Seized as Riot Firebug
Confesses He Had Benzine to Start Blaze
Prisoner Says He 'Was Out After Bad Negroes.'
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Source: Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 August 1919, pg. 1-2.
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BULLETIN.
Fifteen reports received at the headquarters of Col. Joseph Wilson, commanding the 2d regiment, to the effect that 400 or 600 white men were assembling in Ashland avenue, between Fifty-ninth and Fifty-third streets, with the avowed intention of marching on the black belt and setting it afire, caused the colonel to send a large body of troops to head off the rioters. The troops found no crowd there, but remained on guard.
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A white man suspected of being responsible for numerous fires in the "black belt," and who may have had some connection with the fire that wiped out forty-nine homes in the back o' the yards district Saturday morning, is under arrest.
He had two pint flasks of benzine in his possession when taken, and is said to have admitted he was carrying them for the purpose of starting fires.
The prisoner is Frank Jacob, 28 years old, 311 Root street, a sign painter, married, the father of two children. He was arrested by Policeman Patrick McGovern of the Stockyards station in an alley near Forty-third street and Wentworth avenue late last night. Several small fires were set in that vicinity last night.
Confesses to Officials.
He made his admissions to the police in the presence of Assistant State's Attorney Walter Stanton and Henry Freeman of the attorney general's office.
He said he had been visiting his mother's home at 4311 Wentworth avenue. That house was searched and two other flasks that were empty, but which which had contained benzine, were found.
Jacob was not questioned immediately about the back o' the yards fire, nor about the fires in the "black belt"—not until high officials of the police and the military had been called into the station for a secret session.
After "Bad Negroes."
Jacob said that several nights ago a rear window in his mother's home had been opened, and that he intended to burn the houses of the five "bad Negroes" in the neighborhood.
There was one family, consisting of an aged darkey and his wife, who were "good Negroes," and friends of his mother, Jacob said, and he waited until they had gone two days before setting out to burn their house. He had even offered to help them in any way he could, he said.
Seek to Suppress Facts.
Mr. Stanton requested early this morning that the story be suppressed, as its publication might hinder the investigation, but this was after THE TRIBUNE had gone to press with the details of the arrest and confession. It was reported his confession implicated others who are under investigation.
Later Assistant Attorney General D. I. Graham hurried to the station and also asked for the suppression of the news. He added that Jacob, under questioning, had retracted his first story. He said Jacob in his second recital declared he had no intention of setting fire to any house. He said the contents of the bottles the man had in his pocket had not been chemically tested. Policemen asserted, however, that the fluid undoubtedly was benzine.
Six Fires in Block.
There have been six fires in the block bounded by Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets, La Salle street and Wentworth avenue. The houses damaged had been occupied by Negroes, but the Negroes had fled. Lieut. Ben Enright, transferred recently from Hyde Park, kept McGovern and another policeman in the alley that bisects that block, with orders to wait and watch.
Their watchful waiting was rewarded when Jacob came slithering along in the intense blackness, shouldering the fences and the gates on the left side of the alley.
Last night the houses at 141 and 143 West Forty-third street were set afire, the blaze starting in each in-
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stance under the back porch. Colored folks had lived in these houses, but thought it safer to move. Frank R. Broadbent and Henry Hanson, deputy sheriffs sworn in yesterday by Sheriff Peters, discovered the fires.
Lived Near "Yards" Fire.
The houses burned in Saturday's conflagration are not far from Jacob's home at 311 Root street.
Negroes were blamed for setting these fires. The I. W. W.s also were blamed. But the police started out after a pyromaniac yesterday, after talking to Mrs. Samuel M. Forsythe, 5417 South Honore street. She had found a man in her basement—white or colored she could not say—had locked him in, and run for a policeman. When she returned and opened the door a sheet of flames leaped out. The firemen found a neat pile of rosined kindling wood and quantities of turpentine and oil poured over the floor.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 5 November 2001
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