The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909-05-10
VICTIMS OF SPRING ST
BY w. G. Shepherd.

would you ike to go to bed ever
night with cyclone whirlin
above your home and loved ones
likely to drop down at any min
ute and bring death and destruc
ton to you all?
Or to be locked in a powde
magazine with fuse lighted an,
slowly burning toward the blacl
death-dealing powder?
This is the feeling in New
York's italian colony since the
massacre at 81 Spring ST., wher
Black Hand agents poured gallons
Of kerosene on the stairs, then
threw on a torch and three tiny
babies, girl of seven, a girl OF
four, boy of seven, young man,
a young woman, and man of mid
die age-nine people in all-were
burned to death like rats in a
trap.
The Black Hand-a good many
American police officials laugh at
it, and ridicule 1t. In many cases
perhaps they are right. In nine
cases out of ten Black Hand let
Ter Is 10 De QeSplSeQ.
But the tenth time
Well, Spring ST., nor Mott ST.,
nor any street where Italians live
in New York, laughs at the Black
Hand.
At the funeral of the victims of
the Spring st. holocaust there were
no crowds of curious. The Italians
who had to pass the ruins of the
house turned their heads away,
pretended not to notice.
They are SO frightened that they
do not dare to let it be known that
they know such a thing has hap
pened.
One word! One look! One
shudder! What would the Black
Hand do for you and yours.
When l saw the funeral of Pc
trosini, the great Italian detec-
tive, who was struck down in Sici-
ly, I wondered that his people
cared so much. They lined the
streets for miles, a quarter million
of them.
This was six weeks ago. Now !
know why.
In the note sent to A. Bruck, the
owner of the Spring st. house, oc-
Cured these gruesome words,
which Italians in New York are
now repeating in awed whispers:
"Petrosini is dead. But the
Black Hand still lives"
New York Italians can't but
connect the two events-the STAY
ing of their great protector, who
was the Black Hands most relent-
less enemy, and the Spring st. hor-
ror.
1t was a terrible lesson-the
most fiendish and calculating in
criminal history.
Their demand ignored by Bruck,
the perpetrators of the deed bided
their time. One night they enter
ed the hallway of the building.
On the stairway, which was the
only means of exit from the four
floors, they deliberately emptied
several five-gallon cans of kero-
sene Oil.
They didn't try to burn .Bruck's
store. That was next door, and
was almost unframed, except for
smoke.
They wanted to kill.
'sPetrosini was dead" They
to give American Italians a
lesson that they would not forget.
In the lamentations that are GO
ing up in Spring ST., low-voiced
and frightened, but intense and
heart-breaking, Is only half sor-
row. The other much of anger.
Anger at the American police.
The police knew for three weeks
that the building was threatened.
Bruck turned the note over to
them as soon as he received It..
The patrolman whose best lay past
the doors of the doomed house
where the sleeping families lay,
knew.
But 40 one warned any Of the
dwellers I'm that house.
Not a word was said to any of
the families which would enable
them to keep watch.
What was the user" said Dep
uty Commissioner Arthur Woods.
I'VE cant notify people every
time a Black Hand note is sent.
We'd have the town in a continue
al state of terror II we did. Hun
dreds of such threats are made.
Besides, II the people knew
and kept watch, the Black Hand
agents would simply wait till the
watch was given up. 1t might be
weeks, maybe months. They would
wait their time to strike"