Junius B. Wood.
The Negro in Chicago,
(1916)
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY.
UNIVERSITY OF
r.LINC!S LIBRARY
ir URBANA-CHAMPA1GN
Al SURVEY
35. 8960773
3502n
The
Negro
in
Chicago
Published \>y
The Chicago Daily News
UNIVERSITY OF.
ILLINOIS LIBRARY
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Distributed free in Chicago and to educational in-
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To individuals outside of Chicago, a charge of 10
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Address, The Daily News, 15 North 5th avenue,
Chicago.
THE NEGRO IN
CHICAGO
^
How He and His Race Kindred Came to Dwell
in Great Numbers in a Northern City;
How He Lives and Works; His
Successes and Failures ;
His Political Outlook.
A FIRST-HAND STUDY
By JUNIUS B. WOOD
(Of The Chicago Daily News Staff.)
Reprinted from The Chicago Daily News,
issues of Dec. 11 to 27, 1916.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. Page
How the Colored Man Came to Chicago 5
CHAPTER II.
Jobs Which Are Plentiful for Colored Workers 7
CHAPTER III.
The South and the Trade Unions of the North 9
CHAPTER IV.
The Negro in Business and Investment . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER V.
Many Are in Professional and Political Life 13
CHAPTER VI.
Musicians, Artists, Writers, and the Stray Genius . . . . 15
CHAPTER VII.
Apartments for Colored Families; Two Great Institutions . . 17
CHAPTER VIII.
Churches and Charitable Institutions 19
CHAPTER IX.
Public Schools and Opportunities in Civil Service . . . . 21
CHAPTER X.
Real Estate Values and Bad Housing Conditions .... 23
CHAPTER XI.
Politics Puts Disorderly Dives Among Homes 25
CHAPTER XII.
Gambling_Controlled by a Powerful Political Syndicate . . . 27
CHAPTER XIII.
Mayors, Congressmen and State Senators Elected by Colored Voters 29
CHAPTER XIV.
Planning for the Future and Better Conditions .... 30
, HIST,
THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO
CHAPTER I
How the Colored Man Came to Chicago
Jean Baptiste Point de Saible tramped
to the shore of Lake Michigan and l>uilt
a home 137 years ago. His was the first
house in the present 198 square miles of
skyscrapers and miscellaneous structures
known as Chicago. The rough house in
the wilds along the lake may have the
credit for being the foundation of the
city. Point de Saible remained here sev-
enteen years, traded with the Indians,
trapped for skins, fought and drank whis-
ky. Then in 1796 he sold his horns to
a Frenchman and went away to what is
now Peoria. He was the first settler arid
property owner in Chicago.
Point de Saible was a free colored man
from Santo Domingo. To-day the city
which that colored man founded is one
of opportunity and freedom unexcelled
for the man, woman or child of the Negro
race. From all parts of America, espe-
cially from the southland, their eyes tuin
toward Chicago. Many of them come
north. The influx has run into the thou-
sands in the last few months.
Colored Population Gaining*
The colored portion of Chicago's popu-
lation is growing more rapidly in propor-
tion to its numbers than any other. Pnme
persons see in it a danger to the future
of the city. It is admittedly a very com-
plex problem. The colored population is
pushing out farther every day. It thas
broken out of the city blocks which a
few years ago were called its own, until
to-day it covers hundreds of blocks of
residence and business territory. It pre-
sents a situation which cannot be ig-
nored.
Little has been known of this big ele-
ment in the city's life. Even thoee who
have given it study and time cannot
agree on such an elementary fact as the
number of colored persons in the city.
Estimates run from 40,000 to 175,000.
Definite information on the local activi-
ties of the race has been lacking. Now
a reporter for The Daily News has made
an effort to present the facts about some
of these activities, in order to describe
truthfully a condition vital to Chicago.
Colored men and women are represent-
ed in almost every line of activity in
Chicago. In no other city of the country
do they fill such responsible positions in
political, industrial and professional
fields. That is why leaders of the race
declare that Chicago is the city which
holds out the most promising future for
their people.
In the Industrial Field.
In the industrial field tho colored popu-
lation has invaded the labor market with
a rush. Men and women of the race are
being employed by thousands in business
plants where a few years ago a colored
person would not be admitted even as a
visitor. To organized labor the growing
problem of colored help is a disquieting
augury of future storms. Chicago is one
of the few cities in the United States
where the 'colored man is not admitted
to the trade unions, even though he may
have a union card from some other city.
Out of the union he is eligible as a strike
breaker .and once he has shoved his foot
ever the "employes' entrance" the colored
man often remains, even after the strike
ie settled.
In Chicago are hundreds of stores, res-
taurants, saloons, barber shops, haber-
dasheries, tailor shops, beauty parlors,
real estate offices and similar lines of
business run by colored men and women,
In commercial activity they have lagged
in the north compared with the south.
They trade at stores run by other races.
Some stores make special inducements
to them. Others try to discourage their
patronage.
Race Politically Exploited.
Politically the Negro race is being ex-
ploited in Chicago by designing men. A
few colored men receive political prefer-
ment and jobs are plentiful of certain
classes and kinds in return for assistance
in this exploitation. Thus some individuals
get a chance to make money through
methods by which the race as a whole is
held back and discredited. Into districts
where homes of colored families predom-
inate come through political favor the
disorderly saloons, the all night cabarets,
the shady hotels and disorderly houses,
grambling clubs and other influences of
destrucion. The colored boy or girl who
is taught in the public schools by day
sees at night the lights of the neighbor-
ing vicious resort.
Vice in Colored District*.
This is the menace to Chicago, accord-
ing to sociological students. In the last
few months it has been so noticeable that
it might seem a definite administration
policy. Vice resorts which have been
driven from other sections of the city,
new ones opened on pretentious lines, old
ones which have been closed by the po-
lice, flourish in the colored districts, un-
molested by police or city authorities,
defying laws of municipality and state.
If the entrance into a one time exclusive
residence district of colored household-
ers is to be the first step in its decay
into a vice district the situation is grave.
This is what has come about in much of
the territory north of 35th street and
west of South Wabash avenue. City au-
thorities are prone to ignore the right
of their colored constituents to respecta-
ble home surroundings. Reputable col-
ored citizens, who could afford to do so,
have moved from this part of the city,
leaving a district of high lights and deep
shadows which is equaled in few cities.
Included in Chicago's population are
about 75,000 colored persons. Other thou-
sands live in Evanston; Gary, Ind.; Blue
Island, and various suburbs. The Negro
yearbook, published at Tuskegee, Ala.,
places the Chicago negro population at
44,103. Some who are particularly per-
turbed by the activities of the colored
citizen place the number at 175,000. The
board of education census for 1914, the
last in which colored people were enu-
merated separately, fixed the number at
54,557. Allowing for the normal increase
of 5 per cent, and considering the recent
large immigration from the south, the
present figure should be near 75,000, or
about 3 per cent of tho total population
of the city.
Colored People in 2d Ward.
Nearly half the city's colored popula-
tion lives in the 2d ward. The number is
close to 30,000 in that ward. The colored
voters control it politically, though the
whites outnumber them. However, all
the former are citizens, so that of the
ward's qualified voters 78 per cent are
colored. The 1st ward, with 7,000, the
30th with almost as many, then the 3d,
31st, 14th and 6th in order, have heavy
colored voting strength. Many precincts
in the 2d ward do not have a dozen vot-
ers who are not colored.
Chicago's colored population follows
certain fairly distinct street lines. Start-
ing at West 22d and South Dearborn
streets, the largest section runs south,
broadening toward the east and following
the railroad tracks between Federal
and South LaSalle streets on the
west. At 24th street it has taken in
South State street; at 26th street it has
crossed Wabash avenue; at 31st street it
runs far east, tapering back gradually be-
tween 35th and 39th streets to its former
narrow four blocks. This continues be-
yond 63d street, always pushing farther
south.
Chicago's largest colored population
lives between 29th and 35th streets. Many
real estate men hold that it will be only
a few years before the colored people
spread over all that big section as far
east as the lake.
Colony in Englewood Also.
In Englewood there is a considerable
colony of colored people between West
59th, West 63d, South Ada and South Hal-
sted streets, and south from there as far
as West 75th street, between South Ra-
cine avenue and South Morgan street.
South of East 63d street and west of Cot-
tage Grove avenue is a territory where
they can buy property, but cannot rent
from white owners. Many have bought in
that high class district. Around East 55th
street and Lake Park avenue is a saloon
element, while more of the quiet resi-
dence class have homes around Evans
avenue and East 48th street, Berkeley
avenue and East 44th street, Ellis ave-
nue and East 52d street and in South
Michigan avenue, south of 58th street. In
what is known as Millerdale, between
East 93d and 95th streets, for four blocks
east of South State street are several
hundred more families.
On the west side the colored residents
pretty generally occupy a territory in-
cluded between Clarkson court, Ada and
Harrison streets and Grand avenue. Few-
er are on the north side than in any
other part of the city Most of them are
west of Wells street and south of North
avenue.
CHAPTER II
Jobs Which Are Plentiful for Colored Workers
How generous Chicago is in work for
the colored man is shown by figures com-
piled in a canvass of several hundred
homes made by The Daily News. Three
blocks cutting across South State. South
Dearborn, Federal and South LaSalle
streets were covered They were blocks
which, in addition to homes, included
churches, stores, saloons and other less
savory places to which attention will be
given later. The census showed 1,406 col-
ored men, women and children in the
three blocks and not more than twenty-
five white persons. They were working
people, not of the well-to-do class.
Some Dislike Steady Work.
Many of the colored people from the
south are unaccustomed to steady work
iwith only one day's rest in every seven.
| This is one of the complaints made by
/ employers who have found their work un-
^ satisfactory. A man was at the Wabash
I avenue department of the Y. M. C. A.,
/ complaining he had lost his job. A. L.
(^ Jackson, the secretary, asked him if he
had worked every day each week.
"Goodness, no," the man replied. "I
just had to have some days of the week
off for pleasure."
"Conditions in the north will change
that spirit," said Mr. Jackson in telling
of the incident. "The man who comes
here will want to keep pace with his
brothers in the north in living and rec-
reation and will find it necessary to work
every day in order to keep up. His man-
ner of living, the pleasures he affords
himself and many other things will be
added to a changed condition of life, so
that loafing will no longer be considered
a pleasure."
Jackson is a Harvard graduate. He
went through Andover, made the Harvard
track team and when he graduated in 1914
was the class orator.
., "In the south they do not consider the
^individual in discussing the problem of
the Negro race," he said.
Big Percentage at Work.
The percentage of adults who were
working was the surprising feature of
The Daily News canvass. Of those out
of work, some were sick, others laying
off for a few days and still others too
lazy or disinclined to w
reasons. The summarized figures,
eluding children were:
Men.
Working 799
Idle 72
Totals 871
Per cent working 91.8
•Of these 246 are housewives.
Families Left In the South.
Another significant feature of the house
to house canvass was the number of men
shown to have come here in the last six
months. Many of these had left wives
and children in the south, and declared
their eagerness to bring them to Chicago.
They were saving enough to pay the cost
of moving their families north as soon as
mild weather comes again next year.
In one house there were four men who
were keeping bachelor quarters. Each
earned from $18 to $27 a week. One was
a stationary engineer. He had saved
$153. He intended buying some property
and by next spring hoped to have enough
to start payments and bring his wife and
two children to Chicago. Two others
also were saving to bring their families.
In one block along South State street,
out of 307 men 178. or 58 per cent, had
come to Chicago in the last six months.
Away from the lodging house district the
percentage was lower.
Such conditions indicate that Chicago's
colored population will continue to grow
rapidly.
Once colored help is used, it is seldoiL
discharged. The waiters in a well knowii
"fill 'em quick" chain of lunchrooms in
Chicago once struck on the promise of
being taken into a union. In the end
they found themselves out of the union
and their Jobs. both. That is about the
only strike on record. After barring
them for many years that company a few
weeks ago started re-employing them as
short order cooks.
Doesn't Send Money Abroad.
"The employers who have used colored
workers keep them." said an aged col-
ored merchant. "The colored man has
a pride in his work, in his job and in the
concern he works for. His living ex-
penses are always greater than his in-
come. He does not send one-fourth of
all he earns to some country in Europe.
His ideas are American, and he is not
against the law and always scheming to
strike or riot or wreck the plant of his
employer."
Classes of work in which numerous col-
ored men or women are employed in Chi-
cago are:
iers
laying
Pullman porters.
Manicurists,
othei
PS too
Butchers.
Bartenders.
for
worse
Asphalt layers.
Carpenters.
Postal clerks.
Bricklayers.
gure£
i, ex-
Stationary engineers.
Section hands.
Chauffeurs.
Molders.
omen.
Total.
Muckers.
Cooks.
*381
1,180
Housemaids.
Waiters.
62
134
Janitors.
Saloon porters.
Housewreckers.
Laborers.
443
1.314
Theater ushers.
Messenger boys.
86.0
89.8
Housemen.
Ironworkers.
Barbel..
Weekly Wages Higher Here.
The average weekly wage of the col-
ored worker in the United States is $8.63,
according to Dr. Charles E. Bentley, one For Pullman and Stockyard*.
of the two Chicago directors of the Na- TQ Pullman company, which for years
tlonal Association for the Advancement was tne , t sm|lc y^mployer ofycol.
of Colored People. Miss Jane Addams is ored workers in the couatry( now is being
the other director. Chicago is attractive Qard presged by the stockyards concerns
because the wages are much higher here. The Pullman * ompany ^&B about 7(50o
The canvass made by The Daily News porters, of whom about 5,000 live in Chi-
showed some of the weekly wages to be cago. Recently it has added colored men
as follows' an(i women as car cleaners. Another
Delivery or door boys, $8. 7'500 are 7aiters in Restaurants, dining
Asphalt layers, $18 to $27.90. cars or cafes> or Porters in saloons. The
Building wreckers, $28. stockyards plants already employ more
Waiters, saloon porters, hodearrlers. etc., $10 than 5,000 colored workers, Swift & Co.
to K12- alone having 2,000, and are adding to the
Cooks and janitors, $14. number daily.
|Uoreamn^nr6%o%08.and tIP8' , A^*f't Paving companies employ hun-
Barbers and bartenders. $18. dreds of colored men. They will be out
Tunnel workers, $31.20. of work when extreme cold weather sets
Track elevation, $19.20. in, and the colored labor market will face
Girl theatrical maids and ushers, $6. its first crisis in Chicago.
CHAPTER III
The South and the Trade Unions of the North
One of the largest of Chicago's hotels
had trouble with its chambermaids a
couple of weeks ago. They quit in a
body. That night a telephone message
came to one of the colored churches on
the south side from the hotel manage-
ment saying that 300 colored girls <were
wanted for chambermaids. There was a
scurrying around and mucii more tele-
phoning, for 300 unemployed girls who
can do bedroom work of the kind required
by a hotel of international reputation are
hard to find in these days of plentiful
work. But they were found and the next
morning colored maids were on every
floor in the big hotel.
The European war and the consequent
shortage of labor in the United States
have given the colored man his indus-
trial opportunity. Previous to the war
'his greatest opening came through the
hostile attitude of the labor unions,
strange as it may seem. Now there is
work in plenty for all and few are idle,
whether skilled workmen or ordinary la-
borers.
Churches Employment Agencies.
Nearly every colored church has an
employment agency which is one of its
mast active auxiliaries. The Young Men's
Christian association at 3763 South Wa-
bash avenue has an employment branch
which fills more positioas than any other
agency among the colored people. The
Young Women's Christian association at
3424 Rhodes avenue and the Phyllis
Wheatley home at 3256 Rhodes avenue do
similar work for women and girls. The
Frederick Douglass center, 3032 South
Wabash avenue, and the Wendell Phillips
settlement, 2009 Walnut street, the two
social centers among the rave, find this
one of their most valuable activities. The
Negro Fellowship league, 3005 South
State street, an organization of Mrs. Ida
B. Wells Barnett, is supported to a
large extent by its employment agency.
Labor agents from the Stockyards Pack-
ing houses and other big concerns patrol
South State street every day, accosting
every idle man they see and asking him
if he 'cares for work.
Cause of Southern Migration.
Demand for cheap labor caused the col-
ored man to be brought from Africa. Now
that he is the master of his own des-
tinies the same force is bringing him
north. Shortage of crops, the boll weevil
anl lack of work in the south were add-
ed incentives causing him to leave that
section of the country. The colored man
wants to come north, where he can vote,
send his children to school and have im-
proved opportunities. Nearly all of those
who come north are said to be industri-
ous.
"I can send my children to school here
and can get that my family is safe," said
a colored man who had been a steamboat
captain in Florida. "In the south I did
not know when trouble might start in the
town where I lived and in the excite-
ment some of my family be murdered."
Arrivals of Varying: Types.
Of an entirely different type was a
southern field hand who had been in Chi-
cago four days, got himself a revolver
and went out and brutally murdered an
aged white man returning from work.
A good proportion of the colored men
who are brought into court are these re-
cent immigrants from the south. Invari-
ably they explain to the court that they
were given free railroad tickets to come
north and that after working a few weeks
in return they became tired and started
loafing. Courts have threatened to com-
pel the agencies which brought such riff-
raff north to transport them back to the
south.
The south has protested strenuously
against the exodus. In Florida there is
a penalty of $1,000 fine for any person
convicted of employing a colored man to
go out of the state. In Georgia the fine
is $500. One labor agent for a big Chi-
cago corporation escaped being locked up
only by beating the local police in a race
to an outgoing train.
In Macon, Ga., the police forcibly dis-
persed 1,000 Negroes, who were at the
railroad station to get a train for Chica-
go and the next day the police asked for
rifles to keep the colored men at home.
In the rural parts of the state a form of
peonism has been introduced by which a
colored man must sign a year's contract
before he can get work and becomes a
fugitive if he leaves before the end of
the year. Through the length and breadth
of the south newspapers are demanding
that northern labor agents be "run out of
town" and that the Negroes be kept at
home. They assert that the colored man
cannot stand the northern winters.
Whether Admiral Peary discovered the
north pole or not, a colored man was
with him at the point farthest north, so
the race can endure cold if it wants to.
It is now almost as difficult for a col-
ored man to leave some parts of the
s^u'th as it was in the day of the "un-
derground railroad" of sixty years ago.
In many of the small towns he must ex-
plain where he is going before he can buy
a railroad ticket. If he admits that he is
coming to Chicago he does not get the
ticket. He must travel by easy stages,
buying tickets for short distance, until
Tennessee or Kentucky is reached and
he can slip across the Ohio river. Rail-
roads gave excursions to the north until
they feared southern state legislatures
would retaliate. The big employers of
labor chartered their own trains. An
empty trains would be backed into a town
and word passed around that anybody
wanting to go north could get aboard.
After it had lingered at enough towns to
fill the train it made no more stops.
Most of the passengers never went back.
One stockyards plant brought several
hundred butchers from its southern plant
for the summer rush and sent them home
again. Other concerns offered free return
trips until December if the men had not
overcome their homesickness by that
time.
The importation of laborers from the
south is continuing. On one day 195 men
arrived from Louisiana in one party to
work for a stockyards concern. Even
living quarters were waiting for them in
houses which had been rented by their
employers. Ocular evidence of the foot-
hold colored labor has at the stockyards
is shown at the Indiana avenue station
of the South Side Elevated railroad when
the trains come from "the yards" at
the close of the day's work.
Usually Not In the Unions.
Colored workers first got into the stock-
yards through a strike. They were not
members of the union and when the
unions went out the colored man went in.
Though the American Federation of La-
bor has gone on record for admitting the
colored man to the unions, many of the
national organizations will not admit
him and each local organization adopts a
policy of its own. In Chicago the colored
man with union card from another city
is permitted to work on union jobs, but
he can seldom get into a local union.
"Union leaders look on the colored
man as cheap labor," explained a man in
touch with the situation. "Chicago is one
of the few cities where he is either kept
out or frozen out of the unions. If he
has a union card from some other city he
is permitted to work as long as there is
plenty of work but his card will not be
transferred to the local union. It is not
the colored man who does not believe in
organization, but the union which forces
him to be on the other side."
10
CHAPTER IV
The Negro in Business and Investment
Jesse Binga has a bank at 3633 South
State street. It is the only bank in Chi-
cago headed by a colored man, of which
all the employes and most of the patrons
are colored persons. It Is one of the
few successful financial institutions of
that order In the country.
Although not the wealthiest colored
man In Chicago, Binga probably is the
most extensive real estate operator of
that race. Comparatively few years ago,
so few that it still lingers In the memory
of others of his race, he drove a wagon
peddling coal oil and gasoline. He in-
vested his money in realty. He married
a sister of the late "Mushmouth" John-
son, a well known gambler and saloon-
keeper. The sister inherited more than
$200,000 of the estate.
Johnson's last gambling place was at
464 State street. Every 1 cent piece that
came into his gambling houses was
thrown into a box and used to purchase
toys for the children of the neighbor-
hood. His foster sister Cecilia later
caused a sensation shortly before she
graduated from the University of Chi-
cago, when her family connections were
discovered. She now is the wife of Dr.
Theodore R. Mozee, 5131 South Wabash
avenue.
"None Like Me," Say* Binga.
"I'm an Irishman. You won't find any
other colored people like me," says Mr.
Binga. Most of the colored business men
in Chicago have started with nothing,
for the race is young as a free people in
the nation and still younger in the north.
Few of them, aside from professional
men, have got beyond the stage of "small
business."
Real estate appeals as an investment
to the thrifty Negro. The individual hold-
ings of some of them run into surpris-
ing figures. Possibly the largest single
owner of Chicago realty among colored
men is George H. Jackson, 3416 Vernon
avenue, who became wealthy by corner-
ing coal in Cincinnati and came to Chi-
cago after marrying a daughter of one
of the wealthiest colored men in Ohio.
He is past 60 and an ex-member of the
Ohio legislature.
When telling of Chicago real estate
there is always the old story of "once it
all could have been bought for a song."
On the northeast corner of South State
and 36th streets Is a piece which actu-
ally was bought for a song or two. It
represents an investment of $60,000. Jo-
seph J. Jordan is the owner. When he
was a boy his father had a pool hall. He
took to the violin and became an enter-
tainer. Many who saw the night lights in
Chicago remember his cabaret. Then he
wrote "Lovey Joe" and some other songs
and went to London. There he sang him-
self into the heart of an East Indian
maiden and a dowry of $150,000. They live
at 3406 South Park avenue and the songs
are buying real estate.
Hundreds of other colored men are
owners of property varying from humble
homes to one or more apartment build-
ings. Some of the latter are rented ex-
clusively to white tenants.
731 Negro II u mines* 1 1 oilmen Here.
In other lines of business colored men
«nd women have been active. Black's
Blue Book for 1917, which is published
by Ford S. Black (a postal clerk for
eight hours of each night) as a "di-
rectory of Chicago's active colored people
and guide to their activities," enumerated
731 business houses in sixty-one differ-
ent lines. Not all of them are on the
south side. A restaurant and delicates-
sen is in Broadway at Lawrence avenue.
Many are run by women. They even have
their "lady barbers." Factories, stores
and offices are run by colored men. Each
employs from one to forty persons.
There are two colored licensed building
contractors and a number of carpenters,
plaster bosses, bricklayers, decorators
and others in building trades. Olivet Bap-
tist church, one of the largest in the
city; St. Monica's Roman Catholic church,
Fort Dearborn hospital, the Crescent ho-
tel, the Ford hotel and a number of
apartment and store buildings were
erected by colored contractors, artisans
and laborers.
The largest manufacturing establish-
ment makes face powder and toilet prep-
arations. Anthony Overton, its presi-
dent, is head of the Chicago branch of
the National Business league.
The classification is as follows:
Advertising agencies
"Movie" theater ...
Art stores
. 1
Hair dressing parlors 70
Hardware 2
Hotels .... 5
Automobile liveries
Bakeries
.13
5
Ice cream parlors.... 4
Insurance agencies . . 10
1
Barber shops
SO
Laundries .... . 3
Billiard halls
•>3
Mercantile agencies . . 1
Millinery stores 10
Musical instruments. . 2
Music stores (sheet) . . 3
Blacksmith shops . . .
Hook stores
. 4
1
China painting
Chiropodists
. 4
?1
Oigarmakers
ft
Cleaning and Press-
Ing 8
Photographers 5
Piano tuning . . 1
Cobblers
9
Plumbers 3
Confectioners
4
Printers 7
Contractors
4
Public halls 8
Court reporters
Decorators
Dressmakers
. 3
.13
15
Publishers 7
Real estate 19
Regalia and uniforms. 1
Restaurants 63
Saloons 23
Drug stores
Dry goods stores...
.12
. 1
. 6
Shirtmakers . .. 1
Employment agencies 51 Shoe polish factories 5
Express and storage. 801 Shoeshining stands ..12
Feather factory 1 Sign painters 5
Fisfa markets 4
Haberdashers
Tailors 33
Florists 4 Toilet articles
Furniture stores 7 Undertakers 16
Groceries and delica-
tessens 33
Total 731
11
In the south the colored business man
V*
to a large extent enjoys a monopoly of
the trade of his own race. In Chicago he
faces desperate competition. Few stores
attempt to discourage colored patronage.
Race clannishness, nomadic Instincts for
bargain hunting, business temperament,
ability of proprietors and many other
factors enter into the situation.
Dr. George C. Hall, 3408 South Park
avenue, probably knows his people from
the highest to the lowest as well as any
man in the country.
"When a Negro business man starts
complaining that his people will not trade
with him you can be sure that the fault
is with him," said Dr. Hall. "That the
colored people like to trade with their
own is shown by the fact that the stores
in South State street, most of which have
white owners, employ colored clerks to
attract colored trade. Too many men at-
tempt to run a business which they do
not understand, and when they fail blame
it on their customers."
Some Merchants Shortsighted.
"Some colored merchants can't see far
enough ahead, and instead of figuring that
a customer will come back they try to
get the best of him," said a Jewish mer-
chant of years of experience In the dis-
trict. "Once the colored man or woman
thinks he is being overcharged his trade
Is lost."
Long years of faithful service have ad-
vanced certain colored men to office po-
sitions of prominence which do not
require them to come In contact
with their own people. One is an elec-
trical engineer for the Commonwealth
Edison company, another is general time-
keeper in the downtown offices of one of
the big packing companies, another is
traffic manager for a Cleveland steel com-
pany with offices in Chicago's "loop." A
big tin company has a colored man as
secretary of the corporation in charge of
its downtown offices; a machinery com-
pany has a colored man for buyer; an-
other of the race is solicitor for one of
the big banks. Many represent Insurance
companies, real estate firms, undertaking
establishments and such among a colored
clientele.
One colored woman, a widow, over-
came the handicap of both sex and
color before she married and retired. She
is Mrs. W. B. Claxton, 19 East 28th street,
who until a few months ago (then Miss
Mable P. Blue) was office manager for
me Percheron Society of America at the
Union stockyards.
\
12
CHAPTER V
Many Are in Professional and Political Life
From the lofty legislative kail to the
garish, law defying cabaret is a long
Jump. Yet in these and in many places
between the colored men find field for
activity in Chicago. Some are college
graduates. Others by natural talent have
graduated from the noisy saloon or the
sedate Pullman sleeper. In almost every
profession they are to be found. Many
are in the front ranks. They are push-
ing forward in increasing numbers each
year. Lawyers, physicians, surgeons,
dentists, musicians, clergymen, writers,
teachers, are among them. Many cater
principally to white clients.
Miss Ida Platt, 5237 Ellis avenue, one
of the first women to be admitted to the
Illinois bar, is the only woman lawyer
of the race in the state if not in the en-
tire country. Mrs. E. H. Morris is at-
tending law college preparatory to tak-
ing the bar examination. Many colored
women have entered the professions,
making a creditable showing in competi-
tion with white rivals.
Colored Race In Professions.
A careful canvass shows the numerical
strength of the leading professions to be:
fetors 53
Artists 15
Authors , 18
Clergymen 74
Dentists .' '/, 32
Lawyers 48
Musicians (made up of 4 bands, 4 Jubilee
troupes, 5 orchestras, 28 pianists, 30 vocal-
ists) 71
Professional nurses 47
Physicians ' " $6
School teachers 41
Total 483
Naming of the most prominent of those
who have risen from the environment of
menial tasks which occupy most of the
race indicates the possibilities for the
future.
Edward H. Morris, 3757 Vernon avenue,
lawyer and twice a member of the Illi-
nois legislature, is probably the best
known professional man of his race. He
is one of the wealthy men of Chicago and
the wealthiest colored man in the north-
west. Among his own people his chief
activity is as grand master of their Grand
United Order of Odd Fellows, their larg-
est fraternal organization. He bought the
Niblack summer home near Benton Har-
bor, Mich.
Lawyer Thomas a Pioneer.
More than forty years ago J. W. E.
Thomas appeared at the old Harrison
street police station to defend his race-
He was the first colored lawyer in Cki-
cago, the only colored member of the re-
publican county central committee, served
three terms in the legislature, where he
put through a bill of rights, and before
he died accumulated a fortune as lawyer
and bondsman. Many have come since his
time.
Most of the lawyers have acquired
prominence through activities in politics,
where the handicap of color was less se-
vere. lAmong them, together with the po-
sitions which they have held are:
Franklin A. Denison, 451 East 42d street,
and S. A. T. Watkins, 3332 Calumet ave-
nue, former assistants to the corporation
counsel.
S. Laing Williams, 4203 St. Lawrence
avenue, former assistant district attor-
ney.
Louis B. Anderson, 2821 Wabash avenue,
and Edward H. Wright, 2963 Wabash ave-
nue, assistants to the corporation counsel.
Ferdinand L. Barnett, 3234 Rhodes ave-
nue, former assistant state's attorney.
Edward E. Wilson, 3815 Vernon avenue,
assistant state's attorney.
Jerry Brumfield, 6209 Loomis street, as-
sistant city attorney.
Denison is colonel and Anderson a cap-
tain in the &th Illinois.
One Moving Picture Censor.
The Rev. A. J. Carey, pastor of the
Institutional Methodist church, is an-
other appointee in the corporation coun-
sel's office. He was on the board of
moving picture censors. That place Is
now held by Alonzo J. Bowling, 5363 Dear-
born street, who won It by civil service.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Wright
thinks the highest honor he ever re-
ceived was that of president pro tern of
the county board and head of the county
government for six weeks. He was a
member of that board for four years.
John Jones, at that time one of the city's
leading tailors and an owner of downtown
business property, was the first colored
man elected in 1872; next came Theodore
Jones In 1894, then Wright, later Frank
Leland and Oscar De Priest. The last
named is the 2d ward alderman, the first
of the race to hold that office in Chi-
cago. All are dead except De Priest and
Wright.
In the early '80s Joseph W. Moon was
twice elected clerk of the south town.
Henry J. Mitchell and Attorney William
Martin also held the office.
State Legislature Has Had Twelve.
Twelve colored men including the pres-
ent two, who have been members of the
Illinois legislature are:
*J. W. E. Thomas, 1876-8, 1882-6.
George P. Ecton, 1886-90.
Attorney Edward H. Morris, 1890-2, 1902-4.
James E. Bish, 1892-4.
*MaJ. John C. Buckner. 1894-6.
Attorney William L. Martin, 1898-1900.
*Attorney John G. Jones, 1900-2.
Edward D. Green, 1904-6, 1910-2.
•Dr. Alexander Lane, 1906-10.
Shederlck B. Turner, 1914-16.
MaJ. R. R. JacKson, 1912-18.
Renjamln H. Lucas, 1916-18.
•Deceased.
Caring for the ills of humanity has ap-
pealed strongly to the colored men and
13
women and more have secured educations
for that purpose than lor any other. Dr.
Daniel H. Williams, 446 East 42d street,
at St. Luke's hospital; Dr. Allen A. Wes-
ley, 3149 Prairie avenue, and Dr. George
C. Hall, 3408 South Park avenue, at Prov-
ident hospital, are surgeons with few
equals. Dr. U. Grant Dailey, 4317 For-
restville avenue, graduate of Northwest-
ern and ex-president of the colored Na-
tional Medical association, is a younger
surgeon. Under President Cleveland, Dr.
Williams was superintendent of the
Freedman's hospital in Washington.
An Expert In Tuberculosis.
Dr. A. Wilberforce Williams, 3408 Ver-
non avenue, is one of the foremost phy-
sicians in the country in the study and
treatment of tuberculosis. Dr. Spencer
C. Dickerson, 3601 State street, specialist
in eye, ear, nose and throat, is an assist-
ant professor at Rush and wears a "C"
whioh he won as a member of the Uni-
versity of Chicago track team.
Dr. Charles E. Bentley, 529 East 41st
street, is one of the leading dentists of
the city, has done much for the science
of dentistry and at various times has been
an officer of local societies. In all these
professions are many others doing cred-
itable work, though they have not yet at-
tained the prominence of the men men-
tioned.
Two women nurses showed their caliber
in this year's city civil service exam-
inations for school tuberculosis nurses
when they passed first among fifty-Severn
competitors. Miss Lulu G. Warlick, 16
West 36th street, was first with a mark-
ing of 97.86 per cent, and Mrs. Luemiza
Cooper, 3717 State street, next with 96.5.
Miss Warlick waived her rights and is
night superintendent at Provident hospi-
tal.
C. S. Duke a Harvard Man.
In another quasi-political position is
Charles S. Duke. 4636 West Erie street,
civil engineer with the city harbor com-
mission. He is a Harvard graduate and
a first lieutenant in the 8th Illinois in-
fantry.
At least two University of Chicago col-
ored graduates have achieved distinction.
Ernest Just, after finishing at Dartmouth,
received his Ph. D. degree in biology and
allied subjects from Chicago in the fall
of 1916 and now is a professor ni Howard
university at Washington, D. C. Monroe
M. Work, the statistician at Tuskegee for
the Negro Yearbook, ie also a graduate
of the local university.
"On the day Just graduated with his
high honors the newspapers did not men-
tion it," said Dr. Bentley. "One reason
why so many fail to realize what the
negro is doing is made clear."
14
CHAPTER VI
Musicians, Artists, Writers, and the Stray Genius
In one of the most notorious of the
South State street cabaret saloons which
cater to late carousers of all colors and
both sexes a dark skinned colored man
with protruding lips and a shock of white
hair over his forehead plays the piano
through the night. Occasionally he
glances at a sheet of music. Most of the
time his eyes are roving around the room
while his long legs are doubled under the
chair and his lean body is twisted into
an impossible position so he can hold an
ear toward the keyboard as if the piano
were talking to him alone.
Few of the hundreds of early morning
"slummers" who come there would recog-
nize the name of Tony Jackson. Even
fewer of the thousands who have seen
the name know that he is a piano pounder
in a notorious cabaret. Tony Jackson
wrote "Pretty Baby," a song feature of
the "Follies," considered by many the
popular song hit of the year. He received
$45 for it. Its sales netted thousands. He
has another one, "Some Sweet Day,"
waiting to be published. Tony Jackson
is a natural genius. He is not the most
finished musician, the best skilled in
technique nor the most prolific writer.
He is a remarkable figure of the moment.
Music Note* in Shorthand.
Clarence M. Jones, 11 East 38th street,
is a writer of popular songs who has both
the natural ear and the technical train-
ing. He plays the piano in a theater at
night and by day writes music for one
company and makes player-piano rolls
for another. He can take down by short-
hand a whistled or hummed melody and
play it from the notes as a stenographer
would write a letter. He can run through
the score of an opera once and after that
play it by ear. He can call any note as
it is sounded on a musical instrument.
"One Wonderful Night," "Just Because
You Won My Heart" and "La Danza Ap-
passionata" are among his compositions.
Now he is working on a song "that will
live," as he says.
Dave Peyton, leader of the orchestra
at another theater, is also a musical
genius in arranging, though no composi-
tions bear his name.
"Chemise Chihuahua," "I Ain't Got No-
body" and several others of jangling ideas
and harmonies were written by Spencer
W. Williams, 3334 Prairie avenue, whose
regular occupation is porter on a sleep-
ing car.
Even better known are "Walkin" the
Dog," "All Night Long,'1 "Some of These
Days" and other productions of Shelton
Brooks, a Chicago boy, who now is on the
vaudeville circuit.
"Brazilian Dreams" was another hit of
this year's Follies. It was the work of
Will H. Dixon, 5440 Dearborn street.
One Snngr by Schumann-Heinle.
"If I Forget," whose sale runs into the
tens of thousands, goes into the realm of
music worth while. It was made popu-
lar by Mme. Schumann-Heink. Alfred
Anderson wrote the lyrics and DeKoven
Thompson the music. After many vain
efforts to get an audience one of the col-
ored men slipped the manuscript into the
famous singer's hands as she was taking
a train to leave Chicago. It and "Dear
Lord, Remember Me," are Thompson's
best musical efforts. Anderson is clerk
in charge at Provident hospital, editorial
writer for the Defender, and a prolific
composer. He wrote "Rag-ma-la," one
of the first "rags"; "My Twilight Dream
of You," which was sung by Jessie Bart-
lett Davis; the book for the opera "Cap-
tain Rufus"; a three-reeler, "For the
Honor of the Eighth," and much more.
Fenton Johnson, 3026 Vernon avenue,
editor of the Champion, is a writer of
poems which have attracted wide atten-
tion. Most of them are in a volume, "A
Little Dreaming." W. H. A. Moore is an-
other colored poet of note.
The late Paul Laurence Dunbar of Day-
ton, 0., the greatest poet of the race, did
some of his best work in Chicago. Rich-
ard B. Harrison, 3327 Calumet avenue, is
one of the many dramatic readers of his
works.
Others in Musical Circles.
Mme. Anita Patti Brown. 3827 Wabash
avenue; Mme. Florence Cole Talbert, 3617
Forest avenue; Mme. E. Azalla Hackley,
3019 Calumet avenue; Mrs. Willa Sloan,
6523 St. Lawrence avenue; Miss Maud J.
Roberts, 3231 Vernon avenue; Mme. M.
Galloway Byron, 3300 Rhodes avenue;
Mrs. Martha Broadus Anderson, 6450
Champlain avenue; Mrs. Julia B. Ander-
son, 2831 Wabash avenue; Mrs. Mary Odd-
rick, 4434 Langiey avenue; Mrs. Annie
Hackley. 3452 Forest avenue. Mme. Marie
Burton-Hyram, 3828 Dearborn street;
T. Theodore Taylor, 3558 Rhodes avenue;
Pauline Garner, 5229 Wabash avenue;
Harrison Emanuel, 6352 Rhodes avenue,
are a few of those in Chicago musical
circles. Mme. Byron is abroad. Others
are touring thie country. Mme. Talbert
won the diamond medal at the Chicago
Musical college In 1916. Mrs. Hackley
and Mrs. Oddrick won medals in previous
years' contests. Mrs. Julia Anderson was
the first colored graduate of the Chicago
Musical college and won the harmony
medal.
The old Pekin theater, 2700 South State
street, run by the late Bob Mott and
Harrison Stewart, gave the start to most
of the theatrical performers of the race
on the stage to-day.
Church choirs and jubilee troupes
abound. That of the Bethel church is un-
der James A. Mundy, who organized the
15
chorus of 600 voices which sang at the
celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of
negro freedom. "Ethiopia," composed by
Frank O. Raines, was the popular draw-
ing card. Pedro T. Tinsley, 6448 Drexel
avenue, is an old time choral leader,
whose "Harmony" is a textbook.
William M. Farrow. 6117 South Racine
avenue; B. E. Fountaine. 3462 Vernon
avenue, painters; F. Langston Mitchell,
3800 Rhodes avenue; Proctor Chisholm,
3502 Vernon avenue, and Fon Holly, car-
toonists, are the race's contributors to
art.
Negro Writers on Negro Problem.
Many have turned their hand to writ-
ing. Prof. Richard T. Greener, former
consul to Vladivostock, and the first col-
ored man to graduate from Harvard, and
Attorney George W. Ellis, F. R. G. S.,
3262 Vernon avenue, have dealt exten-
sively with the negro problem. Maj. John
Roy Lynch, 4352 Forrestville avenue, re-
tired army paymaster, three times con-
gressman from Mississippi, and ex-assist-
ant auditor of the treasury, is another.
W. H. Ferris, 3359 Wabash avenue, a Yale
man, is the author of a most pretentious
work on the race.
The Defender, published by R. S. Ab-
bott, at 3159 South State street, is said
to have the largest circulation of papers
of its kind in the United States. Eleven
years ago Editor Abbott founded it on a
capital of 25 cents, a lead pencil and
scratchpad, backed by a degree from
Hampton college and practical experience
as a printer. Frank A. Young \e man-
aging editor and Gary B. Lewis, who
was given a start by Col. Watterson in
Louisville, is city editor.
The Broad Ax, edited by Julius F. Tay-
lor, 6418 Champlain avenue, and the Illi-
nois Idea, by S. B. Turner, former mem-
ber of the legislature, are the other two
local weeklies. Among monthly maga-
zines there are the Champion, the Half-
Century, the Pullman Porter, the Frater-
nal Advocate and the Stroller.
E. R. Robinson, 3236 Calumet avenue,
inventor of a street car wheel and a
joltless auto wheel, claims hundreds of
thousands of dollars' damages from the
street car companies for infringements
on his patent. John T. Baker has in-
vented a friction heater, an army kitchen
and refrigerator and several other de-
vices. J. P. Norwood, 3759 Wabash ave-
nue, has a bread wrapping machine and a
rotary toothbrush.
Earl Gordon. 4632 Winthrop avenue,
may not be a genius, but surely is a
curiosity. He is a private chauffeur and
has a diamond set medal for driving 100,-
000 miles without an accident. He did it
in seven years.
Last but not least among the men of
talent Is Andrew ("Rube") Foster, 3242
Vernon avenue, manager of the American
Giants, a formidable figure in "semipro"
baseball and the highest paid colored
manager in the world. The team is owned
by John Schorling, 429 West 79th street,
a white saloonkeeper.
16
CHAPTER VII
Apartments for Colored Families; Two Great Institutions
Plans have been completed for one of
the finest and most modern apartment
houses in the city, to be ready for occu-
pancy in the summer of 1917, exclusively
by colored tenants. Julius Rosenwald,
who has given $500.000 for Y. M. C. A.
buildings and rural schools for colored
people, is back of the project financially.
It is in a way an experiment, but those
who enthusiastically prophesy its success
declare that it will be the forerunner of
others of the same type in different parts
of the city.
The northeast corner of Vernon avenue
and East 32d street, adjoining the Rhodes
avenue hospital, has been secured for the
site. Plans for the building drawn by
Zimmerman, Saxe & Zimmerman are now
in the hands of Whiteside & Wentworth,
who will handle the property. It is to be
of the English basement type with three
floors of apartments, making it a four
etory structure. It will contain sixty
apartments, each having two and three
rooms and a bath. The building will
have its own refrigerating system con-
necting with each apartment. It also
will have an incinerator system connect-
ing with each apartment, steam heat, hot
and cold water, basement laundries and
janitor service. The outside will be fin-
ished In dark red brick. Along Vernon
avenue will be a fifteen foot width of
lawn and terrace. On the 32d street side
will be a garden court and fountain on
which many of the apartmerts will face.
Rents from 918 Up to $38.
Rents will be from $18 to $38 a month.
The Investment is expected to be slightly
more than $125,000 and a return of at
least 5 per cent on the investment is ex-
pected. Each floor will be the same in
arrangement. The number of apart-
ments of each class and the rental re-
turn for the building is planned to be:
Rent
rate.
$18 ...
19 ...
22 ...
32 ...
83 .
Apts.
...6.
...27.
... 3.
... «.
.. 9.
Monthly
total.
$108
818
66
192
.. 297
R«nt
rate.
$34 ....
36 .
Apts.
.. 3...
..3..
Monthly
total.
$102
.. 108
38
..8..
114
Totals
.60...
...$1,500
On this basis the building will bring
In an annual gross return of $18,000. The
5 per cent desired on the investment
would be $6,250.
The thirty-six small flats are each to
have a 12 by 14 foot living room, with an
in-a-door bed and closet, an 8 by 14
kitchen and a separate bathroom.
The twenty-four larger flats are to
have chambers 13 by 15 feet with an in-a-
door bed and closet, living rooms 12 by
14 with an in-a-door bed, 8 by 9 porches
from one room and a balcony from the
other, and the same sized kitchens and
bathrooms as the other flats.
Innovation in Building? Line.
Considerable investigating was done
before this innovation in the building line
was decided on. Dr. George C. Hall,
chairman of the executive committee of
the Wabash Avenue Y. M. C. A., and A. L.
Jackson, secretary, made a trip to Cin-
cinnati, where J. C. Schmidlapp has in-
vested $500,000 in model buildings for col-
ored tenants. Some of the Schmidlapp
buildings are extremely plain and apart-
ments rent for $1 a week a room.
This new apartment house is expected
to play a great part in the social eco-
nomic and moral life of the people. On
account of the effect which it will have
on the future it may be classed as an
institution. Two Chicago institutions al-
ready stand out prominently among thooe
in which colored men are the guiding
spirits. They are the Provident hospital
at 16 West 36th street and the Wabash
Avenue department of the Y. M. C. A.
at 3763 South Wabash avenue. The hos-
pital has passed its twenty-fifth year.
The Y. M. C. A. is comparatively new.
Provident Hospital Is Notable.
Provident hospital gives a greater op-
portunity to the colored physician than
any other institution in the country.
Freedman's hospital in Washington is
larger and Douglas hospital in Philadel-
phia is almost as large, but they are
supported respectively by government
and state aid, so that Provident hospital
is in a class by itself. With the Nathan
M. Freer $30,000 home for nurses, the
plant represents an investment of $125,-
000 and is free from debt. It has an an-
nual expenditure of $28,000 and the outlay
Is made without a breath of scandal.
Of its patients at present 60 per cent
are colored and 40 per cent are white.
The ratio varies. One-third of the suf-
ferers are charity patients. The phy-
sicians' staff and dispensary force are
made up of both white and colored
people. The nurses, except the superin-
tendent, Miss Astrid Hofseth, are all
colored. The last anuual report shows
a daily average of thirty-four patients for
the hospital, a total of 987 for the year,
or 17,689 since the institution was found-
ed. The dispensary shows 3,017 persons
for the year and a total of 88,827.
The nativity of those in the hospital in
1915 was: Afro-American, 712; Irish, 45;
American, 38; German, 34; Polish, 22;
Jewish, 10; Lithuanian, 7; English and
Italian, 4 each; Bohemian, Danish, Greek,
Scotch and Swedish, 3 each; French and
Hungarian, 2 each; Austrian, Bulgarian,
Finlandic, Jamaican, Norwegian and Rus-
sian, 1 each.
George H. Webster, who died late in
1916, was president of the hospital for
twenty years. The late Lloyd S. Wheel-
er, a colored man who later was man-
17
ager at Tuskegee, was Its first president.
Philip D. Armour. Marshall Field and
George M. Pullman, all deceased, and
H. H. Kohlsaat were the donors who
made the institute possible. Dr. Charles
B. Bentley is its secretary, James S. Mad-
den is treasurer and Attorney Robert Mc-
Murdy is chairman of the finance commit-
tee.
V. M. C. A. Has 1,329 Members.
The Y. M. C. A. has a physical plant
costing $185,000. It has 1,329 members,
150 living in its dormitories and 125
attending its automobile school. It has
secured jobs for 500 persons this year.
It sent Dr. G. C. Booth, a university of
Michigan graduate, .to the Mexican bor-
der as Y. M. C. A. secretary with the
8th Illinois regiment. Members of the
Wabash avenue department can stop at
the $1,350,000 hotel at 822 South Wabash
avenue. Several have done so, but most
of the strangers who come from out of
the city and are referred to the hotel on
account of overcrowded dormitories pre-
fer to remain among their own race. It
is one of the most potent factors for
good in a section of the community
abounding in destructive agencies.
''The negro youth needs everything that
the white boy needs and more," said Sec-
retary Jackson. "We are doing a great
work for the young man by helping him
and for the race in general by showing
that it has individuals who ar«j sincere,
reliable and actuated by high motives."
18
CHAPTER VIII
Churches and Charitable Institutions
Churches probably wield more power
among the colored people than among any
other single class in the United States.
Religion is an intimate part of life to
most colored persons. The churches are
an influence for good citizenship and an
educational factor second only to the
public schools. They have clergymen
powerful as exhorters, and surrounded by
thousands of devout followers.
A canvass of all the churches made by
The Daily News shows that they claim
42.5 per cent of the city's colored popula-
tion as church members. Attending church
is taken up with enthusiasm and religious
services are made a pleasure. Few
other churches in the city have as large
congregations as several of the leading
colored churches. From this high stand-
ard the congregations diminish in size
and influence down to the private ven-
tures where a "brother" or "sister" with
a can of paint and a brush has converted
a vacant store into a mission. Sometimes
a "mission" is started and runs a strong
lunged exhortation, followed by a collec-
tion or a rummage sale to make it worth
while.
Activities of the Churches.
The big churches are financially pros-
perous. They have employment agencies,
day nurseries literary societies, drill
teams and classes of various kinds. They
do more or less charity work among their
own people. Some of them, Walters A. M.
E. Zion, at West 38th and South Dearborn
streets, and the Institutional. 3825 South
Dearborn street, among others, are open
twenty-four hours a day to give shelter
and help to all who call.
In civic life outside their own doors
the churches apparently do not have the
influence to which they are entitled. Two
of them protested in vain against dif-
ferent saloons a few doors distant, whith-
er boys and girls were turning their
steps. The Rev. A. J. Carey, one of the
leading pastors, has received political
preferment and others have been smiled
on by the powers that be. But with
their thousands of devoted followers, the
colored clergyman, as a rule, has not due
prominence among those working outside
his church to better conditions among
his people. Recently several clergymen
passed resolutions indorsing the city ad-
ministration regardless of the wide open
haunts of vice thrown in among their
people.
"Too many of our clergymen do not
have the courage of their convictions and
will not lead a determined fight against
evil influences and institutions which en-
croach on their neighborhoods, usually
conducted by white men," said a colored
man who has been active in many of the
efforts to keep saloons away from the
churches and out of the residence dis-
tricts. "A campaign contribution to the
cnurch from this or that politician has
In some instances silenced criticism."
Denominations In the City.
Denominationally and according to
numbers, the Chicago colored churches
are divided as follows:
Denomination— Churches. MemBeri.
Baptist 36 12.230
African Methodist Episcopal 14 10,390
Colored Methodist Episcopal 2 850
Methodist Episcopal 4 1,750
African Methodist Episcopal Zion.. 2 1,050
Presbyterian 2 1.500
Christian 2 900
Congregational 2 1,100
Episcopal 1 1,000
Roman Catholic 1 650
Miscellaneous 3 450
Totals
.60 31.870
Some of the Largest Churches.
Membership in the various churches
varies from tens and twenties to 3,500 at
the largest. Olivet Baptist, West 27th and
South Dearborn streets, of which the
Rev. Dr. L. K. Williams is pastor, is
the largest church of the Baptist de-
nomination in the west. The African
Methodist Episcopal church has a num-
ber of large congregations. Bethel, 2979
South Dearborn street, the Rev. Dr. W.
D. Cook, pastor, has 3,000 members;
Quinn chapel, the oldest colored church
in the city, 2401 South Wabash avenue,
the Rev. J. C. Anderson, pastor, has
2,000; Institutional, 3825 South Dearborn
street, the Rev. A. J. Carey, pastor, has
1,500. St. Mark's Methodist Episcopal
church. 5001 South Wabash avenue, the
Rev. J. W. Robinson, pastor; St. Thomas'
Episcopal church, East 38th street and
South Wabash avenue, the Rev. J. H.
Simons, pastor, and Salem Baptist
church, West 30th and South LaSalle
streets, the Rev. J. E. Heywood, pastor,
each touch the 1,000 mark.
The Rev. J. T. Jenifer, 3430 Vernon
avenue, now historian of the A. M. E.
church, built the present Quinn chapel.
It was the first colored church and the
fourth Protestant one in the city when
started by the late Rev. A. F. Hall. An-
other preacher of force was the late Rev.
Elijah J. Fisher, a colored veteran who
had lost his left leg and held a doctor's
degree from the University of Chicago.
Until his death recently he was for twelve
years the powerful leader of Olivet.
According to the Rev. R. E. Wilson,
4830 Langley avenue, superintendent of
the Chicago district of the A. M. E.
church, the orders of deaconesses and
stewardesses of the Institutional church
do an immense amount of extension work
among the people. The Chicago Choral
Study club makes its headquarters at this
church.
19
The Rev. J. P. Thomas, an old-time
preacher, has one of the largest follow-
ings In the city at the Ebenezer Baptist
church. Last winter he doled out soup
and meals to more than 3,000 hungry in
his church. The Rev. Dr. Moses H. Jack-
son of the Grace Presbyterian is another
powerful leader whose scarred back
shows the marks of slavery days. He has
been in Chicago twenty-nine years. The
church has the largest Sunday school and
lyceum in the city.
Many Settlements and Home*.
Closely pressing the churches in gen-
eral good done, even though far less
prosperous and less powerful, are the
settlements and homes, in most instances
founded and supported by a few self-
sacrificing individuals.
The Frederick Douglass center, 3032
South Wabash avenue, was organized in
1904. by Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley, its
head resident, and her husband, Dr. Wool-
ley. All its residents are white, though
most of the trustees are colored. It has
day and night classes and clubs. Mrs.
Woolley has given freely of her time
working as a pioneer for a better under-
standing between the races.
Other worthy settlements and institu-
tions are:
Wendell Phillips settlement, 2009 Wal-
nut street.
Miss Cloter Scott settlement, 4706 South
Wabash avenue.
Negro Fellowship league, 3005 South
State street.
Louise Training School for Colored
Boys, 6130 South Ada street.
Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Peo-
ple, 510 West Garfleld boulevard.
Y. W. C. A., colored branch, 3424 Rhodes
avenue.
Phyllis Wheatley home, 3256 Rhodes
avenue.
Old Soldiers' Widows' Rest, 3258 Forest
avenue.
Amanda Smith Industrial School for
Girls, 307 West 147th street, Harvey.
The Amanda Smith school was estab-
lished as an orphanage by the evangelist
of that name eighteen years ago. It now
is directed by a board of which E. C.
Wentworth is president and treasurer
and Mrs. Charles Henrotin is vice-presi-
dent. Most of the other officers and di-
rectors also are white. Forty girls are
in the school, many of them sent by the
County courts, for which $15 a month is
paid. Miss Ruth E. Wilkins is superintend-
ent. The institution depends on private
contributions to extend its work.
The Louise Training school does a sim-
ilar work among boys from the Juvenile
court. It was started by Mrs. Elizabeth
McDonald, for many years a probation of-
ficer, who is ite superintendent. Between
forty-four and sixty boys are cared for.
The Home for the Aged by a deter-
mined fight for twenty-five years of its
existence now is, through the efforts of a
new board of directors, in the best finan-
cial condition of its career. It is sup-
ported by voluntary contributions, prac-
tically all from colored people, and has
an annual expense of $2,500. Sixteen aged
persons are in the institution. Frank S.
Hamilton, 2831 Wabaeh avenue, a dining
car conductor, is its president, and Dr.
Charles L. Lewis. 3801 South State street,
is its secretary. The Amateur Minstrel
club cleared $1,000 for it at one of the
largest benefits ever given.
In the world of clubs, fraternal and
military organizations, the colored people
are active. The Appomattox club, which
owns its own property at 3441 South Wa-
bash avenue, is run on a pretentious
scale, providing social life and recreation
for Its members, and aiming to lead in
civic advancement for its people. The
Easter Lily club is said to be the largest
single organization of colored women in
the country. There is a state and a city
federation of women's clubs, containing
some sixty-five organizations.
Fraternal Societies Popular.
It is safe to say that nearly every col-
ored man of means belongs to one or more
fraternal organizations. Their uniformed
ranks are a pride and joy. Fraternal or-
ganizations gratify a love for pomp, pag-
eantry and mystery, but their activity for
good extends only indirectly beyond their
own circles of membership.
The greatest public organization is the
8th infantry regiment, I. N. G., which,
overcoming obstacles within and luke-
warm .support without, has grown into a
strong military unit, with an armory of
its own at 3517 Forest avenue. It was the
only colored military regiment to be
called to the border in the recent mobili-
zation. Its col'onel, Franklin A. Denison,
is a leading colored lawyer of Chicago,
Its lieutenant-colonel, James H. Johnson,
is division auditor for the Pullman com-
pany, and the major its first battalion, R.
R. Jackson, is a state legislator, propri-
etor of a printing establishment and prob-
ably the most popular colored man in
office.
The inception of the 8tb regiment came
in the Hannibal zouaves which were or-
ganized in 1869. Robert E. Moore, 3265
Vernon avenue, their captain, still has
the old colors and standards. As the
boys grew older they became the Han-
nibal guards and later two companies of
the old 16th battalion.
20
CHAPTER IX
Public Schools and Opportunities in Civil Service
Since the first colored children in Chi-
cago trudged with their books to the
old Third avenue school — even the name
of the street has been changed — the at-
tendance of colored children has grown
steadily until more than 4,500 are in the
public schools to-day. Many years ago
the Third Avenue school, taught by a
Mrs. Dewey, was the only one which they
attended. Attendance at other schools
required physical hardihood on the part
of the colored pupils. Conditions have
changed since then and they now attend
the public educational institutions most
convenient to their homes.
In certain schools the attendance of
colored pupils is large on account of the
location of the residence areas of col-
ored families. A canvass of twelve of
the schools showed an attendance of 4,276
colored pupils. Several hundred more are
scattered among other schools. Of the
high schools, the Wendell Phillips, at
3825 Prairie avenue, has the largest at-
tendance of colored pupils. This is on
account of its situation and not because
of any sentimental preference for a
school named after the noted abolitionist.
Out of its 1,670 pupils 352, or about 21
per cent, are colored.
In the elementary schools the propor-
tion varies from 90 per cent for one
school down to less than 1 per cent for
others. One school has 936 pupils, of
whom 711 are colored.
Colored Attendance at School.
Though these figures seem large, col-
ored pupils number only 1.3 per cent
of the city's school attendance of 350,000.
In the city's population, 3 per cent is
colored. The ratio should be the same
between adults and pupils if the colored
children were attending school in proper
numbers. Making the comparison from
another angle, out of the city's total
population about one in every seven is
attending a public school. The ratio
would be lower if private schools were
added. Out of the city's colored popu-
lation only one in every fourteen is at-
tending school.
Truancy Same as the "Whites.
"Our records show that among colored
children of the compulsory school age,
the percentage of truancy is not any
larger than among the white race," said
W. Lester Bodine, superintendent of com-
pulsory education. "Their scholarship
records compare favorably, they are
equally eager to learn and in some in-
stances have taken honors in their class-
es. However, the future of the colored
child is a big question. Many of them
must work for a living and start in after
they reach the age of 14 years. In the
south there are practically no compulsory
school laws for colored children and many
families migrating here wait until their
children are 14 years old. Comparatively
few colored pupils are in the night
schools."
Opportunities for education are strong
factors in attracting the more indus-
trious colored families from the southern
states to the north. Schooling is the
same for all, regardless of race or color.
The law requires that the child attend
school.
In striking contrast are the opportuni-
ties in the south, according to figures
compiled at Tuskegee institute. They
show how many days the colored schools
are open in a year, the number of days
possible for each colored child if all at-
tended, the percentage of children at-
tending, the average days of attendance
for each one and the years it would take
to complete an elementary course.
Figures from Southern States.
The figures are:
Yeari
Days to
Days Per Pet. at- foi ea.ch corn-
State— open, child, tending, child, plete.
South Carolina 67 26 68.4 44 33
Louisiana 86 23 40.1 58 25
Alabama 104 27 41.8 66 22
Nor. Carolina.. 115 50 75.0 72 20
Florida 98 43 64.8 72 20
Georgia 123 48 65.4 74 19
Virginia 121 47 56.0 76 19
Texas 124 47 58.8 80 18
Maryland 163 57 66.4 91 16
Other states which the Negro year-book
lists as having separate appropriations
for colored schools are Arkansas, Dela-
ware, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri,
Oklahoma. Tennessee, West Virginia and
the District of Columbia. In several of
these the expenditure for colored pupils
accords with the proportion which they
make of the population. In South Caro-
lina they are 55.2 per cent of the popu-
lation and they get 13 per cent of the
school money, which is the other extreme.
Race Troubles Rare.
Race troubles among pupils in Chica-
go's public schools have been rare in
recent years. In classroom, work, athletic
games and such other school activities as
are under the direction of the board of
education all are on equal footing. A
frequent contention is that colored pupils
and white pupils would progress faster if
they had separate classes and different
methods of teaching. This view is dis-
puted.
'In scholarship, ability to learn and
application and classroom work the
colored pupils average up with the white
pupils," said >a principal who has had ex-
perience with thousands of both races in
the last ten years. "One handicap which
may be more common among colored
than among the white pupils is that the
21
home environment is not always as help-
ful as it might be, for the parents from
economic or other reasons have not had
any such opportunities to learn as have
the children. Among the children in
school there is no trouble. When trouble
does come it usually starts in the homes."
Work for Colored Graduates.
"What work can I get if I go through
school?" is the regular question of the
truant colored boy, according to H. W.
Hammond, juvenile court probation officer
and graduate of New York university.
Hundreds of colored men and women
are holding clerical positions which they
could not have obtained if it had not been
for public school educations. Some are
with private concerns and othera are on
public pay rolls. The most noticeable of
the latter are:
Government employes ...265
City policemen . . 65
City firemen 12
Adult probation officer 1
Juvenile probation officers 5
Total 348
Mrs. Everlin Cason. 4524 St. Lawrence
avenue; Mary E. Clark, 3812 South Wa-
bash avenue; Mrs. Alice Simpson, 3215
Prairie avenue, and Mrs. Mattie I. Thorn-
ton, 4323 Forrestville avenue, are post-
office clerks. Miss Susan Boaz, 219 North
Campbell avenue; Miss Minnie Jones and
Mrs. A. M. Smith, 3256 Vernon avenue,
and Mrs. Jessie Thomas, 3319 Forest
avenue, are Juvenile probation officers
and Mrs. Bessie Gilmer, S123 South Dear-
born street, is the adult probation offi-
cer.
Joseph C. Wickliffe, 5329 South Wabash
avenue, and William F. Childs, 6353 Eber-
hart avenue, are lieutenants in the fire
and police departments respectively.
22
CHAPTER X
Real Estate Values and Bad Housing Conditions
Desire of well to do colored families to
get better homes and better surroundings
has been one of the chief causes of com-
plaint against the race in Chicago. The
entrance of colored residents Into a high
class white neighborhood usually evokes
protests and sometimes violence. In some
instances the invader is of the shiftless
class which peels potatoes on the front
porch, Jars the rear horizon with wash-
ings and rubbish and generally cheapens
the neighborhood. Back of them usually
is some real estate speculator who hopes
to profit by affecting property values, and
so the protest is justified regardless of
the color of the new tenants. In most in-
stances, however, the first colored family
to enter a white neighborhood is actuated
to a certain extent by a desire to get
away from evil influences and conditions
around its former home.
Rents and property values fall In a
neighborhood if it deteriorates after
colored residents have come into it. The
first comers of the race, however, pay
higher rents or higher prices for property
than the white tenants then in posses-
sion are paying. In other neighborhoods
where the property is not allowed to run
down after It is occupied by colored ten-
ants and owners — and there are several
such neighborhoods in Chicago — the val-
ues hold up.
Error in Colored Districts.
"Chicago's colored population is grow-
ing with great rapidity and its welfare
cannot be Ignored," said a prominent real
estate dealer. "A civic policy which holds
that anything is good enough and noth-
ing Is too bad to be permitted In a col-
ored residence or business district is now
in force. The better class of colored per-
sons will move away from such districts,
leaving an element which discredits the
race and creating a plague spot endan-
gering the physical and moral health of
the entire city."
"Bad housing conditions are the great-
est cause for demoralization among col-
ored people." said Dr. George C. Hall,
who has given nntch attention to that
phase of the problem of his race. "In
order to get in a decent building a couple
perhaps are compelled to take an eight
room flat; in order to keep the flat they
sublet sevpn rooms and eat and sleep in
the kitchen. Even worse consequences
might be described. Mr. Rosenwald's
smaller flats are designed to relieve this
condition."
One colored real estate man a few days
ago sold a piece of proprty on Calumet
avenue, on which the building alone had
cost $12,000, to another colored man for
$4,900. Recently he sold a string of houses
for varying prices, the lowest cash pay-
ment being $1,000. Railroad men, civil
service employes and professional men
were the purchasers and he said that none
defaulted on the payments. He holds for
$10,000 another piece of property with A
house which originally cost $40,000.
Are Keen to Own Property.
"Colored persons are keen to own prop-
erty," said Willis V. Jefferson, a real
estate man. "A couple in moderate cir-
cumstances will buy a place much too
large for their family, then they will rent
some rooms, the wife will take care of
the house, the husband will work and in
a short time it will be paid for. They are
pretty crowded, however, while the pay-
ments are going on. As a rule colored
owners of property keep up their build-
ings. Many other owners of property with
colored tenants let the buildings decay."
Running south between South State
street and the railroad elevated tracks
west of the street is a strip of varying
width which shows how a district can de-
teriorate. Not so very long ago it was in-
habited by hard working, thrifty colored
families, churches were built there and
they still remain. But most of the families
which once gave it special standing have
gone, and it is now an object lesson.
Classification of Building*.
A survey of every house In three blocks
running across the district was made by
The Daily News. The different buildings
in the district were classified with the
number in each class as follows:
No. | No.
41 Frame. 2 stories. ... 96
221 Frame, 3 stories 19
34
Total 193
Brick. 1 story. .
Brick, 2 stories.
Brick. 3 stories.
Brick, 4 stories. 2
Frame, 1 story . . 16
The condition of the buildings varied
between the extreme case of one which
bad been condemned and naJied shut iy
the city health department two years
ago, to some in a fair state of cleanliness
and repair. Under four classifications the
buildings were divided as follows:
Street— Good. Fair. Poor. Bad.Total.
S. State, west side 7 18 6 6 37
S. Dearborn, east side.. 4 6 13 1 24
S. Dearborn, west side. 12 6 9 3 30
Federal, east side 7 14 6 5 32
Federal, west side 5 12 11 1 29
S. LaSalle, east side... 274 3 16
Cross streets 4 13 3 6 25
Totals
.41 76 52 24 193
Insanitary Homes Found.
Many of the buildings did not hare
lights In the hallways. One did not have
any back porches, and the dark hallways
were full of clotheslines and freshly
washed clothes. Few had bathrooms, and
in many there was no plumbing or els-e
the water was shut off on account of non-
payment of rent. Rickety stairways with-
out handrails, gaping rents in the plaster,
leaky roofs, wet basements, indiscrim-
inate refuse and dirt and other violations
of health and building regulations of the
city abounded.
23
In this district were 1,406 colored per- plying with the city ordinances," said Ed
sons and not more than twenty-five white Felix, 3002 South Dearborn street, who
persons. Only one piece of property, how- has been in business in the district for
ever, was owned by a colored man. The more than thirty years. "As they run
roadways are all paved and are cleaner down the class of tenants deteriorates,
than some of the back yards. The pav- until finally come those who won't pay
ing of the streets was forced several years rent. It is too expensive to evict them by
ago despite the opposition of the white court proceedings and the owner shuts off
property owners. the water. Then somebody steals the
plumbing and the property is picked to
"Many owners ma&e absolutely no re- pieces. But all the time somebody is Hv-
pairs on their buildings, not even com- ing In It."
24
CHAPTER XI
Politics Puts Disorderly Dives Among Homes
On the southeast corner of South State
and 35th streets, in the center of the
colored residence and business district,
is the Panama saloon, owned by Isadors
Levin. It is declared to be the most
brazen, decency-defying saloon in the
district — possibly in the entire city. It
might be called two saloons. The books
of the city collector, however, show that
only one license has been taken out.
On the corner is a bar. Back of that on
the East 35th street side is a cabaret
room. Upstairs is another big cabaret
room, reached by an inside stairway
from the rear room on the ground floor.
Drinks are served on both floors. The
second floor has a service bar of its own.
However, even if the waiters carried
their dripping trays from the saloon bar
on the first floor two licenses would be
required under section 1527 of the code,
one for each floor. Respectable cafes
downtown laid out on the same plan ara
required to pay for two licenses. Levin
is in a district where "ever/thing goes."
Panama's Sons* Indecent.
The first floor cabaret has an orchss-
tra. four girl singers and one man sing-
er, usually in varying degrees of intoxi-
cation. It can seat 150. The second
floor has a grand piano, the same number
of noise makers, more tables and a dan-
cing space. The girls' songs are not
merely suggestive. They are unmistak-
ably indecent. As singers the girls ire
not much. Personal charms apparently
are better recommendations than singing
ability.
The sixty employes of the place are
colored. It has both white and colored
ptatrons. Some of the latter are well
dressed and well behaved; others are
noisy, in mackinaws and sweaters. Amon^
the white patrons most conspicuous are
the "shimmers," largely of the class who
kiss on the corner while waiting foi
street cars and whose terms of endear-
ment would be considered cause for Jus-
tifiable murder in the far west. Equally
numerous but less noisy are the white
men who strike up acquaintance with
colored girls living in neighboring "buf-
fet" flats. There are also white women
who associate with colored men. The
waiters do a profitable brokerage busi-
ness in arranging meetings. This saloon
is one of the best sources of supply for
cases in the Morals court, according to
Judge Fisher.
Proprietor a White Man.
Levin, who profits by this establish-
ment, is a white man. He lives at 3614
Indiana avenue. The Wacker & Birk
Brewing and Malting company, whose of-
ficers, also white, talk publicly about
"clean saloons," is less openly back of
the dive. On Levin's bond to secure a
license, filed in the city clerk's office,
that brewery, signed by C. Kenke and H.
Horn, is the surety. The two names da
not appear in the city directory.
The license of the Panama was re-
voked March 6 and restored March 16.
1916. It was again revoked July 11 and re-
stored Aug. 10. It is rumored that Levin
made his peace with the police and the
city hall and that it cost him $1,000 on
each occasion. Aid. Oscar De Priest ar-
gued that sixty colored men and girls
were employed in the place and that it
should be reopened to help give employ-
ment to people of his race. Levin's
white attorney was a law partner of
Mayor Thompson's principal advisers.
Levin also forced tbings by threatening
to do some talking on his own account.
A Levin from a west side dive was one
of the witnesses against former Inspec-
tor McCann and the police did not want
any repetition of such testimony. Levin's
place now is running full blast.
"Teenan" Jones and His Ill-sort.
A few doors north, at 3445 South State
street, is the Elite No. 2. run by Henry
("Teenan") Jones. It is smaller than
Levin's Panama, but similar to it in
backroom patronage. "Teenan" is the
colored ruler of that underworld district.
His dealings with the police in past years
and his profits make a story in them-
selves. The saloon is only one of his
moneymaking ventures. It is declared
that the police would no more think of
making his saloon obey the law than
they would of closing one of tis gambling
houses. When other saloons close at 1
a. m., a line of automobiles stretches
along the street and the sidewalk is
blocked with the late night rounders
waiting to slip through the doors of
"Teenan's" place when a coveted seat
is vacated.
Other resorts in the district are worse;
some are better. These are typical of
the roistering saloons, a kind which
would not be tolerated in any other part
of the city since the old 22d street levee
was broken up. Few of them are run by
colored proprietors. White proprietors
have brought them into the district and
many of them art) patronized largely by
crowds from other parts of the city. The
resorts are forced on the colored people.
Those colored families in good circum-
stances and desiring respectable sur-
roundings move away, only to find dis-
orderly saloons trailing after them.
License In Spite of Protest.
At 301 East 37th street, on the south-
east corner of Forest avenue, is the sa-
loon of Sol Joy Collanger, 4100 Calumet
avenue. With this exception the district is
a quiet, respectable residence quarter.
When it was known that this property
25
was to be used for saloon purposes a
petition of pretest was signed by 300
representative colored men and present-
ed to Mayor Harrison. The mayor did
not grant the license until after he was
defeated at the primaries two years ago.
Adam Ortseifen, friend of the mayor's
and an influential citizen, is the official
head of the British corporation which
owns the brewery which supplies the sa-
loon with beer and is on its bond.
At night this saloon is an animated
place. Reputable colored families object
to it chiefly on account of the numbers
of disorderly white women who meet col-
ored men in its diminutive back room.
In the barroom an automatic piano
thumps through the night until closing
hours. On the mirrors are pasted chro-
mos of "September Morn" and other
poses of nude women.
"Buffet" flats and disorderly hotels are
adjuncts of the bad saloons. They make
a better harvest for the police than the
saloons. The borderland of a colored
residential district is the haven for dis-
orderly resorts. Protests of colored fam-
ilies against the painted women in their
neighborhood, the midnight honking of
automobiles, the loud profanity and vul-
garity are usually ignored by the police.
In one block between South State and
South Dearborn streets which was can-
vassed by The Daily News, five places
were found openly admitted to be disor-
derly houses. Some were in flat build-
ings, the other tenants of which appar-
ently were respectable, some raising fam-
ilies of children.
llow Resort Got a Location.
Many white owners of real estate who
speak in horrified whispers of vice dan-
gers view such dangers with complacency
when these are thrust among colored
families. Two years ago a woman of the
underworld and her gambler husband de-
cided to open a "high class" resort on
the south side. She got a location as a
neighbor of reputable colored people by
purchasing the home of a former alder-
man and leader in a church, the one
of which the Rev. John P. Brushingham,
secretary of Mayor Thompson's morals
commission, is pastor. The woman was
one of the most notorious of the demi-
monde. An oil painting of her as she
was before her husband in a fit of jeal-
ousy bit off part of her nose for years
had hung in a saloon of international
reputation.
These are some of the influences which
the colored population is forced to com-
bat in its fight for decency and good cit-
izenship. A few secure political prefer-
ment and others profit by catering to the
city's vices, while the rank and file are
hedged around by demoralizing influences
and the race is discredited unjustly.
26
CHAPTER XII
Gambling Controlled by a Powerful Political Syndicate
The rattle of the dice, the click of the
poker chip and the gentle falling of the
cards is seldom stilled in what is known
as the heart of Chicago's "colored dis-
trict." Gambling is a popular recreation
among a certain element. Protests of the
better element of colored people appar-
ently fall on deaf ears. Gambling nouses
and clubs are as easy to locate and run
almost as openly as grocery stores. Their
sanction and protection by politicians and
police is on a "business" basis. If a
person has made the "proper" arrange-
ments he can run without molestation
but if he has overlooked that important
detail he may safely bet that he will be
raided the first night. The arrangements
are said by those who ought to know to
be largely financial.
Whether gambling is a more dangerous
cause of demoralization of a community
than are disorderly saloons, buffet flats
and dissolute women is an often discussed
question. Gambling is a man's game, <s
more open and the connection between
it, the police and politics easier to trace.
In order to gamble the police must oe
either evaded, which is difficult, or male
blind by a peculiar remedy for Iteh'ng
palms or by orders from political powers
that be. However, it usually 1s the sam^
police and the same politicians who are
protecting both Hass^s of vice.
Need "Syndicate" Approval.
Colored men are in active control of the
gambling situation in the big part of
their district in the 2d ward. Back of
t?iem are white police officials at one end
of the line and white politicians who
keep them in power at the other end of
the line. When 2d ward, and even some
adjacent ward, gambling is discussed by
gamblers on the inside, certain colored
men always are mentioned. They are
called "the syndicate" and their approval
is said to be necessary if the police are
to let anybody run in the ward.
Henry ("Teenan") Jones, owner if the
Elite saloon No. 2, the Star movit thea-
ter, gambling houses, several road shows
and entertainment propositions, made a
fortune as intermediary between the col-
ored sporting world and the police. He
was close to former Inspector Nicholas
Hunt.
"Bill" Lewis, old time and well to do
gambler, who 'for years has run a big
protected game for high players, both
white and colored, has been a noted char-
acter in the underworld since he shot the
late "Pony" Moore and a woman at 3d
avenue and Taylor street many years ago
in the wide open days of the old levee.
David L. Knighten, employe of the elec-
tion commissioners' office and husband of
Dr. Anna B. Knighten, better known as
"Dr. Schultz," 3430 Calumet avenue, is
influential in the district. Knighten IB a
democrat in politics, but has been well
known on the colored levee since the days
when "Black Mag" was in her prime.
Explain DePrlest'» Activity.
Oscar DePriest, real estate dealer and
alderman from the 2d ward, is the highest
in political office among Chicago colored
men and always has been aggressive for
the rights of his people. Some answer
the common talk of his familiarity with
gambling and other resorts by declaring
it a part of his duty as alderman to see
that the colored people get a part in ev-
erything going.
It is reported that under the so called
"syndicate" control the first month of
operation showed a profit of $1,800. After
that the profit is said to have risen to
$5,700 a month, according to one close
to the money, which is now the average
sum divided monthly. Colored men who
have wished to discuss opening gambling
houses with the political powers in the
ward are said to have been referred to
"Teenan," the real "boss" of the colored
sporting world. The terms insisted on
are said to have been practically the
same in all cases — 40 or 50 per cent of
the gross profits and the syndicate to put
a man inside to see that there was no
Holding out on the percentage. Present
orders from the syndicate to their houses
are to "lay low" until the new chief of
police is named.
"Bill" Lewis' place, upstairs at 14 East
35th. street, is the headquarters for the
syndicate. The men who run the hand-
books by day, or bank the thirty or forty
games by night, bring their cash there
after the play is over and come there to
get their "bank rolls," the syndicate's
share deducted in the interim, before they
start the next day. Occasionally the
money is kept in "Teenan's" safe. Lewis'
nlaop Is considered the flparlngr house.
Expose by The Dally New*.
Until The Daily News printed a list of
a dozen of the biggest gambling houses In
the district, Lewis' place ran with the
curtains up and the games and players
could be seen from the platform or ttie
elevated station. Out of deference to the
feelings of the police of the Stanton ave-
nue station the curtains were pulled down
after that. The game did not stop.
"Bill" Lewis' familiar figure, stubby
gray mustache, pearl gray fuzzy fedora
pulled down over his eyes, collar turned
up and hands in his overcoat pockwts
stands in the East 35th street doorway
every night. Occasionally a doorman re-
lieves him. White and black patrons,
singly, in pair, in groups, are coming and
going, loudly discussing their winnings ">r
losings. Its character as a gambling
house is plain even without "Bill's" w*ll
known figure, which is as illuminating to
insiders as an electric sign in front °f
a theater.
When complaints come to the police
against any of the syndicate games gam-
27
biers say the proorjetors are notified. If
the "knock" is too strong a raid is made,
after sufficient warning. The ordinary
patrolman or detective would no more
raid Lewis' place than he would his cap-
tain's clothes locker at the police station.
Games which do not belong to the syndi-
cate are classed as "outlaws" and raided
before they get fairly started.
Across the street from Lewis' clearing
house, on the second floor at 11 Bast 36th
street, an entrance on the alley, "Mex-
ican Frank" Gordon once ran. He had
poker and craps, the same as at the
clearing house, only the play was cheap-
er. He was raided continuously until he
was put out of business. "Chatty" Pink-
stone followed under the name of the
Chauffeurs' club, also refusing to pay the
syndicate. The police waited for him to
get a bank roll together and then
"sloughed" him. He opened on the sec-
ond floor at 3523 South State street and
was put out of business in the same way.
Some of the Gambling? Resorts.
Some of the principal gambling places
in the district are:
3016 South State street, second floor,
Dunbar club, a mockery on the name of
the late Paul Laurence Dunbar, the bril-
liant young colored poet who brought so
much honor to his race. It is one of the
biggest of the syndicate games. Bud
Woods is in charge. Craps and stud
poker get the best play.
3121 South State street, dice and poker
game, run by Hugh Hoskins and Kid
Brown, getting the best of the play from
31st street.
3212 South State street, second floor,
run by "Red Dick" Wilson and Charley
Kunz. This is the brilliantly lighted
place which used Masonic Shrine banners
for curtains in its front windows.
3433 South State street, second floor,
Hobnob club of "Yellow Bill1' Bass, a po-
litical supporter of Aid. DePriest. Runs
so openly that the rattle of the chips can
be heard on the street.
3512 South State street, second floor,
rear, run by "Sport" McFariand. His
IB a syndicate game, but he once was
arrested.
Gathering in the Victims.
Many of the gambling houses have run-
ners out whose work is as systematic as
that of insurance solicitors. They gath-
er in the strangers in the city, men with
their week's pay in their pockets, sleep-
ing car porters who have got off their
runs on the railroads, or anybody who
will be grist for the gambling mill.
In a different class are the quasiprivate
gambling clubs. The newest one is up-
stairs on the northeast corner of Forest
avenue and East 35th street, in which
Bernard W. Fitts is the moving spirit.
To enter It a person must be a member
or the guest of a member, as in some
of the more pretentious clubs where
gambling is a prominent feature. "Bill"
Thomas who ran the Kentucky club is
its manager.
Walter Speedy refused to go into the
syndicate and his place, the Ranier club,
3010 South State street, second floor, was
raided. That was not a permanent dam-
per on his insubordination, and Speedy
now is in the bridewell on a pandering
charge. "Big Dave" McGowan, "Bob"
Ridley and a number of others whose
faces have shown at gambling houses in
the past are reputable citizens now. The
syndicate keeps them so.
Colored Gamhlera of Note.
Chicago has had many notorious colored
gamblers, Mortimer and Hunter, "Mush-
mouth" Johnson, John Jennings, nearly
seven feet tall, draped in a sealskin coat;
"Yellow" Reynolds,"the Cleveland sport,"
and others of a later day. Jennings died
in Dunning, after being a roustaoout in
the rough dives of Gary, Ind. Reynolds,
who always would bet $120 to $100 that a
crap shooter would not pass, went broke.
His last spectacular play was to pull a
diamond set gold tooth from his jaw
against a $50 bet.
Those were the days when gambling
was one of the few lines of prosperous
activity open to colored men. Politically
some would like to keep it so even at
the expense of holding back the race as
a whole from progress.
28
CHAPTER XIII
Mayors, Congressmen and State Senators Elected by Colored Voters
From the plague spots of the districts
of Chicago in which colored people dwell,
where disorderly saloons, "buffet" flats,
gambling houses and other symptoms of
commercialized vice are tolerated by the
police, the chain of politics stretches
upward. It 'has many links. It reaches
to the marble columns of the national
capitol at Washington. It touches many
legislative halls and high offices before it
ends in the nation's greatest legislative
body. Men high in the nation, state and
city owe their political life to the vote
of colored citizens. These same men
are politically responsible for conditions
as they exist among their constituents. If
the colored citizen does not get his share
of opportunities and advantages which
the city and state offer and has more
than his share of the vice and demorali-
zation thrust upon him by white politi-
cians, his political leaders are the per-
sons to whom he must appeal.
Congressman and Senator.
Martin B. Madden, congressman from
the 1st Illinois district, and George F.
Harding, state senator at Springfield from
the 1st senatorial district, are the two
men who, in the last analysis, control a
very large proportion of the colored vote
of Chicago. That vote is a factor in
a lesser way in other sections of the
city and in this district it elects other
officials. No other politicians have the
same control as these two. The balance
of power wielded by the colored vote,
swung by Senator Harding, gave Mayor
Thompson his nomination and his sub-
sequent election. Samuel A. Ettelson, cor-
poration counsel and state senator from
the 3d district, also depends on the col-
ored vote. The 1st and 3d districts have
a colored representative each, the one
from the 1st having been selected by
Harding. The race's vote which is abso-
lute in the 2d ward where Harding con-
trols, has picked Hugh Norris, white, and
Oscar De Priest colored, lor aldermen.
De Priest now lines with the Madden-Et-
telson element.
Congressman Madden was the first to
capitalize the colored vote. Senator Hard-
Ing, then alderman, followed and devel-
oped it on more systematic lines. He is
the political czar with an inexhaustible
campaign barrel and no disgruntled sub-
chief has ever successfully opposed him.
Congressman Madden watches his politi-
cal fences with care. Senator Harding is
one of the largest real estate owners in
the city. Charges have come from the
offices of the Committee of Fifteen that
some of Senator Harding's buildings are
used for "buffet" flats, disorderly saloons
and similar purposes. Senator Harding
has answered that when the character of
undesirable tenants was discovered they
were evicted and that with such a large
rent list it is impossible for him to pre-
vent some such tenants from slipping in
before their business is known.
Harding and Police Job*.
Congressman Madden and Senator
Harding have much to say as to who
shall do the police work in their terri-
tory, especially under the present admin-
istration. Harding says 'he leaves such
local affairs to the two aldermen. Aid.
Norris says he does not act as a gobe-
tween for his constituents and the police
and that with the latter he does not have
enough influence to close a gambling
house, having tried once and failed. Aid.
De Priest is left as the active boss on the
Job over the police, but Senator Harding
has the final word. It is apparently up
to Harding and De Priest to say whether
the colored voters who elect them shall
live amid respectable surroundings or
whether their district shall become the
dumping ground for the vice of the city.
"I was told that a political meeting to
oppose me was held at the Dunbar club,"
said Aid. Norris, relating his amazing
police experience with the notorious
gambling house at 3016 South State street.
"I complained against the club to the
police station and a couple of days later
the captain told me he had investigated
and could not find any gambling. One of
the men who played there kept me In-
formed and I insisted on some action
being taken. One afternoon the police
raided the place when two colored base-
ball teams were playing and had drawn
such crowds to see them that there was
not a colored 'sport* with money east of
Wentworth avenue. The club was open
that night as usual. I got after the cap-
tain again and he stationed officers at the
front and rear entrances. My gambler
friend told me two policemen were there
and the game had been moved next door
with the players stepping over the police-
men's toes as they came and went. The
police didn't want to and wouldn't close
the club, so I quit."
This Is a typical Illustration of how the
police act against a lawbreaklng estab-
lishment that is protected by the "sys-
tem," even though they antagonize an
alderman. A general tendency is shown
to neglect the district by police, health,
building department or other officials. The
residents do not get such public conven-
iences as citizens residing elsewhere en-
joy, and so they push out into other parts
of the city in search of them.
"My opinion, based on observation In
this court, is that crime conditions among
the colored people are being deliberately
fostered by the present city administra-
tion," said Judge Harry M. Fisher of the
Morals court. "Disorderly cabarets,
thieves and depraved women are allowed
in the section of the city where colored
29
people live. They have an expression,
'The law is around to-night,' as a warn-
ing to behave, so seldom Is the law en-
forced. The race is being exploited for
the sake of men in politics who are a
disgrace to their own race. Young, unat-
tached men or women, strangers and un-
sophisticated, are brought into this dis-
trict from the south, and their first taste
of freedom is downward."
Pool hall night schools in the rudi-
ments of crime, insanitary and dangerous
homes, surroundings of vice and deprav-
ity abound, in contrast to the necessities
of good citizenship which are lacking.
Colored Race and the Law.
Colored persons involved with the law
are greatly in excess of the proportion of
other races, according to the annual re-
port for 1915 of the Chicago police de-
partment. The figures, summarized, were:
Total Colored
(All races. )Per9tms. Pet.
Population 2,500,000 75,000 3.0
Arrests 121,704 9,960 8.2
Percentage arrested 4.9 18.8
Convicted 46,987 6,861 10.4
Per cent prisoners convict-
ed 38.6 48.8
The great excess in the percentage of
convictions is explained by colored law-
yers on the theory that the colored pris-
oner is looked on with less favor than a
white one.
In the Juvenile court the figures were:
Delinquents. Dependents. TotaL
±*oys. Girls. Boys. Girls.
Amer'ns (white) 356 99 241 223 919
Amer'ns (col'd). 168 66 64 84 818
All nativities.. 2,192 594 1.116 1.194 6,096
In the Morals court the percentage of
colored prisoners is even higher. Reform
authorities say that the percentage of
crime is increased greatly by the dis-
orderly surroundings in which so many of
the colored people are forced to live.
CHAPTER XIV
Planning for the Future and Better Conditions
Those farsighted persons who look to
the future of the colored population of
Chicago are awake to the situation. De-
voted men and women, both white and
colored, have given freely of their time
and money to help direct the leas
fortunate ones in the right direction and
surround them with proper influences.
Reputable members of the Negro race,
these who have real influence in the com-
munity, are grappling as best they can
with the task of uplifting a people who
are discriminated against in civic oppo-
tunities and overloaded with city evils.
White citizens also realize that the rapid
influx of colored people from the south
has made the problem one that cannot
be disregarded and one that involves the
future of the entire city.
Among the colored people are many or-
ganizations. Nearly all of them profess
a purpose looking toward race betterment
or religious growth, but a great many
overlook this purpose in the more imme-
diate satisfaction of literary and social
meetings. The churches all have their
individual organizations, which do an im-
mense amount of work. In the last few
years the Y. M. C. A. and similar organ-
izations have got fairly started on prac-
tical work among the people.
To Co-Orillnate 4OO Organizations.
Organization of a Chicago branch of the
National League on Urban Conditions
Among Negroes, one of the strongest and
most practical of their organizations, is
under way. L. Hollingsworth Wood of
New York is the national president. Miss
Sophronisba P. Breckenridge and Dr.
George C. Hall are the Chicago members
of the directorate. Eugene Kinckle Jones,
one of the league's national secretaries,
held a meeting with the local leaders,
and T. Arnold Hill, one of the national
organizers, was left in charge. The league
plans to make a survay of housing and
living conditions, moral surroundings,
avenues of work and other phases of life
among colored residents. It will co-
ordinate the work of about 400 present
colored organizations.
A similar survey was made by a local
class in civics in the fall of 1913. Fifty
blocks between 26th, South LaSalle and
36th streets and South Wabash avenue
were covered. In them were found 118
destructive and sixteen constructive agen-
cies. In the ten blocks along South State
street were eighty-two destructives and
sixteen constructive agencies. Of the
sixteen ten were for Negroes, four for
whites and two were schools for both
races. The league proposes to expend
$1,000 in making its survey. It has done
similar work with excellent results in
other cities.
The National Association for the Ad-
vancement of Colored People already has
a local organization. Miss Jane Addams
and Dr. Charles E. Bentley are national
directors.
The Federated Colored organizations
also have launched the Rotary Settlement
movement for the avowed purpose of "de-
stroying much of the fertile soil for
viciousness and corruption."
30
Tvro Different Plans of Work.
Those working for the uplifting of their
race in Chicago as elsewhere may be di-
vided roughly into two schools — one
working on the plans followed by the late
Booker T. Washington and the other fol-
lowing the theories advanced by W. E.
Burghardt DuBois of New York. Though
their ideas may differ on details, both
groups are striving sincerely for the ad-
vancement of their people.
Thinking colored persons are keenly
awake to the dangers pressing in on
th^m because of the unbridled license
which city authorities permit in wards
like the 2d.
"Increased demands made upon our in-
dustries have brought among us thousands
of colored men, who, while speaking the
same language as we do, are in many
cases little more accustomed to the free-
dom of this city, the habits and customs
of our people than is the newly arrived
peasant from Europe," said the Rev. Dr.
William A. Blackwell, pastor of Walters
African Methodist Episcopal Zion church.
"These people must be amalgamated and
assimilated. They must be saved from
the evil influences which surround them
and started in the right life."
Free and Kiisy Conditions.
"The system seems to be to have free
and easy conditions along South State
and 35th streets," said Morris Lewis, 3633
Forest avenue, secretary to the Peck es-
tate and an officer of the Douglas Im-
provement association. "About all we
can get action on is a dirty alley. As
to driving out 'buffet' flats and similar
dives, the only hope we have is that the
Committee of Fifteen will give some at-
tention to our district and force the city
officials to do something."
"It makes those who look forward to a
future for the colored race blush when
they see the conditions in State street by
day and night," said Dr. Bentley.
"The colored young man or girl has a
lack of good, wholesome moral opportuni-
ties," explained Edward H. Wright, an
assistant corporation counsel.
"The delinquent colored boy or girl
who is taken to the Juvenile court is
turned out again on probation to learn
more and keep going until either sent to
the penitentiary or hanged," said Dr.
Hall. "If Chicago lacks the vision to see
ahead it will reap the harvest of foster-
Ing a kindergarten on the streets where
gamins learn crime and know that once
on probatiou they are immune from ar-
rest. There was a time when in every
saloon, gambling joint, disorderly house
or other vicious or degrading place a
colored man or woman was employed.
The employment was that of catering to
the vices. Now the colored people have
learned that they can advance only
through respectable employments, re-
spectable associations. The colored peo-
yle must awake themselves up, ibuy prop-
eity, raise children and build homes for
the future. The one-time feeling of dis-
trust and jealousy Is passing away and
they must unite for their future develop-
ment."
"The city has the right to expect certain
standards of living among colored people,
and it has no right to force gambling
houses and disorderly dives among them,"
said the Rev. Myron E. Adams, former
pastor of the First Baptist church, and
still actively Interested in the welfare
of the south side. "They should have
wholesome recreational advantages. They
must co-operate instead of discrediting
each other. Their religious leaders should
emphasize the practical elements of hu-
manity as well as the emotional ones of
religion. Thrift, honesty, punctuality and
civic obligations must be appreciated."
Need of Improvement Shown.
This is the concluding article in the
series which The Daily News has pre-
pared, the first thorough study of the
colored population of Chicago. The arti-
cles have shown the extent of this pop-
ulation, how it is distributed through the
city and the rapidity with which it has
increased in recent months. The oppor-
tunities for the colored boy or girl have
been pointed out, and many colored men
and women who by their efforts and tal-
ents have become valued members of the
community and nation have been men-
tioned by name. The articles also have
described the injurious physical conditions
forced on the so called "colored districts"
either from motives of politics or of av-
arice, conditions which tend to retard the
progress of the race. These conditions
must be changed in the interest of the
healthy, steady advancement of the race
as a whole.
31
\
THE BEST WAR NEWS
The London Chronicle of December
4, 1914, said: "The Chicago Daily News,
which is by far the best evening news-
paper in the world, has over thirty cor-
respondents in Europe reporting on the
war.'3
The London Chronicle of June 19,
1915, said: "The Chicago Daily News,
which has published more special war
news than any other paper in Amer-
ica * * * ."
An old Chicago newspaper man,
speaking to a friend the other day,
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know that the best news of the war is
put together right here in Chicago in
our Daily News?"
Are you reading the best war news
in America in the best news-paper in
Chicago ?
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