The anger-provoking power of rumor was seen in the ensuing clash. About 1,500 Negroes massed on one corner of Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue, and about 100 policemen grouped themselves at the intersection of the two streets. At the sight of a brick flying from the Negro mob the police fired a volley into the midst of the mob. More shots came quickly from both sides. Four Negroes were killed, and many were injured, among both the Negroes and the police.
The Angelus rumor appeared as follows in a Negro newspaper, the Chicago Defender, August 2: "White occupants of the Angelus apartments began firing shots and throwing missiles from their windows. One man was shot through the head but before his name could be secured he was spirited away."
In the case of Joseph Lovings, a Negro killed by an Italian mob, press reports that were entirely false tended strongly to provoke the anger of Negro mobs. For example:
Herald-Examiner, July 30: "He had been shot, stabbed and gasoline had been thrown on his body which had been set afire. The police extinguished the fire and took the body to the County Morgue."
Tribune, July 30: "This report says that he was stabbed and shot sixteen times, then his body saturated with gasoline and set afire."
The coroner's jury in commenting on this rumor said: "It gives us satisfaction to say that this rumor, from our investigation, is false and unsubstantiated."
Among the horror rumors one finds such examples as the story of the white man who stood at the entrance to Exchange Avenue and knocked down half a dozen Negroes as they came by. This was current in the Stock Yards and was told by one of the workers at the inquest on the body of William Dozier, Negro, killed in the Yards. Another rumor had it that a Negro woman nicknamed "Heavy" had partly slashed off the head of a white man. This was picked up by a detective circulating among white people living in the "Black Belt."
But chief among horror rumors was the Bubbly Creek rumor, which took this form in the press:
Daily News, July 29. Subheadline: "Four Bodies in Bubbly Creek." The article does not give details but says, "Bodies of four colored men were taken today from Bubbly Creek in the Stock Yards district, it is reported."
This was one of the most persistent rumors of the riot, and intelligent men were found repeating it in half-credulous tones. A meat curer, talking in the superintendent's office of Swift & Company, said: "Well, I hear they did drag two or three out of Bubbly Creek.... Dead bodies, that is the report that came to the Yards, but personally I never got any positive evidence that there was any people who was found there."