Why I remember fifteen or twenty years ago that the district down here at Wabash Avenue and Calumet was one of the most beautiful and highest-class neighborhoods of this great city. Go down there today and see the ramshackle broken-down and tumble-down district. That is the result of the new menace that is threatening this great Hyde Park district. And then tell me whether there are or not enough red-blooded, patriotic, loyal, courageous citizens of Hyde Park to save this glorious district from the menace which has brought so much pain and so much disaster to the district to the south of us.
You cannot mix oil and water. You cannot assimilate races of a different color as neighbors along social lines. Remember this: That order is heaven's first law.
Throughout the meetings, profession was made of friendliness toward the Negroes, together with a desire to serve their needs and accord them fair treatment. The _Property Owners' Journal_, published by the Association, was less guarded. While some of its columns made similar professions, its remarks in other columns were characterized by extreme racial bitterness and antagonism.
An apparently conciliatory attitude was also taken by speakers at meetings of the Hyde Park Association and its Grand Boulevard branch. In a meeting of the latter on January 19, 1920, the chairman declared that he wished to say for publication: "We have no quarrel with the colored people. We have no desire to intimidate them by violence." The mission of the organization, he said, was peaceable, and it was the purpose to proceed according to law and order. The Association, he averred, had been charged "by the colored press" with being parties to bombing outrages. He wanted it known that "we have denounced officially the action of anyone or any set of people who would indulge in a practice of that character." The story of the bombing campaign is given in another section of this report.
At another meeting it was asserted that the Kenwood and Hyde Park Association had a membership of 1,000 persons, and it was estimated that in the district to which it applied the investment in real estate was $1,000,000,000. The purpose of the organization was declared to be "to guard that $1,000,000,000 against depreciation from anything." One speaker said he did not believe there was a piece of property west of Cottage Grove Avenue in Hyde Park that was worth 33 cents on the dollar "as it stands now with this invasion." He said his home cost about $25,000, but he felt safe in saying that he could not then get $8,000 for it. A city alderman was one of the speakers at this meeting.