See other Dead Constitution Articles
Title: THE WALL STREET BOMBING AND THE PALMER RAIDS
Source:
wikipedia
URL Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing
Published: Mar 18, 2007
Author: Staff
Post Date: 2007-03-18 19:05:33 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: V, V, V
Views: 138
Comments: 7
The Wall Street bombing was a terrorist incident that occurred at 12:01 pm on September 16, 1920 in the Financial District of New York City. It was the deadliest bomb attack on American soil for seven years, until the Bath School disaster. Thirty-eight were killed and 400 persons were injured by the blast.[1] Attack At noon, a horse-drawn wagon passed by lunchtime crowds on Wall Street, in New York City. The wagon then stopped across the street from the headquarters of the J.P. Morgan Inc. bank at 23 Wall Street, on the Financial District's busiest corner. Inside, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (230 kg) of heavy cast-iron slugs exploded in a timer-set detonation, sending the slugs tearing through the air. The horse and wagon were vaporized. Scores of bodies littered the street, and the bomb caused over $2 million dollars in property damage, wrecking most of the interior spaces of the Morgan building. An automobile was hurled into the air, and glass was shattered for blocks (the damage can still be seen on the buildings today [1]). Word soon spread that another bomb would go off, creating further panic. Shortly before the bomb went off, a warning note had been placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The warning read: Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you. American Anarchist Fighters. However, far from killing high government officials, the bomb claimed mostly ordinary office clerks, runners, and stenographers as its victims, a fact that must have been evident to the plotters, who had timed the bomb to explode at the start of the lunch hour. Reaction The American public was unaccustomed to such acts; though eight Chicago police officers had been killed during the Haymarket Riot in 1886, President William McKinley had been assassinated in 1901, the Los Angeles Times offices were burnt down in 1910 (killing twenty), and bombs were mailed to government leaders, the Wall Street attack was unusual in that it was aimed at the public, and intended to kill large numbers of people. It was the worst act of politically-motivated terror on American soil until the Oklahoma City bombing. Officials blamed anarchist and communist elements, fueling the ongoing Palmer raids. Wall Street reopened the next day, with evidence of the bombing covered by cloths. The public was jittery: headlines warned that other buildings might be bombed, and that bridges on the West Coast would also be targeted by terrorists. In defiance, the J.P. Morgan company decided not to fix the visible damage of 23 Wall Street, and it never has. Well after the deportation of 10,000 radicals by the Palmer raids, and the development of the Justice Department's General Intelligence Division (forerunner of the FBI), the era of political bombings in America by the radical left finally ended in 1932. Perpetrators The Washington Post called the bombing an "act of war," though it was not known who was responsible. Anarchists were of course suspected, especially the Galleanists, Italian anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani. The Galleanists had a motive for planning the bombing, as they were incensed over the indictment for murder of two of their colleagues, Sacco and Vanzetti. Discrimination against immigrants and resident aliens, especially from Eastern Europe and Sicilian immigrants increased notably after the attack, as well as public support for the Palmer raids. Investigators searched hundreds of stables to determine who had purchased the horse and wagon, but nothing was uncovered. The note was analyzed and its language structure found similar to other 'bomb' leaflets left at the scene by the Galleanists, but this by itself was insufficient. Despite vows that the police would catch the perpetrators, no charges were ever filed. The FBI rendered the file inactive in 1940, and the crime remains unsolved to this day. One Galleanist in particular, Mario Buda (aka Mike Boda), (died 1963), an associate of Sacco and Vanzetti (whose car led to the arrest of the latter for a separate robbery and murder), is alleged by some historians, including Paul Avrich, to have planted the bomb as revenge for the arrest and indictment of his fellow Galleanists. Buda (at that time known as Mike Boda), had just managed to elude authorities at the time of Sacco and Vanzetti's arrest, was experienced in the use of dynamite and is believed to have constructed several of the largest dynamite package bombs for the Galleanists. He was also in New York at the time of the bombing. However, he was never arrested or questioned by police. After leaving New York, Buda resumed the use of his real name in order to secure a passport from the Italian vice-consul, then promptly sailed for Naples. By November he was back in his native Italy, never to return to the United States. References Manning, Lona. "9/16/20: Terrorists Bomb Wall Street", Crime Magazine, 2006-01-15. Wikipedia The Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the U.S. Justice and Immigration Departments from 1918 to 1921 on the radical left in the United States. The raids are named for Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Background The crackdown on radical left-wing political groups had actually begun during World War I. After a series of bomb attacks of court buildings, police stations, churches and homes tied to violent immigrant anarchist groups, the Department of Justice and its small Bureau of Investigation (BOI) (predecessor to the FBI) had begun to track their activities with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson. In 1915, Wilson himself warned of hyphenated Americans who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out.[1] Handicapped by the secrecy of these groups and limited Federal law enforcement capabilities, the Bureau of Investigation significantly increased its workload on anarchist movements after 1917 when the Galleanists (followers of Luigi Galleani) and other radical groups commenced a new series of bomb attacks that reverberated through several major American cities. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also a background factor: many anarchists believed that the worker's revolution there would quickly spread across Europe and the United States. On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. The law set punishments for acts of interference in foreign policy and espionage. The Act authorized stiff fines and prison terms of up to 20 years for anyone who obstructed the military draft or encouraged "disloyalty" against the U.S. government. After two anarchist radicals, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman continued to advocate against conscription, Goldman's offices at Mother Earth were thoroughly searched, and volumes of files and detailed subscription lists from Mother Earth, along with Berkman's journal The Blast, were seized. As a Justice Department news release reported: A wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material was seized, and included in the lot is what is believed to be a complete registry of anarchy's friends in the United States. A splendidly kept card index was found, which the Federal agents believe will greatly simplify their task of identifying persons mentioned in the various record books and papers. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast, which contain 10,000 names, were also seized. In 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his socialism, German ancestry, and anti-war views. Congress also passed a series of immigration, anti-anarchist, and sedition acts (including the Sedition Act of 1918) that sought to criminalize or punish advocacy of violent revolution. In response, on June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated by Galleanist anarchists in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of newly appointed Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Another bomb reportedly detonated near Franklin Roosevelt. Palmer himself was badly shaken up (the bomber himself, Carlo Valdonoci, was also killed by the bomb, which exploded prematurely in his face). All of the bombs were delivered with a flyer that clearly indicated the bombers' intent: War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions. Palmer, twice the intended victim of assassination, had a personal as well as public motivation to win the battle against the radical left and those preaching violence. After his close calls at the hands of the Galleanists, he appears to have grouped all those identified with the radical left as enemies of the United States. He stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that Socialists were responsible for most of the country's social problems. Calls from the press and a worried public quickly escalated for the federal government to take action against those perpetrating the violence. Pressure to take action intensified after anarchists, communists and other radical groups called on draft-age males to refuse conscription and/or registration for the army, and for troops already serving to desert the armed forces. President Wilson ordered Attorney General Palmer to take action. At the time, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Luigi Galleani were in the forefront of the anti-conscription movement. Valdonoci, the unlucky Palmer house bomber, was later identified as a militant follower of Luigi Galleani. Attorney General Palmer requested and promptly received a massive supplementary increase in Congressional appropriations in order to put a stop to the violence. Palmer then ordered the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Investigation to prepare for what would become known as the Palmer Raids, with the aim of collecting evidence on violent radical groups and arresting those in violation of federal criminal codes. The raids In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding database. Using the database information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using various controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including harsh interrogation methods, informers, and wiretaps. Ironically, however, it was Emma Goldman's voluminous and detailed subscription lists of 10,000 persons that may have provided more information to the government than any other single source of intelligence. Victor L. Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of sedition. (The Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction.) The radical anarchist Luigi Galleani and eight of his adherents were deported in June of 1919, three weeks after the June 2 wave of bombings. Although authorities did not have enough evidence to arrest Galleani for the bombings themselves, they could deport him because he was a resident alien who had overtly encouraged the violent overthrow of the government, was a known associate of Carlo Valdonoci and had authored an explicit how-to bomb-making manual titled La Salute é in Voi (The Health is Within You), used by other Galleanists to construct some of their package bombs. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 radicals of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 radicals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals. The public reaction to these raids was favorable, and, in fact, may have forestalled reactionary violence by the public in the form of vigilantes. A group of young men in Centralia, Washington, lynched Wesley Everest, an IWW member, from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the man "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919 and early 1920, the public seemed to side with Palmer. Anarchist response Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place in the U.S. on May 1 (May Day), 1920. No such revolution took place, but on September 16 of that year, a violent blast rocked Wall Street. The Wall Street bombing killed 38 people and wounded over 400; it was never solved, but was widely attributed to radical anarchists and Galleanists (adherents of recently-deported anarchist firebrand Luigi Galleani), especially Mario Buda, in revenge for the deportation of Galleani and the indictments of their colleagues Sacco and Vanzetti for murder. Palmer, in turn, felt his actions had been vindicated by the escalating violence. His popularity led him to run for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, which he lost to a dark horse candidate after a deadlocked convention. Palmer then resumed his private law practice. For their part, the Galleanists continued their bombing campaign until as late as 1932, when they blew up the house of Webster Thayer, the judge who had sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death. By that time, many of the Galleanists had gone into hiding, fled the United States, or had been deported. Postscript: Many of the Russian-origin radicals deported to the USSR became quickly disillusioned by what they found in Communist Russia; others stayed and became loyal Soviet citizens until, in an ironic twist, Stalin had most of them shot as potential traitors by the NKVD in the Soviet purges of the 1930s. References Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press, 1991 Manning, Lona, 9/16/20: Terrorists Bomb Wall Street, Crime Magazine, January 15, 2006 Footnotes 1. David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 24. Further reading Manning, Lona, 9/16/20: Terrorists Bomb Wall Street, Crime Magazine, January 15, 2006 Hill, Robert A. Compiler and Editor, The FBI's RACON: Racial Conditions in the United States during World War I. Ithaca, N. Y.: Northeastern University Press (May 1, 1995). ISBN 1-55553-227-6. Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. "Investigate Everything": Federal Efforts to Compel Black Loyalty During World War I. 416 pages. Indiana University Press (May 1, 2002). ISBN 0-253-34009-8. Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 Blacks in the Diaspora Series. 248 pages. Indiana University Press (December 1, 1999). ISBN 0-253-21354-1. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids" 
THE WALL STREET BOMBING
Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press, 1991
^ Baily, Thomas A.; & Kennedy, David M. (1994). The American Pageant (10th ed.). D.C. Heath and Company. ISBN 0-669-33892-3.
THE PALMER RAIDS
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#2. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
Is the author suggesting an inside job? Did any of the buildings fall within their own footprint?
There are no replies to Comment # 2. End Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestHowever, far from killing high government officials, the bomb claimed mostly ordinary office clerks, runners, and stenographers as its victims, a fact that must have been evident to the plotters, who had timed the bomb to explode at the start of the lunch hour.
Replies to Comment # 2.