In spite of these difficulties, those familiar with the riot situation believe that more arrests of active rioters might have been made and more convictions obtained. A study of the riot deaths shows that justice failed to be as swift and sure as the coroner's and grand juries recommended. The blame for this failure is variously placed on the police, state's attorney, judge, or jury, according to the prejudice of the one attempting to fix blame, or his connection with any of these agencies. The fact remains that the punitive results of the legal processes were too negligible to furnish a proper deterrent to future rioters.
Of the thirty-eight persons whose death constituted the riot's principal toll—
Fifteen met death at the hands of mobs. The coroners' jury recommended that the members of the unknown mobs be apprehended. None were ever found.
Six were killed under circumstances establishing no criminal responsibility: three white men were killed by Negroes in self-defense, and three Negroes were shot by policemen in the discharge of their duty.
Four Negroes lost their lives in the Angelus riot. The coroner made no recommendations, and the cases were not carried farther.
Four cases—two Negro and two white—led to recommendations from the coroner's jury for further investigation of certain persons, but sufficient evidence was lacking for indictments.
Nine cases resulted in indictments, four of which led to convictions.
Thus in only four cases was criminal responsibility for death fixed and punishment meted out to the guilty.
Indictments and convictions are divided according to the race of the persons criminally involved as follows:
| Negro | White | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases | Persons | Cases | Persons | |
| Indictments[10] | 6 | 17 | 3 | 4 |
| Convictions | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
There is evidence that the riot of 1919 aroused many citizens of both races to a quickened sense of the suffering and disgrace which had come and might come again to the community, and developed a determination to prevent a recurrence of so disastrous an outbreak of race hatred. This was manifest, as another section of this report shows, in the courage and control which people of both races displayed on at least two occasions in 1920 when confronted suddenly with events out of which serious riots might easily have grown.
MILK WAS DISTRIBUTED FOR THE BABIES
PROVISIONS WERE SUPPLIED BY THE RED CROSS TO HUNDREDS OF NEGRO FAMILIES
This examination of the facts of the riot reveals certain outstanding features, as follows:
1. The riot violence was not continuous, hour by hour, but was intermittent.
2. The greatest number of injuries occurred in the district west of Wentworth Avenue, inclusive of Wentworth, and south of the Chicago River to Fifty-fifth Street, or, broadly speaking, in the Stock Yards district. The next greatest number occurred in the so-called "Black Belt," Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth streets, inclusive, Wentworth to the lake, exclusive of Wentworth; Thirty-ninth to Fifty-fifth streets, inclusive, Clark Street to Michigan Avenue, exclusive of Michigan.
3. Organized raids occurred only after a period of sporadic clashes and spontaneous mob outbreaks.
4. Main thoroughfares witnessed 76 per cent of the injuries on the South Side. The streets which suffered most severely were State, Halsted, Thirty-first, Thirty-fifth, and Forty-seventh. Transfer corners were always centers of trouble.
5. Most of the rioting occurred after working hours. This was particularly true after the street-car strike started.
6. Gangs, particularly among the young whites, formed definite nuclei for crowd and mob leadership. "Athletic clubs" supplied the leaders of many gangs.
7. Whites usually employed fists and clubs in their attacks upon Negroes; Negroes used firearms and knives in their attacks.
8. Crowds and mobs engaged in rioting were usually composed of a small nucleus of leaders and an acquiescing mass of spectators. The leaders were young men, usually between sixteen and twenty-one. Dispersal was most effectively accomplished by sudden, unexpected gun fire.
9. Rumor kept the crowds in an excited, potential mob state. The press was responsible for wide dissemination of much of the inflammatory matter in spoken rumors, though editorials calculated to allay race hatred and help the forces of order were factors in the restoration of peace.
10. The police lacked sufficient forces for handling the riot; they were hampered by the Negroes' distrust of them; routing orders and records were not handled with proper care; certain officers were undoubtedly unsuited to police or riot duty.
11. The personnel of the militia employed in this riot was of an unusually high type. This unquestionably accounts for the confidence placed in them by both races. Riot training, definite orders, and good staff work contributed to their efficiency.
12. The machinery of justice was affected by prejudices and political rivalries.
From their reviews of the evidence brought before them, the coroner's jury and the grand jury presented analyses of the riot, and each made recommendations of a remedial sort. These recommendations follow:
CORONER'S JURY RECOMMENDATIONS
1. We believe that a representative committee of white and colored people, working together, could suggest and bring about the necessary and advisable changes.
2. In specifically attacking the housing situation: The correction of the evil by enlarging the living quarters and placing them in a better sanitary state would in part solve the difficulty. We believe voluntary segregation would follow and to a considerable extent remove one cause of unrest.
This is a matter that might well be considered by the Real Estate Board and by improvement clubs and organizations of property owners in the South Division, and by the Health Department.
3. In regard to the "athletic clubs": Properly governed and controlled they should be encouraged and fostered and, when necessary, disciplined.
4. Hoodlumism evokes this comment: Citizens of Chicago, make your hoodlum element amenable to law, break up and destroy hoodlumism as you would a pestilence. It is our belief that this element can be brought under control of the law, and it must be done if we are to remove the danger of rioting from any cause. Vicious hoodlumism, entirely aside from race hatred, was present in practically all of the thirty-eight killings, known as race riots.
5. We earnestly urge that fathers and mothers teach their children the lesson of remaining at home when rioting occurs, and furthermore, they should be kept occupied, as idleness and bad association often cause young people to become bad men and women.
6. One remedy for race rioting is a speedy conviction and punishment of those guilty, regardless of race or color, giving all concerned a fair and impartial hearing.
7. Tolerance must be practiced between both white and colored in the discussion of the race