The Wall Street Bombing (Continued)

CONTINUING YESTERDAY’S COVERAGE OF THE SEPTEMBER 16 BOMB

One hundred years ago today … The day after the deadly explosion, New York was reeling, reckoning, counting up losses, and pointing fingers.

The News proudly claimed to be printing the first photograph taken on the scene.

The Tribune offered a close-up of the vehicle carrying the bomb, and maps showing the site of the blast and the locations of some of the casualties..

The Wall Street Journal’s front page noted that due the blast, trading on the Stock Exchange had halted, subtly complaining about that decision by mentioning previous incidents when it had not.

Brooklyn papers like the Eagle reported on the explosion with a Kings County perspective.

The Times lauded the efforts of first responders (“Quick Response in Organized and Volunteer Relief Work,” New York Times, 17 September 1920, p. 2).

The Evening World reported that one of the people who had warned of a bomb, Edward Fischer of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was quickly committed, by his family, to an institution for the mentally unstable, where he could not be prosecuted. (“Fischer, Who Sent Warning, Committed to Asylum, Evening World, 17 September 1920, p.1.) Contrariwise, Brooklyn’s Times Union reported Fischer’s arrest, even working it into its six-column headline (“Man Who Warned of Wall Street Outrage Arrested; All Federal Agencies Turned Against Terrorists; Death List Totals 33; Injured Over 200,” Times Union, 17 September 1920, p. 1).

As the Times Union announced, the case was immediately taken on by Federal officials at the BOI, the Bureau of Investigation (the office that would later become the FBI).

No suspects in the case were ever brought to trial and the perpetrator(s) never found.

WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, SEPTEMBER 17, 2020.

TAGS: newspapers, journalism, media, crime, terrorism, finance, bomb