STORY OF THE RIOT
PUBLISHED BY
The Citizens'
Protective League
Price, 25 Cents
COPY OF AN APPEAL TO THE MAYOR.
New York, September 12, 1900.
TO HIS HONOR, ROBERT A. VAN WYCK,
MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY.
Dear Sir:
Your communication of the 7th inst. in reply to my letter received.We appreciate the consideration shown and interest manifested, butearnestly petition your Honor for a fair and impartial investigation.We condemn in unqualified terms lawlessness among our people, and by nomeans condone the crime of Harris, nor his associates; but this crime,as black as it may be, does not justify the policemen in their savageand indiscriminate attack upon innocent and helpless people.
We ask for no money consideration, and our counsel, Hon. FrankMoss, has been so advised. We are not responsible for what privateindividuals may do—the rights of citizenship we value above money.
We ask for the conviction, and removal from the force of those officerswhom we are able to prove guilty.
We appeal to you, sir, as chief magistrate of this city, to give thismatter special personal attention.
If the guilty are shielded it will encourage the mob to repeat thesame offense, the officers to commit the same deeds, and our people toprepare for self-defense in spite of law or gospel. This can have noother termination than bloodshed and butchery.
This, I believe, may all be avoided by a course of simple justice.The color of a man's skin must not be made the index of his characteror ability. From the many ugly threatening letters I have received Ifeel that my own life is not safe, but I am unwilling to purchase itby silence at the expense of my unfortunate race. We feel keenly ourposition, and again appeal to you for common justice.
I am, dear sir,
Yours,
W. H. BROOKS.
PERSECUTION OF NEGROES
BY
Roughs and Policemen, in the City
of New York, August, 1900.
STATEMENT AND PROOFS WRITTEN AND COM-
PILED BY FRANK MOSS AND ISSUED BYTHE
CITIZENS' PROTECTIVE LEAGUE.
STATEMENT OF THE PERSECUTION.
The riots and persecutions described in this pamphlet occurred mainlyin the 20th Police Precinct, which is under the command of ActingCaptain John Cooney, and within the jurisdiction of Inspector WalterL. Thompson. Chief William S. Devery resides in the precinct, near thescene of the disorder.
The district has a large colored population, and mixed with it are manydissolute and lawless white persons.
On August the 12th last a Negro named Arthur Harris was with his wifeat 41st Street and 8th Avenue. He says that he left her to buy a cigar,and when he returned he found her in the grasp of a man in citizen'sdress. This man was a police officer, named Robert J. Thorpe, who hadarrested her, as he claimed, for "soliciting." Harris says that he didnot know Thorpe was an officer, and that he attempted to rescue hiswife. The policeman struck Harris with his club, and Harris retaliatedwith his penknife, inflicting a mortal wound, and then ran away.
Thorpe was attached to the 20th Precinct, and was much liked by hiscomrades. Policemen thronged his home, and his funeral, on Augu