I was most surprized by the difference in the term Colored and Negro.  It is interesting to see that the Free Press almost exclusively uses the term Negro whereas the Tribune uses the term Colored.  I was surprizes by the preference of Blacks at the time for the term Colored.

 

Most used words over all

Police, Detroit, rioting, riot, and then Belle Isle and bridge

 

In the Free press

Military, late. fear, bars and auxiliary

 

In the Tribune

beaten, Monday, avenue, yelled, Detroit

 

I saw OCR errors but not in these words.

 

For me the FreePress words are very fealful eviking the idea that local authority is overwhelmed which is why they are callin the Military and auxillaries and there is of dourse the fear that they will get liquored up and thats why we need to close the bars.  In the tribune they mainly adopt the language of being a victim recounting where and when blacks were victims.  What I thought was interesting about this is the frequency of the term beaten as opposed to shot.  By my count on the table I generated there were far more Blacks shot than whites and the white had more skull fractures than blacks.  The reporting seems to be advancing a characterization I did not find.

 

Each is protraying their race as the victim.  I cant say the language is inflamatory as it already seems to have reached that point

 

The ext analysis is a little surprizing as it does not mess with the chart of injuries I made for the Detroit Free Press account of the riots.  It certainly is a race riot and it does confirm my thinking that property damage was comparitively light valued at 1.25 per person.I am also noting in the word pictures that there is no reference to firemen or fire trucks which I would expect to see if there was widespread damage.

 

I know Detroit fairly well and am comparing this to a Detroit tradition called Devils’ Night where the night before Halloween there is in the neighborhood of 750 to 900 fire calls in one night.  It is not as if the city in 43 would not burn.  There is a lot of evidence that it could and would burn if the residents are so inclined.

 

I was interested in the Detroit in 1943 for a variety of reasons including the fact that Frank Murphy was my Grandmother’s first cousin.  I knew he had been Mayor of Detroit and the Judge in the Sweet case and later Governor of the Philippines and Governor of Michigan.  Then died as a Supreme court Judge.  My feelings about him had been primarily focused on the fact that he was the one that wrote the dissenting opinion on the Japanese Internment camps.  Having been Governor of Michigan and Mayor of Detroit it would have been interesting had any of these cases gone to the Supreme Court.  He died befire I was born but heard stories about him from family members who knew him.  Our family still has a summer house in Harbor Beach wher he is buried.

 

I spent 34 years being elected in Michigan and reading the report it does seem pretty much like a document written by a committee.  It seems to focus on the frame work and tries to at least appear to be unbiased.  Reports are always more about giving cover than they are about assigning blame,  I do note that the report seems to have some confusion over the actual role of the National Guard and uses terms like United States Troops interchangeably with the Guard.  More correct usage of the United States troops denotes that they are Regular Army and not Reserve component or Guard.  The three are distinctly different and have different command structures until they are Federalized.

 

I think parts of the text support my theory particularly on the lack of property damage and targeting makes of the opposite race for attacks.  I would expect each side to be the victim and am not surprized that the Tribune focuses on Blacks being beaten as that evokes a more violent and deliberate mental picture than a random shootting.  I think it is much more up close and personal and therefore more savage.

It is obvious that this is racial in that the number word is White at 106 and the number 2 is Colored at 102 and the 3rd word is police.also at 102.  All the makings of a race riot.  As for property damage Car (25) and Bus (21) are the most frequently mentioned.  You have to get to the 120th most frequent word to see looting (8) and 190th destruction (6) and 240th burning (5) and at 354th place was looted (4) and at 548 was robbery (3 times)  All in all it is as I thought basically targeting the males of the opposite race.  The crimes against property are rarely mentioned and there is no mention at all of firement and firetrucks. (Note to Voyant … there should be a word search feature for the list)

 

I like the program and played around with it but I dont get some of the features like Dreamscape.  Also back space does not seem to work so I had to reload the text several times like when i wanted to back out of Dreamscape.