Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1920 — BLAST KILLED 30 IN WALL STREET [ARTICLE]

BLAST KILLED 30 IN WALL STREET

More Than 350 Other Persons Are Injured by Mysterious Explosion. MORGAN FIRM MEMBER HORT Federal Officers Find Evidence to Justify Conclusion That Mysterious Detonation Was 'Caused by Bomb. New York, Sept. 17. —Thirty persons are known to be dekd, five others are missing and believed to be dead, and more than '360 persons are known to have been wounded in the explosion between the United States subtrfeasury building and the office of J. P. Morgan A Co., at Broad and Wall streets. The damage to the greafr buildings Is estimated at $1,000,000.. The Morgan building appeared a shamble and part of the front of the subtreasury across the street was torn away. x The 46-story Equitable bunding was rocked by the explosion, as well as all 'of Lower Manhattan.

Every window in the financial district was broken by the explosion. After 'hours of investigation, city and federal officers and William J. Burns said they had found evidence to justify the conclusion that the mysterious detonation was caused by a huge bomb loaded •with TNT (trini* trotolnol), titan of explosives, re-en-forced with iron slugs crudely manufactured from old-fashioned tenement house window weights. The weight of overwhelming evl•denoe caused the authorities to give over their earlier theory that the explosion was caused by an accident to a dynamite-carrying truck. Every available department of justice agent In the city was set to *task of ferreting out the band of anarchists believed responsible for the •outrage. • Scattered bits of khe truck and the horribly mangled form of a roan horse found in the street after the exJlskm, While rude bomb slugs were round to Wall street, in adjacent thoroughfares and embedded in the walls of the Morgan and other edifices, which were pitted as by a shrapnel bombardment.

Iron Found in Bodies. At the morgue, where there were 30 mutilated bodies, including those of four women and one boy, Chief Medical Examiner Charles N. Norris said: "In several of the bodies we found parts of iron, such as might have been made by breaking up sash weights. There is no doubt that a bomb was the cause of the explosion.” Evidence gathered by the department of justice indicated that the plotters, in an effort to carry out numerous radical threats of a forcible 'demonstration against the house of Morgan, carefully manufactured a hun-dred-pound bomb, loaded it on a truck, either hired or stolen, and drove their deadly, burden into the financial district. / William J. Burns, house detectlve for J. P. Morgan & Co., declared that he is certain that the explosion was by design. Mr. Burns said: "A bomb caused the explosion. There Is net the slightest doubt about this. I might be closer to the truth perhaps If I said a wagonload of bombs. "From my investigation I am certain that the bomb was in the wagon which was destroyed. There Is no other reasonable theory. "The pieces of window weights picked up in the nearby office buildings where they had been hurled by the explosive could have no other connection with the disaster than to be parts of the bomb and used as its projectiles by some one who had schemed to do the greatest possible damage that could be Imagined.” ) The bomb, he believes, was brought to the corner in a wagon which was abandoned by the four men who brought it It was composed of a high explosive and had window weights for missiles —thus it was merely a mobile high explosive shell of greater dimensions probably than any that were ever thrown in the world war. One other theory is offered. That is that the explosion was an accident occasioned by the colliding of a wagonload of explosives with an automobile. A messenger boy declared that a few minutes before the explosion he saw the wagon that carried the explosives abandoned at the curb in front of Morgan’s by four men. These four, he said, wew joined by two others. This description, however, it is pointed out, would fit the theory of either accident or design, a ' .Every reserve of the New York polllce force in the area. A battalion of federal troops from Governor’s Island is standing guard with fixed bayonets.

of the injured was Junius Spener Morgan, son of J. P. Morgan. Joyce, a clerk in the Morgan house, was killed. Witness Describes Explosion. Edward Turner, who is a clerk in the office of the American Sugar Refining company near “Broad and Wall,” was going to his lunch at ,12:08. He was going south on William street and hesitated at the curb to allow the “dynamite wagon” to pass. He said: .“I noticed the wagon particularly be•nuse so many have driven down here lately. It went on along Wall street *> far as the subtreasury. Then it seeme: to me as if the whole block, from on< side of the street to the other burst into a-sheet of flame. I suppose there was an explosion, but I don’t remem her the noise. The tire licking up the fronts of buildings and wrapping round all the people on the streets was what I saw. “Everybody started to run excepting those who were right In it and couldn’i get away. Awnings ever so high wen blazing and I saw men and women with their clothes on fire. Glass began to fall and I ducked Into a doorway. It didn’t seem more than a minute later that the fire company thun dered round the corner and all the am balances in the world came clanging and shrieking.” Basis for Belief Blast Was Plot. The explosion which turned Wall street,into a shambles at noon was the result of a deliberate plot by anarchists, according to federal and city who based their conclusions upon the following facts: 1. Investigation shows that no wagon carrying explosives from authorized sources was in drwer Manhattan. 2, The effect of the explosion was far greater than any that could be produced by an ordinary explosive carrylug wagon. 3. Iron missiles made from brokenup window sash weights—unlike any in the Wall street district—caused all the damage to buildings and were responsible for many of pie casualties. 4. The coincidence of time and location of the explosion. 5. The fact that three men were observed running east on Wall street about two minutes before the explosion. These men are reported to have fled in a waiting automobile. 6. Only four sites in lower Manhattan are using explosives In construction work, and not one of them received or expected explosives. Officials announced they were working on the theory that the explosion was caused by a gigantic bomb carried in the destroyed wagon and placed In Wpii street by plotters against the house of Morgan