100 Years Ago August 1919 – Race Riots & Stain On Our Honor
Selected from the pages of the Middletown Press and lightly annotated by Sally Haase
Race Riots Slow. Chicago, Aug. 1: Comparative peace reigns in the Chicago riot zone and the tide of anger, malice and race hatred that has surged for more than four days apparently has abated. The turmoil has not entirely ceased and the mob spirit is still smoldering. The task of providing food for the families in the riot-swept district and the re-establishment of amicable relations between whites and blacks are receiving consideration. One of the most serious problems arising out of the riots is that of employment of negroes. It is reported that several packing establishments that formerly employed 15,000 colored men have drawn the line and will hire white labor only hereafter. During the past 24 hours, but one slaying has been reported. That came when a 12-year-old white boy was dragged from a truck and beaten to death by negro youths.
60 White Homes Burn. Chicago, Aug. 2: From 40 to 60 homes of white families in the district “back of the yards” were burned to the ground or seriously damaged, while hundreds were rescued and now are homeless. The military authorities and cordons of police had difficulty in handling a throng of 50,000 excited spectators.
High Cost of Living. Washington, Aug. 3: The high cost of living will be forced downward. Every available agency of the government now is being utilized to achieve this result. This was the position assumed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Since 1913, the cost of living has advanced 83 percent. During this period potatoes increased 111 percent; flour, 107 percent; and lard, 154 percent.
Feed Our Own First. Washington, Aug.4: An embargo upon the exportation of food to bring down prices was suggested by Senator Reed, in the midst of a spirited debate on the cost of living. “If we have not enough food here for our own people we should keep what we have at home and not be sending it to others who have brought their misfortunes on their own heads,” Reed said. He further suggested that “New York and Chicago bankers are now engaged in forming a gigantic trust to drain this country of its goods.”
Attempt To Burn Black Belt. Chicago, Aug. 4: Troops patrolling the riot district were thrown into sudden action early today to thwart a reported attempt of between 500 and 600 white men to burn the black belt. Demonstrations by whites against negroes and by negroes against whites are still frequent in the riot zone.
Women Will Decide The Election. Washington, Aug. 4: The women of the country will elect the next president, President Wilson was told by Mrs. George Bass, chairman of the women’s committee of the democratic national committee. Mrs. Bass told the president that no “man who opposes the league of nations could expect to receive the presidential vote of women….The women are for peace as they were the greatest suffers of the war.”
Secret Shantung Deal. Washington, Aug. 11: The state department had official knowledge six months before the United States entered the war that Great Britain and Japan had a secret agreement whereby they were to split Germany’s Pacific island holdings between them, Secretary Lansing informed the senate foreign relations committee. Under questioning, he said neither he nor the state department had any knowledge, when the armistice was signed, of the secret treaties made between Japan and Great Britain, France and Russia as to the Shantung Province, [on the main land would be under control of the Japanese.] He insisted that he told Japanese envoy Ishii that the United States would never agree to Japan acquiring “paramount interest” in China.
Andrew Carnegie Dies. Lenox, Mass., Aug. 11: Andrew Carnegie, one of the world’s most prominent financiers, steel magnate and philanthropist, died at his summer home of bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 83. Born in Scotland and brought to Pittsburg where he got his meager schooling, he earned his first dollar as a weaver’s assistant. He rose rapidly until he became superintendent on the Pennsylvania railroad. After the Civil War he became interested in oil lands, sleeping car construction and iron mills. He retired in 1991, declaring that “no man should die rich.” Some of Carnegie’s Success formulas follow:
- A penny saved is a penny earned.
- Be your own employer. The man who hires makes the money; the man hired doesn’t.
- Industry and natural ability make up for a college education. If you have these and use them, you don’t need college training.
Sale Of Food Through Postoffices. Washington, Aug. 13: The government made its first move in the campaign of competition with commercial food dealers. Sweeping reductions in the prices of army surplus foods will be sold direct to the American public. Patrons will find the price list posted in the lobbies of post offices. The prices quoted are the cost of the articles to which will be added the cost of postage.
Army Airships Concentrate On Border. Washington, Aug. 16: All of the airfields in the United States, with the exception of those along the Mexican border, are to be temporarily closed. The army appropriations bill failed to provide funds and men to keep all the fields open this year. Those contiguous to the border must be maintained, General Mitchel said, because of the uncertainty in Mexican affairs which might necessitate a complete blockade of the border which could best be maintained by aeroplanes.
China Gave In To Japan At Our Request. Washington, Aug. 18: China did not press her case against Japan at the peace conference at the request of the American government, by which she was regarded as a “ward,” testified Thomas Millard, a newspaper man, who acted in an advisory capacity to the Chinese delegation at Versailles. Millard stated to the senate committee that it was Secretary Lansing who “objected” to the Chinese government carrying out its intention of employing two American experts on international law to look after the Chinese interests because it would be “embarrassing.” Not only were the experts not employed but the Chinese relations with Japan were not raised by the Chinese delegation at Lansing’s suggestion.
A Stain On Our National Honor. Washington, Aug. 21: In answer to questions from the senate foreign relations committee, President Wilson has not the power to declare by proclamation that a state of peace exists between the United States and Germany before the treaty has been ratified, he set forth today. But, “I feel it due to perfect frankness to say that it would, in my opinion, put a stain upon our national honor which we never could efface, if after sending our men to the battlefield to fight the common cause we should abandon our associates in the war in the settlement of the terms of peace and dissociate ourselves from all responsibility with regard to those terms.”
Japan Begins Campaign In Siberia. Washington, Aug. 21: The Japanese had taken the first step towards seizure of Siberia in the appointment of the Kato Sadakici as ambassador on a special mission to Siberia, and it is Japan’s ambition to control the Far East, and after the Far East, the world, charges Dr. S. Rhee, so-called “president of the republic of Korea.” The appointment of Kato as an ambassador sent to Siberia should open the eyes of America.
World Crying To America For Aid. Paris, Aug. 21: America is the shining deliverer to which the famine ridden people of Poland, Austria, Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia are looking to save them, declared Herbert Hoover, head of the international food relief commission. “The most appalling conditions prevail everywhere,” said Hoover. “The dominant note is the pathetic dependence upon the United States. President Wilson was right when he said that immediate peace is necessary to save the whole of Europe as well, possibly, as our own economic future. The cry that greets every American,” Hoover said, is: “For God’s sake do not leave us now.”
Strike Out Word “Japan.” Washington, Aug. 23: The foreign relations committee of the senate voted 9 to 8 in favor of the return of Shantung concession to China instead of Japan. The committee voted to strike out the word “Japan” wherever it occurs in [the pertinent] articles of the treaty of Versailles and insert the word “China” the effect of which is that the committee favors the return of the concession in Shantung to China.
Wilson To Start On Tour Soon. Washington, Aug. 27 & 28: President Wilson will start on his western speaking tour “as soon as arrangements can be made.” It previously had been stated that the president would not leave until after the treaty of Versailles had been reported out of committee, but necessity for delaying his departure until that time has passed, he is said to believe. Tentative plans call for a 25-day trip if the president’s strength will permit. However, Admiral C.T. Grayson, his personal physician, declared today that the president was never in better health. President Wilson will start on his speaking tour September 3 and will make his first address at Columbus, Ohio.
Republicans To Follow “Swing Around The Circle.” Washington, Aug. 29: While President Wilson is on his speech making tour, republican senators opposed to ratification of the German treaty and entry of the United States into the proposed League of Nations, plan to deliver a series of addresses themselves in various parts of the country. Avowed advocates of the rejection of the treaty, plan to speak as often and in as many places as they can, whenever their senatorial duties will permit them to absent themselves from Washington.
100 years ago, much has changed and, then again, nothing has changed.
