Page:Chicago Race Riots (Sandburg, 1919).djvu/24

14 With reference to the effect of colored residents on real estate values, there are two points of view. it is asserted, on one hand, that in all cases where the property owner has kept up the improvements and refused to sell to speculators, his real estate has risen in value. On the other hand, it is contended that colored residents bring down property values in a neighborhood. Both sides point to specific instances in support of their contentions.

L. M. Smith, of the Kenwood Improvement association, a prominent spokesman for real estate interests, and one of those most active in opposition to the movement of colored people eastward in his part of the city, gave the writer the following expression of his views:

"We want to be fair. We want to do what is right. But these people will have to be more or less pacified. At a conference where their representatives were present, I told them we might as well be frank about it, 'you people are not admitted to our society,' I said. Personally, I have no prejudice against them. I have had experience of many years dealing with them, and I'll say this for them: I have never had to foreclose a mortgage on one of them. They have been clean in every way, and always prompt in their payments. But, you know. improvements are coming along the lake shore, the Illinois Central, and all that; we can't have these people coming over here.

"Not one cent has been appropriated by our organization for bombing or anything like that.

"They injure our investments. They hurt our values. I couldn't say how many have moved in, but there's at least a hundred blocks that are tainted. We are not making any threats, but we do say that something must be done. Of course. if they come in as tenants, we can