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• 1 2020-02-26T20:11:40+00:00 Mayor La Guardia establishes an investigation 50 plain 94 2024-02-14T19:21:06+00:00 Bundles of posters measuring two feet by two and a half feet were delivered to the 28th Precinct station on West 123rd Street during the evening of March 20. Over the course of the night, police officers distributed those posters to stores throughout Harlem, instructing staff to display them prominently in windows. At least one store owner taped the poster to his store window; the New York Evening Journal published a photograph of several Black and white men and boys gathered around it on March 21. “In bold type” on each poster was an appeal from Mayor LaGuardia “To the People of New York City,” a statement he had released to the press that morning. Concerned to avoid a renewal of the disorder of the previous night, he urged “the law-abiding element of Harlem to carefully scrutinize any charge, rumor or gossip being made at this time,” as the “few irresponsible individuals” who had instigated that violence with “bold statements…in mimeographed handbills and placards” might attempt to “repeat this spreading of false gossip, of misinformation and distributed misrepresentation in handbills or other printed matter.” To counter those sources, the mayor promised to supply “details of everything that that occurred.” That information would come from City agencies, and from the grand jury that he had instructed District Attorney William Dodge to have investigate the disorder. He announced in addition that he was appointing “a committee of citizens to check all official reports and to make a thorough investigation of the causes of the disorder and a study of necessary plans to prevent a repetition of the spreading of malicious rumors, racial animosities and the inciting of disorder.”
  
  If the role of rumors and the activities of the Communist Party mentioned in the poster spurred the mayor’s decision to investigate the events of the disorder, a concern that the disorder not be seen as a race riot contributed to the emphasis on underlying causes rather than events of the disorders in the scope of the investigation. In a draft version the sentence announcing the committee read, “…and a study of necessary DEFENSIVE plans to prevent a repetition of the spreading of malicious rumors and the instigation of RACIAL disorder,” with the word “racial” crossed out in pencil. In a second draft, “defensive” was also crossed out, “racial animosities” inserted, and “instigation of racial disorder” changed to “inciting of disorder” to produce the final text. The intent of those edits was made clear when a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune queried the mayor about the choice of the phrase “unfortunate occurrence” to describe the disorder asking, "You do not regard the trouble up there as a race riot?" "No," he replied, "you see, we have to be careful. We don't know yet what was the underlying cause of the trouble. We can't say on the basis of what we know that it was fundamentally racial. Certainly an outburst like that which happened Wednesday night doesn't go off unless there was smouldering some underlying feeling. What the causes of that were are what I want the fact-finding committee to find out. It may go back 100 years."
  
  It is unclear what led La Guardia to conclude that the city government releasing information would not be enough to calm Harlem residents or prevent further disorder. The NAACP did send La Guardia a telegram on March 20 calling for “a biracial commission to make an independent investigation of riot in Harlem last night” that examined the “fundamental as well as immediate causes of trouble with right to examine witnesses and all pertinent records.” Although the organization would later issue a press release claiming that suggestion was responsible for the mayor deciding to set up an investigation, he likely was responding to more than that prompt.
  
  As police distributed the posters displaying the mayor’s appeal, 7.5 miles to the south at City Hall La Guardia announced the names of the eleven individuals he had appointed to that committee. The press release provided a broader charge for them than his earlier statement: “the investigation of social and economic conditions in west Harlem,” “the ascertainment of the causes of the disturbances which occurred on the night of March 19,” and “recommendations for the betterment of conditions and the prevention of a repetition of disorder and violence.” La Guardia did give more attention to the events of the disorder when he later explained his approach to journalists. “The checking of violence through adequate policing and the arrest of ringleaders,” was one of the two lines along which he said the situation in Harlem had to be approached, alongside “the amelioration of condition which gave rise to the suppressed feeling of hostility by the Negro population which was let loose on Tuesday night.” However, that framing suggested that investigation of the events of the disorder was largely in the hands of the grand jury investigation that the mayor had asked District Attorney Dodge to undertake. La Guardia seemed to confirm that later when confronted by a reporter from the Daily Worker who claimed that Dodge’s investigation was at odds with the work he had assigned the Committee, insisting in response that “these are two separate and distinct functions.” However, the mayor did not follow the district attorney in rushing to blame Communists for the disorder. The printed statement did not mention the Young Liberators or Communists by name. When a journalist asked La Guardia about that omission, “He would not say whether he agreed with the police that the instigators were Communists.” That reticence did not stop publications at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the anti-Communist Hearst newspaper the New York Evening Journal and the Communist Daily Worker, from reporting that the statement did hold Communists responsible for the disorder even if it did not mention them by name.
• 1 2022-03-13T20:54:35+00:00 La Guardia's statement "To the People of Harlem" 34 plain 2024-02-14T19:41:09+00:00 On March 20, Mayor La Guardia circulated a statement about the disorder, “To the People of New York City.” The document was released to the press and printed “in bold type on placards 20 by 24 inches in size,” the New York Herald Tribune reported. “Bundles of [the placards] were delivered to the West 123d Street station,” that story continued; the New York Times described the delivery as “two patrol wagons of circulars,” which it reported were “two foot by two and a half foot” in size. Patrolmen distributed the placards to Harlem’s stores, which displayed them in their windows, as was shown in a photograph published by the New York Evening Journal and reported by the New York Times, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York World-Telegram. The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and Daily Worker published the full statement. Among the Black newspapers, the Norfolk Journal and Guide provided a brief summary rather than the full text. The statement was not mentioned in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age, or Afro-American or in the Daily News, New York Sun, or Daily Mirror (and reported only with the photograph in the New York Evening Journal).
  
  The statement read

  To the People of New York City: The people of New York City must know that the overwhelming majority of the Negro population of West Harlem are splendid, decent, law-abiding American citizens.
  
  The unfortunate occurrence of last night and early morning was instigated and artificially stimulated by a few irresponsible individuals. A very small fraction of 1 per cent of the population took part in the demonstration and violence. Small groups of vicious individuals marauded throughout the section, from time to time; committing acts of violence, attacking individuals in cowardly fashion and breaking plate glass of stores unoccupied during the night.
  
  Malice and viciousness of the Instigators are betrayed by the false statements contained in mimeographed handbills and placards.
  
  Attempts may be made to repeat the spreading of false gossip, of misinformation and distributing misrepresentation in handbills or other printed matter.
  
  I appeal to the law-abiding element of Harlem to carefully scrutinize any charge, rumor or gossip or racial discrimination being made at this time.
  
  Every agency of the city is available to assist in investigating all such charges. I expect a complete report from several sources giving me details of everything that occurred. As soon as I receive these reports they will be made public.
  
  I am appointing a committee of representative citizens to check all official reports and to make a thorough investigation of the causes of the disorder and a study of necessary plans to prevent a repetition of the spreading of malicious rumors, racial animosities and the inciting of disorder.
  
  F. H. LA GUARDIA.
  Mayor.

  
  Three versions of the statement are in the MCCH files. In a draft version the sentence announcing the committee read, “…and a study of necessary DEFENSIVE plans to prevent a repetition of the spreading of malicious rumors and the instigation of RACIAL disorder,” with the word “racial” crossed out in pencil. In a second draft, “defensive” is crossed out, “racial animosities” inserted, and “instigation of racial disorder” changed to “inciting of disorder” to produce the final text. That those edits were intended to avoid casting the events of March 19 as a “race riot” was made clear when a reporter from the New York Herald Tribune questioned La Guardia about the choice of the phrase “unfortunate occurrence” to describe the disorder. He asked, "You do not regard the trouble up there as a race riot?" "No," he replied, "you see, we have to be careful. We don't know yet what was the underlying cause of the trouble. We can't say on the basis of what we know that it was fundamentally racial. Certainly an outburst like that which happened Wednesday night doesn't go off unless there was smouldering some underlying feeling. What the causes of that were are what I want the fact-finding committee to find out. It may go back 100 years."
  
  Notably, La Guardia’s statement did not follow police and District Attorney Dodge in holding Communists responsible for starting the disorder — although the New York Evening Journal misleadingly described La Guardia’s statement as doing just that, as having “flatly charge[d] radicals with the responsibility for much of Harlem’s riots.” Instead, as both the New York World-Telegram and New York Herald Tribune noted, it did not mention the Young Liberators or Communists by name. A journalist evidently asked La Guardia about that omission, as the New York Herald Tribune reported, “He would not say whether he agreed with the police that the instigators were Communists.” The Daily Worker, nonetheless, chose to ignore that reticence and characterized the statement as “cue from the red-baiting Hearst press” and “Attacking the Young Liberators, without mentioning them by name.”
  
  The NAACP press release on March 22 that claimed credit for La Guardia’s decision to appoint a committee and the telegram the organization sent him that formed the basis of that claim (and a press release about the telegram) are in the NAACP files. The NAACP press release was mentioned in the New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, and Home News.
  
  Only historian Lindsey Lupo has discussed La Guardia's statement, in a chapter on the MCCH in a broader study of riot commissions. Her study is the most detailed account of the MCCH. She highlights the revisions to the statement as evidence that the mayor was "hesitant to deem the violence as 'racial,'" which she interprets as at odds with the biracial committee he would appoint. That interpretation did not acknowledge that La Guardia's position was shared by Harlem's Black leadership.