Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1895 — TWO MOBS IN A RIOT. [ARTICLE]

TWO MOBS IN A RIOT.

DESPER ATE RACE RIOT AT SPRING VALLEY, ILL. Italians Commit a Brutal Crime Under the Plea of Avenging a Comrade’s Murder—Men, Women and Children Are Shot and Clubbed. Fend of Long Standing. A settlement of 200 negroes, who live in what is called the “Location,” near No. 3 shaft, two miles west of Spring Valley, 111., was attacked by 500 white miners. Many shots were fired and bricks and missiles of every description were used by the combatants. Forty of the negroes were wounded and several of them may die. The uprising was caused by a white man, an inoffensive and popular young Italian, being held up, robbed, and almost murdered by a gang of five negroes, between the city and the "Location.” Barney Role, the man w’ho was assailed, was coming from Spring Valley on his way home when he was.suddenly ordered to halt by four or five negroes, who made him throw up his hands W’fiile they robbed him of SSO and his watch. After robbing Role the negroes fired five shots into his body, three taking effect. The wounded man could give no description of the men except that they were negroes whom he had frequently seen around the “Location.” This robbery and attempt at murder happened at 1 o’clock Sunday morning. The police were- at once notified, and a force of twelve extra men was put on to hunt the murderers down. At 7 o’clock in the morning five colored men were arrested and brought to the jail. By this time the affair was pretty well known throughout the city and a big crowd gathered around the city bastile. There were cries of lynching. Some one rang the fire bell, augmenting the crowd still more, until the police were compelled to remove the prisoners and bring them to a better place of safety. As the mob became greater it became bolder. A brass band was got out and about 500 men marched to General Manager Dalzell’s house. A committee went in to see the manager and told him the whites wanted him to discharge every colored man of they would runthem out of Town themselves. Manager Dalzell refused to submit to their demands. He was jeered, and the mob struck out on its march to the “Location.” When’they were about half way there Manager Dalzell, by taking a circuitous route, headed off the enragedwhites. - Mayor Delmorga, who is an Italian, was in the buggy with him. The Mayor stepped out of the buggy and addressed the crowd. He counseled peace, but they brushed him aside, saying if Dalzell would not run such a murderous set of negroes out of town they could. They continued the march. A little way further they met Chief of Police Hicks and ,a few’ deputies. The officers were unable to check the progress of the march. Mob Makes the Attack. The mob, headed by. the Italian band, with music playing, then went direct to the negro village. The column proceeded slowly and the band rendered several national anthems. About fifty members of (he mob were armed with shotguns, rifles, and revolvers, and the others carried clubs and sharpened sticks. The men Wanted blood, and the constant warcry, given in Italian, was: .“Kill the niggers! Drive them out! Blood for blood!”

The negroes had been warned of intended onslaught of the Italians, but were deceived by the appearance of thS brass band. As houses jwere reached the rioters struck out the windows and where doors were locked broke them down. The interior was ransacked, the women insulted, and-the. JiieiL-dragged.. forth., and clubbed and shot. That there was not a large number of immediate fatalities was not the fault of the rioters, as they used every endeavor in their power to kill the men outright. One reason many negroes escaped was that the weapons of the rioters were mostly old, rusty guns that had not been used for many years, and in addition the men were not skilled in the use of them. Had modern rifles been discharged in the same manner as the old shotguns and muzzleloading rifles the list of dead would have been enormous. The raid of the Italian miners upon the negroes had been contemplated for several weeks. In fact, ever since the negroes were imported into Spring Valley at the close of the three months’ strike last summer the miners speaking a foreign tongue have been laying plans *to drive them out.' —Si