Springfield’s Great Race War.
(Extracts from Illinois State Register of Saturday morning, August 15, 1908.)
“Mob law, implacable, inexorable, with justice as its excuse and basing its depredations upon the theory that might makes right, held Springfield in its grasp all last night while a great mob of men, thirsting for revenge for the brutal assault upon Mrs. Hallam and the cold-blooded murder of Clergy Ballard, foiled in their early attempt to get the negro prisoners charged with these crimes from the county jail, stoned the troops called out to resist them, defied police and sheriff’s deputies, wrecked the restaurant and burned the automobile of Harry Loper because he aided in spiriting the negroes away from the city; fought a desperate battle with bullets and fire brands in the negro district, shattered plate glass windows, burned twenty houses before 3 o’clock this morning, and held a general reign of terror, leaving in the wake of riot a long list of dead and injured.
“The immense crowd first showed its desperation when it defied the troops and the officers and threatened to attack the jail. Sheriff Werner pleaded in vain. He declared time and time again the prisoners had been taken away.
“But the crowd would not heed advice. They demanded revenge. When they found they could not succeed in gaining entrance to the jail they turned their attention to Loper’s restaurant, bent upon destroying that because they had heard that Mr. Loper had aided in spiriting the prisoners away. ***
“’On to Loper’s,’ was the cry that was raised by the mob last night when they heard that the negro prisoners — Joe James and George Richardson — had been spirited away from the city in Mr. Loper’s automobile. And ‘on to Loper’s the mob went. Bricks were hurled, Mr. Loper’s automobile overturned and then burned, the entire building wrecked and furniture smashed or burned with the automobile.
“Fully ten thousand people packed Fifth street from Adams to Monroe, and across the intersections, watching the ring-leaders wreck the building and contents.
“It was while the work of destruction was at its height that Louis Johnson, a lad about 17 years old, residing at 1308 East Reynolds street, and who was employed at the Desnoyers Shoe factory, was killed. Conflicting stories are told as to his death.”
The total dead to date numbers six and wounded are innumerable. The property loss will exceed $200,000. The cost to the county and state cannot at present be estimated. The following photographs are genuine views of the mob’s destructive work.