Six Negroes were arraigned in the South Chicago court today, charged with having started a "near" race riot in a Cottage Grove Avenue car last night. They were: Isaac Nelson, 3256 South Park Avenue; Henry Broadnax, 3235 Calumet Avenue; Samuel Bound, 3127 Cottage Grove Avenue; Albert McMurry, 3027 Cottage Grove Avenue; Abe Mitchell, 3703 South La Salle Street and Walter McConnor, 538 West 45th Street.
McConnor, who was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, is said to have taken a seat which Herbert Douglas, 1637 East 78th Street, offered to a woman passenger.
In the scuffle which ensued, Douglas received a stab from a knife in the hands, it is alleged, of McConnor, and was taken to the South Chicago hospital. The Negroes were held on bonds of $400 to $3,500, pending jury trials.
In May, 1920, the Tribune gave eight inches to an article with the headline: "Race Riot and Labor Riot in New England." The item reported a fight between a Negro waiter and a Harvard student in one of the college dining-halls. To show how trivial the incident was the article said in part:
The trouble began when Mayer (a colored waiter) made a slighting remark to Wilson (a white student) and, grabbing him by the hair struck him in the face. Wilson, in an attempt to defend himself, grabbed a water pitcher, and as he raised it, Mayer drew a revolver and pointed it at Wilson. Immediately the student body was in an uproar and rallied to the defense of Wilson.... The police are searching for Mayer.
The Daily News referred to a "riot" precipitated by a colored chef's remarks. The incident referred to loud talking in the kitchen of a Greek restaurant and the chef's swearing at a cook which was overheard by a woman in the dining-room. She objected, and the police were called. Another such article appeared in the Tribune under the heading: "Women in Riot. White versus Negro in Reformatory." The article told of state troops, local police, and a chaplain having been mobilized to stop a "race riot." The casualties given were one policeman bitten by a girl and several state troopers kicked and scratched.
An instance of undiscriminating news handling appeared in the Chicago Tribune of July 24, 1917. During the race riot in East St. Louis, while the front pages of all the papers were filled with descriptions of the horrors, an article appeared in the fourth column of the first page, along with the East St. Louis riot news. It occupied fourteen inches and bore the heading: "Whites Were Firing at Blacks near Scene of Murder. Four Negroes Jailed after Slaying of Aged Man." Of the fourteen inches, six were given to an account of the murder in Chicago of a saloon-keeper by a Negro in which mobs of Negroes were said to have flourished guns; four inches were given to a totally irrelevant report that two young white girls were chased through Washington Park by a Negro; three inches more to a further account of the first murder, and one inch to a report that a Negro was shot by a policeman.
On the second page was an eleven-inch article with the large headline: "Lawyer Warns Negroes Here to Arm Themselves." Underneath was a five-inch report concerning a Negro held for trial on a girl's story of an attack. Nine inches were given in another article to a warning by Chicago labor leaders that "the influx of blacks" to replace the strikers in the plants was bringing a riot peril to Chicago. Under this article was an account of the freeing of a policeman for killing a Negro; and beneath this an article from Orange, Texas, with the headline: "Negro Shot Down Trying to Escape after Crime." Also on the same page nine inches were devoted to a condemnation of black politics in East St. Louis, and three inches to a minor clash in which a Negro was reported to have drawn a knife when attacked by six white youths. Two inches were given to the account of a clash between Negroes and whites in New York City and seventy-two inches to accounts of the East St. Louis riot.
The emphasis was on the work of the mob and the fact that Negroes were replacing strikers in East St. Louis, and that this was responsible for the riot. Some of the reports of Chicago incidents proved to be inaccurate. It developed that Charles A. Maronde, a saloon-keeper, who was supposed to have been killed by Negroes, his death precipitating a clash between Negroes and white persons, actually died of heart failure. There was no connection and no apparent reason for inserting the incident of the white girls being chased through the park by a Negro. This report was hearsay and was joined to the article in this manner: "About the time the Negroes were being fired upon, two young white girls were being chased by a Negro through Washington Park."
The item concerning the Negro held for trial on the charge of a white that he had attacked her, turned out to be the imaginings of a young girl, which involved a forty-three-year-old Negro, whose character had never before been questioned, and who, as the facts developed, was entirely innocent. Linked up in this article was an account of disciplining in the county jail; 150 prisoners had been locked in their cells and placed on bread and water because they were found shooting craps in the "bull pen."