CHAPTER IV

HIS GANGS

It is frequently necessary in these chapters to consider the boy of the Middle West Side as a type; and in discussing the causes and possible solution of the conditions which have produced him it is easy to forget that what the individual boy actually is at the moment is also of very real importance. But as a matter of fact it is not the boy individually but the boy collectively that is the policeman’s bane and the district’s despair. Once on the street the boy is no longer an individual but a member of a gang; and it is with and through the gang that he justly earns a reputation which provoked an irate citizen recently to suggest that for the New York street urchin boiling in burning oil was too good a fate. The court finds him a little villain, and newspapers tell the public that he is a little desperado; but those who know him best know that he is probably worse than either court or public suppose, and that for this the development of the gang on the West Side is primarily responsible.

The formation of “sets” or “gangs” is almost a law of human nature, and boyhood one of its most constant exponents, for a boy is gregarious naturally as well as by training. And over here, where the sociable Irish-American element predominates and children rarely mention the word “home,” it is inevitable that the gang should flourish and its members try to find in its activities the rough affection, comfort, and amusement which a dirty and overcrowded tenement room has failed to give.

The West Side gang is in its origin perfectly normal. In the words of one of the boys, “De kids livin’ on de street jist naturally played together, an’ stuck together w’en anything came up about kids from any other street.” Nothing is more entirely natural and spontaneous, and it is exasperating to reflect that nothing could be a more persuasive and uplifting power in the boy’s life than the gang’s development when given proper scope and direction. Its influence is strong and immediate. The gang contains the friends to whose praise and criticism he is most keenly sensitive, its standards are his aims, and its activities his happiness. Untrammeled by the perversion of special circumstances it might encourage his latent interests, train him to obedience and loyalty, show him the method and the saving of co-operation, and teach him the beauty of self-sacrifice. Gang life at its best does so. The universal endorsement and success of the Boy Scout movement, for instance, in almost every country living under Western civilization, shows this most clearly. Association and rivalry should bring out what is best in a boy; but on the Middle West Side it almost invariably brings out what is worst. Practically, under present conditions, it is inevitable that this should be so; but with the first movement toward amelioration such a result becomes less necessary.

Take the case of a certain gang typical of this neighborhood. This gang is now several years old, but its membership is almost exactly what it was four or five years ago. Its members singled each other out from the throng of children in their immediate neighborhood and first made for themselves a cave between two lumber piles in a neighboring yard. All one summer they met in this “hang-out”; here they brought the “loot,” as they call the product of their marauding expeditions, threw craps, pitched pennies, played cards, smoked, told stories, and fought. But they were disturbed by early disaster in the shape of the business needs of the lumber company, which one day caused their shack to be torn down over their heads. They made their headquarters next in the empty basement of a tenement, but soon moved at the well reinforced request of the landlord. After an exiled period of meeting on the street corners, the boys conceived the idea of building their own habitation in the protection of their own homes. They began a small wooden structure in the areaway of the tenement in which the leader lived. But civil war broke out, and in one unhappy culmination the leader of the gang chased his own little brother up two flights of stairs with a hatchet. The little brother promptly “squealed,” and the projected headquarters was destroyed by parental decree.

There followed another interval of meeting on the streets, and then one of the workers in a neighboring settlement became interested. She arranged to have the boys hold meetings in the settlement once a week. They were given certain privileges in the gymnasium and game rooms also, which kept them happily occupied and away from the street influences. But the settlement was closed suddenly and the gang went back to the streets once more. Here is a case in which a gang were from the outset driven from pillar to post by the deficiencies of their surroundings as a playground, and made to feel that every man’s hand was against them. When kindness was shown to them they responded at once. And scores of other gangs, if they were given the chance, would respond in the same way.

There are two salient features of gang life in this neighborhood. Both can be easily explained and abundantly illustrated; the second alone applies equally to schoolboy gangs and to adult gangs--for bands of adult rowdies exist, too, and the semi-mythical “Gopher Gang”[14] is a terror to conjure with. The first of these features is the loyalty which the gang invariably shows to a single street or block. As a gang is naturally formed of boys who live in the same tenement or next door to each other, or at least in the same block, and as their chief playground is likely to be the street in front of that block, it naturally becomes a matter of convenience as well as of honor to defend that playground from the inroads of any other gang. In this way loyalty to one block becomes a principle and a basis of gang organization. But individuals are not always loyal to their home block. If a boy becomes a member of a gang on Fiftieth Street, for example, and then moves to Thirtieth Street, or even farther, he may return and continue to belong to his old gang. Similarly, a Thirtieth Street gang will number among its ranks former residents who now live in other localities. At the same time, both gangs are continually being recruited by new arrivals in the community. When a boy moves he simply uses his own discretion as to whether to join the new gang or to continue to belong to the old.

The gang is constantly increasing or decreasing its numbers. It does not necessarily include the whole street except in a very general sense. Its nucleus is to be found in probably a dozen or fifteen kindred spirits in the street. For purposes of war, or for demonstrations at election time, or on any such occasion when there is either safety or pleasure in numbers, the other boys in the street are added to this group. Thus the real Fiftieth Street gang may not number more than 20 or 25 members, but its fighting strength when pitted against the Fifty-thirds will be nearly a hundred. Again, while there may be one group of 15 or 20 boys known as “The Fiftieth Street Gang,” yet on Fiftieth Street between any two avenues will be found a dozen or more similar groups, each with a leader and a coherent social consciousness. The one among these groups which will be called the Fiftieth Street gang is likely to be so known either because it contains the boy who, for one reason or another, has become the recognized street leader, or because its members are better known or more daring than any other group, so that it will be around this particular group that all the others will rally when the occasion calls. The territorial limit of a gang is usually the length of one single cross street between two avenues. In a single week fights took place between the Fiftieth Street gang between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and the Fifty-third Street gang in the same district; between the Forty-ninth Street gang between Ninth and Tenth Avenues combined with the Forty-ninth Street gang between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and the Forty-seventh Street gang between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

Loyalty to their home block would be a good habit in boyish _camaraderie_ if it merely took the form of peaceable rivalry; but as gang life exists at present on the Middle West Side it becomes a chronic incentive to lawlessness. For the second salient feature of gang life is the propensity of the gang to street fighting. Personal and collective jealousies and feuds have become so habitual and endless among the boys here that the history of their gangs is little less than a record of continuous violence of every kind. No doubt the strain of the constant repression before alluded to in some measure accounts for this; but possibly it is due in general to a contact with the streets and in particular to the bad influence of the older toughs on whom they model themselves and who often attain heroic position in their eyes. The boys of gangs in the country play that they are armies, emperors, or kings that they have read of in books or heard of in stories told. But the city boys of the West Side prefer to imitate local celebrities whom they know or local deeds of fame with which they are more intimately acquainted. And the danger of this vulgarized hero worship lies in the fact that, while a country lad must imagine the surroundings and implements for imitating the deeds of story book heroes, the city boy can find on every side of him the real materials used by his models, the Gophers.

The jargon of the thief and the yeggman is common among these boys’ gangs. They talk casually of murder and robbery as though these were familiar events in their lives. They lay tentative plans for the robbery of stores or saloons with no more real intention of commission than the schoolboy football player has of actual achievement when he imagines what he would do if his team were playing Yale. They talk easily and knowingly of “turning off” various people in the neighborhood, by which they mean robbing them. They threaten each other with murder and other dire forms of assault, and undoubtedly think that they mean to carry out their threats. The first active manifestation of this state of mind consists often in carrying concealed weapons. The boy obtains a broken revolver from some place or finds or steals a good one. He will reveal this weapon to his awestruck playmates and soon come to pose as a bold, ruffianly spirit. Usually this phase passes away harmlessly enough. Few of the younger residents of this neighborhood are really armed, though most of them would have their companions believe that they are. Occasionally some youngster does manage to carry a revolver, bowie knife, or slingshot, and his subsequent career is likely to bring him very early into serious contact with the police. But however late or soon the manifestation, the gangs are permeated by the tendency to disorder and crime which is the result of criminal example. It is the old story; only the worst and most vicious form of the gang spirit has a chance of finding expression in these streets. And so gang warfare has become not the exception but the rule, and the violence and ferocity with which the small boys pursue their feuds excites the alarm of the entire neighborhood.

“There has always been more or less fighting among the gangs of boys on the streets,” a physician of long residence recently remarked, “but they are getting worse in character every year until now it seems that they will stop at nothing. They carry knives, clubs, and even, I have heard, revolvers. Sometimes arrests are made, but they never amount to anything, for the boys are always released without punishment. If an outsider tries to interfere, ordinarily both gangs turn on him. They terrorize the neighborhood with their fights, breaking windows and injuring passersby with stones. Only recently one of these fights broke out almost in front of my house, and a score or more, most of them armed with beer bottles, were engaged in it. I got a boy by the shoulder and asked him what he was doing with the bottle. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I am just taking it to the store to get it filled.’ Then he laughed in my face and the rest of the gang burst out laughing. I could do nothing with them, and had to retire to my office.”

Sometimes fights are more or less unpremeditated, arising from chance encounters between two rival gangs; but very often they are formally arranged and generaled in approved military fashion. One evening recently a furious battle took place between two gangs of small boys numbering nearly 50 to the gang, and all apparently from eight to fifteen years old. One gang proceeded down the street from the corner at which they had assembled and met the other gang coming from the opposite direction. They stopped about 100 feet apart and formed two compact masses, screaming and shouting encouragement to their own side and insults to the enemy. Then one of the gangs moved slowly forward. Some one among their opponents threw a beer bottle into the advancing crowd, and a scene of wild riot followed. Clubs, stones, and beer bottles were hurled through the air, many of them taking effect and many of the bottles smashing on the pavement. A crowd gathered on both sides behind the combatants and windows on all sides were filled with spectators. None of the boys came into personal contact with their opponents. Most of them contented themselves with hurling missiles indiscriminately into the opposing group. In the midst of the mêlée two boys were maneuvering for over a minute, each armed with a beer bottle which he was trying to land on his opponent from a distance of not more than eight or ten feet. They ducked, dodged, and side-stepped, then finally one boy threw his bottle. The other boy dropped flat to the pavement and the bottle came so close to his body that it looked for an instant as though it had hit him. If it had, it might easily have killed him, for it was hurled with terrific force. But the boy sprang up and threw his bottle at the other youngster, who was now retreating.

Just as it was growing dark someone fired two shots from a revolver--whether loaded with blank or bullet cartridges it was of course impossible to tell--and now for the first time protest from the spectators began to rise even above the din of the fight. At the same moment from scouts in the rear guard of both armies came the watchword of the West Side, “Cheese it!” In an incredibly short space of time both gangs were rushing at top speed back toward their respective gathering places. When everything was quiet, two policemen turned the corner, walked solemnly down to the middle of the block, and returned. There were, of course, no arrests. One gang had rallied at a point about 100 yards to the west of the avenue, and were starting back to the battleground again when two small boys concealed in a cellarway at the corner shrieked out another warning. The gang broke up again and the next minute a discomfited policeman stepped out from a doorway where he had been concealed and came along the street.

At the corner of Ninth Avenue two men were indignantly discussing the fight. “Those boys do more to ruin property and lower real estate values around here than any other three causes,” said one of the men. “They’re having these fights continually now and they seem to grow worse all the time. Suppose that some passerby had been in the way of that revolver which was shot down the street just now. Nothing could have been done. You can’t find out who had the revolver. The police won’t try to make any arrests, and if they do, the boys are always let right out again. The insurance companies won’t insure plate glass in this neighborhood any more, and the whole place seems to be just at the mercy of these little ruffians.”

On one occasion a gang was short of bonfire material at election time. The members raided a neighboring street, took the gang there by surprise, extinguished its celebration bonfires, and carried the wood in triumph back to their own street. War was immediately declared by the despoiled, and a regular after-school campaign followed. Through an injury to one of their number the gang in an intervening street became involved, and sided with the bonfire stealers. War then became general and for a year was a constant subject for discussion among old and young in the neighborhood. The boys of the defensive gang more than held their own. They descended upon the allies from the intervening street and vanquished them on their own territory. They fought with even honors in foreign territory the gang which originally started the trouble, and repelled several invasions decisively. Finally these terms were offered: The defensive gang formally notified their opponents that if they could succeed in forcing their way from the upper avenue to a Roman Catholic church about three-quarters of the way down the street, they would accept defeat. Night after night the gang thus challenged made the attempt, but never succeeded.

It is not uncommon for fights to end by a formal match between two opposing leaders, though very often, particularly if the leader of the weaker gang wins, these conflicts are indecisive because the stronger gang will not accept defeat. In one case two gangs entered into a formal truce because one gang was obliged to go through the other’s territory on the way to school, and found it inexpedient to fight a battle four times a day. The other gang recognized the justice of this position and according to compact permitted their enemies to go through the street unmolested throughout the school year.

Tales of this kind could be multiplied almost indefinitely, for the exploits of boyish gangs dominate the West Side problem. Such headlines as

UPPER WEST SIDE DISTURBED

BOYS DISCHARGE RIFLES--ONE MAN SHOT AND WINDOWS BROKEN[15]

GIRL SHOT IN GANG FIGHT

SERIOUSLY WOUNDED WHILE WALKING IN ELEVENTH AVENUE--ASSAILANT ESCAPES[16]

are comparatively common in the newspapers; yet most of the occurrences of this kind in the district never reach the ears of a reporter. The following is from the press account of a typical gang war:

BOY STABBED BY YOUNG FEUDISTS

IS SECOND HURT[17]

This is the second boy to receive serious injuries because of the feud which has been raging for the last three weeks between stone-throwing bands of boys who live in the vicinity of Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue.... Fifty or more boys have received injuries.... Not only are the lives of school children endangered but the size of the weapons used makes it perilous for adults to venture near during the battles. There are a half dozen bands in the neighborhood, and when any two of them meet there is a fight. The principal pastime, however, seems to be in a whole crowd attacking one or two boys who belong to another band.

Teachers in the public schools and Sunday school teachers have joined in the demand that the Police Department give full protection against assault to all living in the vicinity. The fever for stone throwing seems to be spreading through all the territory between Ninth and Tenth Avenues between Fiftieth and Sixtieth Streets, and the situation is said to be beyond the control of the present force of police on duty in that part of the city.

Gang fighting is most prevalent when the nervous youngsters are just released from the school room and must inevitably encounter their schoolmate antagonists on the streets.

Here is an account of a gang fight, the events of which were described by one of the small marauders:

“Last night a gang of boys came down with their pockets full of brickbats, looking for Willie Harrigan, but Johnnie and Jimmie heard of it and got the gang together. I came up with my pockets full of stones and was throwing them when I got hit in the leg myself and it hurt so I couldn’t throw. Just then three cops suddenly jumped off a car, right in the middle of the fight. Everybody beat it, but a cop grabbed me and I dropped my stones and jerked away and ran. They caught three of the others though, and took them to the station house. I don’t know whether they got there. Every afternoon this gang comes down and tries to catch our fellows alone as they did with Willie. We fight with stones and bottles. No one has been very much hurt lately. One of our gang has a gun, too, but he can’t fire it for fear of the cops.”

These last sentences reveal, or at least refer to, the most repulsive of all the ways in which the demoralizing effect of West Side gang development is shown. Even a confirmed pessimist, if he has any sympathy with boys and any knowledge of their ways, can discern in the gang’s activities a striving after the unattainable which is yet a birthright, an effort which is essentially more pathetic than vicious. In the raid and the “loot,” the chase and the “hang-out,” it is not difficult to mark the trail of the Redskin and the hunt and the lure of danger which is so dear to the heart of a boy. But even the most persistent of optimists, willing to make many allowances, must demur against the coldblooded and treacherous methods to which the feuds and enmities of West Side gangs have reduced their members. If ever these boys had a sense of the spirit of fair play, they seem to have lost it completely. They win by planning overwhelming advantages. An attack upon three or four or even one defenseless boy by 30 or 40 merciless youngsters, who even attempt to surround their prey and strike from behind, is not a disgraceful thing to them but an exploit to be proud of. No mercy is shown to the vanquished. Stories are rife in the neighborhood of boys of thirteen or fourteen being attacked when alone and undefended, by 10 or more assailants from another street.

That casualties are not more frequent is due to the dominant spirit of cowardice with which the mob always taints its members. In the thick of the fight when no responsibility can be placed and every member feels secure in the presence of his friends, there is no atrocity which these boys will not attempt; but relying as they do on the strength of the mob instead of on individual strength, the first feeling of timidity immediately develops into a panic. An unexpected move by the enemy at bay will rout an attacking party of four times their strength. Half a dozen boys caught at a disadvantage will charge unscathed through a gang of nearly two score, who fly in all directions at this unexpected display of bravery. One boy, for instance, was recently beset by eight others when he was about to leave the factory. Instead of retreating as they expected, he suddenly seized a club, charged one wing of his assailants, and escaped unhurt. On the other hand, here is a case in which one of the victims was caught:

“Jim and me was goin’ down the street, w’en about six fellers from the Fiftieth Street gang hot-footed after us. We ran but they got right close and hollered to us to halt. I made out like I was goin’ to stop but got a fresh start w’en they slacked up and got away. Jim did stop and they near killed him, they beat him up so.”

“Oh! They would-a killed me if they’d got me,” said one boy, relating how he had been chased into a hallway by five or six of a rival gang, armed with bottles, clubs, and bricks. “I hid in a toilet, and when they came up to look in I rushed out on ’em and took ’em by surprise; I pushed one feller down the steps and beat it, but they didn’t catch me.” And a similar story was told by another. “After I wins in my fight with bot’ Mike and his pal me little brother hears ’em telling one day how they was goin’ to lay for me in the hallway wit clubs. I runs up tru de house next door on the roof tru de house where dey was goin’ to lay for me and hides in the toilet wit a big club. When I hear Mike and his pal come in an’ talkin’ right near me I rushes out and bangs right an’ left wit me club. I hits ’em bot’ on de bean (head) an’ dey runs out. After that they never bothered me.”

Gang fighting, in fact, as practiced in this neighborhood, is conducive to neither manliness, honor, courage, nor self-respect. The strength of the boy is the strength of the gang, and under its protection unspeakable horrors take place for which it is impossible to place responsibility. Rumors of boys being stabbed, shot, clubbed, maimed, and even killed are current everywhere, and there is good reason to believe that many of them are true. Such things are, of course, never mentioned to strangers, and residents learn of them only by chance conversation. The moment that any definite questions are asked, the boys become reticent and change the subject. But there can be no doubt that many crimes are committed in these blocks which never reach the ears of the police, and that a considerable proportion of them are due to the boy and his gang.

And so the word “gang” here has grown to be synonymous with the worst side of boy life, and the group itself, which might in other surroundings and under other traditions be a positive civic asset, simply adds the irresponsibility of the mob to the recklessness of youth and becomes a force which turns West Side boyhood into cowards and savages. As a priest of one of the Roman Catholic churches said the other day, “The social evil may be an important one, but _the_ question in this neighborhood is that of the gangs.”