Carrying Loot From a Vacant Building
Closed by the Gangs
Much that these boys think and do is the direct result of their natural propensity to imitate, combined with the fact that they have never been taught the difference between childhood and manhood. Thus they learn to fight, to smoke, to drink as their elders do. Fist fights in the street are of the most common occurrence, particularly among the young men from sixteen to twenty years of age. To “go down to the docks and fight it out” is one method of settling all disputes, whether of politics, love, or personal appearance. Homeric tales are related of some of these combats. A youth of eighteen demands of a bigger man an apology for an alleged insult to the former’s sister. The two go behind a sandpile on the docks, where in the presence of a large group of witnesses they fight fiercely for several hours until both are exhausted. Gang fights, as we have said, are frequently settled by a personal fight between two leaders. These fights sometimes end in one or both of the combatants being maimed, and, with the rougher element, occasionally in murder.
The seriousness of a fight between older men in this neighborhood is recognized, and ordinarily every effort is made to separate the fighters before they become committed to fight to the finish. If a man is defeated by the fists of his opponent, he will seize a club, a bottle, a paving stone, or a revolver, if he can get one, and continue the fight with this advantage. Very frequently a street fight between two men results in a feud which will be carried on from day to day, until one or the other is permanently disabled.
Often these feuds result in the destruction of property, which is here an accepted way of “getting even.” Tenants who are evicted are not unlikely by way of revenge to do as much damage as they can to the apartment before leaving. If one club is at war with another, it is expected that the stronger will invade the premises of the weaker and smash up furniture and furnishings. Revenge in this district is wreaked primarily upon person; failing that, upon property. And this latter custom has become so prevalent and so much developed that much damage is done from pure maliciousness and from wanton joy of breaking and destroying. “Scenery Burned by Vandals” runs a recent newspaper headline.[49]
Vandals destroyed three truckloads of scenery stored last night on “The Farm,” in Twelfth Avenue between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Streets....
Shortly after 11 o’clock last night the first truck was set afire. The scenery was covered with canvas, and when the firemen arrived it was a total wreck. Three hours later the other two trucks were set afire. The trucks also were burned, and the total loss was estimated at $7,000.
Such outrages are quite common. They are merely a development of the method employed by West Side toughs for “getting a come-back”; merely a warning of the fact that the district owns to no law but the law of the Texan or Corsican Vendetta. Does someone habitually steal clothes from the wash-line? Then the husband “lays for” him with a club. Does some man or boy strike a boy on the street? The mother, or father, or big brother goes down to “get even.” Fear and gang ethics forbid the giving of information, and the whole neighborhood is saturated with treachery and suspicion.
With examples of this kind all around him, what wonder that the boy fights often and recklessly; that he turns naturally to violence; and that his combats, singly or in gangs, make no demands on the spirit of fair play?