Some musings on the New York Riots..... Perhaps the usual problem is rich man's war, poor man's fight. When the body bags start coming home those who are needed as cannon fodder begin to rebel especially if the issue is not one with which the cannon fodder can relate to. In general in New York the Irish were dirt poor and took jobs for low pay and the Blacks were poorer and took jobs away from the Irish. Somewhere in the New York riots, at least at first, were also the Germans who were also poor. When rich men can buy their way out of a 50-50 chance of maiming or death and the poor man can't, the poor react. The "Irish" dislike of the Blacks might be twofold: They threatened, especially if emancipated, to take away the low paying jobs and/or lower the pay even more for everyone and the blacks were the "cause" of the war (to the uneducated Irishman) which was the cause of the draft. Another problem is that at the time New York was 25% Irish born and them making up perhaps 80% of the poor, in a riot of the poor, of course most were Irish. Race is a way of identifying someone by generalization. And if on the second day drunken Irishmen were tearing up the place instead of protesting and speeches -- we now have a riot. The most to be gained now was now plunder and wanton vandalism before the troops arrived. By the second day the more decent elements pulled out of the melee. When one wants to ascribe certain idealistic goals to the New York riots, as if there was a purpose and a mind in control of the boiling over resentment against the harsh conditions of New York, one should remember the man at a 2nd story window during the French Revolution looking down on the people going by in screaming destruction, saying, "There goes the mob. I must join them. I'm their leader." Mike