July 27, 1919. Riots, halts and finishes.

White mob during the Chicago riot.

On this day in 1919 the Red Summer came to Chicago when race riots broke out following a young black man accidentally wondering onto the white area of an informally segregated beach.  This caused whiles to react, resulting in their throwing rocks at black swimmers.  The young man was killed in the process.  Things descended from there with white mobs invading black areas. Authorities were intentionally slow to react. By the time the matter concluded on August 3, 23 blacks had died and 15 whites.

Illinois State Guardsman and Chicago policemen.  Authorities were slow to call out the State Guard, but when 6,000 Guardsmen were deployed to the city the riots came to an end.

The riots in Chicago, which had a large black population and which was a target destination of the Great Migration, are generally regarded as the worst of the Red Summer.  The city had been a powder keg all summer long and when violence erupted, white youth gangs were a major contributor to it, including the Hamburg Athletic Club which the then 17 year old future Mayor Daley was part of (his activities during the riots are unknown).

Ultimately the State of Illinois deployed the Illinois State Guard, deployment of the National Guard being impossible due to its not existing following its conscription during World War One. The State Guard forces, equipped largely with Spanish American War era arms, were not unsubstantial and the slowness in committing them and the lack of cooperation of the City of Chicago in addressing the violence contributed to the disaster.

Given the events, the cartoon run in the Chicago Tribune on this Sunday seems odd.

Cartoon from the Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1919.

Another disaster occurred at St. Ignatius Montana when fire destroyed the town.

In Iowa, the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy took the day off from moving, but not maintenance.

Apparently the quality of the food was becoming a concern.

Progress itself was a concern in the Round the Rim trip of the Air Corps, as reported in the Cheyenne paper. The bomber detailed to the effort had done a nose digger the prior day in Jay, New York.

In France, Firmin Lambot came out the winner in that years Tour de France.

Firmin Lambot