The people who took part in the mob violence had no grievances against the Negroes. They were hoodlums and underworld folk. Many of the hoodlums, according to one observer, were less than twenty years old.
During the rioting four white men were killed. They were: Louis Johnson, of 1208 East Reynolds Street, whose body was found at the foot of the stairs leading to the barroom in Loper's restaurant. He was shot through the abdomen; John Colwell, of 1517 Matheny Street, who died at St. John's Hospital; J. W. Scott, of 125 East Adams Street, who was shot in the lungs; Frank Delmore, who was killed by a stray bullet.
Seventy-nine persons were injured. The property destroyed included Loper's restaurant and automobile, Scott Burton's barber shop, the Delmonico saloon, and one block of houses between Tenth and Eleventh streets, which were burned, with all their contents. Scores of families were left destitute. Many Negroes were severely beaten before they were able to escape from the district. Numbers of these homeless colored people swarmed to neighboring towns and to Chicago. Three thousand of them were concentrated at Camp Lincoln, the National Guard camp grounds. Some of the refugees were cared for at the arsenal.
Current comment concerning the riots suggested political corruption and laxity of law enforcement as important underlying causes of the riots. An assistant state's attorney in Springfield charged that saloons had long been violating the law, and that the law was not generally enforced as it ought to be. He cited these conditions as responsible in large measure for the rioting and murders. Pastors in their sermons on the riot focused attention on the way in which vicious elements were permitted to flout the law with impunity. This comment came so generally and insistently from those conversant with the situation that the Chicago Daily News was led to remark editorially upon the responsibility of the public authorities of Springfield. It said:
Vice and other forms of law breaking have been given wide latitude here. The notoriety of Springfield's evil resorts has been widespread.
A mob which murders, burns and loots, is a highly undesirable substitute even for a complacent city administration. It is a logical result, however, of long temporizing with vice and harboring of the vicious. When a mob begins to shoot and hang, to destroy and pillage, there is instant recognition on the part of responsible persons of the beauty of law enforcement and of general orderliness.
On the Sunday following the riots some Springfield saloon-keepers took advantage of the fact that large crowds of sight-seers had come to town to open their places, in violation of the order by Mayor Reece to remain closed. Some of them were arrested for defiance of the mayor's proclamation to remain closed until order had been restored.
By Monday or Tuesday order was pretty well restored in Springfield. Some of the National Guard troops were kept on duty for several days. Almost 100 arrests were made, and a special grand jury returned more than fifty indictments.
III. East St. Louis Riots
May 28 and July 2, 1917
Following a period of bitter racial feeling, frequently marked by open friction, a clash between whites and Negroes in East St. Louis, Illinois, occurred on May 28, 1917, in which, following rumors that a white man had been killed by Negroes, a number of Negroes were beaten by a mob of white men. This outbreak was the forerunner of a much more serious riot on July 2, in which at least thirty-nine Negroes and eight white people were killed, much property was destroyed by fire, and the local authorities proved so ineffective and demoralized that the state militia was required to restore order. A Congressional Committee investigated the facts of the riot and the underlying conditions, which included industrial disturbances and shameful corruption in local government.[13]