1919 United States anarchist bombings

Series of bombings in the US in 1919 July 2021 June 2022 1919 United States anarchist bombings the First Red Scare New-York Tribune coverage of 1919 United States anarchist bombings.png 300 The New-York Tribunes coverage of the bombings, June 4, 1919 Throughout the United States April–June 1919 Letter bombs 2 2 Galleanists history From April through June 1919, a series of bombings were carried out or attempted across the United States by Galleanists (followers of Italian insurrectionary anarchist Luigi Galleani). The targets included anti-immigration politicians, anti-anarchist officials, and prominent businessmen, as well as a journalist and a church. Almost all of the bombs were sent by mail. The bombings were one of the major factors contributing to the First Red Scare. Two people were killed, including one of the bombers, and two injured. April mail bomb attacks In late April 1919, at least 36 booby trap dynamite-filled bombs were mailed to a cross-section of prominent politicians and appointees, including the Attorney General as well as justice officials, newspaper editors and businessmen, including John D. Rockefeller.Avrich Paul Paul Avrich 1991 Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background Princeton University Press 0-691-02604-1 140–143, 147, 149–156, 181–195 Among all the bombs addressed to high-level officials, one bomb was addressed to the home of a Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation (BOI) field agent once tasked with investigating the Galleanists, Rayme Weston Finch, who in 1918 had arrested two prominent Galleanists while leading a police raid on the offices of their publication Cronaca Sovversiva. The mail bombs were wrapped in brown paper with similar address and advertising labels. Inside, wrapped in bright green paper and stamped "Gimbel Brothers-Novelty Samples", was a cardboard box with a 6 by 3 by 1 in -1 block of hollowed wood, packed with a stick of dynamite. A small vial of sulfuric acid was fastened to the wood block, along with three fulminate-of-mercury blasting caps. Opening one end of the box (the end marked "open") released a coil spring that caused the acid to drip from its vial onto the blasting caps; the acid ate through the caps, igniting them and detonating the dynamite. The Galleanists intended their bombs to be delivered on May Day. Since 1890 and the Second International, May 1 had been celebrated as the international day of communist, anarchist and socialist revolutionary solidarity. Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson, who had recently attained national prominence for opposing a general strike in Seattle, received one of the mailed package bombs, but it was opened by William Langer, a member of his office staff. Langer opened the wrong end of the box and the bottle of acid dropped onto a table without detonation. He took the bomb to the local police, who notified the Post Service and other police agencies. On April 29, Georgia Senator Thomas W. Hardwick, who had co-sponsored the Alien Anarchists Exclusion Act of 1918, received a similarly disguised bomb. It blew off the hands of his housekeeper when she attempted to open the package. The senator's wife was also injured in the blast, which severely burned her face and neck and a piece of shrapnel cut her lip and loosened several of her teeth. News reports of the Hardwick bomb described its distinctive packaging and an alert post office employee in New York connected this to 16 similar packages which he had set aside a few days earlier for insufficient postage. Another 12 bombs were eventually recovered before reaching their intended targets. The addressees were the following:https://www.fold3.com/image/153511600/1-may-1919-page-1-news-us-the-chicago-tribune-1849-1923?ann=95348a80-cfbd-11dd-2a79-2b2461101f57 https://web.archive.org/web/20200427182043/https://www.fold3.com/image/153511600?ann=95348a80-cfbd-11dd-2a79-2b2461101f57 2020-04-27 Send Death Bombs to 36 U.S. Leaders Chicago Tribune May 1, 1919 30em Theodore G. Bilbo, Governor of Mississippi Frederick Bullmers, Daily News editor from Jackson, Mississippi Albert S. Burleson, Postmaster General John L. Burnett, Representative from Alabama Anthony Caminetti, Commissioner General of Immigration Edward A. Cunha, Assistant District Attorney of San Francisco Richard Enright, New York City Police Commissioner T. Larry Eyre, Pennsylvania State Senator Charles Fickert, District Attorney of San Francisco Rayme Weston Finch, field agent of the Bureau of Investigation Ole Hanson, Mayor of Seattle, Washington Thomas W. Hardwick, former Senator from Georgia Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Frederic C. Howe, Port of New York Commissioner of Immigration John Francis Hylan, Mayor of New York City Albert Johnson, Representative from Washington William H. King, Senator from Utah William H. Lamar, solicitor of the Post Office Kenesaw Mountain Landis, District Judge of Chicago J. P. Morgan Jr., businessman Frank Knowlton Nebeker, Special Assistant to the Attorney General Lee Slater Overman, Senator from North Carolina A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General John D. Rockefeller, businessman William I. Schaffer, Attorney General of Pennsylvania Walter A. Scott, Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi Reed Smoot, Senator from Utah William Cameron Sproul, Governor of Pennsylvania William Bauchop Wilson, Secretary of Labor William Madison Wood, president of the American Woolen Company June bombings thumb|Damage done by the bomb at Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's house|left thumb|alt=Black and white photo of people in front of a damaged house|Mitchell Palmer house in Washington DC 2132 R Street NW after bomb attack June 2, 1919|left alt=Black and white newspapers|June 3, 1919, newspapers of the 1919 United States anarchist bombings|thumb On the evening of June 2, 1919,Murray Robert K. 1955 Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920 University of Minnesota Press 78 10.5749/j.cttts9d1 the Galleanists managed to detonate nine large bombs nearly simultaneously in eight cities. These bombs were much larger than those sent in April, using up to 25 lb of dynamitePlotter Here Hid Trail Skillfully; His Victim Was A Night Watchman The New York Times June 4, 1919 and all were wrapped or packaged with heavy metal slugs designed to act as shrapnel.20 Pounds of Dynamite in Bomb Used in New York Washington Post June 4, 1919 Addressees included government officials who had endorsed anti-sedition laws and deportation of immigrants suspected of crimes or associated with illegal movements, as well as judges who had sentenced anarchists to prison. The targets were: Roman Catholic Church: Our Lady of Victory (Philadelphia) Harry Klotz, a silk industrialist, whose factories were targets of the 1913 Paterson silk strike (335 East 31st Street) but the bomb damaged the house (331 East 31st Street) of Henry Morris (Paterson, New Jersey)O'Neill 2019 Mayor of Cleveland Harry L. Davis (Cleveland) Boston Judge Albert F HaydenMcCann 2006 55 (Boston) Massachusetts State Representative Leland Powers (Newton, Massachusetts) Pittsburgh's Federal Judge W. H. Seward Thomson (Pittsburgh) Immigration Chief W. W. Sibray (Pittsburgh)https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A10FF345D147A93C6A9178DD85F4D8185F9 PITTSBURGH CLUE TO PLOT; Name of Bombmaker Given by I.W.W. Associate, Seized After Fight.HE HIMSELF IS IMPLICATEDWoman Says She Saw HimPlane a Package on PorchOpposite Sibray Home.HE TRIES TO KILL DETECTIVETwenty Other Men Arrested-- Forty-five Are Seized in Cleveland Raids. PITTSBURGH CLUE TO PLOT The New York Times June 4, 1919 Judge Charles C. Nott (New York) Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (Washington, D.C.) Palmer, who had already been the recipient of a mail bomb in April, was again attacked in the new wave of violence.Wreck Judge Nott's Home, The New York Times, 3 June 1919 None of the targeted men were killed, but one bomb took the life of New York City night watchman William Boehner and the bomb intended for Attorney General Palmer's home prematurely exploded and killed the bomb-setter Carlo Valdinoci, who was a former editor of the Galleanist publication Cronaca Sovversiva and close associate of Galleani.Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (AK Press, 2005) 1-904859-27-5, 978-1-904859-27-7, 496 Though not seriously injured, Palmer and his family were shaken by the blast and the house itself was largely demolished. Two near-casualties of the same bomb were Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, then living across the street from Palmer. They had passed the house just minutes before the explosion and their residence was close enough that one of the bomber's body parts landed on their doorstep.Brands H.W. Traitor to his Class 2008 Doubleday New York, NY 978-0-385-51958-8 134 http://www.randomhouse.com/book/17606/traitor-to-his-class-by-hw-brands Each of the bombs was delivered with several copies of a pink flyer, titled "Plain Words", that read as such: 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. The flyer was later traced to a print shop operated by two anarchists,Cannistraro, Philip V., and Calandra, John D., The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement, New York: The New York Historical Society, John D. Calandra Italian-American Institute (1999), 0-9705737-0-7, 978-0-9705737-0-4, p. 79 typesetter Andrea Salsedo and compositor Roberto Elia, who were both Galleanists according to the later memoirs of other members. Salsedo died under suspicious circumstances (either by suicide or defenestration depending on the sourceMay 3 https://www.ny1920.com/may-3 2026-06-02 NY 1920s en-US) was and Elia refused an offer to cancel deportation proceedings if he would testify about his role in the Galleanist organization. Unable to secure enough evidence for criminal trials, authorities continued to use the Anarchist Exclusion Act and related statutes to deport known Galleanists. Response Palmer raids Fueled by labor unrest and the anarchist bombings, and then spurred on by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's attempt to suppress radical and non-radical labor organizations, the response to the bombings was characterized by exaggerated rhetoric, illegal search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and detentions and the deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists. Palmer, twice targeted by anarchist bombs, organized the nationwide series of police actions known as the Palmer raids in November 1919 and January 1920. Under suspicion of violating the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act and/or the Immigration Act of 1918,Theoharis, Athan G., The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 0-89774-991-X, 9780897749916 (1999), p. 362 approximately 10,000 people were arrested, of whom 3,500 were held in detention.Avakov, Aleksandr Vladimirovich, Plato's Dreams Realized: Surveillance and Citizen Rights from KGB to FBI, Algora Publishing, 0-87586-495-3, 978-0-87586-495-2 (2007), p. 36 Of those held in detention, 556 resident aliens were eventually deported. Media and popular culture The bombings were dramatized in the 2012 film No God, No Master.https://www.indiewire.com/2013/10/monterey-media-acquires-three-films-including-works-starring-gerard-depardieu-and-harvey-keitel-33840/ Monterey Media Acquires Three Films, Including Works Starring Gerard Depardieu and Harvey Keitel IndieWire Coster Ramzi De www.indiewire.com October 17, 2013 2017-01-10 The bombing of the home of Palmer was also dramatized in the 2011 film J. Edgar. The June Bombings and the "Plain Words" fliers were referenced in the video game Arkham Origins by Anarky, one of the game's antagonists.Liberation Radio (FULL BROADCAST) - Batman: Arkham Origins - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joKedOjRRQY&feature=youtu.be 2020-11-04 www.youtube.comFebruary 2022 See also Lexington Avenue explosion (1914) Preparedness Day Bombing (1916) Milwaukee Police Department bombing (1917) Palmer raids (1919–1920) Sacco and Vanzetti Wall Street bombing (1920) San Francisco Police Department Park Station bombing (1970) Greenwich Village townhouse explosion (1970) 2018 United States mail bombing attempts Anarchism and violence Propaganda of the deed Ted Kaczynski – Neo-Luddite called the Unabomber, involved in a series of similar postal bombings List of incidents of political violence in Washington, D.C. Citations References 1919 United States anarchist bombings Allen, F. L., Only yesterday; an informal history of the nineteen-twenties. New York: Harper & Sons (1957). O'Neill James M. May 31, 2019 https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2019/05/31/1919-anarchist-bombings-paterson-nj/3741015002/ How bomb blasts a century ago launched the Red Scare and a raid against Paterson anarchists northjersey.com June 13, 2019 Avrich, Paul (Prof.), Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press (1991), 0-691-02604-1. Avrich, Paul (Prof.), Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Princeton: Princeton University Press (1996). McCann Joseph T. Terrorism on American Soil: A Concise History of Plots and Perpetrators from the Famous to the Forgotten 2006 Sentient Publications 9781591810490 https://archive.org/details/terrorismonameri00jose McCormick, Charles H., Hopeless Cases: The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers, University Press of America (2005), 0-7618-3133-9, 978-0-7618-3133-4. Neville, J. F., Twentieth-century cause cèlébre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the press, 1920–1927. Westport, Conn: Praeger (2004). Post, Louis F., The Deportations Delirium of Nineteen-twenty: A Personal Narrative of an Historic Official Experience (NY, 1923), reissued: 0-306-71882-0, 1-4102-0553-3. 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