I will be celebrating the fourth of July, our nation’s birthday. But this year I will also be celebrating the fifth of July, because on the fifth of July in 1883 the U.S. government granted patent #278967 for a formula of something that had never existed in the world before. The patent was granted for an invention that every one reading this has probably used at least once in the past year, and if you haven’t used it in the past year, you really ought to. It was the brainchild of an energetic young marketing genius with some help from his brother, and the invention made them both rich – even though their original idea was pretty much a bust.
The story begins with a pharmacist in London named Gustave Mellin. Like many other pharmacists of his day, Gustave was looking for a magic elixir that would make him rich. In the second half of the nineteenth century, all over Europe and America, ambitious young men were throwing chemicals into pots and kettles and selling the resultant concoctions to unsuspecting guinea pigs (aka customers). Some of these latter day alchemists killed people. A few got very rich. Candle maker William Procter and his brother-in-law, soap maker James Gamble, started their company in 1837, but they hit it big with their Ivory Soap, which they introduced in the 1880’s.
It was an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John Pemberton, who cooked up Coke-a-cola in his back yard in 1886. And Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina invented Pepsi Cola in his pharmacy during the summer of 1893. In Cincinnati in 1886 Robert Johnson, who had worked as a pharmacists’ apprentice, joined with his brothers James and Mead in forming Johnson & Johnson, to sell their inventions of band aids and first aid kits. But the guiding light for Gustave Mellin was Henri Nestle, a Swiss citizen who in 1867, made his reputation and his fortune by saving a premature infant with his own recipe of powdered milk and ground up wheat.
Gustav’s Mellin’s version of Nestle’s formula, which he inventively called “Mellin’s Food” would eventually become Nestle’s principle competitor. And the success of Mellin attracted the attention of a young, dashing, handsome, ambitious and driven Englishman from the tiny village of Ruardean, in Gloucestershire. James Horlick began as an apprentice at the feet of the master, and what he learned from Mellin was that marketing was at least as important as the invention itself. Nestle’s warned that “impure milk is one of the chief causes of sickness among babies.” But Mellin’s fought back with free samples, and a pseudo-scientific booklet convincing new mothers his formula was better for their babies than breast milk. But working for somebody else was no way to get rich, and in 1873 James quit his job and immigrated to America, to join his younger brother William in Chicago. And he took with him a little something he had been working on.
In 1860, for the last time in history, the value of American agricultural goods was greater than the products from her factories. And amazingly this shift happened at same time that American farms were becoming the breadbasket of the world. Chief among this new bounty which was flooding the world markets was wheat and rye. Nestle’s formula was based on the idea of releasing the proteins trapped in those grains, and making them easy to transport over vast distances. The similar “Mellins Food” was eventually made in Boston, but sold out of his London offices. And that is why James and William (below) Horlick had emigrated to America. The money was still in England, but the source of that wealth was now in America. And within weeks after James arrived in Chicago the brothers set up J&W Horlicks to market their new baby wonder food, “Diastroid”.
Gustav’s Mellin’s version of Nestle’s formula, which he inventively called “Mellin’s Food” would eventually become Nestle’s principle competitor. And the success of Mellin attracted the attention of a young, dashing, handsome, ambitious and driven Englishman from the tiny village of Ruardean, in Gloucestershire. James Horlick began as an apprentice at the feet of the master, and what he learned from Mellin was that marketing was at least as important as the invention itself. Nestle’s warned that “impure milk is one of the chief causes of sickness among babies.” But Mellin’s fought back with free samples, and a pseudo-scientific booklet convincing new mothers his formula was better for their babies than breast milk. But working for somebody else was no way to get rich, and in 1873 James quit his job and immigrated to America, to join his younger brother William in Chicago. And he took with him a little something he had been working on.In 1860, for the last time in history, the value of American agricultural goods was greater than the products from her factories. And amazingly this shift happened at same time that American farms were becoming the breadbasket of the world. Chief among this new bounty which was flooding the world markets was wheat and rye. Nestle’s formula was based on the idea of releasing the proteins trapped in those grains, and making them easy to transport over vast distances. The similar “Mellins Food” was eventually made in Boston, but sold out of his London offices. And that is why James and William (below) Horlick had emigrated to America. The money was still in England, but the source of that wealth was now in America. And within weeks after James arrived in Chicago the brothers set up J&W Horlicks to market their new baby wonder food, “Diastroid”.But in the mid-1870’s Chicago was not the place to do that. Chicago's recovery from the Great Fire of 1871 had been spectacular, and by 1873, while the rest of the nation was in a recession, Chicago was booming, even hosting the Inter-State Industrial Exposition.
What William and James (above) needed was a community with cheap property values, a ready supply of clean water, an already industrialized work force, easy access to their raw materials (wheat and rye) and to shipping routes. They found just what they were looking 60 miles North of Chicago, where the Root River enters Lake Michigan, in Racine, Wisconsin.
The city had been incorporated in 1848 with a population of 3,000, and by 1870 was approaching 30,000, filling with English, Danes, Czechs, Swedes and Norwegians. The foundation of the economy was the town’s harbor and rail connections. Early on Fanning Mills built heavy farm equipment here, including machines to separate the wheat and barley from its chaff, the slurry of which is called a malt. That created a pool of trained factory workers which attracted Jerome Case who built his heavy equipment factory there, and S.C. Johnson who established his cleaning products factory in Racine. And in 1873 the Reverend Carhart of Racine actually built a steam powered auto-mobile. It was a town that respected brains, innovation and hard work.
The city had been incorporated in 1848 with a population of 3,000, and by 1870 was approaching 30,000, filling with English, Danes, Czechs, Swedes and Norwegians. The foundation of the economy was the town’s harbor and rail connections. Early on Fanning Mills built heavy farm equipment here, including machines to separate the wheat and barley from its chaff, the slurry of which is called a malt. That created a pool of trained factory workers which attracted Jerome Case who built his heavy equipment factory there, and S.C. Johnson who established his cleaning products factory in Racine. And in 1873 the Reverend Carhart of Racine actually built a steam powered auto-mobile. It was a town that respected brains, innovation and hard work.So, in 1877 the Horlick brothers opened their single story factory in town, making "Horlick's Infant & Invalids Food" and got ready for success.
It was a little slow in coming. Oh, the baby formula business was doing okay, but it was by now very competitive and not the rocket to success that James had dreamed about along the banks if the River Wye, back in England. Still, in 1883, James’ preeminence in the field of baby food had been confirmed with the new patent, thus effectively limiting their competition. In 1890 James returned to England to be closer to the money, and to handle the marketing of their infant cuisine empire. In 1908 Horlick’s opened a new, much larger plant in Racine.
It was a little slow in coming. Oh, the baby formula business was doing okay, but it was by now very competitive and not the rocket to success that James had dreamed about along the banks if the River Wye, back in England. Still, in 1883, James’ preeminence in the field of baby food had been confirmed with the new patent, thus effectively limiting their competition. In 1890 James returned to England to be closer to the money, and to handle the marketing of their infant cuisine empire. In 1908 Horlick’s opened a new, much larger plant in Racine. 
The publicity breakthrough came in 1909 when explorers Robert Peary, Amundsen and Scott all three pick Horlik’s product to supply protein for their assaults on the North and South Poles. Overnight Horlick's food was in the forefront of the "health food" craze. And it remains a popular health food item to this day. That same year, 1909, the brothers opened a new plant in New Zealand, to supply mothers and explorers down under with portable protein. But that was not the advancement that changed human life.
But it was in the early years of the 20th centur, that the great revolutionary event did occure. It’s unclear who did it first, but my bet is it was the new player on the stage. They were called "soda jerks" because in the early years they were required to jerk on the levers to dispense the carbonated water that was the main ingrediant of their trade. I doubt that it was an employee of Horlick who first made the discovery, else their name would have been enshrined in company legend. Besides, after all, it was a small step and may have been taken in several places at about about the same time. 
Remember the Horlick formula was a concoction of ground wheat, dried just-sprouted barley malt and powdered milk, and mixed in water or milk. And then somebody added ice cream, and thus was born the malted milk shake.
I doubt that most people realize that everything “malted” can only be made under license from Horlick’s, including malted milk, malted milk balls, malted tablets or disks and malted “shakes”. Malted is a flavor that is owned. It was invented. It does not appear anywhere in nature. It started out as baby food, then became a health food before it became a treat of magical proportions. And it gave all those soda jerks something to serve with the ice cream Sundaes they had invented, because carbonated water was considered too racy a drink to be served on the Lord's day.
But surely, before the judgment of God, the invention of the cold, frothy and thick Malted Milk Shake will count on the plus side for humanity come the judgement day. 
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The aircraft was a DC-9 type 30, meaning she was the third upgrade from the original DC-9 production model, and had the tail designation N988FJ. The captain was 47 year old James Elrod, who had 900 hours at the controls of DC-9’s. His first officer was 26 year old William Heckendorn, who had 650 hours in the twin engine jet. The jet smoothly climbed over the blue collar Boston suburbs before turning south. Allegheny fight #853 had scheduled stops in Baltimore, then Cincinnati and Indianapolis and was scheduled to terminate late that afternoon in St. Louis, where passengers could connect with flights for the West Coast. Ah, if only I had been paying attention.
The DC-9 had first gone into service just four years earlier, and from the start the plane was a workhorse. She was designed as a short to mid-range passenger jet, unglamorous, uncomplicated and so reliable that some 2,400 were eventually produced at the Long Beach, California plant. The DC-9-type 30 had a swept wingspan of 93 feet, and was 133 feet long from nose to the swept fins of her high “T” tail. Her two rear mounted Pratt & Whitney JTD8D-7 turbofan engines could propel her through the air at over 500 MPH above 30,000 feet for over 2,000 miles. This particular DC-9-30 had first flown in 1968 and the air frame had only 3,170 hours on it.
After arriving at “Friendship International Airport” (BWI) at Baltimore, 45 miles north of Washington, D.C., Allegheny flight #853 picked up 16 more passengers and then headed for its next stop: Cincinnati (CVG). Waiting there were 64 people who were supposed to connect with TWA fight #69 from New York City, which was scheduled to continue on to Indianapolis. But TWA Flight #69 was delayed. And as often happened in the days before de-regulation, TWA and Allegheny offered any available seats on Allegheny Flight #853 to any TWA passengers who wanted them. Customer service was the only selling point between the airlines then, back before deregulation had “improved” the business. 
Indianapolis (IND) Weir Cook Airport (named after a World War I ace) was just 99 air miles from CVG. So Flight #853 climbed to only 10,000 feet for what was supposed to be a mere 35 minute flight. That would have put Flight #853 rolling up to the terminal at IND at about 3:50 pm.
Hearing the crew acknowledge his instructions, controller Merrill McCammack briefly turned his attention to Allegheny Flight #820, which was inbound to IND from the West. When he returned to the radar screen about a minute later, Flight # 853 had disappeared. McCammack called out to flight #853, but there was no response. At about 3:40 PM McCammack notified the Indiana State Police of a possible airliner crash, but by this time they were also receiving frantic phone calls from the Shady Acres Mobile Home Park, in Fairland, Indiana. Two planes had collided over the resident’s heads and crashed virtually on top of them.
The only body found intact was Bob Carey’s. He was a student pilot, flying a Cherokee PA-28, on a cross country training flight, and he was following all the rules. He had filed his flight plan, he had called in to IND control to notify them of his presence and he was following Visual Flight Rules, which amounts to keeping your eyes open. What he could not have known, and what he could have done nothing about if he had known, is that the radar at IND was too weak to pick him up at 26 miles from the airport. But what the system of air traffic control then in effect did not take into account was that while Cary’s Cherokee was flying at around 150 miles per hour, the DC-9 was on approach at closer to 400 mph. That meant that the closing speed of those two aircraft was much too fast for human reactions to respond to, even given the generally good visibility on this day. 
The Cherokee slammed into the tail of the DC-9, cutting it off and slicing the small plane in half at the wing root. The relative closing speed was 350 miles an hour. Cary had no warning, and was found still strapped in his seat. Pilots Elrod and Heckendorn had no warning either. At 3:29 PM and 14 seconds, just after confirming their new instructions Heckendorn was reading out the sliding altitude changes: “Out of thirty-five for twenty-five” One second later Elrod says, “I’m going down”. One second after that is the sound of objects hitting the cockpit ceiling, followed by the landing gear warning and then the stall warning and vibration. Ten seconds later the recording ends with the aircraft’s impact in a soy bean field, 100 yards from the mobile home park. Eighty-two human beings and about four million dollars ($23.5 million in 2007) worth of equipment been destroyed in something under fifteen seconds.
At this point you expect to hear the National Transportation Safety Board investigation forced a change in regulations so this specific disaster would never happen again. The report reads, “The board determines the probable cause of this accident to be the deficiencies in the collision avoidance capability of the Air Traffic Control system of the Federal Aviation Administration in a terminal area wherein there was mixed instrument fight rules (IFR) and visual flight rules (VFR)…include(ing) the inadequacy of the see-and-avoid concept under circumstances of this case; the technical limitations of radar in detecting all aircraft; and the absence of ….adequate separation of …mixed traffic in terminal areas.” 
In fact everything about chocolate seems unlikely. The coca tree only grows within 20 degrees of the equator, because if the temperature ever falls below 59 degrees F, the trees die. The touchy bean seemed rather unlikely to become one of the most popular fruits on earth. But it did, even though it was such trouble to grow and so fragile that the Mayan and Inca rulers had to force their subject tribes to grow Cocoa as a form of tax. And it seems that the first great additive to chocolate was sugar. The Spanish conquistadors used sugar to convert the bitter “xocolatl” (meaning “bitter water”) - because of the alkaloids theobromine and phenetnylamine in the chocolate - into something someone besides the Mayan royalty could actually swallow. But the whole process seems to argue for intelligent design.
First the almond-like cocoa seeds are allowed to ferment in a compost-like pile on the ground for five to seven days. I can certainly understand how that could happen by accident. It’s the same process that humans used to stumble on wine and grain fermentation. Then the seeds are spread out, dried, cleaned, and then roasted. Okay, there could have been a fire in an equatorial rain forest hit by drought. The husk or shell is then removed, leaving behind the chocolate “nibs”, which are then ground up and liquefied. Okay, that could never happen by accident. Somebody had to have done that on purpose. Why? The ground up nibs are now separated between cocoa solids and cocoa butter liquor. Add sugar and you’ve got sweet chocolate. It is so simple. Add powdered milk and you get milk chocolate. But that could hardly kill you: unless you are a dog or a parrot, who can’t digest the theobromime. But the Chicago Sun Times was fairly specific about the death. It said that thirty year old employee Geraldo Castillo had been killed after breathing in an “ammonia-like gas” used in “making” chocolate. Now, I can find only one additive that even comes close to being ammonia - like; Ammonia.
Ammonia is a compound, consisting of one nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms. The single nitrogen atom has a lone electron in its outer orbit, which means it eagerly mixes in water or air: but not in chocolate. Mixing ammonia with water produces urine. And mixing ammonia with chocolate produces a nasty tasting poisonous chocolate, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of each individual ingredient. And when the urine evaporates it re-releases the ammonia, which is what urine smells like. One can only assumed that when ammonia laced chocolate melts, it also smells like urine. But….
…should the human lungs suck in a concentration of ammonia in as little as 35 parts per million parts of air in as little as 15 minutes, then the human’s lungs are burned, which make it impossible for the surfactant in the lungs to transfer the oxygen in the air to the iron in the blood, and the victim suffocates. And that is what happened to Geraldo Castillo. Somehow he breathed in ammonia while he was making chocolate. And then even with an oxygen mask over his face pumping pure oxygen into his nose and throat, Gerald Castillo died gasping desperately for air in a room filled with air. He might as well have been living on Saturn or Jupiter. How could this have happened? This appears to have an entirely unanticipated side effect of the global economy and an excess of environmental correctness, all brought to you by “Palsgaard”. Now, if you eat chocolate the odds are you have never heard of Palsgaard. If you make chocolate on an industrial scale, this company is world famous. Palsgaard doesn’t make chocolate, but you can’t make chocolate without them, because they make emulsifiers.
An emulsion is a mixture of two un-mixable compounds, like oil and water in salad dressing. If you add an emulsifier, like, say, egg yokes, a bond can be formed (by shaking up the bottle) that will remain stable long enough for you to pour it over your salad. In the case of chocolate the emulsifier is PolyGlycerol PolyRicinoleate 4448, or PGPR 4448, and it is only made by Palsgaard. The second “P” in PGPR stands for Ammonium Phosphatide, and if this was a television documentary on the Discovery Channel, there would be a music sting right here. You make PGPR 4448 out of rapeseed oil and glycerol, which is combined with phosphoric acid at one end, and then, since in an emulsifier everything has to balance, with a stinger of ammonia on the other end..jpg)
In the old days (in this case, last year) Blommer Chocolate in Chicago would have used a lecithin as an emulsifier, (which is why you see lecithin listed as an ingredient on so many energy bars, cake and pancake mixes and other food products.) In fact the lecithin and the PGPR 4448 are both used to just keep the chocolate from sticking to the vats it is mixed in. And here, the plot and the Chocolate thickens. Americans make lecithin out of soy beans. But soy beans are often GM plants – G-M standing for Genetically Modified. Folks in Europe are hypersensitive about GM plants, in part because they get most of their soy beans from the U.S., and, you may have heard, we are their competitor. So Euro-Environmentalists (and Euro farmers and Euro food corporations have paid off Euro-politicians who) have made such a boogieman out of GM, read “U.S.” that over the last decade Euro-Envio types have made food companies afraid to even brush past a GM soy bean at a crowded party, for fear of being labeled a “Franken-food”.
Their alternative to the Franken- soy is PGPR 4448. Now choosing PGPR over GM Franken-soy on moral grounds makes no damn sense whatsoever. But when have the Food Police on either side of the Atlantic ever claimed to be logical? On a purely practical level the Blommer Chocolate Company is trying to standardize their chemical formulas for international trade. European officials want to know the chocolate novelty they have just let into their country is not going to make people sick. And Europeans are not used to seeing lecithin on their list of ingredients. PGPR they have known and trusted for the last ten years. And Palsgaard just got a letter from the Bush Food and Drug Administration (thanks again George) saying the FDA has no objection to substituting PGPR for lecithin, one for one. Not that they tested it, but they have labeled PGPR as “GRAS” – generally recognized as safe. What could be simpler?
Death, as it turns out, for the workers at Blommer Chocolate could be as simple. They are facing a learning curve, working with old equipment and a new formula, PGPR 4448. And somehow, it appears, they are now making chocolate with an ammonia stinger. Blommer Chocolate has found a way to extract the ammonia from their chocolate and release it into the atmosphere as ammonium bicarbonate, also called "Bakers' Ammonia". Nobody is quite sure how they did it yet, and nobody wanted them to do it, but they did it.
This is not the end of the world, but you know, it could be, someday. Someday some paper pusher is going to make an assumption that they are really not qualified to make and all of us are going to suck in a great big chunk of ammonia or something equally as deadly, and that will be the end of us all. And it won’t be with a bang, or with a whimper, or even a decent self respecting, “oops.” The stupid fools who kill us all will probably not even be aware of what they did. 
I bring this all up because this year the road to Main Street in Gopher Prairie seems to run right past the grave yard. I am speaking here specifically of 67 year old Frank Powers, the retired Wall Street maven who wanted to run for the Staten Island Congressional seat currently occupied by embarrassed and embarrassment Repulsive-an Representative Vito Fossella. Vito got pulled over in Northern Virginia for drunk driving, and in what must have been the best road side confession since Mel Gibson unburdened himself to the Malibu P.D., Vito explained that he was on his way to see his infant daughter, she not being his and his wife’s daughter but his and his mistresses’ daughter. The Grand Old Party turned on Vito with all the compassion of cannibals at a pot luck picnic, and in response Vito has checked out of Republican Party politics. And Frank Powers seemed the perfect choice to replace the only Republican left from New York City in Congress. Frank had committed to spend $500,000 of his own cash on the election, and that made him the favorite son of the Grand Old Party: emphasis on the “Old” part, because over the weekend Frank dropped dead from a heart attack, which says something about the best laid plans of grumpy old men, I guess.
Fossella joined LaHood of Illinois, Ramstad of Minnesota, Rebula of Ohio and Walsh of New York, all retiring Republicans, and in the face of Republican disciplinarians they voted with the Democrats to extend unemployment insurance past the standard cut-off date. Said the frustrated Minority Whip, Roy Blunt, about these mass defections by defectors “It’s not helpful”, meaning it was not helpful to party discipline, even if it was helpful to the voters and tax payers who are out of work. It was just such arguments for unity above individual self interest that has led the Repubs so far from the American mainstream that three out of four Americans say they now prefer a Democrat representing them in Congress. And come late August, as we head off to “Greater Minnesota”, land of ten thousand lakes, birthplace of the Mississippi River, tuna hot dish casseroles, the Lake Wobegon Chatterbox Cafe and the most famous airport men’s room in the free world, Republicans will be asking themselves (such as Governor Tim Pawlenty, Lieutenant Governor Carol Malnau and Senator Norm Coleman – Republicans all!) why the hell the party is coming to a state they stand very little chance of winning, unless it is to highlight the party’s bankruptcy – moral and monetary.
It’s a long pull till November 4th, and a lot can happen, but McCain’s flip-flopping over energy policy (yesterday he was for drilling and today he is for conserving) did not help the jet jockey convince anybody he’s got the answer to anything. The Republican Party of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the party of “Republican-In-Name-Only” labels: these lunatics have never accepted the “big tent” theory that dilutes their ratings and their power. Their party should be holding their convention in some out of the mainstream corner of America, like Jenna, Louisiana or Crawford, Texas. Because in Minneapolis the “RINO Party” will be out in broad daylight, a very inhospitable place for its convention. Minnasota is a progressive state where “the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”. Can you say, "Oh, yah, sure"?
The Hamburgs had been running patrols out of their clubhouse at 37th Street and Emeral in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, defending their border with the so-called “Black Belt” Douglas neighborhood just to the south. But along Lake Michigan the clear dividing line of pavement between the ethnic groups broke down on the sandy beaches between 26th and 29th streets. There the border became an undulating wave of intermittent shoving and shouting between black and white males. It seems clear most the people at the beach that day were merely trying to escape their oven like apartments. But some time in the afternoon, with the temperature hovering around 97degrees Fahrenheit, four young black men attempted to enter the water north of 26th street. They were driven back south, but more blacks returned. Stones were thrown from both sides. And then, out in the water, a 17 year old boy was hit in the head with a rock and drowned.
His name was Eugene Williams, and it didn’t matter if he was trying to sneak around the Irish gangs and claim a moral victory, or had simply floated across an invisible line he dare not cross. A white man named Stauber was seen standing on the seawall throwing rocks at the boy, who was holding onto a railroad tie to stay afloat. A stone hit him in the head, he let go of the tie and disappeared beneath the water. Stauber ran off toward 29th street. Meanwhile both white and black men dove into the water, trying to save the young man. They were unsuccessful. Witnesses identified Stauber but the cop on the beat refused to arrest him. And by that time, it was probably far too late to prevent what was coming. Two hours later James Crawford, a black man, fired into a group of police officers. The cops were uninjured, but a black cop shot and killed Mr. Crawford. The riot now spread out across the city.
According to the 1922 report of the riot, between 9:00 P.M. and 3:00 A.M. that night 27 blacks were beaten, 7 stabbed and four shot. Still, Monday morning was quiet. But on Monday afternoon some 30 blacks returning from work were pulled off streetcars and beaten, and four were killed; nine whites were also beaten, six stabbed, five shot and four killed. Street car service was stopped, in an effort to quell the violence. But that just forced whites and blacks to cross enemy territories on foot. People were being killed and injured. The violence was spasmodic, intermittent and unpredictable, and the police often found themselves chasing false rumors and false alarms.
What stands out as emblematic of the entire five days of rioting occurred Tuesday night when a crowd of about 150 whites began milling around in front of 1021 South State Street. At least four white men began throwing stones. Shots rang out and the police moved in. The Chicago Daily News reported the next day (July 29), “Harry Signadell, 35, white, died… after his bullet ridden body had been picked up in front of 1021 South State Street, where a colored woman and 20 other negroes had barricaded themselves and were shooting at all whites who passed…Two revolvers, two rifles, and ax, several knives, and several hundred rounds of ammunition…were discovered piled up near the window… Patrolman John Hays…saw the spurts of fire from their rifles and revolvers whenever whites ventured to pass the place.”
Except for Harold Brignadello’s death (the newspaper didn’t even get his name right!) that story was a fabrication piled on a rumor built on fear. The coroner’s jury that convened days later reported that Mr. Brignadello had died “…from shock and hemorrhage due to a (single) bullet wound in the chest cavity…while standing at the southwest corner of State and Taylor…by a bullet fired from a revolver held in the hand of one Emma Jackson…Just prior to the shooting, said premises had been stoned by a mob if white men.” In fact the jury found that the house was occupied by two women and just three men (not one woman and twenty men) and contained just one revolver, not an “arsenal”. All the occupants were tried for murder and all were found not guilty. None of the whites who precipitated the confrontation was arrested. Rains finally came on Wednesday night and all day Thursday, and that, and the present of state troops, broke everybody’s temperature.
The closer you get to the truth of the Chicago riots of 1919 (and the closer you get to the Zoot Suit Riot in Los Angeles two decades later) the less black and white the situation becomes. And in Chicago the more significant becomes the role played by the athletic clubs; the Hamburgs, “Ragen’s Colts, “the Alywards” and “Our Flag”. As the 1922 report found, “…they had been anticipating, even eagerly awaiting, a race riot. On several occasions they themselves had endeavored to precipitate one…” These clubs were each sponsored by local politicians, who used them to foster and enforce loyalty. Cook County commissioner Frank Ragan paid the rent on his “Colts’” clubhouse, and supported their motto, “Hit me and you hit two thousand”.
Alderman Joseph McDonough fanned the mob mentality with a lurid headline grabbing statement, “They (blacks) are armed and the white people are not. We must defend ourselves if the city won’t protect us…I saw white men and women running through the streets draggin’ children by the hands and carrying babies in their arms. Frightened white men told me the police captain had just rushed through the district crying, ‘For God’s sake, arm. They are coming, we cannot hold them.” No such thing happened, and the Alderman’s story about being shot at was a compete fabrication. But it made him a hero to his constituents.
The price for such a political system in 1919 was 38 dead (15 white, 23 black), for which just 3 blacks and two whites were convicted of murder, 537 were injured and $250,000 ($3.4 million in 2007) in property damage. The man who had started it all by hitting Eugene Williams in the head with a rock was tried and acquitted. But the riot made a lot of reputations in Bridgeport and Douglas, including that of Richard J. Daley, who was a 17 year old member of the Hamburger club in 1919 (the same age as Eugene Williams) and in 1924 was elected president of the club. Eventually Daley’s connections made him Mayor of Chicago from 1955 till his death in 1975. Politics in his Chicago was racist and parochial and best described by the quote from another long time president of the Hamburg club: “Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childrer, cripples an’ prohibitionists’d do well to keep out if it.” 
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