304 Dedicated to the promotion of understanding and co-operation between the races. Copyrighted 1919 by The Great Western Publishing Company 1237 W Madison St. Chicago, 111. Preface. THE agitated, throbbing, "black" heart of Chicago is at this date, August 1919, en- circled with a steely ring of bayonets and automatics in the hands of United States sol- diers and Chicago policemen. Negroes to the number of 200,000, conservatively estimated, re- side in the so-called riot zone. The military and police forces were placed there for the pur- pose of suppressing race riots that in the last week of July, 1919, threatened the overthrow of all the municipal governmental restraints that the city of Chicago could throw into the streets. The burden of this pamphlet is an earnest, conscientious probe of the fearful set of social circumstances that could make possible and let loose the flame of beastiliness and animalism that resulted in 35 officially recorded, 200 rumored deaths and serious injuries running in- to the thousands. The author of this pamphlet is convinced that the cause of the race conflict in Chicago and elsewhere in the United States is rooted deep in our economic system and, while other contrib- uting causes are admitted, their influence on the actions of men and women of both races is so slight that they can with reason and good judgment practically be disregarded in a book- let of this size and character. The flaming rage of a mob, angered at the real or fancied outrage of some woman of their race by a man of another color can be analyzed, accounted for, understood. But the spectacle of a ferocious mob flowing thru the streets seek- ing a black or white victim, as the case may be, on general principles and without special pro- vocation is a social phenomena that demands profound and special study. Law defying bands of Whites and Blacks that go indiscriminately hunting and gunning for victims in a city where there are approximately 250,000 Negroes, constitute a social danger signal which cannot and must not be ignored. With one tenth of our national population composed of black and mulatto persons the race problem in America is one of the most explosive that we have to contend with. This pamphlet is issued in fairness to both races* and is an earnest contribution to the dis- cussion of a vital, pressing problem that menaces the peace of the nation and is especially recom- mended to the toiling masses who bear the bur- dens of the world and whose faces are kept in the dirt by reason of division, misunderstanding and ignorance. Harrison George. STATEMENT OF THE STOCK YARDS LABOR COUNCIL By J. W. JOHNSTONE, Secretary-Treasurer. The Stock Yards Labor Council extends a fraternal welcome and an invitation to unite with us to each and every colored worker in the city of Chicago. To emphasize our goodwill we have granted organization privileges to our col- ored brothers in the past that have been denied white workers. Colored unionists are free to join white locals or organize color locals of their own. Newly initiated black union men may affiliate with the local of their craft or they may select the local of their choice. Colored union men are granted admission with right of discusion to any Stock Yards union. White union men are restrict- ed to union privileges in the local of their craft, must join that local and are not granted the right of general discussion in all locals. This is all done to promote fraternal fellowship and understanding between the races. We are positive that if the toilers of both races in the stock yards and the great industries of Chicago were thoroughly organized, if the conflict for jobs and wages were adjusted by this White-Black union, serious race trouble would be impossible. When this unity of purpose and organization on the industrial field is perfected by the work- ers of Chicago the vicious and successful cam- paigns carried on by large employers of labor in this city and other cities to pit and play blacks against whites wil be at an end and one prolific source of trouble eliminated. The desire of the organized packers is division in the ranks of the white and colored workers; the desire of all intelligent workers of both races is unity and organization among white and col- ored employes. The Stock Yards Labor Council knows no color line or sex, dismisses all creed and national distinctions and seeks to embrace the toiling masses from all four quarters of the globe in the high and noble purposes of clean- cut unionism. We know but one opposition and that consists of those industrial forces that seek to put too great burdens upon the backs of the working class, that seek to grind their faces in the dirt and deny them the right to live as Amer- icans should ; upon these and these alone we de- clare unending war until the toilers of every color and clime that are in the American melting pot and building this great nation shall have come into their own industrial freedom, indus- trial democracy and the control of the lives and destinies of themselves and their families. OUR REAL ENEMY. MARY MARCY, Author-Journalist. In Germany the profiteers are printing stories about the Jews in order to inflame the minds of the workers so they will forget high prices and the men who profit by them, and be side-tracked into race riots. Stock yards workers tell me that here in Chi- cago the millionaire packers are doing their best to promote enmity betwen the colored and the white workers so that when you and I grow des- perate over the rising cost of living we will pick fights with each other and spend our rage on our fellow workers. One of the methods the packers use is to pay the colored workers higher wages than the union scale. They want to keep the colored men and women out of the unions, so that when the white men go out on strike for decent living conditions the colored men will scab on them. Then when the fight against the white union men has been won the packers will fire the colored workers and take back the white ones. In other words the big thieves are trying to use workingmen against workingmen for their own profit. But gradually the colored folks are getting wise to the packers' game and are joining the unions. They know the packers don't care as much for any workingman as they do for a pound of farm sausage. All they want is to use the whites against the colored men, or the color- ed workers against the white men to force down wages. Then the packers will hire the men who work cheapest. Some unions have raised wages from 50 cents a day to nine dollars a day. They were able to do this because the Catholics and the Protestant workers, the Irish and the Dutch, the Jew and the colored workers STUCK TOGETHER; they all refused to scab because they knew that the scab ultimately lowers his own wages. Government reports show that the Swift family grabbed $47,000,000 profits last year. And they probably did not EARN $2,000 of it, while the workers in the Swift plants were only paid $22,000,000 in wages. The idlers got over twice as much as their rake-off as the workers who run the packing plants. The report of the Armour and other packing plants is nearly as bad. Don't let the packers or any other capitalists side-track your common sense. Don't let them turn you against your white or black brother SO THEY CAN HIRE MEN AT LOWER WAGES LATER ON and get still richer out of your abor. The packers cannot fool me. Whenever they do things that foster race riots I know they are like the burglar that gets his pal to throw a tin pan in the cellar while he ROBS THE fcAFE. And they can't draw my attention away from the millions they are taking from the people who work. When they are united the white and colored workers WIN : when the workers are divided THE BOSS WINS. Unite, join the union and bea: the boss! SHALL WE UNIONIZE? THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION among our workmen at the stock yards is whether or not to unionize. During the recent riots the union officials made stirring appeals to our stock yard workers with a view to inducing them to become members of the union. Organized labor publica- tions through their editorial columns voiced the same demands. Some of these proposals were of the most flattering character and should receive the serious consideration of our workers. IN YEARS PAST our attitude has been one of distrust and suspicion of the motives and hon- esty of purpose of the leaders of organized labor. For much of this attitude the labor leaders themselves are responsible. In their constitu- tions the word "white" stood a gigantic barrier to our participation with them in the labor field. In recent years there seems to be a growing dis- position to open the doors of unionism to our workmen, LEADERS LIKE KIKULSKI, Fitzpatrick and Johnston, in conference with leading police officials during the last stock yard strike, stated that not a single soldier or policeman would be required in that district to preserve order. Arid that organized labor would see to it that the black workman would be protected by his white associates in the ranks of organized labor. WHEN ALL IS SAID and done, it may be the part of wisdom for us to join with the white brother in the labor movement. Most of our workmen's trouble in the North is due largely to antagonism in the industrial field, and if these antagonisms can be wiped cut by our entering the ranks of unionism it seems the only sane and safe thing for us to do. At any rate, the experi- ment is worth a trial. To any forward-looking man it must be apparent that there must be a common destiny for workmen of all classes. For the good of the nation white men and black men must not go through the years with their hands at each other's throats. Something must be done to remove from the mind of the white laboring man the notion that large employers of labor are using us as a big stick over their heads. And the labor leaders must remove from our work- men's mind the suspicion and distrust born of the previous attitude of unionism toward them. WE CONFESS that our experience with or- ganized labor in this locality has not been re- assuring. Some years ago our waiters entered the labor movement by organizing a strong branch among themselves. They were induced by the leaders of the white waiters' union to strike against the existing scale of wages. In- stead of the support and co-operation which they expected from their white brothers, they were forced to see their places filled by white union waiters. This bit of unpleasant experience still sticks in our minds and is frequenty used as the basis of much of the opposition that exists among us against unionizing. IF THE LEADERS of the labor movement are anxious for our co-operation we stand ready to give it when we can be assured that we will not be deserted by our white brothers in a crisis. We do not relish the present situation, with its antagonisms and its hatreds. We stand ready on any tomorrow to extend the hand of fellowship to our white brother in the labor world, but we want him to come with clean hands and with the honest resolve to sink or swim in a common cause for the betterment of American laboring conditions, without regard to race or color. Chicago Defender. CONCERNING THE RACE RIOTS By the CHICAGO FEDERATON OF LABOR. The profiteering meat packers of Chicago are responsible for the race riots that have disgraced the city. It is the outcome of their deliberate attempt to disrupt the union labor movement in the stockyards. Their responsibility is shared by the daily newspapers which are kept subsidized by the extravagant advertising contracts of the packers, particularly the Tribune and the Her- ald and Examiner. The same meat packers can solve the problem if they will and put a stop to the trouble, but it can be done only in one way, if it is not to break out again at a future date more violently than before. The packers know that way. They have been told what it is and they are doing nothing about it. Ever since organized labor first started to unite the stockyards employes, the packers have fought with every weapon at their command these efforts of the workers. Discriminating against union men, they have fired them and hired nonunion men in their places. In recent years their principal recruit- ing points for nonunion workers have been in the south, and nonunion colored workers have beei? brought here in great numbers just as they are being brought here now by the railroads or were up to the outbreak of the race riots. These colored men and women are not brought here for their own improvement, but are enslaved at low wages and have been used by the pacekrs to undermine union conditions. Organized labor has no quarrel with the col- ored worker. Workers, white and black, are fighting the same battle. The unions met the ac- tion of the packers by starting to organize the colored workers. As soon as this work commenced, the packers started to fight the unions with foul tactics. They subsidized negro politicians and negro preachers and sent them out among the colored men and women to induce them not to join the unions. They had a Y. M. C. A. secretary on their staff, and the two present aldermen of the second ward participated actively in this campaign of the packers. One of them, Aid. L. B. Anderson, went before Attorney Francis J. Heney, repre- senting the workers, when he was preparing for his appearance before Judge Altschuler and urged that Heney should not ask the judge to order the packers to maintain a preferential union shop. Their purpose in this, which during the last several weeks has born bitter fruit, was to play upon race prejudice and create dissension between whites and blacks which would prevent the colored workers from joining the unions and prejudice the white workers against them for that reason. Notwithstanding their efforts, the colored workers came into the union in large numbers. Some weeks ago the unions redoubled their efforts to get the negroes in. Squads of union or- ganizers held street corner meetings as the work- ers left the yards. The packers called on Captain Caughlin of the stockyards station for mounted police to break up these meetings, and Captain Caughlin, tool of the packers, sent his bluecoats there to ride down the men who gathered to listen to the speakers. This caused a strike of stockyards workers until the federation officials and the officials of the Stockyards Labor Coun- cil steped in and secured the transfer of Captain Caughlin away from the yards and the cessation of this Cossack practice. The union planned a gigantic massmeeting and demonstration to take place Sunday, July 6, at which white and black workers were to parade together throughout the stockyards district and gather to hear speakers in a public playground. On the last day before this event, the pack- ers called upon the police and said they had in formation that the negroes were arming to as- ( sault the whites and they wanted the parade' permit revoked, at least they wanted the negroes and whites to march separately. Is not their purpose clear? Executive Board, Chicago Federation of Labor John Fitzpatrick, President, E. N. Nockels, Secretary. 11 The Chicago Race Riots THE frothy, bloody wake of the Great War revealed many things in our civilization that shook our faith in God, in Christ, and in the divine purpose of mankind themselves. Nowhere was the sickening realization that we are still animals more vivid and unescapable than in the city of Chicago during the week of July 28th, 1919 when the flame of racial antag- onism resulting from the friction of tens of thousands of returning white soldiers meeting tens of thousands of Negro workers firmly in- trenched in tens of thousands of jobs that the white soldiers and discharged civilians wanted and needed. The placing of millions of men in the forefront of the national defense and the unheard of industrial speed to which America was forced, taxed to the limit every man, woman, and child of working age, and every pound of machinery that we possessed. The Golden Age of industry seemed to have arrived. Unlimited markets, unlimited production, unlimited oppor- tunity for work, unheard of wages. (We are not discussing unheard of prices at this time.) All this tapped and drained the American labor res- ervoir in every state of the Union. The packers of Chicago turned their dividend-hungry eyes to our Southern fields where the brawny human workhorses of Africa were enjoying their more 12 or less carefree lives on the farms, plantations and in the small towns of the South. The lure of the city with its fabulous wages and the accompaning promises of the packers success- fully started the Negro exodus northward. This is no condemnation of the packers as such. Any set of men in the same circumstances would have done the same. Conservatively estimated, one hundred thous- and units of black blood entered the economic and social arteries of the commonwealth of the city of Chicago during this period. So long as the door of opportunity to work swung to in no man's face these white and black corpuscles cir- culated freely and without disturbance in the channels of city life and commercial intercourse. True, middle class respectability looked askance as the dark crest surged and swelled over the imaginary Belt line into the domain formerly recognized as strictly white. This resulted in several bombings and individual clashes, but if the city and country could remove the roots of the industrial cancer the economic and social re- lations of the two races would harmonize smoothly, naturally and the hatred between the two races would wither like an uprooted weed. A vicious trinity that is neither sensible or necessary and one that has reached its highest degree of influence for evil is unemployed man, the job, and the private owner of the job. When this nation was young and sparsely settled the question of the Negro exploitation and its con- sequent effect on Northern business made the fields of the South a battleground where Amer- 13 loans fought and died for what they thought was justice to the blacks and the best interests of the nation. That question was not properly settled then and it will not and cannot ever be properly settled while the master and servant relation exists in any form on the face of the earth. And now the nation is populous and the machinery of production has increased to the point when all work people cannot work all the time at the machines and con- sume all the produce of their labor and carry the load of profit, rent and interest that goes with private ownership and operation of the great industries and resources of the nation. The leather blacksnake whip that sang and writhed over the backs of the slaves of the South is now cunningly hidden in the refined lash of modern necessity that is now wielded by the present day representatives of the slave owners of the fifties but in our blindness, in our desper- ation as we are caught in the meshes of an ever tightening struggle for jobs and existence we, the white and black workers, see only the worker who is striving for the same position in industrial life that we are seeking and miss en- tirely the sinister Moloch of capital that de- mands the surplus of the toil of the whites and the blacks that would mean life, education, and a successful pursuit of happiness made easily realizable for both races in America. In a so- ciety where man worked for mankind and the mighty engines of modern industry were at the service of the people and not an unscrupulous powerful minority race riots would be ridiculous, unthinkable, impossible. 14 Theories advanced. POLITICS. A word made filthy and abhor- rent to decent Americans by the actions of poli- ticians and admittedly a source of much irrita- tion and disgust in the hearts of good men and women of both races. Catering for votes that disregards principle and puts place and the re- wards of position above community good is vicious and the human reptiles who practice it should be hissed from the society of clean men of both races. But municipal politicians juggle with effects only. A municipal government has nothing whatsoever to do with the social system, or the schemes of national business that sharply divide the classes and set them at variance. An exil managed city government may aggravate the people, the classes and the races and cause friction that could be avoided otherwise, but its influence for good or evil on the national social structure upon which the nation builds its des- tiny is nil. Given a just social system and an average education and the slimly things who have degraded the fine science of municipal po- litical economy would be taken by the nape of the neck, their spoils taken from their pockets and kicked beyond the limits of human society. Bad municipal politics aggravate tense situations but they never determine great policies such as must settle the American race question. The Housing Problem. The inflow of Southern Negroes into Chicago to fill the needs of the stock yards and other industries created a scarcity of houses in the 15 Black Belt that naturally forced some members of the colored race beyond the ^imaginary boun- daries that have been more or less loosely rec- ognized by both races. This is a community question that should have been met with a clean- cut purpose of justice to all but when the weights are manipulated by unscrupulous real estate sharks and designing preachers and poli- ticians the scales of decision are very much off their balance. But the housing problem is simp- ly a by-product of the underlying economic struggle going on between the workers of the races and, when aggravated, is mistaken by some as a material contributing cause of the race conflict. With the exception of some black upstarts who are ashamed of the>r color and wish to get out of any recognized zone, we believe that the colored population of Chicago want to work and pay for decent homes and is sufficiently self-respecting to desire to live and go their way in the world without intruding where they are not wanted and the Whites should show the same fine sense of social discrimination. The contemptible few who are not satisfied with the opportunities and surroundings among their own people will effectually be curbed by the Negro pride of race and pressure of public opin- ion. This is not a cause of race riots; it is an effect that is heightened by the greed of those who take advantage of a loose municipal situa- tion in order to turn a profit. The upstanding, self respecting Negroes want to live by them- selves; it is up to the city to see that they are fiven the opportunity. 16 Hoodlums. The hoodlum element may be reckoned with in any crisis but it must not be mistaken for the cause of any great social disturbance. The vicious hoodlum element can never "start" any- thing that even the man on the curbstone will stand for. Under the loosening of ordinary re- straints that inevitably happens when there is a social upheaval of any character whatsoever the "roughnecks" are in the streets, thickening the difficulties and exasperating decent people on both sides of any controversy, but to attribute to this crowd any social power or material in- flilence is shooting wide of the mark indeed. During the American, French and English Revolutions and the Civil War in America this layer of human degeneracy complicated the issues involved and made the task of the pro- gressive forces doubly hard. While society was shaken by the events of the above periods unprotected homes, inns and churches were sacked and the occupants and those in charge mistreated. But no one attempts to confuse the purposes of these vandals with the sacred purpose of these revolutions. Just so with Chicago. Many superficial thinkers talk much of "hoodlum elements of both sides" being to blame. Hoodlum degeneracy never precipa- tated a social crisis ; it simply feeds on the license accompanying times of great stress. 17 Racial Antagonisms. Between the White and Black races nature has created a physical division that possibly will never be bridged. Some one has said that "The E^ast is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet". With ten-fold emphasis one could truthfully say, White is White and Black is Black and never the twain shall meet. But that does not necessarily follow that the races must live at daggers drawn or with a smolder- ing f ued festering under a thin veneer of civilized hypocrisy. The savage and superstitious theory that the black race was cursed and put in bojid- age forever to the whites because poor Ham looked upon his father in a drunken fit has been the source of much pernicious thinking for cent- uries, and should be laughed away along with a lot of other sanctimonious trickery. Aside from the generally accepted fact that there is a natural aversion that makes the amalgamation of the races impossible and unthinkable, the re- sults of Black and White crossing show deter- ioration that, if the races were inclined to prac- tice it, would finally see this civilization over- powjj^red and swept away by a race of purer type. Intermarriage would result in mediocrity that would plunge us all into the swift down- ward course that leads to the extinction of all hybrids. We wish to submit here a chapter on racial development from the book "Mankind" by Seth K. Humphrey. We do not endorse every state- ment of Mr. Humphrey, we simply insert it here for the purpose of presenting an interesting angle of a much discussed problem. 18 A Study of Racial Development. In the Negro-White this country faces a prob- lem that overshadows every other in its mixed population. The problem is not between full White and full Black; the two opposites of the world's peoples have not enough in common on which to have a substantial difference. It con- cerns the mulatto, a being who is neither one nor the other, but a part of both. Two more diverse races were never called up- on to remingle their inheritances. We do not even know what it is a remingling, for that im- plies racial acquaintances in a former age. Yet it matters Ij'ttle whether or not White or Black is derived from a common ancestor; the period of their divergence as separate races is so lost .in the black recesses of time that no claim now to singleness of origin can soften the fact of their complete social estrangement. So distince from each other are their inheri- tances that never in history have full White and Black lived in intimate relation of equality. Yet within the limits of his person the Negro-White carifies the elements of both in the closest asso- ciation. We know, of course, that these elements hold their identity even in this strange compan- ionship. Black remains Black and White is still White. We call him Mulatto, but classify him in law and society with full-blood Negro ; here we shall call him Negro-White, to emphasize the fact that in the fundamentals of his inheritance he is truly a hyphenated citizen. And so absurd a misno- mer has the word "Negro" become that we must speak of the unmixed African as Black. 19 It ie presumable that most White stock ming- ling with Black is of the non-assertive, inferior quality which would of itself settle complacent- ly in any environment. The average Negro- White takes as easily the condition within his soul as the inferior Wh t ite takes the conditions in his neighborhood. But we know that in the days of slavery much of the best Southern blood found its way into colored veins. Those dom- inating, assertive traits still wander unchanged thru the germ-plasmic streams of many a hum- ble colored folk. What a chaos of emotions, then, must there be in the soul of him whose sadly rr.tfxed inheritance happens to include some of these passion-sown jewels of the White man! Is there a more excruciating intimacy than that of dominantly White, bred thru unnumbered generations to association with the best of Ary- an, fettered within the limits of a soul to a com- pany of uncomprehending Black? The Negro- White thus affljcted is a living protest. His is not the protest of the Negro no Negro protests his race. It is the cry of a forceful Aryanin soul-entanglement with an utterly strange being. How little do we comprehend the character ar- rangement of this racially perplexed individual. He does not even comprehend himself. When with quivering voice and muscles tense, he de- claims aga,inst the injustice done "his race", he falls into the common error that his race is the Negro. He, too, yields to general opinion and the law that a single line, drawn close up to full White, and farthest away from full Black, divides the two races. As a matter of fact, a line between Negro and Whjte would have to 20 thread its way thru every cell iji the Negro- White's body. Classification of him with either race is absurd, no matter at what degree of color the line is drawn. The Negro-White be- longs to neither race. He has the unchanged qualities of both. We little realize jnto what errors this class- ification of the Negro-White leads us. His thous- and acts of initiative in conforming to the Aryan way are impelled by his White characteristics, yet so accustomed are we to regard as Negro every person with a trace of colored blood that we set down these acts to the credjt or discredit of the Negro. Most of the literature and all the statistics covering Negro activities are worthless, since they deal mainly with doings of White men with Black inheritance. There is no initiatjve . in the full-blood Negro to follow the White man's way, however well he may be taught to do so. This last statement will be vigorously pro- tested with an array of "Negroes" who have dem- onstrated large capacity. But as with the In- dian, no negro in America can say with any de- gree of certainty that he i,is full-blood African. Continued infusion of Black into a once mixed line may so reduce the proportion of its White characteristics as to obscure them from the eye, but as long as any remain they are identical with their predecessors that first strayed over from the Aryan, and still effective for determining character, altho of less effect because of the load of Black. Now when a "Negro" attains to more than an average success in those matters which pertain 21 largely to the White man, and thru the ages be- yond were beyond the attainments of the Afri- can, it is a sensible conclusion that he is dom- inated by his White characteristics. Booker T. Washington is said to have had a remarkably able White father. Surely no one who has watched his great educational work would say that the Black inheritance of Booker Washing- ton was asserting itself. And very few colored people who manifest Wtyite initiative claim or appear to be full Black. It is just this estrange- ment in the flesh of White and Black that makes the hopelessness of any solution for the Negro- White problem. Nature is wise in decreeing sterility for the offspring of racially discordant matings. The offense against her cannot be perpetuated. She would have been more than kind had she put a like ban upon the evil mat- ings of White and Black, for that would have left the races virtually full White and full Black, with their common desire to live after its own fashion. Then there could have been no race problem. With the fall of slavery, the separa- tion would have been easily effected, and the integrity of the White race maintained. But nature decrees that the Aryan shall pay dearly for tyis forcible crossings with other peo- ples. That decree is written upon the vanish- ing ruin of every dead civilization. And so now in America a tenth of our population is of Negro blood of some degree, grafted upon us by the unbreakable ties of blood infusion. Why talk of deporting to their African home a people no one can separate into Black and White? Why talk of the Negro-White as either 22 Negro or White? So to the ever-increasing pro- portion of our inferior stocks we must add in one lump the mixture of ten millions. To hasten the day when the critical proportion of our own ineffectiveness shall have been attained, and we, too, go the way of all others Cause and Remedy. Oan the white and black workers live in American towns and cities and toil in the same industries .in peace, harmony and understand- ing? Shall there be segregation by law? Shall the increasing Black race be colonized? Shall we attempt the solution of the first great ques- tion and dispose of the second and third silly ones by boldly launching all the intelligence that the vitally interested ones of both races, the workers, possess in a nation-wide effort to ad- just our differences where the conflict is most bitter on the industrial field? In a word, shall the axe be put to the root of modern racial an- tagonism as it exists under the present system of bitter competition for jobs? If this pamphlet is instrumental in success- fully raising a general discussion of the above questions and results on a closer solidarity of the workers white and black in the unions and workingclass politics, it will have achieved a high and noble purpose. Were the race riots the result of dislike, or granting there is a physical antipathy between the races that raises a hopeless and impossible social barrier, can the races liive in industrial, economic and political understanding? We can only when the competition of the col- 23 ored workers in the struggle for jobs does not menace the economic foundation of the whate workers' prosperity. The above questions, coupled as they are with possibilities and realization in American cities and towns, challenge the attention and thought- ful consideration of every man and woman who real.izes the necessity of grappling with a prob- lem that looms larger with every passing year. And, strange as it may seem, the settlement of this matter depends almost wholly upon agree- ment and co-operation of the common people of both races. These questions and the satisfac- tory answer have roots far down in the fabric of our social system where the politician and the profiteer do not care to go. A clear under- standing of our difficulties and a decisive ap- plication of the cure can come only with a revo- lution in our method of thinking and in our race relations in every branch of industry. And above all we must cooly and calmly realize that the interests of the enemies of the toiling blacks and whites are promoted by just such misunder- standing as resulted in the race fued of July- August 1919. No permanent settlement of our present race troubles is worth thinking about that does not provide that the black worker shall enter in- dustry and have an honored and respected place there; and that he or she shall take up the re- sponsibilities and privileges of unionism and co- operative economic activity of every character. Exclusion of the Negro from union activity will be fatal to any fundamental racial progress; voluntary refusal on the part of the negro or the 24 white worker to take this forward step leaves both races as they are now pawns in the hands of the industrial kings and profiteers, to be played one against the other for the benefit of the few, The color line in the unions is not desired by intelligent union men as- this sort of policy only serves to create a cheap, desperate army of sub- missive unorganized "hands" that renders in- effective a general advance of labor. The unions everywhere, as they are doing in the stockyards of Chicago, should extend the right hand of wel- come to their fellow workers who happen to have a dark skin, and the colored workingman and woman must earnestly take up the work of unionizing their color. Socially choosing their own paths but co-operating closely on the indus- trial and political fields they may enjoy those priceless benefits of solidarity that make strong- ly organized men and women independent, self- reliant and powerful. Any proposed solution of the race question that does not emphsize unity of economic organization as its basic principle and industrial co-operation on the job in the stockyards, the factories of Chicago and in the mines, mills and industries of the nation is crim- inally shortsighted and absolutely unmindful of the best interests of both races. The Major Cause. The fierce and never-ending competition be- tween wage-workers for a place at the machines of industry that provide Americans with food, clothing and shelter puts worker against work- er in a never-ending struggle which at times 25 arouses all the best and worst there is in the human breast. Since the time when mankind wrung a living from the face of nature with their bare hands the fight for the necessaries of life has never been more intense and uncompromis- ing than in the normal times of competitive in- dustry. In tfimes of adnormal prosperity the harshness of the struggle vanishes and the peo- ple are happy, contented and peaceful ; but the vicious circle of profit and surplus soon slows down the machines and again there are more men than jobs. During such times unemployed men are apt to be intolerant of the Negro. On the whole the record of the colored unionist is good, where he has been unionized, but for rea- sons that can be laid to the doors of both whites and blacks, the great majority of Negroes have not assisted in the solidarity of labor by organ- izing. This has led to a nation-wide suspicion that the Negro element can be "used" in times of peace and especially in times of strike to block a strike and other efforts to advance the interests of labor. Tho this is not true in all states, there still remains the fact that but a small fraction of the black workers have allied themselves with the white workers in the strug- gle for the improvement of labor's lot. Now the white man must work at the ma- chine. The black man must work at the ma- chine. The private owners of the machines buy labor to operate the machines just as you, reader, buy bread just as cheaply as possible. The job question is the biggest thing that the white and black workers have in common and if there is misunderstanding, division and hatred 26 there these feelings will be carried into every re- lation where white and black must meet and from such seed nothing but friction and conflict can develop. Upon the assured right to work and "bring home the bacon" rests the well-being and happiness of every home; when this right is stabilized and safeguarded the current of na- tional industrial and social life runs deep and true, unmindful of the few pieces of unpleasant wreckage that seem unavoidable in life; but when the whole structure of home and working- class prosperity is disturbed by inability to work, or inability to provide the comforts of life with the returns of labor, then the primal law of self preservation asserts itself, every religious and civilization check is swept away and the modern cave-man, in tailor made clothes and living in flats, is again contending for his piece of meat and a place to hunt. Any discussion of causes of race conflict and race riots that ignores the fundamental com- petition for existence and does not make allow- ance for all the viciousness in the human nature that is aroused when the means of livelihood is threatened, misses the pivot upon which the whole matter of peaceable relations of the races swing. As the satellites gravitate around the sun and are dependant upon that great luminary for an existence, so do such minor matters as the housing problem, physical antagonism of the races and hoodlumism depend upon the seeth- ing ferment of job competition for their exis- tence. 27 The Remedy. There may be sneers in some quarters of an attempt to offer a comprehensive remedy for so great a problem as the American race question in the pages of a pamphlet of this size, scope and character. But with this, as with all other great problems, there are a few fundamental principles about which there are written tomes and tomes and stacks and stacks of tiresome books that merely befuddle the issue and fur- nish quacks and parasites with a revenue. The basic principle upon which all success- ful treatment of any disease depends is correct diagnosis. The symptoms must be scientifically correlated and the relation between cause and effect definitely established. Does the white man feel instinctive dislike or hatred for the Negro? It cannot be asserted with any regard for candor or truth that this is the case. In thousands of average-sized towns in the United States, Negroes, when in an in- significant minority, are cordially accepted into the community life far more cheerfully than the Mexican, the Jap, the Chinaman and half- breeds of various crosses. And let it be forever remembered that thousands of Americans died on the battlefields of the South for the privilege OF KEEPING THE BLACK PEOPLE IN THEIR MIDST. Of course, some one will im- mediately rise and say "They did not fight for the social pleasure of their company; they died for the right to exploit them as slaves." And that is just the meat and gist of the whole mat- 28 ter. So long as the economic relations between the races are adjusted according to the dominant majority opinion, there will be no race trouble other than that arising from the occasional rape, killing or such. (And in justice to the colored race let us admit that, including the terrible tragedies of slavery days, there have been hun- dreds of black women abused to one white wom- an.) It is not the presence of the Negro in any community that causes disturbances; it is the presence of the Negro in sufficient numbers to constitute a menace to white workers that breeds such riots as disgraced Chicago. Did you ever hear of Southern plantation owners or North- ern White employers rioting against Negroes? NOT SO THAT IT WAS NOTICEABLE. And every reasonable American will admit that all grave race crises in the United States have their 'origin in some violent disagreement of opinion as to what the economic relation of the Negro in American industry should be. These plain facts bring us to the point of grappling with the present day phases of the Negro problem. And now, as always, this prob- lem has its roots in industrial relations. The Civil War was a big riot over the Negro and the victory of the North settled forever the chattel relation of the Black to his master. But by destroying the chattel slave fetters that en- circled the Negro, by encouraging the growth of the race and inventing labor-saving machinery the former happy-go-lucky race of field work- ers a few thousand in number have become an industrial unit ten million strong that clamors 29 for places in modern industry AND HAS NO PLACE ELSE TO GO. And now for the remedy and its applica- tion. The Negro produces more than he consumes and is therefore not a parasite. The White worker does the same and so far their interests are identical. The profiteer and Big Business accumulate their riches by reason of the surplus created by the difference between what the White and Black workers produce and what they get. Right here is the basis of the poverty, ignorance and job competition that underlies all serious race antagonism. Unity here will clear the so- cial atmosphere as lightning clears the heavens. Realization that economic comradeship in the unions combatting parasites and exploiters as the common enemies of both races will mean the industrial and political triumph of the toil- ers and a social understanding whereby the races may live united and yet separate; and with the bitter misunderstanding and struggle concern- ing the jobs eliminated all other minor matters between the races will mean no more than they do between whites. With both races carrying union cards in their pockets, with a demand for equality of opportunity in their hearts, with faces set like flint against their common enemies, the menace of race riots, of poverty stricken wage slavery, of the whole bitter struggle for mere existence that now falls to the lot of the builders and toilers of America will become a nightmare of an ignorant barbaric past. 30 When the White man and the Black man grasp hands in the fraternal grip of industrial unionism and go forward in intelligent political action the day of beastly self-destruction and class fratricide will pass, and the day of an in- dustrially co-operating working class of both races which will dominate society for the good of all will break. 31 HT /53< c.15 Prices of This Pamphlet: One dollar per dozen Six dollars per hundred Twenty-seven dollars per 500 Fifty dollars per 1,000 PREPAID. Address: The Great Western Publishing Company 1237 W. Madison St. CHICAGO, ILL. Crimes oniie BoIsSieviki Illustrated Pamphlet Humorous Entertaining Instructive, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIHIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIHii Best Bolshevik Hit of the Year. llllllllllllllllillllHIIIIIiltlllllllllllllifll PRICES: $1.00 per dozen; $6.00 per hundred; $27.50 per 500; $50.00 per 1,000; Pre- paid. Cash or C. O. D. ADDRESS: The Great Western Publishing Company 1237 W. Madison St. CHICAGO, ILL.