On Wednesday, September 16, 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street, right in front of JP Morgan's headquarters. The explosion killed 40 people, while neither the perpetrators nor the organizers of the terrorist attack could be found.
This is how it was …
At noon, a horse-drawn carriage drove past the crowds at lunchtime on Wall Street and stopped across the street from JPMorgan's headquarters at 23 Wall Street, the busiest corner of the financial district. Inside the cart were 230 kilograms of heavy cast iron shrapnel, along with 45 kilograms of dynamite, which detonated at a given time, throwing pieces of metal in all directions. The carriage and horse were smashed to little pieces, and the coachman escaped as planned.
The 38 victims, most of whom died at the time of the explosion, were mostly young people who worked as messengers, stenographers, clerks and brokers. Many victims suffered from serious injuries. The bomb caused a loss of $ 2 million (approximately $ 23.5 million when adjusted for inflation) and destroyed a significant part of the JP Morgan building.
At the moment of the explosion, William Remick, president of the New York Stock Exchange, suspended trading to avoid panic. Outside, rescuers worked feverishly to transport the victims to the hospital. James Sile, a 17-year-old messenger, commandeered a parked car and airlifted 30 casualties to the hospital. The police rushed to the scene to provide first aid and commandeer all nearby vehicles to transport the sick to the hospital.
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The Justice Department's Investigation Department (the predecessor of the FBI) did not immediately come to the conclusion that the explosion was a terrorist act. Investigators were perplexed by the number of innocent deaths and the lack of a specific target other than relatively superficially damaged buildings and non-structural damage. Investigating the likelihood of an accident, the police contacted the vendors who sold and transported the explosives. At 15:30 the Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange met and decided to open it the next day. The cleaners cleared the area overnight to allow for normal trade the next day, but in doing so they destroyed material evidence that could help police investigators solve the crime. The New York City Assistant District Attorney observed that the time, place, and method of delivery all indicated thatthat Wall Street and JPMorgan were the targets of the explosion, suggesting, in turn, that it was founded by radical opponents of capitalism such as the Bolsheviks, anarchists, communists or militant socialists.
A policeman stands at the remains of a horse.
Investigators have focused their attention on radical groups opposing the financial and government institutions of the United States, and known for using bombs as a means of violence. They found that the Wall Street bomb was filled with cast iron parts that replaced shrapnel, and that the explosion was staged on the street to increase losses among financial workers and institutions during the lunch hour. Officials eventually branded anarchists and communists. The Washington Post called the explosion "military action." The National Fellowship of the Sons of the American Revolution had pre-planned a patriotic convention for the next day (September 17) to celebrate Constitution Day at this very intersection. On September 17th, thousands of people attended the Constitution Day Convention despite the explosion.
The blast prompted police and federal investigators to resume attempts to track the activity and movements of foreign radicals. Public demand to hunt down criminals has expanded the role of the Investigation Division of the United States Department of Justice, including the General Intelligence Agency, headed by Edgar Hoover. The New York City Police Department has also pushed to create a "special or secret police" to track down "radical elements" in New York.
The police and volunteers carry the bodies of the dead.
To prevent stock market panic, trading was immediately stopped. The very next day, the Assistant Attorney of New York declared that "the Bolsheviks, anarchists and communists …" were to blame for everything. In one of the Wall Street mailboxes, the police found leaflets in which it was printed in red paint on a white background: “Remember, we will not take any more. Free the political prisoners or you will all die. " Below it was the caption "American Anarchist Fighters."
The Bureau of Investigation immediately ruled out the possibility of an accident. William Flynn, the head of the Bureau of Investigation, said the leaflets were the same as those found after the June 1919 Anarchist bombing.
The investigation, led by the Bureau of Investigation, reached a dead end when the driver of the wagon was not found among the victims. Although the horse was recently shod, investigators were unable to identify the stable responsible for the work. In October, a blacksmith was found, but this also gave little information to the police.
Investigators interviewed tennis champion Edwin Fisher, who sent friends a warning card telling them to leave the area before September 16. He said he received the information "over the air." However, they found out that Fischer regularly sent such warnings and took him to the Amityville Mental Hospital, where he was diagnosed with harmless insanity.
The Bureau of Investigation and the local police have been investigating for over three years without any results. Accidental arrests made headlines, but each time they weren't successful. Much of the investigation initially focused on anarchists and communists, including a group of Galleanists who, according to authorities, were involved in the bombings in 1919. During the reign of President Warren Harding, officials saw Soviet Russia as a possible customer of the Wall Street bombing, and then and the US Communist Party. In 1944, the FBI, the successors to the Bureau of Investigation, reopened their investigation. This led to the fact that his agents discovered many radical groups, “such as the Association of Russian Workers, Industrial Workers of the World, the Communists, etc. … and, based on the results of investigations, it was established thatthat none of the aforementioned organizations were involved in what happened, and the explosions were the work of either Italian anarchists or Italian terrorists."
One Galleanist, Italian anarchist Mario Buda (1884-1963), companion of the arrested Sacco and Vanzetti, and the owner of the car that led to his further arrest for individual robberies and murders, is considered by many historians, including Paul Evrich, to be a man who, most likely he planted the bomb.
Eurech and other historians were of the opinion that Buda avenged the arrest and indictment of his fellow Galleanists, Sacco and Vanzetti. Buda's involvement in the Wall Street bomb was proven by the testimony of his nephew Frank Muffy and fellow anarchist Charles Poggi, who interviewed Buda in Savignano, Italy in 1955. Buda (at the time known by his pseudonym Mike Boda), who eluded the authorities during the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, had experience in using dynamite and other explosives, used iron parts as shrapnel in his time bombs, and is considered the creator of several of the largest bombs for Galleanists. Buda was also suspected of the bombing during the day of preparation for the parade in San Francisco on July 22, 1916. These large black powder bombs killed 9 police officers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1917. Buda was in New York at the time of the blast, but was neither detained nor questioned by the police.
After he left New York, Buda reverted to using his real name and then quickly sailed off to Naples. By November, he had returned to his native Italy and never returned to the United States. The other Galleanists who remained in the United States continued to bomb and kill for another 12 years, culminating in 1932 with bombings aimed at assassinating Webster Thayer, the chief judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Thayer, a survivor of the explosion that destroyed his home and maimed his wife and housekeeper, moved to live in a residence in Boston until the end of his days, where he was guarded around the clock by his personal bodyguard and police sentries.
Thayer died of cerebral embolism at the University Club in Boston on April 18, 1933, at the age of 75. Italian anarchist Valerio Isca noted that Sacco and Vanzetti were somewhat avenged with Thayer's death.
September 18, 1920. New York Mayor John Francis Heilen visits the scene of the attack.
Whoever did not suspect - Soviet and American communists, Russian immigrants, workers-revolutionaries … All to no avail. In 1944, the FBI re-investigated the Wall Street bombing and concluded that the Italian anarchist organization Luigi Galleani was most likely behind the attack.
Shrapnel.
Remains of a wagon with a bomb.
Identikit.
2015 - shrapnel marks on the wall of the house 23.