Page:Chicago Race Riots (Sandburg, 1919).djvu/65



of race warfare reported from Washington, D. C, cause leaders of the colored people in Chicago to place emphasis on two points. (1) That Washington has had a large inflow of southern white population during recent years, while the regular army is known to have a larger proportion of whites from the southern states than from any other section; (2) that the reported clashes may be something else than racial hostilities and, perhaps, may be traced back to the same antagonisms as those which caused the sectional war from i860 to 1865.

John Hawkins, formerly with the federal department of justice and more recently in the second deputy superintendent's office of the Chicago police department, gives this view:

"The newspaper reports of what is happening in Washington have most frequently indicated that the causes of the outbreaks were attacks by colored soldiers on white women. Though this is a serious and sinister charge to repeat day after day in dispatches that go to the entire nation, the fact is that there have been no supporting details, no particulars of knowledge or information such as any court of law or any intelligent person requires before arriving at an opinion or a conviction.

"In one instance a dispatch contained the following three sentences: 'Even while the rioting was at its height