Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-03-29
AN ACCIDENT
Destroyed the Batt|eship
Maine in Havana Harbor
Such Is the Statement o
GessIer Rosseau,
Now Under Arrest In New York for
Making Internal Machines.

New York, March 2S.-That the bait
tleship Maine through an error was
destroyed by bomb of his manufac-
ture was the statement made by Goss-
Ter Rosseau in the Tombs prison, to-
day. Rosseau was convicted, yesterday,
of having sent explosives to the Gu
nard Line pier in this city, in May,
1905. He made the following statement,
TO-DAY:
For several years while the Cuban
patriots We're struggling against Wey-
Ter l watched the contest with deep in
terest and sympathy. l decided to go
to Jacksonville and do what 1 could to
assist the brave revolutionists. 1 start
ed from st. Louis where 1 had been
living during the early part of 1897. Be
fore taking train for the South /
got together the material for the con-
struction of two exploding machines OF
tremendous power so arranged that
they could be wound up and left in a
selected place with the certainty that
they would go off with terrible de-
Structlon within Il few hours.
AT New Orleans l rented room
ana put the boxes together, after
which L went on to Jacksonville. There
L became acquainted with a party of
cuban leaders who We're planning a
flibuStering expedition. They had en-
gagged the Destroyer, d small vessel, to
take them to Cuba along with a num-
Der of American and European ad-
venturers, who were anxious to strike
blow for Cuban freedom.
Several of the leaders of the party
are men now Well known and | will
not mention their names, although |
have among my papers list of them
all.
81 suggested to them that they use
my machine to destroy Spanish war
ships i'll the harbor of Havana and in
other ports on the coast of the island
They readily seized on the idea and
when the destroyer sailed with the fill
busters they took my two machines
with them.
1T was my intention TO go along with
the party so as to direct the work of
sinking the Spanish ships, but they dis
suaded me urging that / could be of
greater use in Jacksonville preparing
either machines if they proved success
full.
1T was planned to have some of the
revolutionary party join the Spanish navy
so as to get the machines aboard If
that failed it was decided to fasten one
of the boxes to the hull of a ship under
the water line, for l have constructed
my machines so they could be exploded
under the water.
THAT was late in the fall of 1857
The next spring the Maine was destroy
ed
only one of the men in the secret
of the machines ever returned to Ameri-
ca | saw him some time after the war
with Spain had began.
He told me he had nothing to do
with the boxes after reaching Cuba but
had been told the mistake had been made
The man who had been intrusted with
the task of destroying a Spanish vessel
attempted to fasten a box during the
night to one of 4Alfonsos ships and
blundered into blowing up the Maine.
Il was told that the man. Immediately
after learning OF the error he had made,
committed suicide
Rosseau said that ne had attempted to
blow up the statue of Frederick the
Great in Washington because he did not
wish TO see the statute of a king in
America. He added that he was not an
anarchist or a Nihlist and that he had
made no effort ITO supply exploding ma
chimes to Russians.