In 1895 R. M. Bache[95] made one of the first experimental studies of the relative mentality of the white, Negro, and Indian races. His study was based on only ten Negroes. He began with an assumption of the inferiority of Negroes and was satisfied that he had proved it. In his tests the whites were slowest in reacting to the visual, auditory, and electrical stimulation, the Indians were quickest, and the Negroes about midway between. He deduced from this that the whites were superior, the Indians next, and the Negroes the lowest of the group. The Negroes he explained were slower than the Indians because they were of mixed white and Negro blood and had inherited the effects of slavery, while the Indians' mode of life compelled them to rely upon quick movement. Therefore he said the Indian was of a higher race than the Negro. Dr. Vogt, a German anthropologist, is responsible for the statement: "On examining the brain of a Negro I find a remarkable resemblance between the ape and the Negro, especially with reference to the development of the temporal lobe." He made this deduction from the examination of the skull of one Hottentot Negro woman.
A. T. Smith made association and memory tests and concluded[96] that the Negro child was psychologically different from the white child in power of abstraction, judgment, and analysis. He took a single Negro boy as typical.
For the purpose of studying myths pertinent to this inquiry instances were taken from the testimony in race riots, both in East St. Louis and Chicago. The excerpts which follow illustrate the tendency of myths to create and give currency to rumors:
NEGROES SECRETING ARMS
I returned in about an hour and learned from Col. Tripp that it had been reported that Negroes were forming and had large quantities of arms and ammunition at a saloon on the northeasterly corner of Nineteenth and Market Avenue; at the time the small detachment of troops remaining at the City Hall was loaded into an auto truck and Col. Tripp, Lieut. Col. Clayton, Chief of Police Ransom Payne and myself, in my automobile proceeded to the saloon and pool-room located at the northeasterly corner of Nineteenth Street and Market Avenue, where it was reported there were large stores of ammunition and arms.
We accompanied Col. Tripp into the building and found perhaps fifteen or eighteen Negro men; Col. Tripp ordered them to surrender arms and there being no ready compliance with the order, he thereupon ordered them searched and found one man who had a number of loaded shot-gun shells. [Testimony by Thomas L. Fekete, Jr., city attorney of East St. Louis, at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]
NEGROES PLANNING ATTACK
Question: Now what happened Tuesday?
Answer: Well, Tuesday I spent most of my time in the City Hall except when we would be sent out on false alarms, calls from the different parts of the city. That was practically all of our work there then. There was no rioting on Tuesday, but they continued calling from different parts of the city that Negroes were forming and ready to attack, and we would send men, whenever they were available, out with squads, two squads of men to investigate, but invariably it was a false alarm. [Testimony by Major Wm. Klauser at East St. Louis Inquiry into Conduct of Militia.]
CONCEALING ARMS FOR INSURRECTION