Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1920 — MAY REBUILD BLACK BELT [ARTICLE]

MAY REBUILD BLACK BELT

BOMB THROWING RETARDS WORK OF GOV. LOWDEN COMMISSION The following article was taken from the Chicago Daily News of February 25: “We ate working continuall/'and constructively upon the race prob* lem in Chicago,” said Dr. Francis W. Shepardson, acting chairman of Gov. Lowden’s commission on race relations, “but in the meantime we 'have ‘collaborators* who are throwing bombs. Attempts to solve or remedy the situation by terrorism serve only to make matters infinitely worse. And they are bad enough now. Chicago, as a matter of fact, is perched nona too happily on a volcano. We must be careful of the present and we must build for the future.” Asked along what lines the commission is working, Dr. Shepardson said: “We have a number of committees. Each committee is taking up one factor of the problem and making an intensive survey. We are making remarkable progress toward ! determining the causes of Chicago’s; ; race riots.. When we have reported I that situation we will 'be in a position to build clearly and. begin work toward removing the causes. “Ope of the plans I have encountered toward a solution is that of Rebuilding the south side and the so-called black belt. It is obvious to us now that the deteriorai tion of the 'south side is not to be blamed upon the negro. The stockyards, the railroads and the automo- ' bile industry and the growth of the city' in a general way to the unmaking of the one tihie residential districts. The negro was pushed into them the least desirable place in the city. The Result ,now is that' we have no intelligent segregation that will permit the negro to live among those of his own kind whom he prefers, but a segregation that throws all negroes into one vicious neighborhood. “The negro does not desire to scatter himself over the entire city. But he desires a clean place to live. It is up to us to evolve wAys of making-his section of the city clean. This can be done by uprooting the joints which surround him, 'by making. it possible for "his family to live in a residential street in which there will be little danger of some one suddenly opening a dive.

May Enlarge Negro Section. “The negro section must be cleaned up for the negro and perhaps en-

'II larged. Since the negroes here (have Increased from 50,000 to 130,000 it is obviously necessary to ‘increase the space housing them. Upon this problem. and its many facts we are carefully working. “But in the meantime the situation is precarious. The fact that inflamnmtory literature is being distributea by-both whites and blacks is dangerous and the fact, ' above all, that bomb throwers are avowed to operate' unmolested is extremely dangerous. As far as I have been able to see from the newspapers, few,* if any,- of the outlaws hprling botnbs as a remedy for the ■race have been arrested and prosecuted.* The t imperative need for today is patience and selfrestraint.” / Dr. Shepardson spoke before the City chib today, telling of the work of the race commission.