Page:Chicago Race Riots (Sandburg, 1919).djvu/72

62 worked all day, twenty mothers were "heavy drinkers," to use the classification employed by this investigator. Forty-two refused to answer questions.

The following sweeping summary was noted:

"Fifty-one per cent of the cases revealed home broken by death, desertion, divorce, drink, promiscuous living or degeneracy, and cases where the deserted mother was found living in open shame before her children or where a father who is a widower was living in open shame before his children."

Such are fragmentary notes of a district in which a Chicagoan might pick up as many "Broken Blossoms" as Thomas Burke found in one quarter of London.

At the corner of 34th and South State streets the Rev. W. C. Thompson of the Pentecostal Church of Christ ended a street meeting that was rich and vibrant with melody. He explained that the police sometimes run him and his singers off the street, but the meetings would be kept up until the next time the police took such action.

"New things is comin' altogether diverse from what they has been," said this preacher in a rush of eloquence, and twenty voices of men and women shook out irresistible and magnetic melody to a song called "After a While." The last stanza ran like this:

"Our boasted land and nation is plunging in disgrace With pictures of starvation in almost every place, While plenty of needed money remains in horrid piles, But God's going to rule this nation after a while. After a while, After a while, God's going to rule this nation, after a while."