304
Dedicated to the promotion of
understanding and co-operation
between the races.
Copyrighted 1919 by
The Great Western Publishing Company
1237 W Madison St.
Chicago, 111.
Preface.
THE agitated, throbbing, "black" heart of
Chicago is at this date, August 1919, en-
circled with a steely ring of bayonets and
automatics in the hands of United States sol-
diers and Chicago policemen. Negroes to the
number of 200,000, conservatively estimated, re-
side in the so-called riot zone. The military
and police forces were placed there for the pur-
pose of suppressing race riots that in the last
week of July, 1919, threatened the overthrow of
all the municipal governmental restraints that
the city of Chicago could throw into the streets.
The burden of this pamphlet is an earnest,
conscientious probe of the fearful set of social
circumstances that could make possible and let
loose the flame of beastiliness and animalism
that resulted in 35 officially recorded, 200
rumored deaths and serious injuries running in-
to the thousands.
The author of this pamphlet is convinced
that the cause of the race conflict in Chicago
and elsewhere in the United States is rooted deep
in our economic system and, while other contrib-
uting causes are admitted, their influence on
the actions of men and women of both races is
so slight that they can with reason and good
judgment practically be disregarded in a book-
let of this size and character.
The flaming rage of a mob, angered at the
real or fancied outrage of some woman of their
race by a man of another color can be analyzed,
accounted for, understood. But the spectacle
of a ferocious mob flowing thru the streets seek-
ing a black or white victim, as the case may be,
on general principles and without special pro-
vocation is a social phenomena that demands
profound and special study.
Law defying bands of Whites and Blacks that
go indiscriminately hunting and gunning for
victims in a city where there are approximately
250,000 Negroes, constitute a social danger
signal which cannot and must not be ignored.
With one tenth of our national population
composed of black and mulatto persons the race
problem in America is one of the most explosive
that we have to contend with.
This pamphlet is issued in fairness to both
races* and is an earnest contribution to the dis-
cussion of a vital, pressing problem that menaces
the peace of the nation and is especially recom-
mended to the toiling masses who bear the bur-
dens of the world and whose faces are kept in
the dirt by reason of division, misunderstanding
and ignorance.
Harrison George.
STATEMENT OF THE
STOCK YARDS LABOR COUNCIL
By
J. W. JOHNSTONE, Secretary-Treasurer.
The Stock Yards Labor Council extends a
fraternal welcome and an invitation to unite
with us to each and every colored worker in the
city of Chicago. To emphasize our goodwill we
have granted organization privileges to our col-
ored brothers in the past that have been denied
white workers. Colored unionists are free to join
white locals or organize color locals of their own.
Newly initiated black union men may affiliate
with the local of their craft or they may select
the local of their choice. Colored union men are
granted admission with right of discusion to any
Stock Yards union. White union men are restrict-
ed to union privileges in the local of their craft,
must join that local and are not granted the
right of general discussion in all locals. This is
all done to promote fraternal fellowship and
understanding between the races.
We are positive that if the toilers of both
races in the stock yards and the great industries
of Chicago were thoroughly organized, if the
conflict for jobs and wages were adjusted by
this White-Black union, serious race trouble
would be impossible.
When this unity of purpose and organization
on the industrial field is perfected by the work-
ers of Chicago the vicious and successful cam-
paigns carried on by large employers of labor in
this city and other cities to pit and play blacks
against whites wil be at an end and one prolific
source of trouble eliminated.
The desire of the organized packers is division
in the ranks of the white and colored workers;
the desire of all intelligent workers of both races
is unity and organization among white and col-
ored employes. The Stock Yards Labor Council
knows no color line or sex, dismisses all creed
and national distinctions and seeks to embrace
the toiling masses from all four quarters of the
globe in the high and noble purposes of clean-
cut unionism. We know but one opposition and
that consists of those industrial forces that seek
to put too great burdens upon the backs of the
working class, that seek to grind their faces in
the dirt and deny them the right to live as Amer-
icans should ; upon these and these alone we de-
clare unending war until the toilers of every
color and clime that are in the American melting
pot and building this great nation shall have
come into their own industrial freedom, indus-
trial democracy and the control of the lives and
destinies of themselves and their families.
OUR REAL ENEMY.
MARY MARCY, Author-Journalist.
In Germany the profiteers are printing stories
about the Jews in order to inflame the minds of
the workers so they will forget high prices and
the men who profit by them, and be side-tracked
into race riots.
Stock yards workers tell me that here in Chi-
cago the millionaire packers are doing their best
to promote enmity betwen the colored and the
white workers so that when you and I grow des-
perate over the rising cost of living we will pick
fights with each other and spend our rage on our
fellow workers.
One of the methods the packers use is to pay
the colored workers higher wages than the union
scale. They want to keep the colored men and
women out of the unions, so that when the white
men go out on strike for decent living conditions
the colored men will scab on them. Then when
the fight against the white union men has been
won the packers will fire the colored workers
and take back the white ones. In other words the
big thieves are trying to use workingmen against
workingmen for their own profit.
But gradually the colored folks are getting
wise to the packers' game and are joining the
unions. They know the packers don't care as
much for any workingman as they do for a
pound of farm sausage. All they want is to use
the whites against the colored men, or the color-
ed workers against the white men to force down
wages. Then the packers will hire the men who
work cheapest.
Some unions have raised wages from 50 cents
a day to nine dollars a day. They were able to do
this because the Catholics and the Protestant
workers, the Irish and the Dutch, the Jew and
the colored workers STUCK TOGETHER; they
all refused to scab because they knew that the
scab ultimately lowers his own wages.
Government reports show that the Swift
family grabbed $47,000,000 profits last year.
And they probably did not EARN $2,000 of it,
while the workers in the Swift plants were only
paid $22,000,000 in wages. The idlers got over
twice as much as their rake-off as the workers
who run the packing plants. The report of the
Armour and other packing plants is nearly as
bad.
Don't let the packers or any other capitalists
side-track your common sense. Don't let them
turn you against your white or black brother
SO THEY CAN HIRE MEN AT LOWER
WAGES LATER ON and get still richer out
of your abor.
The packers cannot fool me. Whenever they
do things that foster race riots I know they are
like the burglar that gets his pal to throw a tin
pan in the cellar while he ROBS THE fcAFE.
And they can't draw my attention away from
the millions they are taking from the people who
work.
When they are united the white and colored
workers WIN : when the workers are divided
THE BOSS WINS. Unite, join the union and
bea: the boss!
SHALL WE UNIONIZE?
THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION among
our workmen at the stock yards is whether or
not to unionize. During the recent riots the union
officials made stirring appeals to our stock yard
workers with a view to inducing them to become
members of the union. Organized labor publica-
tions through their editorial columns voiced the
same demands. Some of these proposals were of
the most flattering character and should receive
the serious consideration of our workers.
IN YEARS PAST our attitude has been one
of distrust and suspicion of the motives and hon-
esty of purpose of the leaders of organized labor.
For much of this attitude the labor leaders
themselves are responsible. In their constitu-
tions the word "white" stood a gigantic barrier
to our participation with them in the labor field.
In recent years there seems to be a growing dis-
position to open the doors of unionism to our
workmen,
LEADERS LIKE KIKULSKI, Fitzpatrick
and Johnston, in conference with leading police
officials during the last stock yard strike, stated
that not a single soldier or policeman would be
required in that district to preserve order. Arid
that organized labor would see to it that the
black workman would be protected by his white
associates in the ranks of organized labor.
WHEN ALL IS SAID and done, it may be
the part of wisdom for us to join with the white
brother in the labor movement. Most of our
workmen's trouble in the North is due largely to
antagonism in the industrial field, and if these
antagonisms can be wiped cut by our entering
the ranks of unionism it seems the only sane and
safe thing for us to do. At any rate, the experi-
ment is worth a trial. To any forward-looking
man it must be apparent that there must be a
common destiny for workmen of all classes. For
the good of the nation white men and black men
must not go through the years with their hands
at each other's throats. Something must be done
to remove from the mind of the white laboring
man the notion that large employers of labor
are using us as a big stick over their heads. And
the labor leaders must remove from our work-
men's mind the suspicion and distrust born of
the previous attitude of unionism toward them.
WE CONFESS that our experience with or-
ganized labor in this locality has not been re-
assuring. Some years ago our waiters entered
the labor movement by organizing a strong
branch among themselves. They were induced
by the leaders of the white waiters' union to
strike against the existing scale of wages. In-
stead of the support and co-operation which they
expected from their white brothers, they were
forced to see their places filled by white union
waiters. This bit of unpleasant experience still
sticks in our minds and is frequenty used as the
basis of much of the opposition that exists
among us against unionizing.
IF THE LEADERS of the labor movement
are anxious for our co-operation we stand ready
to give it when we can be assured that we will
not be deserted by our white brothers in a crisis.
We do not relish the present situation, with its
antagonisms and its hatreds. We stand ready on
any tomorrow to extend the hand of fellowship
to our white brother in the labor world, but we
want him to come with clean hands and with the
honest resolve to sink or swim in a common
cause for the betterment of American laboring
conditions, without regard to race or color.
Chicago Defender.
CONCERNING THE RACE RIOTS
By the
CHICAGO FEDERATON OF LABOR.
The profiteering meat packers of Chicago are
responsible for the race riots that have disgraced
the city.
It is the outcome of their deliberate attempt
to disrupt the union labor movement in the
stockyards. Their responsibility is shared by the
daily newspapers which are kept subsidized by
the extravagant advertising contracts of the
packers, particularly the Tribune and the Her-
ald and Examiner.
The same meat packers can solve the problem
if they will and put a stop to the trouble, but it
can be done only in one way, if it is not to break
out again at a future date more violently than
before. The packers know that way. They have
been told what it is and they are doing nothing
about it.
Ever since organized labor first started to
unite the stockyards employes, the packers have
fought with every weapon at their command
these efforts of the workers.
Discriminating against union men, they have
fired them and hired nonunion men in their
places. In recent years their principal recruit-
ing points for nonunion workers have been in the
south, and nonunion colored workers have beei?
brought here in great numbers just as they are
being brought here now by the railroads or
were up to the outbreak of the race riots.
These colored men and women are not
brought here for their own improvement, but are
enslaved at low wages and have been used by the
pacekrs to undermine union conditions.
Organized labor has no quarrel with the col-
ored worker. Workers, white and black, are
fighting the same battle. The unions met the ac-
tion of the packers by starting to organize the
colored workers.
As soon as this work commenced, the packers
started to fight the unions with foul tactics. They
subsidized negro politicians and negro preachers
and sent them out among the colored men and
women to induce them not to join the unions.
They had a Y. M. C. A. secretary on their staff,
and the two present aldermen of the second
ward participated actively in this campaign of
the packers. One of them, Aid. L. B. Anderson,
went before Attorney Francis J. Heney, repre-
senting the workers, when he was preparing for
his appearance before Judge Altschuler and
urged that Heney should not ask the judge to
order the packers to maintain a preferential
union shop.
Their purpose in this, which during the last
several weeks has born bitter fruit, was to play
upon race prejudice and create dissension
between whites and blacks which would prevent
the colored workers from joining the unions and
prejudice the white workers against them for
that reason. Notwithstanding their efforts, the
colored workers came into the union in large
numbers.
Some weeks ago the unions redoubled their
efforts to get the negroes in. Squads of union or-
ganizers held street corner meetings as the work-
ers left the yards. The packers called on Captain
Caughlin of the stockyards station for mounted
police to break up these meetings, and Captain
Caughlin, tool of the packers, sent his bluecoats
there to ride down the men who gathered to
listen to the speakers. This caused a strike of
stockyards workers until the federation officials
and the officials of the Stockyards Labor Coun-
cil steped in and secured the transfer of Captain
Caughlin away from the yards and the cessation
of this Cossack practice.
The union planned a gigantic massmeeting
and demonstration to take place Sunday, July 6,
at which white and black workers were to parade
together throughout the stockyards district and
gather to hear speakers in a public playground.
On the last day before this event, the pack-
ers called upon the police and said they had in
formation that the negroes were arming to as- (
sault the whites and they wanted the parade'
permit revoked, at least they wanted the negroes
and whites to march separately.
Is not their purpose clear?
Executive Board, Chicago Federation of Labor
John Fitzpatrick, President,
E. N. Nockels, Secretary.
11
The Chicago Race Riots
THE frothy, bloody wake of the Great War
revealed many things in our civilization
that shook our faith in God, in Christ, and
in the divine purpose of mankind themselves.
Nowhere was the sickening realization that we
are still animals more vivid and unescapable
than in the city of Chicago during the week of
July 28th, 1919 when the flame of racial antag-
onism resulting from the friction of tens of
thousands of returning white soldiers meeting
tens of thousands of Negro workers firmly in-
trenched in tens of thousands of jobs that the
white soldiers and discharged civilians wanted
and needed. The placing of millions of men in
the forefront of the national defense and the
unheard of industrial speed to which America
was forced, taxed to the limit every man, woman,
and child of working age, and every pound of
machinery that we possessed. The Golden Age
of industry seemed to have arrived. Unlimited
markets, unlimited production, unlimited oppor-
tunity for work, unheard of wages. (We are not
discussing unheard of prices at this time.) All
this tapped and drained the American labor res-
ervoir in every state of the Union. The packers
of Chicago turned their dividend-hungry eyes
to our Southern fields where the brawny human
workhorses of Africa were enjoying their more
12
or less carefree lives on the farms, plantations
and in the small towns of the South. The lure
of the city with its fabulous wages and the
accompaning promises of the packers success-
fully started the Negro exodus northward. This
is no condemnation of the packers as such. Any
set of men in the same circumstances would
have done the same.
Conservatively estimated, one hundred thous-
and units of black blood entered the economic
and social arteries of the commonwealth of the
city of Chicago during this period. So long as
the door of opportunity to work swung to in no
man's face these white and black corpuscles cir-
culated freely and without disturbance in the
channels of city life and commercial intercourse.
True, middle class respectability looked askance
as the dark crest surged and swelled over the
imaginary Belt line into the domain formerly
recognized as strictly white. This resulted in
several bombings and individual clashes, but
if the city and country could remove the roots of
the industrial cancer the economic and social re-
lations of the two races would harmonize
smoothly, naturally and the hatred between the
two races would wither like an uprooted weed.
A vicious trinity that is neither sensible or
necessary and one that has reached its highest
degree of influence for evil is unemployed man,
the job, and the private owner of the job. When
this nation was young and sparsely settled the
question of the Negro exploitation and its con-
sequent effect on Northern business made the
fields of the South a battleground where Amer-
13
loans fought and died for what they thought
was justice to the blacks and the best interests
of the nation. That question was not properly
settled then and it will not and cannot ever be
properly settled while the master and servant
relation exists in any form on the face of the
earth. And now the nation is populous and
the machinery of production has increased
to the point when all work people cannot
work all the time at the machines and con-
sume all the produce of their labor and carry
the load of profit, rent and interest that goes
with private ownership and operation of the
great industries and resources of the nation.
The leather blacksnake whip that sang and
writhed over the backs of the slaves of the South
is now cunningly hidden in the refined lash of
modern necessity that is now wielded by the
present day representatives of the slave owners
of the fifties but in our blindness, in our desper-
ation as we are caught in the meshes of an
ever tightening struggle for jobs and existence
we, the white and black workers, see only the
worker who is striving for the same position in
industrial life that we are seeking and miss en-
tirely the sinister Moloch of capital that de-
mands the surplus of the toil of the whites and
the blacks that would mean life, education, and
a successful pursuit of happiness made easily
realizable for both races in America. In a so-
ciety where man worked for mankind and the
mighty engines of modern industry were at the
service of the people and not an unscrupulous
powerful minority race riots would be ridiculous,
unthinkable, impossible.
14
Theories advanced.
POLITICS. A word made filthy and abhor-
rent to decent Americans by the actions of poli-
ticians and admittedly a source of much irrita-
tion and disgust in the hearts of good men and
women of both races. Catering for votes that
disregards principle and puts place and the re-
wards of position above community good is
vicious and the human reptiles who practice it
should be hissed from the society of clean men
of both races. But municipal politicians juggle
with effects only. A municipal government has
nothing whatsoever to do with the social system,
or the schemes of national business that sharply
divide the classes and set them at variance. An
exil managed city government may aggravate
the people, the classes and the races and cause
friction that could be avoided otherwise, but its
influence for good or evil on the national social
structure upon which the nation builds its des-
tiny is nil. Given a just social system and an
average education and the slimly things who
have degraded the fine science of municipal po-
litical economy would be taken by the nape of the
neck, their spoils taken from their pockets and
kicked beyond the limits of human society. Bad
municipal politics aggravate tense situations
but they never determine great policies such as
must settle the American race question.
The Housing Problem.
The inflow of Southern Negroes into Chicago
to fill the needs of the stock yards and other
industries created a scarcity of houses in the
15
Black Belt that naturally forced some members
of the colored race beyond the ^imaginary boun-
daries that have been more or less loosely rec-
ognized by both races. This is a community
question that should have been met with a clean-
cut purpose of justice to all but when the
weights are manipulated by unscrupulous real
estate sharks and designing preachers and poli-
ticians the scales of decision are very much off
their balance. But the housing problem is simp-
ly a by-product of the underlying economic
struggle going on between the workers of the
races and, when aggravated, is mistaken by
some as a material contributing cause of
the race conflict. With the exception of some
black upstarts who are ashamed of the>r color
and wish to get out of any recognized zone, we
believe that the colored population of Chicago
want to work and pay for decent homes and is
sufficiently self-respecting to desire to live and
go their way in the world without intruding
where they are not wanted and the Whites should
show the same fine sense of social discrimination.
The contemptible few who are not satisfied with
the opportunities and surroundings among their
own people will effectually be curbed by the
Negro pride of race and pressure of public opin-
ion. This is not a cause of race riots; it is an
effect that is heightened by the greed of those
who take advantage of a loose municipal situa-
tion in order to turn a profit. The upstanding,
self respecting Negroes want to live by them-
selves; it is up to the city to see that they are
fiven the opportunity.
16
Hoodlums.
The hoodlum element may be reckoned with
in any crisis but it must not be mistaken for
the cause of any great social disturbance. The
vicious hoodlum element can never "start" any-
thing that even the man on the curbstone will
stand for. Under the loosening of ordinary re-
straints that inevitably happens when there is a
social upheaval of any character whatsoever the
"roughnecks" are in the streets, thickening the
difficulties and exasperating decent people on
both sides of any controversy, but to attribute
to this crowd any social power or material in-
flilence is shooting wide of the mark indeed.
During the American, French and English
Revolutions and the Civil War in America this
layer of human degeneracy complicated the
issues involved and made the task of the pro-
gressive forces doubly hard.
While society was shaken by the events of
the above periods unprotected homes, inns and
churches were sacked and the occupants and
those in charge mistreated. But no one attempts
to confuse the purposes of these vandals with
the sacred purpose of these revolutions. Just
so with Chicago. Many superficial thinkers talk
much of "hoodlum elements of both sides" being
to blame. Hoodlum degeneracy never precipa-
tated a social crisis ; it simply feeds on the license
accompanying times of great stress.
17
Racial Antagonisms.
Between the White and Black races nature
has created a physical division that possibly will
never be bridged. Some one has said that "The
E^ast is East and West is West and never the
twain shall meet". With ten-fold emphasis one
could truthfully say, White is White and Black
is Black and never the twain shall meet. But
that does not necessarily follow that the races
must live at daggers drawn or with a smolder-
ing f ued festering under a thin veneer of civilized
hypocrisy. The savage and superstitious theory
that the black race was cursed and put in bojid-
age forever to the whites because poor Ham
looked upon his father in a drunken fit has been
the source of much pernicious thinking for cent-
uries, and should be laughed away along with
a lot of other sanctimonious trickery. Aside
from the generally accepted fact that there is a
natural aversion that makes the amalgamation
of the races impossible and unthinkable, the re-
sults of Black and White crossing show deter-
ioration that, if the races were inclined to prac-
tice it, would finally see this civilization over-
powjj^red and swept away by a race of purer
type. Intermarriage would result in mediocrity
that would plunge us all into the swift down-
ward course that leads to the extinction of all
hybrids.
We wish to submit here a chapter on racial
development from the book "Mankind" by Seth
K. Humphrey. We do not endorse every state-
ment of Mr. Humphrey, we simply insert it here
for the purpose of presenting an interesting
angle of a much discussed problem.
18
A Study of Racial Development.
In the Negro-White this country faces a prob-
lem that overshadows every other in its mixed
population. The problem is not between full
White and full Black; the two opposites of the
world's peoples have not enough in common on
which to have a substantial difference. It con-
cerns the mulatto, a being who is neither one
nor the other, but a part of both.
Two more diverse races were never called up-
on to remingle their inheritances. We do not
even know what it is a remingling, for that im-
plies racial acquaintances in a former age. Yet
it matters Ij'ttle whether or not White or Black
is derived from a common ancestor; the period
of their divergence as separate races is so lost
.in the black recesses of time that no claim now
to singleness of origin can soften the fact of
their complete social estrangement.
So distince from each other are their inheri-
tances that never in history have full White and
Black lived in intimate relation of equality. Yet
within the limits of his person the Negro-White
carifies the elements of both in the closest asso-
ciation. We know, of course, that these elements
hold their identity even in this strange compan-
ionship. Black remains Black and White is still
White.
We call him Mulatto, but classify him in law
and society with full-blood Negro ; here we shall
call him Negro-White, to emphasize the fact that
in the fundamentals of his inheritance he is truly
a hyphenated citizen. And so absurd a misno-
mer has the word "Negro" become that we must
speak of the unmixed African as Black.
19
It ie presumable that most White stock ming-
ling with Black is of the non-assertive, inferior
quality which would of itself settle complacent-
ly in any environment. The average Negro-
White takes as easily the condition within his
soul as the inferior Wh t ite takes the conditions
in his neighborhood. But we know that in the
days of slavery much of the best Southern blood
found its way into colored veins. Those dom-
inating, assertive traits still wander unchanged
thru the germ-plasmic streams of many a hum-
ble colored folk. What a chaos of emotions,
then, must there be in the soul of him whose
sadly rr.tfxed inheritance happens to include some
of these passion-sown jewels of the White man!
Is there a more excruciating intimacy than that
of dominantly White, bred thru unnumbered
generations to association with the best of Ary-
an, fettered within the limits of a soul to a com-
pany of uncomprehending Black? The Negro-
White thus affljcted is a living protest. His is
not the protest of the Negro no Negro protests
his race. It is the cry of a forceful Aryanin
soul-entanglement with an utterly strange being.
How little do we comprehend the character ar-
rangement of this racially perplexed individual.
He does not even comprehend himself. When
with quivering voice and muscles tense, he de-
claims aga,inst the injustice done "his race", he
falls into the common error that his race is the
Negro. He, too, yields to general opinion and
the law that a single line, drawn close up to full
White, and farthest away from full Black,
divides the two races. As a matter of fact, a
line between Negro and Whjte would have to
20
thread its way thru every cell iji the Negro-
White's body. Classification of him with either
race is absurd, no matter at what degree of
color the line is drawn. The Negro-White be-
longs to neither race. He has the unchanged
qualities of both.
We little realize jnto what errors this class-
ification of the Negro-White leads us. His thous-
and acts of initiative in conforming to the Aryan
way are impelled by his White characteristics,
yet so accustomed are we to regard as Negro
every person with a trace of colored blood that
we set down these acts to the credjt or discredit
of the Negro.
Most of the literature and all the statistics
covering Negro activities are worthless, since
they deal mainly with doings of White men with
Black inheritance. There is no initiatjve . in the
full-blood Negro to follow the White man's way,
however well he may be taught to do so.
This last statement will be vigorously pro-
tested with an array of "Negroes" who have dem-
onstrated large capacity. But as with the In-
dian, no negro in America can say with any de-
gree of certainty that he i,is full-blood African.
Continued infusion of Black into a once mixed
line may so reduce the proportion of its White
characteristics as to obscure them from the eye,
but as long as any remain they are identical with
their predecessors that first strayed over from
the Aryan, and still effective for determining
character, altho of less effect because of the load
of Black.
Now when a "Negro" attains to more than an
average success in those matters which pertain
21
largely to the White man, and thru the ages be-
yond were beyond the attainments of the Afri-
can, it is a sensible conclusion that he is dom-
inated by his White characteristics. Booker T.
Washington is said to have had a remarkably
able White father. Surely no one who has
watched his great educational work would say
that the Black inheritance of Booker Washing-
ton was asserting itself. And very few colored
people who manifest Wtyite initiative claim or
appear to be full Black. It is just this estrange-
ment in the flesh of White and Black that makes
the hopelessness of any solution for the Negro-
White problem. Nature is wise in decreeing
sterility for the offspring of racially discordant
matings. The offense against her cannot be
perpetuated. She would have been more than
kind had she put a like ban upon the evil mat-
ings of White and Black, for that would have
left the races virtually full White and full Black,
with their common desire to live after its own
fashion. Then there could have been no race
problem. With the fall of slavery, the separa-
tion would have been easily effected, and the
integrity of the White race maintained.
But nature decrees that the Aryan shall pay
dearly for tyis forcible crossings with other peo-
ples. That decree is written upon the vanish-
ing ruin of every dead civilization. And so
now in America a tenth of our population is of
Negro blood of some degree, grafted upon us
by the unbreakable ties of blood infusion.
Why talk of deporting to their African home
a people no one can separate into Black and
White? Why talk of the Negro-White as either
22
Negro or White? So to the ever-increasing pro-
portion of our inferior stocks we must add in one
lump the mixture of ten millions. To hasten
the day when the critical proportion of our own
ineffectiveness shall have been attained, and we,
too, go the way of all others
Cause and Remedy.
Oan the white and black workers live in
American towns and cities and toil in the same
industries .in peace, harmony and understand-
ing? Shall there be segregation by law? Shall
the increasing Black race be colonized? Shall
we attempt the solution of the first great ques-
tion and dispose of the second and third silly
ones by boldly launching all the intelligence that
the vitally interested ones of both races, the
workers, possess in a nation-wide effort to ad-
just our differences where the conflict is most
bitter on the industrial field? In a word, shall
the axe be put to the root of modern racial an-
tagonism as it exists under the present system
of bitter competition for jobs?
If this pamphlet is instrumental in success-
fully raising a general discussion of the above
questions and results on a closer solidarity of
the workers white and black in the unions and
workingclass politics, it will have achieved a
high and noble purpose.
Were the race riots the result of dislike, or
granting there is a physical antipathy between
the races that raises a hopeless and impossible
social barrier, can the races liive in industrial,
economic and political understanding?
We can only when the competition of the col-
23
ored workers in the struggle for jobs does not
menace the economic foundation of the whate
workers' prosperity.
The above questions, coupled as they are with
possibilities and realization in American cities
and towns, challenge the attention and thought-
ful consideration of every man and woman who
real.izes the necessity of grappling with a prob-
lem that looms larger with every passing year.
And, strange as it may seem, the settlement of
this matter depends almost wholly upon agree-
ment and co-operation of the common people of
both races. These questions and the satisfac-
tory answer have roots far down in the fabric
of our social system where the politician and
the profiteer do not care to go. A clear under-
standing of our difficulties and a decisive ap-
plication of the cure can come only with a revo-
lution in our method of thinking and in our
race relations in every branch of industry. And
above all we must cooly and calmly realize that
the interests of the enemies of the toiling blacks
and whites are promoted by just such misunder-
standing as resulted in the race fued of July-
August 1919.
No permanent settlement of our present race
troubles is worth thinking about that does not
provide that the black worker shall enter in-
dustry and have an honored and respected place
there; and that he or she shall take up the re-
sponsibilities and privileges of unionism and co-
operative economic activity of every character.
Exclusion of the Negro from union activity will
be fatal to any fundamental racial progress;
voluntary refusal on the part of the negro or the
24
white worker to take this forward step leaves
both races as they are now pawns in the
hands of the industrial kings and profiteers, to
be played one against the other for the benefit
of the few,
The color line in the unions is not desired by
intelligent union men as- this sort of policy only
serves to create a cheap, desperate army of sub-
missive unorganized "hands" that renders in-
effective a general advance of labor. The unions
everywhere, as they are doing in the stockyards
of Chicago, should extend the right hand of wel-
come to their fellow workers who happen to
have a dark skin, and the colored workingman
and woman must earnestly take up the work
of unionizing their color. Socially choosing their
own paths but co-operating closely on the indus-
trial and political fields they may enjoy those
priceless benefits of solidarity that make strong-
ly organized men and women independent, self-
reliant and powerful. Any proposed solution of
the race question that does not emphsize unity
of economic organization as its basic principle
and industrial co-operation on the job in the
stockyards, the factories of Chicago and in the
mines, mills and industries of the nation is crim-
inally shortsighted and absolutely unmindful of
the best interests of both races.
The Major Cause.
The fierce and never-ending competition be-
tween wage-workers for a place at the machines
of industry that provide Americans with food,
clothing and shelter puts worker against work-
er in a never-ending struggle which at times
25
arouses all the best and worst there is in the
human breast. Since the time when mankind
wrung a living from the face of nature with their
bare hands the fight for the necessaries of life
has never been more intense and uncompromis-
ing than in the normal times of competitive in-
dustry. In tfimes of adnormal prosperity the
harshness of the struggle vanishes and the peo-
ple are happy, contented and peaceful ; but the
vicious circle of profit and surplus soon slows
down the machines and again there are more
men than jobs. During such times unemployed
men are apt to be intolerant of the Negro. On
the whole the record of the colored unionist is
good, where he has been unionized, but for rea-
sons that can be laid to the doors of both whites
and blacks, the great majority of Negroes have
not assisted in the solidarity of labor by organ-
izing. This has led to a nation-wide suspicion
that the Negro element can be "used" in times
of peace and especially in times of strike to
block a strike and other efforts to advance the
interests of labor. Tho this is not true in all
states, there still remains the fact that but a
small fraction of the black workers have allied
themselves with the white workers in the strug-
gle for the improvement of labor's lot.
Now the white man must work at the ma-
chine. The black man must work at the ma-
chine. The private owners of the machines
buy labor to operate the machines just as you,
reader, buy bread just as cheaply as possible.
The job question is the biggest thing that the
white and black workers have in common and if
there is misunderstanding, division and hatred
26
there these feelings will be carried into every re-
lation where white and black must meet and
from such seed nothing but friction and conflict
can develop. Upon the assured right to work
and "bring home the bacon" rests the well-being
and happiness of every home; when this right
is stabilized and safeguarded the current of na-
tional industrial and social life runs deep and
true, unmindful of the few pieces of unpleasant
wreckage that seem unavoidable in life; but
when the whole structure of home and working-
class prosperity is disturbed by inability to
work, or inability to provide the comforts of life
with the returns of labor, then the primal law
of self preservation asserts itself, every religious
and civilization check is swept away and the
modern cave-man, in tailor made clothes and
living in flats, is again contending for his piece
of meat and a place to hunt.
Any discussion of causes of race conflict and
race riots that ignores the fundamental com-
petition for existence and does not make allow-
ance for all the viciousness in the human nature
that is aroused when the means of livelihood is
threatened, misses the pivot upon which the
whole matter of peaceable relations of the races
swing.
As the satellites gravitate around the sun
and are dependant upon that great luminary
for an existence, so do such minor matters as
the housing problem, physical antagonism of the
races and hoodlumism depend upon the seeth-
ing ferment of job competition for their exis-
tence.
27
The Remedy.
There may be sneers in some quarters of an
attempt to offer a comprehensive remedy for so
great a problem as the American race question
in the pages of a pamphlet of this size, scope
and character. But with this, as with all other
great problems, there are a few fundamental
principles about which there are written tomes
and tomes and stacks and stacks of tiresome
books that merely befuddle the issue and fur-
nish quacks and parasites with a revenue.
The basic principle upon which all success-
ful treatment of any disease depends is correct
diagnosis. The symptoms must be scientifically
correlated and the relation between cause and
effect definitely established.
Does the white man feel instinctive dislike
or hatred for the Negro? It cannot be asserted
with any regard for candor or truth that this
is the case. In thousands of average-sized towns
in the United States, Negroes, when in an in-
significant minority, are cordially accepted into
the community life far more cheerfully than
the Mexican, the Jap, the Chinaman and half-
breeds of various crosses. And let it be forever
remembered that thousands of Americans died
on the battlefields of the South for the privilege
OF KEEPING THE BLACK PEOPLE IN
THEIR MIDST. Of course, some one will im-
mediately rise and say "They did not fight for
the social pleasure of their company; they died
for the right to exploit them as slaves." And
that is just the meat and gist of the whole mat-
28
ter. So long as the economic relations between
the races are adjusted according to the dominant
majority opinion, there will be no race trouble
other than that arising from the occasional rape,
killing or such. (And in justice to the colored
race let us admit that, including the terrible
tragedies of slavery days, there have been hun-
dreds of black women abused to one white wom-
an.) It is not the presence of the Negro in any
community that causes disturbances; it is the
presence of the Negro in sufficient numbers to
constitute a menace to white workers that breeds
such riots as disgraced Chicago. Did you ever
hear of Southern plantation owners or North-
ern White employers rioting against Negroes?
NOT SO THAT IT WAS NOTICEABLE. And
every reasonable American will admit that all
grave race crises in the United States have
their 'origin in some violent disagreement of
opinion as to what the economic relation of the
Negro in American industry should be.
These plain facts bring us to the point of
grappling with the present day phases of the
Negro problem. And now, as always, this prob-
lem has its roots in industrial relations.
The Civil War was a big riot over the Negro
and the victory of the North settled forever the
chattel relation of the Black to his master. But
by destroying the chattel slave fetters that en-
circled the Negro, by encouraging the growth
of the race and inventing labor-saving machinery
the former happy-go-lucky race of field work-
ers a few thousand in number have become an
industrial unit ten million strong that clamors
29
for places in modern industry AND HAS NO
PLACE ELSE TO GO.
And now for the remedy and its applica-
tion.
The Negro produces more than he consumes
and is therefore not a parasite. The White
worker does the same and so far their interests
are identical. The profiteer and Big Business
accumulate their riches by reason of the surplus
created by the difference between what the White
and Black workers produce and what they get.
Right here is the basis of the poverty, ignorance
and job competition that underlies all serious
race antagonism. Unity here will clear the so-
cial atmosphere as lightning clears the heavens.
Realization that economic comradeship in the
unions combatting parasites and exploiters as
the common enemies of both races will mean
the industrial and political triumph of the toil-
ers and a social understanding whereby the races
may live united and yet separate; and with the
bitter misunderstanding and struggle concern-
ing the jobs eliminated all other minor matters
between the races will mean no more than they
do between whites. With both races carrying
union cards in their pockets, with a demand for
equality of opportunity in their hearts, with
faces set like flint against their common enemies,
the menace of race riots, of poverty stricken
wage slavery, of the whole bitter struggle for
mere existence that now falls to the lot of the
builders and toilers of America will become a
nightmare of an ignorant barbaric past.
30
When the White man and the Black man
grasp hands in the fraternal grip of industrial
unionism and go forward in intelligent political
action the day of beastly self-destruction and
class fratricide will pass, and the day of an in-
dustrially co-operating working class of both
races which will dominate society for the good
of all will break.
31
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