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230 THE CRISIS 

[[6 photographs]]

FRANK SMITH, BURNED. 
THE REFUGEES. 
AFTER THE FIRE. 

AMOS DAVIS, AGE 84, SHOT. 
CAMP OF TROOP D, 1ST ILL. CAVALRY FROM SPRINGFIELD. 
POLICE HEADQUARTERS, ST. LOUIS, MO. 


THE MASSACRE OF EAST ST. LOUIS  231 


After hearing his story the Judge dismissed him. 

Nathaniel Cole is twenty-two years old and worked in a steel foundry. He says: 

I was on my way from Alton on an Inter-urban car. When the car reached East St. Louis I saw a crowd of whites hollering, "Stop the car and get the nigger." The car was pulled off and stopped and a Negro man pulled out and beaten. In the mean time a white child called "There's another nigger." I was then pulled off the car, beaten and left in the street. After the mob left, I attempted to board a car and was ejected by the conductor. Not knowing anything about East St. Louis or the mob, I ran into a white neighborhood and a woman hollered, "Stop that nigger. Stop that nigger." Two fellows ran out of a gangway, one with a brick and another with a long club. I ran and was well out of the way when a Ford car came along and about twelve rioters got in and overtook me after I had entered an alley. They then hemmed me in a yard, where a carpenter was at work and began beating me. The carpenter then asked the rioters not to beat me up there, but to turn me over to the police if I had done anything to deserve it. The rioters replied, "The nigger takes the white man's job." I was beaten in the face with a cane and rubber hose. I was beaten into insensibility and when I came to they were taking stitches in my head at St. Mary's Hospital.


Observe the terseness of the statement of Nina Fleet: 

Husband worked at M. & O. Round House. Was a resident of East St. Louis for ten years. 

I stayed with white people in the neighborhood the night of the riot and when I returned home, Tuesday, found my house had been ransacked and burned. 

My husband was killed in the riot on his way home from work. 


Here follows the continued story of Mary Lewis and her sister Hattie House. Mary Lewis, who is thirty-three, speaks first. She says: 

The mob gathered about my house shouting oaths, etc., and after watching and listening for a long time, I decided to try to escape. Just as I started to leave I saw them shoot a man dead, less than thirty feet from my window. The mob then went to the rear of the house and I, with my four children, slipped out the front door. I had gone but a short distance when I was spied by one of the mob and they wanted to come back, but were urged by the leader to go on as he had seen some men on another street. His remark was, "Let her go and get the niggers running on the other street." 

I left in my house, my husband, Allen Lewis; sister, Hattie House, and a friend who was visiting Mr. McMurray.

Her sister, Hattie House, continues: 

In less than twenty minutes from the time my sister left, the mob returned and began shooting and throwing bricks through the windows, while the three of us lay flat upon the floor, hoping to escape. The mob then set fire to both the front and back and when the roof began falling in we ran out through the rear door amidst the rain of bullets to the home of a Mr. Warren, white, begging him to save us. Mr. Lewis was shot just as he reached the door, and I ran into the house. 

Some women who were always at the Warren house began beating me and I was compelled to leave there. I ran through a shed and seeing a big tin box, I jumped in, pulling on the lid and succeeded in concealing myself. The mob pursued, looking in every place as they thought for me, but overlooked the box. As they stood discussing the riot, one said, "I felt sorry for that old nigger. He begged so for his life." The answer was, "Why should you feel sorry, Irene, you helped to kill him? Some other person in the crowd then said, "He was such a hard nigger to kill, he was shot and then had to have his head smashed with an ax." 


Lulu Suggs is twenty-four years old, and has lived in East St.Louis since April. She tells of seeing children thrown into the fire. She says: 

My house was burned and all the contents. My husband was at Swifts' the night of the riot. I, with about one hundred women and children, stayed in a cellar all night, Monday night. The school for Negroes on Winstanly Avenue was burned to the ground. When there was a big fire the rioters would stop to amuse themselves, and at such time I would peep out and actually saw children thrown into the fire. Tuesday came and with the protection of the soldiers. We escaped to St.Louis.


Chickens were of more value than Negro human lives. Mabel Randall, who is twenty-four years old, and has lived in East St. Louis for one and one-half years tells us:
 
Monday evening the mob broke out the windows and doors and we stayed under the bed. When dark came, we begged the white lady next door to let us get under her house and she told us that she had chickens in the yard and we could not. We then went next door and got into a coal-house piling stoves upon us until four o'clock next morning when we went to the M. & O. Railroad yards. We remained there until 5:30 and then reached the ferry. 


The statement of Josephine Jones is interesting. She says: 

Mrs.Jones made this statement to me, that the mob formed both times at the City Hall, May, 1917, and July 2, 1917. She also said that Mayor Mollman stood in the alley leaning on the bannister of the Justice of Peace Building when a white man ran down the alley chasing two colored men, whom