Wall Street bombing
Wall Street bombing | |
---|---|
Animal-borne bomb attack | |
Deaths | 40 (plus one horse)[1] |
Injured | 143 seriously injured, several hundred total |
Motive | Possible revenge for the arrests of Sacco and Vanzetti and/or the deportation of Luigi Galleani |
The Wall Street bombing was an act of terrorism on Wall Street at 12:01 pm on Thursday, September 16, 1920. The blast killed thirty people immediately, and another ten died later of wounds sustained in the blast. There were 143 seriously injured, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds.[2]: 160–61 [3]
The bombing was never solved, although investigators and historians believe it was carried out by
Attack
At noon, a horse-drawn wagon passed by lunchtime crowds on
The 40 fatalities were mostly young people who worked as messengers,
Within one minute of the explosion, William H. Remick, president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), suspended trading in order to prevent a panic.[9] Outside, rescuers worked feverishly to transport the wounded to the hospital. James Saul, a 17-year-old messenger, commandeered a parked car and transported 30 injured people to an area hospital.[10] Police officers rushed to the scene, performed first aid, and appropriated all nearby automobiles as emergency transport vehicles.[11]
Reaction
The
The New York assistant district attorney noted that the timing, location, and method of delivery all pointed to Wall Street and
Officials eventually blamed anarchists and communists for the Wall Street bombing. The Washington Post called the attack an "act of war".[15] The bombing stimulated renewed efforts by police and federal investigators to track the activities and movements of foreign radicals. Public demands to track down the perpetrators led to an expanded role for the BOI, including the bureau's General Intelligence Division headed by J. Edgar Hoover.[2]: 272–82 The New York City Police Department (NYPD) also pushed to form a "special, or secret, police" to monitor "radical elements" in the city.[11]
On September 17, the BOI released the contents of flyers found in a post office box in the Wall Street area just before the explosion. Printed in red ink on white paper, they said: "Remember, we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners, or it will be sure death for all of you." At the bottom was: "American Anarchist Fighters".[2]: 171–75 The BOI quickly decided that the flyer eliminated the possibility of an accidental explosion. William J. Flynn, director of the BOI, suggested the flyers were similar to those found at the June 1919 anarchist bombings.[2]: 171–75 [16]
Investigations
The BOI investigation stalled when none of the victims turned out to be the driver of the wagon. Though the horse was newly shod, investigators could not locate the stable responsible for the work.[2]: 171–75 When the blacksmith was located in October, he could offer the police little information.[2]: 225–26 Investigators questioned tennis champion Edwin Fischer, who had sent warning postcards to friends, telling them to leave the area before September 16. He told police he had received the information "through the air". They found Fischer made a regular habit of issuing such warnings, and had him committed to Amityville Asylum, where he was diagnosed as insane but harmless.[17][18] Meanwhile, Robert W. Wood helped to reconstruct the bomb mechanism.[19][page needed]
The BOI and local police investigated the case for over three years without success. Occasional arrests garnered headlines but each time they failed to support
One Galleanist in particular, Italian anarchist Mario Buda (1884–1963), an associate of Sacco and Vanzetti and the owner of a car which led to the arrest of the latter for a separate robbery and murder, is alleged by some historians, including Paul Avrich, to be the man most likely to have planted the bomb. Avrich and other historians theorize that Buda acted in revenge for the arrest and indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti.[21][22][23] Buda's involvement as the Wall Street bombmaker was confirmed by statements made by his nephew Frank Maffi and fellow anarchist Charles Poggi, who interviewed Buda in Savignano sul Rubicone, Italy, in 1955.[24] Buda (at that time known by the alias of Mike Boda) had eluded authorities at the time of the Sacco and Vanzetti arrests, was experienced in the use of dynamite and other explosives, was known to use sash weights as shrapnel in his time bombs, and is believed to have constructed several of the largest package bombs for the Galleanists.[21][25][4]: 15 These included the Milwaukee Police Department bombing, which was a large black powder bomb that killed nine policemen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the time of the bombing, but he was neither arrested nor questioned by police.[26]
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.[5] By November, he was back in his native Italy, never to return to the United States.[5] Galleanists still in the U.S. continued the bombing and assassination campaign for another 12 years, culminating in a 1932 bomb attack targeting Webster Thayer, the presiding judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial.[21] Thayer, who survived the ensuing blast that destroyed his house and injured his wife and housekeeper, moved his residence to his club for the last year and a half of his life, where he was guarded 24 hours a day.[21]
In media
The bombing has inspired several books, notably The Day Wall Street Exploded by Beverly Gage, The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld,[27] and Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (2007) by Mike Davis.[citation needed]
Upton Sinclair writes about this event in the book Oil! He argues that there was no conspiracy, rather the bombing was negligence from a truck driver carrying hazardous material who ignored the rules for their safe transport.[28]
The bombing is the subject of the PBS series American Experience episode "The Bombing of Wall Street", broadcast in February 2018.[29]
The bombing was in the closing scene of the 2012 film No God, No Master.[citation needed]
See also
- Animal-borne bomb attacks
- Domestic terrorism in the United States
- List of unsolved murders
Citations
- ISBN 1591810493. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0199759286.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-670-06353-6.
- ^ a b c Avrich, Paul (1996). Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 132–33.
- ISBN 9781784786649.
- ISBN 9780471357537.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ^ a b New York (N.Y.) Police Department (1920). Annual Report. pp. 167–168.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ^ Charles H. McCormick (2005). Hopeless Cases: The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers. University Press of America.
- S2CID 154748636.
- ^ Gage, Beverly. "The First Wall Street Bomb". History News Service. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
- ^ Bryk, William (March 6, 2001). "Wall Street's Unsolved Bombing Mystery". New York Press. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ Bellows, Alan (May 14, 2007). "Terror on Wall Street". DamnInteresting.com. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- Seabrook, W.(1941). Doctor Wood, Modern Wizard of the Laboratory. New York: Harcourt Brace.
- ^ Edmonton Bulletin (Edmonton, Canada), May 14, 1923, p. 1 (arrest of Noah Lerner)
- ^ ISBN 978-0-691-02604-6.
- ^ Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: Interview of Charles Poggi, p. 133: Among other interesting admissions, Buda acknowledged that Niccola Sacco was in fact present ("Sacco c'era") at the South Braintree payroll robbery and murder for which he was eventually executed.
- ISBN 978-0-7596-0792-7.
- ^ Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: Interview of Charles Poggi, p. 133: "Buda was a real militant, capable of anything. In 1933 I drove to New York with Buda's nephew, Frank Maffi...Frank said, 'Let's drive downtown and see my uncle's bomb', and he took me to Wall Street, where the big explosion took place in September 1920, just before Buda sailed for Italy. You could still see the holes in the Morgan building across the street."
- ^ Dell'Arti, Giorgio (January 26, 2002). "La Storia di Mario Buda" (PDF) (in Italian). Io Donna. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 27, 2007. Retrieved July 15, 2008.
- ^ "The 1920 Wall St bombing: A terrorist attack on New York". Slate Magazine. September 16, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2016.
- ^ Stern, Seth (February 23, 2011). "Book review: 'The Death Instinct' by Jed Rubenfeld". Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
- ^ chapter 11, section 9, second and third paragraphs
- ^ "The Bombing of Wall Street". American Experience. PBS.
External links
- Media related to Wall Street bombing at Wikimedia Commons