or nationality is open to question.

Reports from the Immigrants' Protective League show that the foreigners

arrested are often given wrong racial designations. On the other hand

the classification of Negroes, even of half blood, is never in doubt.

This fact should be remembered in interpreting the figures, for the Negro

will be debited with all the crimes he commits, while figures for other

groups will probably not indicate the full extent of their criminality.

Added to this is the disposition, conscious or unconscious, to arrest

Negroes more freely than whites, to book them on more serious charges,

to convict them more readily, and to give them longer sentences.

This bias does not appear in the bare figures, which thus seem to

substantiate the already existing belief that Negroes are more criminal

than other racial groups. An example of this is found in the bookings

in murder cases. For the six-year period 1914-19 inclusive, 1,121

whites and 193 Negroes were booked for murder, while 501 whites and

only twenty-one Negroes were booked for manslaughter. While Negroes

were charged with 17.1 per cent of the murders, they were charged with

only 4.1 per cent of the cases of manslaughter. This, of course, takes

into account bookings before trial. On the other hand, according to

the testimony, they are more easily convicted on the charges on which

they are booked. This fact introduces another element in the figures,

which, although not representing the actual criminality of Negroes, yet

gives plausibility to records. These situations presented such obvious

dangers that the Commission considered it best to avoid giving currency

to figures which carried such clear evidence of their own inaccuracy and

misrepresentation. Since it is necessary to employ some of these figures

despite their inaccuracies, the effort has been made to use them only

where clear comparisons are possible.

The Commission is aware that statistics have been prepared giving the

relative crime rates of different national groups, and has inquired into

the sources of such statistics. In one case, for example, population

estimates were based on 1910 census figures, arbitrarily increased by

one-third. But when the abnormal situation with respect to immigration

caused by the war, to mention only one important disturbing factor, is

taken into consideration, it will be appreciated that any estimate is

of doubtful value for careful calculation.

After much study and experimentation, and particularly after the counsel

of statistical authorities had been obtained, the Commission's plan to

work out comparative racial crime tables was abandoned.

Aside from the striking discrepancies between the crime figures of

the Police Department and those of the Chicago Crime Commission, it

is doubtful whether a reliable index to Negro crime as a separate item

could be obtained even if the police figures showed the whole, instead

of one-fifth or one-half, of the crimes committed.[45]

It was brought out in the testimony of judges and other authorities

that Negroes are more easily identified and more likely to be arrested,

and it is reasonably certain that a smaller proportion of Negroes who

commit crimes escape than whites. But there is absolutely no means of

determining what proportion of crime unrecorded by the police or other

authorities is committed by whites or Negroes.

Adequate comparison of criminal statistics requires at least comparable

units. This is rarely taken into account in comparing Negro and white

crime. For example: a true comparison of relative crime rates between

the two groups would require that the age distribution in each should

be the same. For, although the population figures include children,

women, and old persons, the greatest proportion of crimes is committed by

persons within what is known to criminologists as the "violent ages," or

between eighteen and thirty. If the population is overbalanced in these

ages the crime rate will be exaggerated. Such an overbalance exists in

the Negro population because of the migration to Chicago of more than

50,000 Negroes, mainly adults. Besides, a greater proportion of these

adults were men without families, another factor known to overweight

crime figures. It is a curious fact, however, that, although the Negro

population of Chicago increased from 2.1 per cent of the total in 1914

to 4.5 per cent in 1919, an increase of more than 100 per cent, the

Negro crime rate during the same period increased 50 per cent, or less

than half as rapidly as the Negro population.

The court cases studied intensively by the Commission show that the

majority of Negro criminals are recruited from the lowest economic

class of the Negro group. The frequency with which these persons are

taken to the Bureau of Identification; their inability to provide

bonds; their lack of means to employ attorneys, and their commitment on

account of inability to pay fines, all tend to emphasize the relation

between poverty and crime. The economic factors, as well as the actual

commission of crime, determine largely the size of groups eligible for

arrest and conviction. For example, laborers are likely to contribute

more crimes proportionate to the total than salaried men, and salaried

men more than professional men. The proportion of white laboring men to

the total white population is considerably smaller than the proportion

of Negro laboring men to the total Negro population. As a consequence,

the "eligibles" for arrest and conviction are fewer in the white group

than in the Negro group.

The reports of the City Council Committee on Crime, known as the

"Merriam Report," and of the Chicago Vice Commission, both indicate that

the economic factor is an important cause of both vice and crime. The

following is from the Vice Commission report:

Among the reasons why women or girls enter the life of

prostitution, the economic question plays a more or less

conspicuous part. The low wages paid, the long hours of

standing, insanitary conditions under which girls work in

factories--all these have a powerful effect on a woman's or

girl's nerves or physical force.

First among these causes [for prostitution] should be named

unfavorable home conditions.... Often when the home is not

entirely degraded there are conditions of crowding and poverty

which lead to misfortune. Working all day, the girls are often

obliged to work at home in the evening, and if they live in

a crowded house they must go on the street to receive their

friends. They are thus practically forced on the streets for

social life.

Among the economic conditions contributing to the social evil

are the following: low wages, insanitary conditions, too long

hours and high pressure of work; the over-crowding of houses

upon lots; of families in the house, and of persons in single

rooms.

The Merriam report similarly said:

The pressure of economic conditions has an enormous influence

in producing certain types of crime. Unsanitary housing and

working conditions, unemployment, wages inadequate to maintain

a human standard of living, inevitably produce the crushed

or distorted bodies and minds from which the army of crime

is recruited. The crime problem is not merely a question of

police and courts; it leads to the broader problem of public

sanitation, education, home care, living wages and industrial

democracy.

The greater liability of Negroes to unemployment introduces another

factor. A plant official told the Commission that his plant had dismissed

more than 500 Negro girls for business reasons. These girls, it was

stated, could not easily find re-employment and were therefore probably

exposed to certain necessities and temptations from which white girls

of comparable status are exempt.

_Ratio of convictions to arrest._--Police statistics of the relation

of convictions to arrests do not involve the question of faulty source

and bias and can therefore be used. They show that Negro defendants are

more frequently convicted than whites, and this difference is even more

pronounced in the more serious crimes. This excess ranged from 3 to 8

per cent during the period 1914-19.

_The Negro and sex crimes._--Examination of the records of sex offenders

brought into the criminal court in the two-year period 1917-18 showed

a total of 253, of whom thirty-two, or 12.6 per cent, were Negroes.

This was lower than the Negro rate, according to police statistics, for

felonies in general. The sex offenses of Negroes were committed for the

most part only against Negroes, and the specific charges were rape,

attempted rape, accessory to rape, crimes against children, indecent

liberties, contributing to delinquency, incest, adultery, murder by

abortion, bigamy, crimes against nature, seduction, and bastardy. Of

crimes against children two out of forty-six were committed by Negroes,

or about 5 per cent, substantially the proportion of Negroes to the

total population. The figures, however, are not a reliable index either

for white or Negro crime because they include only cases passing through

the social-service department of the criminal court.

IV. THE NEGRO IN THE COURTS

During the Commission's inquiry an effort was made to ascertain conditions

in some of the various courts into which Negroes are brought; to learn

the comparative attitudes of judges, prosecutors, and policemen toward

Negro and white offenders, and to learn some of the pertinent facts in

the social history of Negroes brought into these courts.

In all, 703 cases were studied, 538 white and 165 Negro. The social

histories showed a conspicuous lack of schooling in the Negroes arrested,

more than half of whom had left school before reaching the age of twelve.

This is two years below the minimum age for children in Illinois. Only

eight had gone beyond the fifth grade. More than 76 per cent were engaged

in unskilled work, and more than 70 per cent had incomes of less than

$25 a week. Few were property owners. More than 50 per cent were locked

up because of inability to furnish bonds.

Compared with white prisoners there was little difference in economic

class, ability to provide bonds, or legal representation. There was some

noticeable difference in the character of offenders, varying with the

type of neighborhood, but no general comparisons were possible because

the courts were selected in a manner to get the greatest number of Negro

cases.

While judges in most courts treated Negro defendants as considerately

as they did whites, conditions in other courts were quite different. One

judge frequently assumed an attitude of facetiousness while hearing Negro

cases. The hearings were characterized by levity and lack of dignity.

In one instance the judge was shaking dice during the hearing of the case.

1. JUVENILE COURT

Between 1913 and 1919, inclusive, the number of Negro boys brought into

the juvenile court increased from 123 to 288, and the number of Negro

girls from 71 to 112. The proportion of Negro boys to the total during

this six-year period decreased from 9 to 6.8 per cent; and the proportion

of Negro girls increased from 5.6 to 14.8 per cent. The proportion for

Negro boys represents a little over twice the proportion of the Negroes

to total population, and for Negro girls about three and one-half times.

Although the proportion for both Negro boys and girls increased from 7.9

per cent in 1913 to 9.9 per cent in 1919, the Negro population for the

same period increased over 100 per cent. The constant disproportion in

the number of Negro boys and girls coming into the juvenile court points

again to infective environment and to other circumstances heretofore

mentioned involved in the crime rate for Negroes.

_Northern and southern Negro delinquents._--Miss Mary Bartelme, assistant

to Judge Arnold, before whom all cases of delinquent girls are tried,

said: "In recent years we have had a large number of colored girls who

have come up from the South to Chicago because their fathers sent for

them. Their education has not been equal to the education of white girls

and their mental development has not been the same."

Joseph L. Moss, chief probation officer in the juvenile court, believed

that Negro girls might be more affected by the war situation, the abnormal

excitement, the lure of the uniform, than white girls.

Mr. Moss further said:

My impression is that southern Negroes contribute just about

their portion to the total number of delinquents. If any

difference could be noted I might say that the delinquencies of

the southern Negro might be more often classed as misdemeanors

than as the more serious offenses. One noted at times a sort of

irresponsibility on the part of southern Negro delinquents which

seemed to me to be traceable to the difference in standards

between former environment and the present one.

_Differences in delinquency of Negro and white children._--No information

could be secured to show that the conduct for which Negro children

are brought into court is in any way different from the conduct of all

delinquent children. On this point Miss Bartelme testified: "I get all

offenses committed by girls under eighteen years of age. I want to say

that the offenses of white and colored are very much the same as far as

those offenses come before me." Mr. Moss testified before the Commission:

"From my experience I would say that there is no significant difference

between acts for which colored delinquent boys are brought into court,

and the acts for which white delinquent boys are brought into court, with

this exception: that larceny, as an offense, seems to have a considerable

lead over other offenses."

_Comparative environment._--Since many of the delinquent children who

come into the juvenile court, particularly first offenders, are placed

on probation, comparative environment of white and Negro children is

important. This subject does not lend itself to statistical presentation,

but Miss Bartelme said:

Negro girls have not the same supervision that many of the white

girls of their same class have, because in so many instances

both parents are working, and the girls are left alone. They

come home from school to a house that is closed. There is no

one to receive them, and that, with a child, is always a very

serious matter. The environment in which they live is not

equal to the environment of the white girls. In these homes

lack of privacy is greater than in the homes of the same class

of white girls, therefore making life much more difficult and

temptations more numerous. These conditions are much worse

on account of the recent congestion, but they have existed

right along. Negro children have been allowed to live in worse

quarters, more crowded quarters, than the other children....

We feel that in placing the children on probation, especially

colored girls, they are placed in a home which often is not

a home because the mother is away at work.

Mr. O. J. Milliken, for many years a public-school principal in Chicago,

and now superintendent of the Chicago and Cook County School for Boys,

to which the milder delinquent cases are committed, testified:

I should not like to be recorded as giving a criticism of

the Board of Education, because I know that the present Board

of Education believes in what I have to say now, but this is

true: the colored boys are in the district that has practically

been abandoned by the white people and the schools are only

boxes for them to go to school in. You don't find any of the

$900,000 school buildings in the colored population district,

and I think that the time is approaching when the old system

will be changed and we will have the vocational work, etc.,

thoroughly organized in the schools in these districts where

most needed.[46] In dealing with boys I think more complaints

come along that line than in any other, and I have made a

report to the superintendent of schools on that at different

times.

Boys who are "trusties" in the above school are allowed to secure jobs

in Chicago. Their difficulties were outlined by Mr. Milliken as follows:

"After a boy has been committed by the Juvenile Court, he is known by

the police, and I have four or five colored boys today who are carrying

letters from me asking the police to please allow these boys to go to

work, and if the boys are in trouble to notify our institution."

Mr. Milliken told how, when the boys are seen on the streets, they

are picked up by the police. He referred to "one of the finest lads we

have had" and said, "I think probably within the last three months I

have had to get him out of the hands of the police by calling up the

police department twenty times, to get him to work." This difficulty,

in Mr. Milliken's opinion, was more common in regard to Negro than white

delinquents.

2. BUREAU OF IDENTIFICATION

While only 11.5 per cent of all persons arrested in Chicago in 1919 were

Negroes, more than 21 per cent of all persons held on criminal charges

in 1919 and taken to the Detective Division Identification Section were

Negroes. In proportion to total arrests about twice as many Negroes as

whites were taken to the Identification Bureau. Explanations of this

disproportion by officials indirectly connected with this branch of the

department and familiar with its methods are illuminating.

Judges of the criminal court have stated that "Negroes look alike," and

that it is "more difficult offhand to place them than it is to identify

a white criminal"; that Negroes are frequently taken to the Bureau for

identification when white men would not be arrested or would be at once

recognized, picked up, and booked.

Again, it is explained that it is unquestionably safer "to pick up

and mug" a Negro than a white person, because there is less fear of an

unpleasant "comeback." Negroes have fewer resources and less influence

with which to insure their fair treatment, and so are more likely to be

subjected to annoyance.

The fundamental reason, however, is perhaps more economic than racial.

The _City Council Crime Committee Report_, or "Merriam Report," says:

The department of police maintains a bureau of identification

with a system of photographs and finger prints, but it is

largely a matter of chance as to who is photographed, and

as to whether the record of criminality is asked for before

he is sentenced, the judge relying largely on the statement

of the prisoner and the memory of the officer. In general,

all prisoners who are held to the Grand Jury and are not

released on bail are taken to the bureau, photographed, and

their finger prints are taken. This seems a very unfair and

illogical arrangement. If there is a reason for photographing

a man before he is tried and while he is still only a suspect,

the reason should apply equally to those in jail and those on

bail. The practice of taking the finger prints and photographs

of only the men and women who cannot afford bail, seems hard

to justify.[47]

3. PROBATION AND PAROLE

It appears from the testimony of officials and others interested in the

care of offenders that the Negro on probation or parole is handicapped

by his color. He is more likely to be interrogated as a suspect; is

more frequently arrested, and perhaps "mugged," and is in more danger of

being molested even while on legitimate business. The principal sources

of information on this subject were:

1. Statistics from the Municipal Department of Adult Probation.

2. Statistics from state institutions.

3. Testimony of John L. Whitman, state superintendent of prisons; John

M. Houston, head of the Municipal Department of Adult Probation; and

Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent of the Central Howard Association.

The figures provided from institutions are probably accurate, since

they are based on actual count, and do not involve any of the factors

overweighting crime statistics.

_Number admitted to probation._--From 1911 to January 1, 1920, 27,252

whites and 1,917 Negroes were admitted to probation after conviction

in the municipal and criminal courts. Negroes were thus slightly less

than 7 per cent of the total. For the six-year period ended January

1, 1920, Negro arrests for misdemeanors, according to police records,

averaged 8.20 per cent and for felonies 11.13 per cent. On convictions

for misdemeanors, Negroes average about 8.5 per cent of the total, and

for felonies, over 13 per cent. The percentage of Negroes among all

offenders placed on probation is thus less than the percentage of Negroes

among those convicted in either group. In other words, the convicted

white man seems more likely to be put on probation than the convicted

Negro.

Probation depends largely upon the attitude of the judges. The total

number of persons placed on probation has remained virtually the same

from year to year. In fact, 164 fewer persons were put on probation in

1920 than in 1919; so that the migration of southern Negroes does not

seem to have affected this situation.

_Extent to which probationers "make good."_--There are no exact figures

showing the relative degree to which white and Negro probationers

justify the leniency shown them, but Judge Houston testified before the

Commission: "I do not think there is any difference. I am satisfied that

the results are equally as good in the colored cases as in the white.

I don't see any material difference between a colored man and a white

man, so far as their truthfulness and reliability are concerned."

_Institutional figures._--Official reports were submitted by the following

state correctional and penal institutions: Chester State Hospital for the

Criminal Insane, Pontiac Reformatory, Southern Illinois Penitentiary at

Menard, and Joliet Penitentiary. No prisoners are paroled from Chester

State Hospital.

Pontiac reported that last year 45 Negroes and 294 whites had

been paroled. Of the Negroes 88 per cent, and of the whites

80 per cent, had "made good."

Menard reported that 50 Negroes and 168 whites had been paroled.

Of the Negroes 76 per cent, and of the whites 81 per cent,

had "made good."

Joliet reported that 61 Negroes and 223 whites had been paroled.

Of the Negroes 69 per cent, and of the whites 74 per cent,

"made good."

Totals for all the above institutions show that the percentages of Negro

and white paroled who "make good" are nearly the same, the Negro rate

being 76.9 per cent and the white 78.2 per cent.

John L. Whitman, state superintendent of prisons, who has had a continuous

experience covering more than twenty-six years in correctional and penal

institutions, testified before the Commission:

If there is a consistent effort being made to prepare inmates

of prisons for good citizenship when they are released, the

colored man responds as readily as the white, but it is a

question in my mind whether the colored man can profit as much

by it when he gets out as the white man can. That, however, is

not due to a natural inclination; perhaps his opportunities

on the outside are not as good.... I think if the reports of

those on parole from the state institutions now are closely

studied, it will be found that they have more difficulties to

surmount on the outside than the whites. If you assumed the

white and colored ex-convicts on a par when they get out, the

colored ex-convict would find it more difficult to lead the

"straight and narrow"--on account of the forces set against

him he is more greatly handicapped.

Dr. F. Emory Lyon, superintendent of the Central Howard Association, an

organization which for twenty years has been dealing with ex-convicts,

testified:

We have found this greater difficulty in dealing with colored

men--in finding suitable rooming places within their means. Of

course we could always find rooms recommended by the colored

Y.M.C.A., or some such source as that, but generally for

desirable places charges were beyond their means.

My experience in dealing with the colored and white, and in

getting them employment, and in observing their satisfactory

fulfilment of their paroles, is that possibly a little larger

percentage of colored men make good on their paroles. They

take any kind of employment by which they can make an honest

living. I notice in our report of this year that out of 972

assisted, discharged and paroled men, ninety-two were colored

men. This would be just about 10 per cent. I think that is

probably a fair proportion each year in the history of the

Association.

Colonel C. B. Adams, managing officer of St. Charles School for boys,

said: "We have seven farm cottages.... but we rarely send a Negro boy

to the farm cottage for the reason that it is almost impossible for him

to secure employment on the farms. The farmers in northern Illinois....

are prejudiced against colored help, and it is almost impossible for us

to secure employment on the farm for a colored boy."

Dr. Clara Hayes, managing officer of the State Training School for

Girls at Geneva, said: "I think the proportion of the colored girls who

are returned for one cause or another is practically the same as the

proportion of white girls.... I think the proportion of those recurring

from misconduct is practically the same."

Mr. O. J. Milliken, of the Chicago and Cook County School for boys,

said that Negro boys equaled white boys in fulfilling satisfactorily

the requirements for those paroled.

4. INSTITUTIONAL INQUIRY

Through the co-operation of John L. Whitman, state superintendent of

prisons, information was secured regarding comparative treatment and

conduct of white and Negro inmates of Illinois. The data covered the

State Penitentiary at Joliet, Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Menard,

State Reformatory at Pontiac, and State Hospital for the Criminal Insane

at Chester.

_Total number of prisoners._--In the total number of inmates in those

institutions, the percentage of Negroes is much larger than the percentage

convicted of felonies in Chicago. The percentage of Negroes among all

persons convicted of felonies in Chicago for a six-year period averaged

13.1 per cent, whereas their proportion among all inmates of these prisons

is about 23 per cent. Omitting the Southern Illinois Penitentiary, the

proportion is about 20 per cent. This disproportion is in part explained

by facts brought out elsewhere showing that Negroes receive much longer

sentences and fewer paroles (see p. 330).

All these institutions reported that in no cases were Negro and white

prisoners kept in the same cells. Mr. Whitman stated that this arrangement

was preferred by both whites and Negroes. Negro and white prisoners are

not segregated in separate cell sections but occupy adjoining cells in

the same block. "They are all in the same cell house; they are together

in the shops; in cottages; in the farm where there are dormitories."

Negro and white prisoners eat in the same dining-room at the same time

and at the same table. "The tables are for six or eight and there will be

colored and white at the same table." They also attend public meetings

together. Mr. Whitman also stated that in all the institutions Negroes

and whites mingled without distinction, and that the result had been

satisfactory. There was no difference in food, clothing, employment,

cells, or discipline for Negro prisoners as a group from that of white

prisoners because of the Negro's character or deportment. In no case was

racial discrimination in such matters used as a means of discipline or

punishment.

_Conduct in prison._--There is no exact system for appraising conduct

within the prison, but at Mr. Whitman's request persons were appointed

in each institution to examine the record of each inmate as to conduct

and tabulate the results. These and other data secured by Superintendent

Whitman indicate that Negroes are less amenable to prison discipline

than whites, but that their violations of rules are not so grave.

The percentage of Negro inmates whose conduct was marked "satisfactory"

was smaller in all institutions than the percentage of whites. At Pontiac

the difference in conduct was negligible. The greatest disparity was in

Menard (in the southern part of the state), where the difference amounted

to more than 20 per cent.

5. OTHER CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS

_St. Charles School for Boys_ receives delinquent boys between ten and

seventeen years of age from the whole state. Negro and white boys are

accepted up to the capacity limit. Negro boys are 12.5 per cent of the

total, or slightly above the proportion which the Cook County Juvenile

Court report shows Negro boys bear to the total of delinquent boys. Since

1915, the Negro population at St. Charles has increased from 8 per cent

to 12.5 per cent of the total, or approximately half as rapidly as the

Negro population in Chicago. St. Charles is conducted on the cottage

plan, there being twenty-two cottages. Negro and white boys live in the

same cottage, eat in the same dining-room, and use the same playground.

Four out of the twelve cadet companies have Negro captains, and these have

more white than Negro boys under them. There are no racial difficulties

in regard to employment or discipline, and the general conduct of Negro

and white boys was reported to be the same. Colonel C. B. Adams, managing

officer, said: "I really think mentally, and I am sure physically, the

colored boys, such as come into the institution today, are superior to

the white boys. We make much of athletics in the school and the best

athletes we have are colored boys."

_Geneva State Training School for Girls_ had 417 girls in 1917, 475 in

1918, and 445 in 1920. The increase over 1917 is proportionately the same

for white and Negro girls. In 1920, out of 445 girls, eighty-three, or

about 18.5 per cent, were Negro. Conditions at Geneva are substantially

similar to those at St. Charles, with the exception that in one cottage,

Negro and white girls eat at different tables. This, the managing officer,

Dr. Clara B. Hayes, says is mutually agreeable. No difficulties exist

with regard to employment or discipline. As to conduct on probation and

parole, Dr. Hayes thought there was no material difference between Negro

and white girls.

_Chicago and Cook County School for Boys._ This school is located in

Riverside, just west of Chicago, on a farm belonging to the City of

Chicago. The county feeds and clothes the boys; the city erects the

buildings, and the Board of Education manages the school and pays all

salaries. There are three buildings holding forty boys each. About 600

boys go through the institution in a year. It is a "testing out" school

and working boys' institution to which first offenders between the ages

of ten and eighteen are committed through the juvenile court. In 1919

the Negro boys were 15 per cent of the total; in 1920, less than 7 per

cent. This decline Mr. Milliken, the managing officer, thought to be

due to the cessation of Negro migration.

The treatment accorded Negro boys in cottages and at meals, play, and

work is identical with that given white boys. There is no difference in

discipline. Race prejudice is not prominent, and the boys are said to be

most democratic with each other regardless of color. The director says:

"They work together, beautifully; the idea [of prejudice] never enters

into their heads. I think it is the outside influence that brings about

these conditions [of prejudice]."

_Chicago Parental School._ To this school, situated on the North Side of

the city, truants from the public schools of Chicago are committed by

the juvenile court. The total number of pupils last year included 993

boys and eighteen girls. The Negro boys numbered eighty and the Negro

girls five.

The treatment accorded white and Negro children is the same. No difference

in regard to discipline or punishment exists. Race prejudice is not

apparent, and the children's attitude toward each other seems not to

be influenced by color. The deportment of Negro and white children is

reported to be the same.

_House of Correction._ To this institution adult misdemeanants are

committed. Information concerning conditions was furnished by Joseph

Siman, superintendent.

The total number of inmates in 1919 was 5,723, and 1,151, or more than

20 per cent, were Negroes. This percentage is larger than the percentages

of Negroes among persons arrested on misdemeanor charges and among those

convicted.

Negro inmates are not put in the same cells with whites, but are

frequently lodged in the same tier of cells. There are separate blocks

of cells, but no separate tiers for whites and Negroes.

The prisoners eat together in the same dining-room. They march from

their cells or work to meals, meetings, and church services and usually

sit in the same order as that in which they march.

No race prejudice is noticeable among prisoners, and no racial clashes

or unpleasant experiences have occurred in the institution.

_Cook County Jail._ The greatest discrimination noted in the course of

the institution inquiry was at the Cook County Jail, where segregation

has been carried out in nearly every department. The statements below

are based on interviews with Chief Deputy Sheriff Laubenheimer and with

Mr. King of the sheriff's office, who was chief clerk at the jail at

the time of this study.

Negroes are completely segregated in cells on the first two floors in

the new jail. Sometimes, when the jail is crowded, a few Negroes are

put in among the whites, but whites are not often put in the part of the

jail where Negroes are segregated. A condemned Negro murderer is placed

with white condemned murderers in the section set apart for condemned

murderers. Similarly Negro boys are placed with white boys in the boys'

section of the jail.

Meals are served to all prisoners in their cells. The Negroes have a

separate "bull pen" for exercise but are given the same facilities as the

whites. They have separate church services. Negro guards have charge of

the Negro prisoners. The conduct of Negroes, according to the observation

of Mr. King, is practically the same as that of the whites.

Out of a total of 8,616 inmates in the county jail in 1919 there were

1,655 Negroes, or about 19 per cent. This is larger than the proportion of

Negroes among all arrested or convicted. The report of the City Council

Crime Committee showed that inmates of the county jail were confined

there to a large extent on account of poverty.

V. NEGRO CRIME AND ENVIRONMENT

_Housing._--Housing must be considered as an important element in the

environmental causes of crime. Elsewhere this report presents a more

detailed study of housing and it will suffice here to call attention to

the prevalence of taking lodgers which is economically necessary in many

Negro homes, and the consequent danger to the integrity of the family;

to the laxity of law enforcement in certain sections; to the condition

of streets and alleys; and to frequent instances of defective housing

which have the effect of driving the children into the streets or to

questionable places of amusement.

_Recreation._--A comprehensive inquiry into the relations between

recreation and delinquency, made by the Cleveland Foundation in 1917,

showed that the use of leisure time had a relation to delinquency in

75 per cent of the cases observed, and that 51 per cent of the leisure

time of the delinquent child was spent in ways that were aimless and

undirected; while in the case of the "wholesome" child, only seven-tenths

of 1 per cent of the spare time was thus spent. Local studies made by

T. J. Szmergalski, of the West Chicago Park Commission, show that the

establishment of a supervised park or playground tends to decrease

complaints of delinquency from 30 to 40 per cent within the range of its

usefulness--a radius of about three-quarters of a mile. With these facts

as a background it is significant that there is no recreation center and

only a few small playgrounds freely available for Negro children within

the congested Negro district. In many of the crowded areas inhabited by

foreign colonies are well-equipped recreation centers with model field

houses, used by thousands of persons from these districts. The facilities

available to Negro children and young people in this respect are much

less adequate.[48]

Bathing-beaches, which are a summer-time boon to Chicago residents,

foreign and native, are not freely accessible to Negroes. The tragic

incidents in which the riot of 1919 began, illustrate the discriminatory

attitude frequently observed when Negroes attempt to enjoy some of these

recreational facilities.

The importance of these recreation opportunities is further emphasized in

the _Annual Report of the Crime Commission_ in its section on recreation.

The answer to the lack of a sufficient number of well-ordered

places of recreation and amusement is to be found in the

thriving condition of Chicago's cheap dance halls, underworld

cabarets, unsupervised movie theatres of the cheaper class

and the large number of pool-rooms scattered throughout the

city. These establishments are the worst breeders of crime

with which this community has to contend and they should

be subjected to rigid police regulations on the part of the

municipal authorities.

The chief counteracting influences of such places of amusement

are the parks, playgrounds and other municipal recreation

centers, and there is a great need for the establishment of

more of these, particularly in the congested districts.

_Psychological._--It is the opinion of criminologists that a "warped"

mind is responsible for many crimes. This general condition is true of

Negroes as well as whites. But another factor appears in many crimes

of Negroes. The traditional ostracism, exploitation and petty daily

insults to which they are continually exposed have doubtless provoked,

even in normal-minded Negroes, a pathological attitude toward society

which sometimes expresses itself defensively in acts of violence and

other lawlessness. A desire for social revenge might well be expected

to result from the facetious and insulting manner in which Negroes are

often treated by officers of the law.

_"Infective" environment._--Much of what is said in the _Annual Report

of the Crime Commission_ for 1920 regarding the relation of infective

environment to crime, can be fairly applied to the congested South Side

areas of Negro residence:

Infective environment as a cause of crime is classified

separately from problems of home environment because where the

latter may be conducive to the proper rearing of children into

manhood and womanhood, the influence immediately outside the

home may be exactly the opposite. There are, in a great city

like Chicago, certain neighborhoods in which influences are at

work continuously to produce criminals. While the production

of criminals is by no means confined to any one section of the

city but is widespread throughout the community, still there

are sections in which conditions are such that the growing

child is indeed fortunate if he can attain manhood without

being led to commit some offense against society.

In Chicago our chief district of this character is, or was

until recently at least, "Canaryville" and much of the other

territory immediately adjacent to the Stock Yards. It was this

section which produced "Moss" Enright, "Sonny" Dunn, Eugene

Geary, the Gentlemen brothers and many others of Chicago's

worst type of criminals. It is in this district that "athletic

clubs" and other organizations of young toughs and gangsters

flourish, and where disreputable poolrooms, hoodlum-infested

saloons and other criminal hangouts are plentiful.

Often it has been the case that public officials having such

constituencies have utilized these conditions to further their

own political advantages without making the slightest effort

to bring about improvements, in some instances, actually

assisting their constituents to violate the law in order to aid

the building up of their political machines.... Improvement

of districts of this character and the elimination of such

conditions within them is highly essential if organized crime

is to be reduced.

_Vice._--Vice districts and Negro residence districts are now and have

long been close together. As late as 1905 a segregated vice district was

tolerated on the West Side, on Green, Peoria, Sangamon, Morgan, Curtis,

Carpenter, and Randolph streets, and Washington Boulevard. Just north

of this district on Lake, Walnut, and Fulton streets, lived Negroes,

segregated by public sentiment. Another vice district was along Custom

House Place, now Federal Street, near which Negroes lived, similarly

segregated by public sentiment. When this vice district was moved

southward to Twenty-second Street it had a fringe of Negro residence.

Later this district was abolished, and now vice of this kind is scattered

and more clandestine and is to be found farther south, largely between

Thirty-first and Fifty-fifth streets. More than 75 per cent of the Negro

population of the city lives in this area.

[Illustration: ENVIRONMENT OF THE SOUTH SIDE NEGRO

NO. 1

HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION

1916

DEALT WITH BY THE MORALS COURT AND THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN. THE AREA

OUTLINED IN BLACK SHOWS THE BOUNDARIES OF THE RECOGNIZED SEGREGATED VICE

DISTRICT WHICH WAS IN EXISTENCE UP TO NOVEMBER, 1912.]

[Illustration: ENVIRONMENT OF THE SOUTH SIDE NEGRO

NO. 2

HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION

1918

DEALT WITH BY THE MORALS COURT AND THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN. THE AREA

OUTLINED IN BLACK SHOWS THE BOUNDARIES OF THE RECOGNIZED SEGREGATED VICE

DISTRICT WHICH WAS IN EXISTENCE UP TO NOVEMBER, 1912.]

Concerning the proximity of Negro residence areas to vice areas, the

Chicago Vice Commission report in 1911 said:

The history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately

connected with the colored population. Invariably the large

vice districts have been created within or near the settlements

of colored people. In the past history of the city every time

a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side,

the colored families were in the district, moving in just

ahead of the prostitutes. The situation along State Street

from Sixteenth Street south is an illustration.

So whenever prostitutes, cadets and thugs were located among

white people and had to be moved for commercial or other

reasons, they were driven to undesirable parts of the city;

the so-called colored residential sections.

The chief of police in 1912 warned prostitutes that so long as they

confined their residence to districts west of Wabash Avenue and east of

Wentworth Avenue, they would not be disturbed. This area contained at

that time the largest group of Negroes in the city, with most of their

churches, Sunday schools, and societies.

The Vice Commission report further said:

In addition to this proximity to immoral conditions young

colored girls are often forced into idleness because of

prejudice against them and they are eventually forced to accept

positions as maids in houses of prostitution.

Employment agents do not hesitate to send colored girls as

servants to these houses. They make the astounding statement

that the law does not allow them to send white girls, but they

will furnish colored help.

In summing up, it is an appalling fact that practically all

of the male and female servants connected with houses of

prostitution in vice districts and in disorderly flats in

residence sections are colored....

The apparent discrimination against colored citizens of the

city in permitting vice to be set down in their very midst

is unjust and abhorrent to all fair-minded people. Colored

children should receive the same moral protection that white

children receive.

The prejudice against colored girls who are ambitious to earn

an honest living is unjust. Such an attitude eventually drives

them into immoral surroundings. They need special care and

protection on the maxim that it is the duty of the strong to

help the weak. Any effort, therefore, to improve conditions

in Chicago should provide more wholesome surroundings for the

families of its colored citizens who now live in communities

of colored people.

That many Negroes live near vice districts is not due to their choice nor

to low moral standards, but to three causes: (1) Negroes are unwelcome

in desirable white residence localities; (2) small incomes compel them

to live in the least expensive places regardless of surroundings; while

premises rented for immoral purposes bring notoriously high rentals,

they make the neighborhood undesirable and the rent of other living

quarters there abnormally low; and (3) Negroes lack sufficient influence

and power to protest effectively against the encroachments of vice.

The records of convictions in the morals court and the evidence of the

Committee of Fifteen show the gradual drift of prostitution southward

coincidentally with the expansions of the main area of Negro residence.

Between 1916 and 1918 houses of prostitution decreased from forty-eight to

twenty-five in number in the territory between Twelfth and Twenty-second

streets, and from 130 to 107 between Twelfth and Thirty-first streets.

Between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth streets, the number had slightly

increased, while there was an increase of nearly 80 per cent between

Thirty-fifth and Thirty-ninth streets. In the combined districts between

Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets the number increased from sixty-two

to eighty-four; and between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets the

increase was from eleven to fifty-four.

These are probably only a fraction of the number that really exist there,

and while they are too few to be conclusive, they are significant when

considered in relation to the movement of the Negro population. The

accompanying maps show that the figures coincide substantially with the

expansion of Negro residence areas southward and eastward.

Further evidence of this movement of vicious resorts, and an abnormally

large number of them, into the Negro areas was obtained from the state's

attorney's office, the Commission's investigations, and from confidential

reports submitted by other organizations. Most of these places are

maintained by white persons, because in this district there is less

likelihood of effective interference, either from citizens or public

authorities.

_Cabarets and gambling._--In close relation to the disorderly houses

are the vicious cabarets in the Negro areas on the South Side. Their

reputation and the conditions existing in them have been given much

publicity by the local press.

Gambling was found to be prevalent at many places in this section, and

only slight effort was made to conceal violations of the law. Under the

guise of "clubs" some places were being operated as gambling houses with

dice and card games predominating. Other places, apparently with little

fear of the police, both conducted and permitted gambling with cards

and on pool games. Baseball pools and "policy," as well as betting on

horse-race returns, were prevalent.

VI. VIEWS OF AUTHORITIES ON CRIME AMONG NEGROES