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MAN WHO COULD RECITE NORRICK -"brought hundreds and hundreds to the city as strike-breakers, to defeat organized labor." It was proven "conclusively," the report states, that the industries of St. Clair county were directly responsible for this importation. Advertisements were distributed promising big wages, and agents were sent into the South to recruit. They were promised $2.40 a day, and "board." They got $1.40 a day and 60 cents for "board." Board consisted of coffee and bread and molasses. They were made to sleep on sacks in box-cars and suffered from cold. Here the report reads as if it were written yesterday: "The city became a center of lawlessness. Hold-ups, murders, high-way robberies, rape was [sic] frequent. White women were afraid. "Negroes were induced to buy homes in white districts. Whites sold at a sacrifice, and moved elsewhere. Owners of cheap property preferred Negroes to whites. They got $15 from Negroes against $10 from whites. "Corrupt politicians found the Negro vote fitted to their foul purposes, and not only bought them on election day, but protected them in the interval. "East St. Louis was a mire of lawlessness, and unashamed corruption. "The owners of the great corporations"-this is from that same Congressional report-"lived in other cities, and pocketed their dividends without concern for the municipal dishonesty that wasted taxes, and without a thought to the thousands of their own workmen, white and black, who lived in hovels, victims of poverty and disease, of long hours and incessant labor." As for the triggering incident to the riot, the investigation brought out that on July 1 an automobile-some said two-went through the Negro district, its occupants firing "promiscuously into Negro homes." No one was injured, but a fierce spirit was aroused. At midnight church bells rang, by a pre-arranged signal, and a crowd of Negroes, armed with guns and pistols gathered, "ready to avenge the attack on their homes." They had not gone far when automobiles, "containing police and reporters," crossed their path. The Negroes cursed them and told them to drive on. A detective answered that they were there to protect them. A Negro fired a volley into the machine, which at that first shot, was driven away. The Negroes continued firing. One law officer was killed; another died later. News spread rapidly. White men and women, boys and girls, began 253
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 11:34:04
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 11:37:35
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 12:42:00