The Kansas City sun., July 07, 1917, Image 1

About The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924

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VOLUME IX. NUMBER 45.
KANSAS' CITY, MISSOURI, SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1917.
PRICE, 5c.
Cowardly Police and Militia Search Negroe's
Homes, Dis Them, and Then Turn Them
Over to the Blood-thirsty Demons Clamoring
For Their Lives. Without Arms or Protection 38
are Killed, More than 200 Wounded and 325 Negro
Homes are Burned and Looted.
t i
Negroes Refuse to Leave but Intend to Stay in East St. Louis and
Die if Necessary for Their Homes and Rights as American
Citizens; to do an Honest Day's Work for an Honest Day's Pay.
Is God Dead?
No! N o! No!
THE SHAME OF ILLINOIS
Brutality Unparalelled in the
East St. Louis, Illinois, Riots
a Joke.
The most horrible, blood curdl-j
ing and wanton massacre of un
armed and defenseless Negroes
ever recorded in this country'
.(Land of the Free and, Home of
the Brave) occurred last Monday
at East St. Ljouis, 111., where 38
Negro men, Avomeu and children,
two of whom were less than three
years of age, were foully murder
ed, more than 325 homes belong
ing to or occupied by them being
burned and a reign of terror in
stituted. Be it said to their credit
and altho unarmed the police and
militia having visited their homes
during the day and confiscated all
available weapons of defense they
succeeded, according to a reliable
report brought us bys a railroad
porter who witnessed the diffi
culty in killing 21 of the mob in
addition to the four who had been
killed earlier in the day. That
such a thing could happen in the
face of Illinois that gave to the
world a Lincoln, a Logan, and a
Sumner was beyond belief and re
gardless of the various causes it
remains undenied that the police
and militia acted in a most
cowardly and criminal manner.
The Sun is unable to present any
more accurato or truthful account
than the following article taken
from the columns of a St. Louis
daily paper which it presents in
all its dreadfulness and horror to
its thousands of readers:
SLAIN AS THEY BEGGED MERCY.
Murderous East St. Louis Mobs En
Joyed the Butchery.
St. Louis, July 3. For an hour and
a half last evening I saw the massacre
of helpless Negroes at Broadway and
Fourth street, in downtown East St.
Louis, where a black skin was a death
warrant.
I have read of St. Bartholomew's
night. I have heard stories of the lat
ter day crimes of the Turks in Ar
menla add I have learned to loathe the
German army for its barbarity in Bel
glum. But I do not believe that Mos
lem fanaticism or Prussian frightful
ness could perpetrate murders of more
deliberate brutality than those which
I saw committed in daylight by citi
zens of the state of Abraham Lincoln.
I saw man after man, with hands
raised, pleading for his life, surround
ed by groups of men men who had
never seen him before and knew noth
ing about him except that he was
black and saw them administer the
historic sentence of intolerance, death
by stoning. 1 saw one of these men,
almost dead fro ma savage shower of
stones, hanged with a clothesline, and
when it broke, hanged with a rope
which held. Within a few paces of
the pole from which he was suspend
ed four other Negroes lay dead or dy
ing, another having been removed,
dead, a short time before. I saw the
pockets of two of, these Negroes
searched, without the finding of any
weapon.
I saw one of these men, covered
with blood and halt conscious, raise
himself on his elbow and look feebly
about, when a young man, standing
directly behind him, lifted a stono in
both hands and hurled it upon his j
heck. This young man was much bet
ter dressed than most of the others.
He walked away unmolested. I
I saw Negro women, begging for
mercy and pleading that they had
harmed no one, set upon by white wo
men of the 'baser Bort, who laughed
and answered the coarse sallies of
men as they beat the Negro women's
faces and breasts with lists, stones
and sticks. I Baw one of these furies
fling herself at .a militiaman, who was
trying to protect a Negro woman, and
wrestle with him for his bayonetted
gun, while, other women attacked the
refuge.
What I saw in ninety minutes, be
tween 6:30 o'clock and the lurid com
ing of darkness, was but one local
sceno of the drama of death which
continued for hours. I am satisfied
that in' spirit and method it typified
the whole.'
The East St. Louis men took no
chances, except the chance from stray
(See Page 8, Col. 3)
j j
LISTEN, MEN!
DR. HOWARD M. SMITH,
Superintendent of the Jackson County
Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes,
the acknowledged leader of Negro
Democracy in Jackson County and the
State, whose skllfull and efficient ef
forts backed up by the leading Negroes
of the State did much to secure for j
President Allen re-election as Presi
dent of Lincoln Institute. Dr. Smith
Is quiet, highly cultured and unassum-j
ing, but Is a power among those Demo- j
crats who control the political affairs j
of Jackson County and the State,
,'.
For to give up essential lib-
erty to obtain a little temporary
safety is to' deserve neither lib-
erty nor safety. Benjamin
Franklin.
THE CAUSE AND
THE REMEDY
The present drift of Negroes from
the Southern to the Northern states,
In response to the acute demand for
labor, Is raising political, social and
economic questions that lay bare the
tie that binds them to .their more for
tunate brethren. The Cincinnati- Post
describes conditions In that city that
can he duplicated In most of the large
Northern cities. Negro immigrants
are crowding tenements from cellar
to garret. In one ward 1,793 between
the ages of 21 and 31 registered, ex
ceeding the number in the next most
thickly populated ward by more than
COO.- Those men, the Post goes on
to say, will be voted en bloc, and bo
determine the city's mayor, .Us Judges
and other officers. The social prob
lem Is still worse. Overcrowding pro
duces a death rate of 675 from tuber-
(See Page 8, Col. 5)
One big Pole last night said
he had lost his job in an alu
minum factory, his wife and
two daughters had lost their
places and his son had been
shot by a Negro.
"I killed seventeen last
night," he said, grinning as
he shifted an ax he was car
rying from one hand to the
other. "And I am going
to get a few more if I
get a chance."
The Sun belie
ves and fervent
ly prays that God
will damn every
male Negro in
East St. Louis yet
living if that Pole
is not sought out
and brought to
justice.
BBBBRff EL
I
CAPT. LEON H. JORDAN,
who Is taking treatment and a much- :
needed rest In the State Sanitarium.
, Capt. Jordan was a Lieutenant in the'1
1 7 Immunes in the Spanish-American I
, War, saw service with the 49th Volun-!
j teer Infantry in the Philippines, where i
he was brevetted Captain for gallant
service and would have entered the ;
Training Camp for Colored Officers j
this year had his health permitted. 1
The Sun hopes for his speedy recovery.!
I
Justice, equal and exact, to all
men. of whatever state of per
suasion, religious or political.
Thomas Jefferson.
,
Youth of America, the. curse
of ages will rest upon you It
ever you surrender to foreign
ambition or domestic lawless-
ness the precious liberty for
for which your fathers bled.
r John Mitchell Mason.
DEMAND PUNISH
MENT OF MOB
SOCIALIST LEADER WIRES PRES
IDENT 'WILSON ABOUT "EAST
ST. LOUIS SAVAGES."
New York, July 3. ''Swift and se
vere punishment" for the mobs which
wiped out the 'Negro section of East
St. Louis and burned their property
(See Page 5,ICol. 3)
,Col. 3)
I SERIOUS CHARGES AGAIN
' ST MILITIA MEMBERS
, IN EAST ST. LOUIS
Monday morning of this week three
prominent Colored men of East St.
Louis came to Springfield as a com
mittee to lay before Arjutant General
Dlckerson, charges against threo
members of tho militia on duty In that
city. The committee consisted of
Mrs. F. AV. Wallace, editor of The
Star of ZIon and a member of the
board of supervisors of St. Clair; S.
R. Wheat, a prominent real estate and
automobile agent, and Thomas Green,
deputy clerk of the East St. Louis
election commissioners. After an
hour's conference with friends and
local Colored men at the Legion of
fice, tho committee proceeded to tho
state house where they were cordially
received by Arjutant General Dickson
and laid before him tho following com
plaint and charge:
(See Page 8, Col. 4)
IN EAST ST. LOUIS.
'1V11 me, is this Belgium? "What means these wild alarms,
This looting, and this terror, this sudden clash of arms?
Is this the Land of Freedom, whose foes we train to fight?
What means these groans of anguish, this screaming in the
night?
stop, Blackman. and tell me, why do you stand at bay?
"We came in peace to labor, but 'tis said we shall not stay.
We call this Our Country, we have pledged it loyalty ;
We are testing out the honor of the great "Democracy!"
In the South we labored, yet we never got ahead,
And of mobs, and kangaroo courts, wc were constantly
afraid.
Then the war came, and for labor did the North send out a
call.
And so we came to answer, on the journey staking all.
We had heard that where 01' Glory waves aloft, there men
are free,
'Tis the cry of those who carry it to battle cross the sea.
So we followed it as Israel did of old the cloud of fire,
Dreaming how its promise would our children's hearts
inspire.
But we were met by hoodlums, Po' White scullions of the
South,
And their pass-word, '"lynch the nigger," sped along from
mouth to mouth.
And when we saw them gathering, with the old time murder
cry,
Wo did each of us determine, like brave men, to fight and
die.
Oh, but it was awful, to behold our women beat
By the vile marauders like wild beasts upon the street ;
And one of us lay wounded in a culbert almost dead,
When along there came two roughnecks, and they shot him
in the head.
We stood our ground right nobly, we fought and many fell,
And not all "Blacks" in spite of what the daily papers tell
Though we had known oppression, yet we dreamed of
Liberty,
And such a dream brings courage, and courage sets men
free."
'Tis thus our home-war rages, while great rumb 'lings from
afar,
Tell of the mighty struggle, where the Nations are at war.
But the "Blacks" of East St. Louis, and tho Belgians 'cross
the sea,
Play the star parts in this drama of the "World
Democracy."
Roscoe C. Jamison.
PITILESS MURDERERS
What sort of a
and what sort nt
on duty in St.
rlges there t I
read of sol I
of the cr I
Negroes
commit
Unlte
governor has Illinois,
officers did he have
lis to permit the out-
v'nue for hours? We
-g over the heads
"he torturing of
The atrocities
Louis hold the
Xnrobrlum of
the world. And a single determined
officer In charge of tho troops couM
have stopped them In tea minutes.
Thursday's Star.
1
Mr. Smith Henderson of St. T-nnia
Mo., a former Kansas City boy, Is
visiting hla brother and sister, Mr.
and Mrs. Edward Henderson, inn
Merstnger avenue, this week and re
newing acquaintances among old
' mends.
"EL
1 -
v.,